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Dec 3, 2024 | 
geeska.com | Maher Mezahi
In North Africa, there’s a time-honored saying: “When it comes to football, the spectacle is not on the pitch but in the stands.” Over the past two decades, the region has produced some of the football world’s most electrifying atmospheres at matches, despite attempts by some countries to sanitize the game. This is largely thanks to the ultra groups that have emerged from Morocco to Egypt in the 21st century.
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Sep 4, 2024 | 
africasacountry.com | Maher Mezahi
Imane Khelif must be feeling awfully confused. Out of nowhere, a woman who was raised in a poor, conservative family in Biban Mesbah—an agricultural village in central Algeria that even most Algerians aren’t familiar with—has been quickly plunged into a toxic culture war online, where she’s the target of global abuse and harassment.
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Sep 4, 2024 | 
africasacountry.com | William Shoki |Maher Mezahi |Kari Mugo
In the 2024 US presidential race, “weird” has become the Democratic party’s go-to adjective to disparage the policies and worldview of their opponents, the Republicans. It was Minnesota governor-turned-VP-pick Tom Walz who first summoned the term to describe GOP candidate Donald Trump and his VP pick JD Vance. “These are weird people on the other side, they want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room, that’s what it comes down to,” Walz declared.
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Aug 18, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Binoy Kampmark |Samuel Dhar |Maher Mezahi |Bharat Dogra
Ekecheiria, also known as the “Olympic Truce,” is a quaint notion dating to Ancient Greece, when three kings prone to warring against each other – Iphitos of Elis, Cleosthenes of Pisa and Lycurgus of Sparta – concluded a treaty permitting the safe passage of all athletes and spectators from the relevant city-states for the duration of the Olympic Games. The truce had a certain logic to it, given that many of those granted safe passage would have been serving soldiers or soldiers in waiting.
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Aug 12, 2024 | 
africasacountry.com | William Shoki |Maher Mezahi |Kari Mugo
In the 2024 US presidential race, “weird” has become the Democratic party’s go-to adjective to disparage the policies and worldview of their opponents, the Republicans. It was Minnesota governor-turned-VP-pick Tom Walz who first summoned the term to describe GOP candidate Donald Trump and his VP pick JD Vance. “These are weird people on the other side, they want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room, that’s what it comes down to,” Walz declared.
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Aug 5, 2024 | 
zammagazine.com | Maher Mezahi
Removed from the facts, the firestorm around Algerian boxer Imane Khelif is the latest attempt by the right-wing in the West to find fodder for its culture war.
Imane Khelif must be feeling awfully confused. Out of nowhere, a woman who was raised in a poor, conservative family in Biban Mesbah—an agricultural village in central Algeria that even most Algerians aren’t familiar with—has been quickly plunged into a toxic culture war online, where she’s the target of global abuse and harassment.
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Aug 5, 2024 | 
truthdig.com | Maher Mezahi
Imane Khelif must be feeling awfully confused. Out of nowhere, a woman who was raised in a poor, conservative family in Biban Mesbah—an agricultural village in central Algeria that even most Algerians aren’t familiar with—has been quickly plunged into a toxic culture war online, where she’s the target of global abuse and harassment.
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Jul 31, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Binoy Kampmark |Samuel Dhar |Maher Mezahi |Bharat Dogra
Swimming, or dipping, in faecal polluted waters is not unusual. The spirit longs for purity in the staining aqua, and the body keeps pace with it. The Ganges, for instance, features sacred rites and ceremonies defiant of science. In an aqueous body of lingering corpses, thickening pollutants and full flowing faeces, foolhardy believers can find spirituality. Such foolhardiness has also found itself in Paris 2024, the occasion of the XXXIII Summer Olympiad.
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Jul 27, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Binoy Kampmark |Samuel Dhar |Maher Mezahi |Bharat Dogra
Another entertainingly corrupt sporting event has just started in Paris, opening with a barge packed ceremony on the Seine. Thousands of simpering commentators, paid-up media gawkers and bored influencers have been ready with their computers, phones and confected dreams. As always, the Olympics throws up the question about how far the host city has managed to come through on the issue of facilities, infrastructure and organisation.
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Jul 27, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Samuel Dhar |Maher Mezahi |Bharat Dogra |Binoy Kampmark
A foreign citizen among the Indian diaspora has mocked at the poor performance of Indian athletes, compared to its population, in successive Olympics. Even though you are not more Indian citizens, Indian blood courses through your veins. Your angst is, therefore, understandable. I, however appeal to you to not look only under the heterogenic, compound stone with multiple fissures, that is India.
