THOUGHT LEADERSHIP - The African Mirror

Nov

06

2022

COP27 must work out how to cut carbon and still develop African economies

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

AVERTING a climate disaster without compromising economic growth and development is a key issue for African countries. Energy production and use is the single biggest contributor to global warming, accounting for roughly two-thirds of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, electricity use and access are strongly correlated with economic development. Many African countries are lagging behind in electricity generation and access. According to the Energy Progress Report, in 2020 the 20 countries with the lowest rates of access to electricity were all in sub-Saharan Africa. For example, just 7% of the population in South Sudan and 11% of the population in…

Oct

19

2022

By The African Mirror

‘Restitution’ of looted African art just continues colonial policies – much more is at stake

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

THE violence of the past is far from over. But it is disguised in many ways, made invisible and normalised. What started with the Spanish, Portuguese or the Ottoman empires continued with the British, French and Russian empires, and now the United States. Imperial political violence continues today in Palestine, Ukraine, Sudan, Yemen, and Iran, to name but a few. One of the disguises is “restitution”. Author FAZIL MORADI, Associate Professor, Faculty of Humanities, Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, University of Johannesburg I’m a scholar of what I understand as catastrophic art – artworks which were made in worlds that…

Nov

04

2022

By The African Mirror

Analysis: Truce in Ethiopia’s Tigray war just first step on long road to peace

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

ESTELLE SHIRBON IMPLEMENTING the ceasefire agreed by the Ethiopian government and forces from the northern region of Tigray will be fraught with difficulties, while thorny political and territorial disputes will need to be tackled to achieve lasting peace. Two years of war between Ethiopia's federal army and Tigray forces have killed thousands of people, displaced millions from their homes, brought hunger to towns and villages across the region and caused catastrophic destruction. The truce signed on Wednesday after just a week of formal peace talks in the South African capital Pretoria reflected heavy pressures on both sides. When the talks…

Oct

17

2022

By The African Mirror

The shrinking feeling

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

LAST week Friday I flew to Cape Town for a meeting. I specifically requested that I be booked on SAA for two reasons: firstly because it has always been my preferred airline when I was still a working individual and wanted to see and feel how the new one is shaping up. Secondly, because it is an airline owned by all of us as South African citizens. MOSIBUDI MANGENA The thing to notice is that whereas SAA used to be the dominant space occupier at both OR Tambo in Johannesburg and Cape Town airports, it is now puny, totally dominated…

Oct

15

2022

By The African Mirror

Nigeria ticks some boxes as a democracy. Why this hasn’t translated into a better life for most

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

SINCE gaining independence on 1 October 1960, Nigeria has struggled to maintain a democratic government. The election of 1999 offered renewed hope after a series of military coups and periods of generals in uniform running the country. More elections followed over the years. Holding elections is a commonly accepted feature of democracy, along with having an informed electorate and protecting basic human rights. Author ABIODUN FATAI, PHD, Senior Lecturer, Lagos State University My doctoral study explored Nigeria’s (and Senegal’s) progress with consolidating democracy between 1999 and 2012. As a researcher on elections and democratisation, a key question that’s emerged for…

Nov

01

2022

By The African Mirror

Kenya: police killings point to systemic rot and a failed justice system

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

BARELY a month into office, President William Ruto of Kenya ordered the disbandment of a special police unit placed at the centre of a widening investigation into a wave of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. At least nine officers of the Special Service Unit face charges relating to the disappearance in July 2022 of two Indians and their Kenyan driver. The Indians were in Kenya at the invitation of Ruto’s presidential digital campaign outfit. Police killings of citizens are shockingly commonplace in Kenya. Those who bear the brunt are mostly poor, young and male suspects of crime or terrorism. Author…

Oct

25

2022

By The African Mirror

Hlako Rachidi – a leader of courage who defied the apartheid government

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

MATHATHA TSEDU THE picture has become as iconic as the one of the battered face of Steve in the coffin. But this is one of supreme defiance. The scene is Bantu Biko’s funeral on September 25, 1977, in Ginsberg outside King Williamstown. In it, Kenny Hlako(correct) Rachidi, clad in a long gold dashiki and a necklace, stands with a raised clenched right-hand fist, the left hand pulling up the long dashiki. The fist seems to touch the banner behind him, a banner of the Black People’s Convention (BPC), with its signature emblem of two chained hands with the chain however…

Jul

06

2022

By The African Mirror

Patrice Lumumba’s tooth represents plunder, resilience and reparation

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

PATRICE LUMUMBA is the hero of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s truncated bid for complete independence. He was assassinated by local counter-revolutionary forces with the help of the CIA and Belgian authorities in 1961. Since then, all over the developing world, Lumumba’s name has come to stand for defiance against colonialism and imperialism. Author SANYA OSHA, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Humanities in Africa, University of Cape Town The manner of his death was particularly distressing. He was humiliated and tortured before he was murdered. His body was then doused with acid to facilitate decomposition. A Belgian official reportedly kept…

Jul

03

2022

By VICTOR EYIKE, BIRD STORY AGENCY

Nearly 800 years later, the fires of the Benin Bronze casters still blaze

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

STANDING in Igun street, the centre of African bronze casting for the past ten centuries, Alex Agbonmwenre could tell a story about the British forces that razed Edo and destroyed the Benin Empire, carrying off the famous bronze figures made for the court hundreds of years before, in this very street. But as a bronze caster, he is focused on the story of the craft itself. And his story starts way before the arrival of the first Europeans in this part of the world. It begins with a skilled artisan arriving at a walled, well-organised city in around 1280, during…

Jul

01

2022

By THABO MBEKI

Thabo Mbeki’s moving tribute to Kenneth “KK” Kaunda

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

I had the great privilege of spending almost two decades in this great African city and country, constantly exposed to President Kaunda’s leadership. I am therefore acutely aware of the reality that I will be speaking today of an outstanding African patriot who was to the end of his life my own leader. Author Thabo Mbeki A few days after President Kaunda passed away, on 26 June 2021, one Emmanuel Mensah-Abludo, caused the publication in the Nigerian newspaper, Premium Times, of an Obituary entitled “Kenneth Kaunda: The last African Liberation Giant goes home”. The Obituary said: “Barely a week ago,…