Can sports make a nation?
That’s a strange question. Americans love high-profile athletic events, as the current buildup to Super Bowl XLII illustrates. But nobody hangs America’s future upon sports. In Africa, though, it’s quite common to do so. In a continent ravaged by political and ethnic violence, people often invoke sports – especially soccer – as force for national unity. And nobody does so more than the Ghanaians, who are hosts of the 16-country Africa Cup of Nations tournament at four sites around the country. “We all speak football,” one headline announced this week. “Football – A real source of unity,” declared another. When Ghana celebrated a last-minute defeat over Guinea in the tournament’s opening match, one commentator wrote, “there were no distinctions as to who belonged to which political party, religious sect, or ethnic division.” Another editorialist compared Ghana’s stability to the ethnic violence plaguing Kenya. “Is it because Kenya does not have an accomplished, unifying football team?”
