THOUGHT LEADERSHIP - The African Mirror

Mar

08

2026

HE WAS OURS TOO: South Africa pays warm tribute to Jesse Jackson – a son of Africa

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

THE people of South Africa are with you today as you lay to rest a great man and celebrate a remarkable life that altered the moral direction of a nation and inspired the conscience of the world. We are here to join you as you say farewell to a man who carried the message of hope from the streets of Chicago to the streets of Johannesburg. Today we are also here, as South Africans, to claim Reverend Jesse Jackson as one of our own. We lay claim on him today because he laid claim on us first. You may ask: how can a son of South Carolina belong to the people of Soweto? How can a…

Mar

07

2026

By JOVIAL RANTAO

Seven years, seven lessons: South Africa is finally collecting on the Zondo investment

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

HE once sat at the apex of parliamentary power, chairing the Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services - the very committee that was supposed to oversee the integrity of the country's prisons. On 5 March 2026, Vincent Smith became a prisoner himself. The former ANC Member of Parliament was sentenced to seven years' direct imprisonment by Judge Mohamed Ismail in the Gauteng Division of the High Court, after entering into a plea and sentence agreement with the State on charges of corruption, fraud, money laundering, and contravention of the Tax Act. It is a moment South Africans have waited years for.…

Mar

06

2026

By FEDERICO DONELLI

Iran war fallout: risks for the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

THE death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, in March 2026 marks the end of a political era in the Middle Eastern country. Khamenei was killed in US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran’s capital, Tehran. This has triggered a war drawing in numerous countries across the Middle East. The Horn of Africa and Red Sea regions, which link Africa and the Middle East, share a dense web of military, political and economic interactions that enable crises on one shore to quickly affect the other. Here, Somalia, Eritrea, Yemen, Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti sit along one of the world’s most…

Mar

05

2026

By JOVIAL RANTAO

Mosiuoa “Terror” Lekota: A prophet in his own land

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

SOUTH Africa does not mourn an ordinary man today. It mourns a conscience. Mosiuoa "Terror" Lekota - whose fearsome nickname was earned on the football fields of the Free State but came, over decades, to describe something far more significant: the terrifying moral clarity with which he spoke truth to power, regardless of cost - was one of the last of a rare and vanishing breed. Lekota was a South African who believed, completely and without reservation, that the freedom for which so many died was not a prize to be traded for patronage, looted of its meaning, or handed…

Mar

04

2026

By TONY ROBERTS

Biometric IDs are being rolled out in Africa. Study reveals the risks and pitfalls

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

ACROSS Africa, governments are introducing digital systems that use individuals’ unique physical measurements to identify them. These systems collect citizens’ biometric and personal data and use it to give people access to essential public services like voting, healthcare, education and social protection. Biometric digital identification systems are often promoted as tools to improve efficiency, inclusion and service delivery. But a new report by the African Digital Rights Network, published by the Institute of Development Studies, highlights serious concerns about exclusion, rights violations, data protection and accountability. Drawing on evidence from ten African countries, the report shows how millions of people…

Mar

04

2026

By JAN POSPISIL

South Sudan has never had an election to hand over presidential power: so what are the rules of succession?

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

South Sudan has not held an election since it gained independence 15 years ago, and progress towards a new constitution has stalled. Election dates have been set and postponed at least three times. A new date has been set for December 2026, but it’s unclear whether the poll will take place. If it does, it will be the first electoral test for President Salva Kiir, who has been in power since 2011. It raises the question of what legal guardrails exist for a smooth transition to new leadership outside an election. Jan Pospisil, who has studied the country’s politics and…

Mar

03

2026

By JOVIAL RANTAO

The world’s moral compass has broken: one rule for Russia, another for America and Israel

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

THERE is a moment in every civilisation's history when the gap between stated values and actual behaviour becomes so grotesque, so undeniable, that silence itself becomes complicity. We are living in that moment right now. And the world's failure to act consistently is not merely embarrassing - it is civilizationally catastrophic. Let us be brutally clear about what happened when Russia invaded Ukraine. The response was swift, coordinated, and in many ways, genuinely impressive. Sanctions were imposed within days. Roman Abramovich was forced to sell the Chelsea Football Club. Russian oligarchs watched their superyachts get seized in harbours from Barcelona…

Mar

02

2026

By KRISTOF TITECA

Joseph Kony: how a Ugandan war criminal and his soldiers have evaded capture and endured for decades

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

JOSEPH Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), remains at large two decades after the International Criminal Court issued its first arrest warrants against him and four of his commanders. The LRA emerged nearly 40 years ago. Between 1987 and 2006, northern Uganda’s civilians were caught between LRA brutality – massacres and mass abductions – and a government counterinsurgency. This forced nearly two million people into camps for internally displaced people. The LRA framed its struggle as resistance to President Yoweri Museveni and the sidelining of the Acholi, the dominant ethnic group in northern Uganda. However, over time,…

Feb

28

2026

By JOVIAL RANTAO

TRIBUTE: Katlego Sechaba Matsila – A citizen of the world

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

THERE are lives that are measured not in years, but in the depth of their reach - in the countries touched, the hearts moved, the injustices confronted, the conversations that linger long after the voice has fallen silent. Katlego Sechaba Matsila lived such a life. He came into this world on the 2nd of December 1982 in Gaborone, Botswana - a child of exile, a child of resistance, a child born into a story already larger than himself. His parents, Francisca and Jerry Matjila, had given everything to the struggle against one of the most brutal systems of racial oppression…

Feb

26

2026

By JOVIAL RANTAO

The Quiet Giant: A Tribute to Joe Latakgomo

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

THERE is a particular kind of person who walks into a room and does not immediately demand that the room rearrange itself around them. They listen before they speak. They ask questions they do not already know the answer to. They give credit freely and absorb blame quietly. Joe Latakgomo was that person. And in a profession that can seduce even the most grounded souls into self-importance, he remained - to the very end - a man of rare and quiet power. He was born in Pretoria on 13 January 1948, the same year the apartheid government codified racism into…