June, 2020 - The African Mirror

Jun

2020

Ghana’s football fans love the English league. Here’s how the brands were built

Robert E. Hinson GIVEN that most football clubs are now global brands, it is surprising that very little literature has focused on how football clubs’ brands are built over time. Controversy exists in the current marketing literature over the use of branding in sports. Some scholars argue that supporters are likely to reject the idea of their football clubs as a brand. On the other hand, branding assists football clubs to create opportunities for people to identify with them and feel like they are a part of the club’s story. It gives football teams a personality that their fans identify…

Jun

2020

By The African Mirror

Spiritual war against coronavirus

RELIGION

BENJAMIN KIRBY, JOSIAH TARU AND TINASHE CHIMBIDZIKAI SINCE the emergence of COVID-19, a number of media commentators and academics have reflected on the “spiritualisation” of the pandemic among responses in different African settings. There’s been particular interest in the influence of prominent Pentecostal pastors on public health messaging. Some have expressed concern about the possible consequences of their invocations of spiritual warfare. We’ve examined how idioms of (spiritual) warfare have been deployed in response to the coronavirus pandemic and wish to bring a broader perspective to recent debates about these dynamics. We consider examples from Tanzania and Zimbabwe, drawing on…

Jun

2020

By The African Mirror

Imagine a world without men…

LITERATURE

Nedine Moonsamy Based in 2023, South African writer Lauren Beukes’ novel Afterland captures the devastating effects of a global pandemic. A highly contagious virus, called HCV, has killed around four billion men. Society is in disrepair and, with no cure in sight, women are barred from procreation. The few males who have proven immune have become hot commodities for various agendas. And the odds are stacked against the protagonist Cole in her bid to return home to Johannesburg from America with her young son Miles – who possesses the HCV-resistant gene. Cole has lost her husband and been forced into…

Jun

2020

By The African Mirror

Women’s stories of breaking the mould as Muslim preachers in Kenya

RELIGION

HASSAN JUMA NDZOVU, Senior Lecturer of Religious Studies, Moi University RAMADAN is a period during which Muslims across the world are deeply immersed in worship and are particularly attuned to exhortations by religious scholars. In Kenya, Islamic public sermonising has traditionally been the domain of male clerics. However, according to my recent study, there is an emerging clique of female preachers engaging in this form of public participation through Muslim radio stations. What explains this development? First, due to media liberalisation in the 1990s, numerous local FM radio stations were allowed to operate. These include those inclined to religious content.…

Jun

2020

By The African Mirror

‘I lost my mind’: Ethiopian migrants forced home empty-handed by Coronavirus

COVID-19

EMELINE WUILBERCQ WHEN Rita Alemu realised the plane she had boarded in Dubai had taken her back home to Ethiopia, she burst into tears as she knew she would never recover more than a year's unpaid wages. The 23-year-old domestic helper had only been paid for two out the 18 months she had worked in the United Arab Emirates when the new coronavirus pandemic suddenly forced her and thousands of other Ethiopian migrants to go home. "I went to Dubai hoping I could work and change my life, but I spent all this time there and came back empty-handed," said…

Jun

2020

By The African Mirror

Boosting national plans to meet global climate goals

ENVIRONMENT

MEGAN ROWLING THE CORONAVIRUS pandemic may have delayed the 2020 U.N. climate summit by a year, but for Jamaica, COVID-19 was no reason to stall delivering a stronger climate action plan, just completed as the Atlantic hurricane season starts. Una May Gordon, director of the climate change division at the island's Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, said the Caribbean nation aimed to submit its updated "nationally determined contribution" (NDC) to the global effort to battle climate change later this month, after approval by the cabinet. Jamaica benefited from starting work on its second climate plan early, last July,…

Jun

2020

By The African Mirror

Uganda to lose $1.6 bln in tourism earnings because of COVID-19

COVID-19

ELIAS BIRYABAREMA UGANDA will lose $1.6 billion a year in earnings from tourism as visitors stay away due to the impact of the coronavirus, President Yoweri Museveni said. Tourism is one of Uganda's economic mainstays as the east African country attracts visitors to see a range of game including lions, giraffes, buffalos and others that roam its savannahs. Others are drawn by the mountain gorillas in forest in the southwest of the country on the border with Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. "Already Ugandan will lose 1.6 billion dollars per annum from the loss of tourism," Museveni said in…

Jun

2020

By The African Mirror

Richest African soccer players

SPORT

1. Samuel Eto'o Samuel Eto'o, the legendary football striker who was born in Douala Cameroon and made a name for himself in the world, is Africa’s richest soccer player. The net worth of Eto'o, who continues to play at the ripe age of 39, is $95-million, according to the website, Wealth Gorilla. While E’to, who made his name and the millions in Spain, playing for Barcelona, is richest on the African continent, he is eleven places below Christiano Ronaldo, the Juventus striker and a multiple Ballon D’or winner who sits on the crown with a massive wealth of $450-million. E’to…

Jun

2020

By The African Mirror

Sudan makes female genital cutting a crime in ‘new era’ for women’s rights

HEALTH

NITA BHALLA SUDAN has criminalised female genital mutilation (FGM), making it punishable by three years in jail, a move campaigners said ushered in a "new era" for women's rights in the African nation. Almost nine out of 10 women and girls in predominately Muslim Sudan have undergone FGM, United Nations data show. The procedure usually involves the partial or total removal of the female genitalia and can cause a host of health problems. The Sudanese government approved an amendment to its criminal legislation on April 22, stating that anyone who performs FGM either inside a medical establishment or elsewhere faces three years'…

Jun

2020

By The African Mirror

Celebrating an Algerian music great

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

THE death of Algerian icon Idir has brought an important chapter of Algerian music to a close. HUGO HADJI Hugo Hadji, Doctoral Researcher in ethnomusicology, SOAS, University of London THE death of Algerian icon Idir has brought an important chapter of Algerian music to a close. Through his brilliant career, Idir modernised and promoted the richness of Kabyle melodies and poetry, popularised North African culture, and advocated for unity and tolerance both in Algeria and in France. Looking at Idir’s life in music is looking into Algeria’s relationship with its history and identity, but also questioning what it means to…