The Constantine Principle

Grant Farrred, The Con

Watching Ghana play Germany during the group stages of the 2014 World Cup put me in mind of a pivotal moment in CLR James’ Beyond a Boundary. After a slow first half, the game came alive. Germany’s Mario Götze gave his side the lead with a header that hit his knee on the way into the Ghanaian net; André Ayew, not a player renowned for his aerial power, replied for Ghana with a superbly directed header. Asamoah Gyan cruised past the static German defense to beat Manuel Neuer with a fierce strike to give Ghana the lead. And then Miroslav Klose did what Miroslav Klose does: he nicked a goal from close range. The ball was bobbing around in Ghana’s six yard box from a Bastian Schweinsteiger corner, and Klose was on hand to tuck the ball in. German coach Joachim Löw had played a hunch, bringing on Schweinsteiger and Klose for Sami Khedira and Götze, respectively, and it paid off as the Germans avoided defeat.

The World Cup as Pacification

Christopher McMichael, The Con

The 2014 World Cup is not only a jamboree for the world’s premier national football teams, but it is also a showpiece for the repressive power of the state. In conjunction with the deployment of more than 170 000 of the country’s security forces , stadiums will be patrolled by Israeli-made drones, US-manufactured surveillance robots and officers equipped with facial recognition glasses reporting back to surveillance centres. Brazilian forces have also received training from the mercenary firm Blackwater / Academi, notorious for its violence against Iraqis during the US occupation. In April 2013, the Paramount Group, a South African arms manufacturer, announced that it had sold “hand grenade attack protected” armoured vehicles to the state government of Rio de Janeiro for service at the World Cup and 2016 Olympics.

Ode to an Arsenal Fan

Grant Farred, The Con

It was a portentous 10 days. Between February 1 and 10 2014, a strong sense of foreboding haunted me.

For the past several years I have communicated with Stuart Hall at least three times a year. I would email him once on his on his birthday, February 3, and twice a football season. Stuart was an Arsenal fan and I am a partisan of God’s Own Team. He told me that he watched Arsenal with his grandsons. My grandfather, I told him, had been an Arsenal fan; at least he wouldn’t be overseeing a divided house.

Eusébio: “Portugal’s best player ever was an African from Mozambique”

by Percy Zvomuya, The Con

On the day that Mozambique-born football legend Eusébio set forth for the other world, it’s likely a sieve-like dingy rowed from north Africa sardine-packed with African immigrants headed for Europe.

The fate of thousands of African migrants who try to cross the Mediterranean is varied but uniformly bleak. Some, never making it to European shores, drown – up to 20 000 have died in the last two decades; others end up in detention centres in Europe to be scrubbed with detergents to cleanse “scum” off their black backs.

'Apostrophizing Algeria: The Ghost In Derrida'

by Grant Farred 

This essay is a version of the lecture that Grant Farred gave at the Teach-In at Rhodes University in 2010. It is a draft of a chapter of new book to be titled 'Conciliation'.)

. . . this interminable task, the ghost remains that which gives one the most to think about – and to do.

 Specters of Marx. 

Everywhere one turns in Specters of Marx there are, as we well know, ghosts. Revenant King Hamlet, Hamlet, troubled prince of Denmark, and the King as visor effect. Then there is Karl Marx of The Communist Manifesto, Max Stirner and, the opening ghost and the subject of a memorable Jacques Derrida dedication, the slain South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani.