THOUGHT LEADERSHIP - The African Mirror

Jun

29

2026

The Final Severance. Burkina Faso, France and the end of an era in the Sahel

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

The Announcement It came on state television, read out in the flat cadence of a formal communiqué. Burkina Faso's military government informed “the national and international community” that it had decided to sever diplomatic relations with France, effective from Friday, 26 June 2026. Communications Minister Pingdwende Gilbert Ouédraogo told viewers that the conditions for a relationship built on mutual respect and non-interference were no longer present, and accused Paris of harbouring neo-colonial ambitions through what he called active support for “subversive networks and the terrorists” destabilising the country and the wider Sahel. No evidence was offered publicly to support the…

Jun

27

2026

By TONY HARDING

Your work is good. That’s exactly why they won’t let it through.

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

THE engineer submits the plans. Correctly formatted. Peer-reviewed. Backed by fifteen years of practice. He is told to wait. He improves the submission. He is told to wait again. He hires a consultant. The consultant says the submission is excellent. He is told to wait. At no point does anyone tell him the submission is inadequate. At no point does he fail a technical test. He simply waits, indefinitely, in a queue that has no visible exit condition. He is not failing to clear a bar. The bar was not designed to assess his work. South Africa’s post-apartheid public institutions…

Jun

26

2026

By BHEKISISA MNCUBE

Black African migrants are not the reason South Africa is broken

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

I have always felt like an exile at home. I did not gently enter this world after leaving, without consent, the enchanted kingdom of plenty and pure bliss: my mother’s womb. No. I was unleashed, wailing, into dust, hunger and disappointment, my tiny feet too frail for the stubbornness of a home birth. My second exile began in 1993, when I left my village of Habeni in Eshowe, northern KwaZulu-Natal, to study in Durban. I was escaping cattle herding, Inkatha leader Gatsha Buthelezi, village labour and the spectacle of bulls mounting cows with the casual arrogance of rural life. By…

Jun

23

2026

By EDWIN MUTYENYOKA and FRANZISCA ZANKER

Kenya wants to close refugee camps: the promise and risks of its ambitious new plan

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

KENYA hosts nearly a million refugees, mainly from South Sudan and Somalia. Many of them have been living in refugee camps for decades. Now, the country is attempting a major shift in refugee policy. The Kenyan government and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) developed the Shirika Plan, launching it in March 2025. The policy aims to move refugees away from long-term encampment and integrate them in society. Drawing on their research on refugee governance and migration in Kenya, Edwin Mutyenyoka and Franzisca Zanker explain the opportunities and challenges the plan presents for refugees and host communities. What is the…

Jun

20

2026

By PHILIPPE BOLOPION

Trump declared peace in Congo. This is the reality

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

“GENERAL” Sultani Makenga stood before thousands of newly trained armed group recruits in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in February and offered them a promise. “You are now part of an army that has risen up to liberate the country and to really liberate the people,” declared Makenga, the military leader of the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group. Behind him, at the Tshanzu training camp, recruits can be seen marching in lockstep, smashing bricks with their bare hands and foreheads, leaping through flaming hoops and chanting in unison as they prepare to fight against Congolese government forces. Not seen in this…

Jun

20

2026

By HEIKE BECKER

Who was Andimba Toivo ya Toivo? The Namibian leader who chose justice over power

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

CELEBRATED Namibian liberation leader Andimba Toivo ya Toivo played an important role in his country’s development. Beyond Namibia, however, he remains unknown to many. Anthropologist Heike Becker has written a biography of ya Toivo, finally telling his story in full. We asked her four questions about the man and the book. Why is he little known outside Namibia? It’s true, few know about ya Toivo, even though his legacy includes one of the most powerful speeches from the dock ever made during the struggles against settler colonialism in southern Africa. His contribution remains overshadowed because he never became the official…

Jun

19

2026

By LOREN B LANDAU and JEAN PIERRE MISAGO

Xenophobia in South Africa: state’s complicity with gangs and vigilantes is threatening its ability to govern

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

MARCHES, Mozambicans murdered, state-sponsored evacuations, a nationally televised presidential address. Anti-immigrant mobilisation has again drawn the world’s attention to South Africa. The continental backlash threatens tourism, trade, diplomacy and investment opportunities in Africa’s largest economy, and is derailing its constitutional democracy. Many citizens demand that the country restore its sovereignty – the state’s ability to govern itself and determine its own laws within its borders – by tightening border controls. Parties promise to deliver walls, raids and deportations. What these popular debates over sovereignty and border control overlook is that politics is not defined on the borders. It comes from…

Jun

17

2026

By REGINALD SHAVER

In honour of the legendary Dr Alfred Bitini Xuma and in support of the Boys & Girls Clubs of South Africa

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

TO understand why we gather tonight for the children of the Boys & Girls Clubs of South Africa, I want to take you back more than a hundred years, to one man. In the year 1913, a young man boarded a ship off the coast of this continent and pointed himself toward a country he had never seen. He carried almost nothing. He came from a village called Manzana, in the Transkei, where the only schooling open to a Black child was a mission classroom, and where the world had already decided exactly what a Black South African was permitted…

Jun

15

2026

By MARIA SURIANO

Ma Vesta Smith: why this unsung activist matters 50 years after the Soweto uprising

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

WHILE many men are remembered as heroes of political struggles, women seldom get enough attention. Vesta Smith is a good example. She fought for South Africa’s liberation from white minority rule, called apartheid. Historian Maria Suriano has written a biography of this activist. With the 50th anniversary of the momentous 1976 Soweto youth uprising in mind, we asked her to tell us about the woman affectionately known as Ma Vesta. Why is Vesta Smith important? Vesta Smith was a community activist who dedicated her life to the anti-apartheid struggle, social justice, non-racialism and gender equality. She participated in key events…

Jun

13

2026

By Lukhanyo Neer

Thabo Mbeki tribute concert restores Soga to the African Renaissance

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

FOR more than 150 years, South Africans have sung Tiyo Soga’s prayer as if it arrived from the heavens without an author. At funerals, in churches, at political gatherings and in moments of national longing, “Lizalis’ idinga lakho” — fulfil your promise — has risen from our throats with solemn force. We know the hymn. We know its ache. We know the promise it demands. Yet, too often, we do not know the man who gave it to us. That forgetting is not innocent. It belongs to the larger wound Soga spent his life resisting: the erasure of African memory,…