THOUGHT LEADERSHIP - The African Mirror

Nov

08

2025

By TEKLEHAYMANOT G. WELDEMICHEL and BIRHAN MEZGBO

Starvation as a weapon of war: how Ethiopia created a famine in Tigray

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

FAMINE – the extreme scarcity of food – devastated Ethiopia’s Tigray region during and after a two-year war that began in November 2020. Yet, the famine’s impact is one of the least documented crises of recent years. Despite the enormous scale of suffering and the far-reaching consequences of the 2020-2022 war, there hasn’t been enough attention paid to all aspects of the disaster, or to aid to enable the region to recover. The famine dimension of the conflict – how starvation was used as a weapon of war and continues to shape the region today – has largely failed to…

Nov

08

2025

By GAVIN GEORGE

Sex for money: South African study reveals the harm that ‘blessers’ can do to young women

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

A “blesser” is typically an older, relatively wealthier man who provides a younger woman with money, gifts, school fees or lifestyle access in exchange for a relationship that includes sex. Similar arrangements exist around the world, often called “sugar-daddy” relationships, but the South African version is closely tied to extreme inequality, youth unemployment, and a culture in which conspicuous consumption carries strong social currency. As a result, “blesser” has become a mainstream, even aspirational term among some young women, particularly in urban settings. South Africa ranks as the most unequal country in the world, characterised by high unemployment rates and…

Nov

07

2025

By DR RUDZANI NEMUTUDI

A tribute to Mmboniseni Enos Nethengwe of Thengwe La Vhatavhatsindi

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

MMBONISENI ENOS NETHENGWE, a masterful Science and Mathematics teacher ever to have emerged from Thengwe village in Limpopo, finally bowed out from this physical world on November 1. This adherent of the Black Consciousness philosophy waged a fierce and protracted battle against a congenital diabetic condition that resulted in a stroke that paralysed him. The sheer length and considerable period he battled the condition has left even the most loquacious amongst us utterly speechless. Even in his final days, spent at a Tshwane hospital, when he had lost his speech, he refused to be silenced and carried a board and…

Nov

07

2025

By EISA DAFALLAH

From exile, I watched El Fasher fall – and my family fight to survive

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

I write this from Kampala, some 2,000 kilometres from my home in the Sudanese city of El Fasher, which has just fallen to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) after an 18-month siege. From exile, I try to piece together what happened through messages, photos, and the broken voices of those who escaped. On Sunday, 26 October, I woke up at 5 am to the sound of rain drumming against my window. The sky was heavy with clouds. After dawn prayer, I opened WhatsApp, scrolling through the family group chats the way I do every morning – checking for updates from…

Nov

06

2025

By JOVIAL RANTAO

Tanzania’s descent: How a sham election shattered democratic hopes

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

THE inauguration said everything. Not in a stadium where jubilant crowds would gather to celebrate a popularly elected leader, but in an army venue - sterile, controlled, militarised. President Samia Suluhu Hassan took her oath of office on Monday before a carefully curated audience; the 98% vote share she claimed was as hollow as the ceremony itself. This was not the celebration of democracy. This was its funeral. What followed Tanzania's election was not the peaceful transfer of power, but something far darker: a systematic crackdown that has transformed East Africa's second-most populous nation into a pressure cooker of fear,…

Nov

03

2025

By JOVIAL RANTAO

When criminals choose presidents: The Madlanga Commission and South Africa’s democracy crisis

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

THE testimony unfolding before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry represents far more than another corruption scandal in South Africa's troubled post-apartheid history. What is emerging from the walls of that Pretoria hearing room is evidence of something far more sinister: a democratic state potentially captured not by business interests or political factions, but by criminal syndicates and drug cartels who have allegedly used their ill-got wealth to install politicians at the highest levels of government. When businessman Vusimuzi "Cat" Matlala sat down for a recorded interview following his arrest in May, he did more than implicate individual officials in corruption.…

Nov

01

2025

By OLUWOLE OJEWALE

Bamako under siege: why Mali’s army is struggling to break the jihadist blockade of the capital

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

WHEN the military overthrew the democratically elected government in Mali in 2020, coup leader General Assimi Goita promised to root out jihadists in the north of the country. Mali had been struggling to defeat them for nearly a decade. Multiple terrorist groups operate in Mali. An al Qaida-linked group known locally as Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) is the most lethal, considering the audacity and scale of its attacks. The group rejects the state’s authority, and seeks to impose its interpretation of Islam and sharia. Despite the military government’s pledge to enhance security, there has been a 38% rise in…

Nov

01

2025

By ANDREW VAN DER VLIES

South African writer Zoë Wicomb embraced humanity in all its complexity

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

ZOË WICOMB’S first book, You Can’t Get Lost in Cape Town (1987), is a tour through episodes in the life of a writer-character, Frieda Shenton. She’s not unlike but crucially not exactly like Wicomb (child of South Africa’s Namaqualand, graduate of what is now the University of the Western Cape, expatriated to Britain, both at an angle to and in love with her homeland). It ends with a self-reflexive reckoning with the costs of writing. Writing about what – or who – you know can be both an act of love and perceived as exploitation. The final chapter – or…

Oct

31

2025

By DAN PAGET

Tanzania’s Samia Hassan has ushered in a new era of authoritarianism: here’s how

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

AS Tanzania’s national elections approach, a familiar humdrum of coverage has emerged. It goes like this. In its crackdowns, censorship and harassment of the opposition, Tanzania is becoming increasingly repressive. President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who is seeking re-election in the October 2025 poll, increasingly resembles her predecessor, John Pombe Magufuli. Before he died in office in 2021, he banned media, censored journalists, hamstrung the opposition and rigged elections. Hassan is reverting to his tactics to lengthen her advantage in the elections. Yet, I would go further. Hassan has become, in key ways, more autocratic than Magufuli. She has crossed autocratic…

Oct

30

2025

By DAVID E KIWUWA

Paul Biya’s life presidency in Cameroon enters a fragile final phase

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

FOR the first time ever, the opposition parties in Cameroon have come “close” to unseating 92-year-old Paul Biya, who has run the country since 1982. The stiffest competition for Biya in the 2025 election came from 76-year-old Tchiroma Bakary, a former ally and government spokesperson, who contested on the platform of the Cameroon National Salvation Front. He won more than 35% of the vote – the second highest ever scored by an opposition candidate since Biya has been contesting. Though it was one of the best performances by opposition parties in Cameroon since 1992, the opposition suffered from its failure…