Afua Hirsch

speaker

12 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 10 Jul

Afua Hirsch’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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FT News Briefing · World Cup stirs up colonial past · 10 Jul 2026 podcast

I think that people who aren't descended from a country that was colonized often don't realize the extent to which that's the lens through so many of us experience the World Cup.

There is always a more charged atmosphere when a country is playing its former colonizer because it's the only opportunity to feel that you can meet a country that for centuries told you you were inferior, that your civilization was inferior, your religion was inferior, your culture was inferior.

I'm not very torn.

I always support Ghana when Ghana plays England.

For me, this is the only opportunity really I ever experienced where it feels like there could be a level playing field between these two countries.

So when I see Ghana playing, I'm thinking of the fact that they are now on the world stage and that they are so good, so talented, that they really might have a chance to do something that has never really happened in any other arena in my lifetime.

In some quarters, there are conversations.

I've heard some frustrated Ghanaians saying if all of the players of Ghanaian heritage played for Ghana instead of other European teams, we would have a completely different team.

I personally think that it's quite powerful when people who have the opportunity to play in Europe choose to play for the team of their heritage instead.

And I think that speaks to the pride in their ancestry and culture, but it also speaks to just the sense of our countries being underdogs and that that isn't also something that's happened in a vacuum, that they've been systematically disadvantaged from colonialism to today, where globalization and migration are really disadvantaging them in completely new terms.

I'm Safiya Ahmed reporting from New York City.

Organizational inertia is an incredibly powerful force.

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