The recent release of veteran journalist and editor Bheki Makhubu from a Swaziland jail should have been a momentous occasion for media freedom and freedom of expression activists in southern Africa. Instead, it has turned out to be a missed opportunity to inspire confidence, re-energise practitioners and consumers alike, and call the bluff on repressive […]
Zimbabwe
Posted inEquality, General, Health
Fighting TB with prisoners’ rights
By Annabel Raw Today is World Tuberculosis Day, commemorating the discovery of the cause of the disease in 1882. Tuberculosis (TB) is an ancient disease with traces in human remains being recorded since antiquity. Despite advances in public health and treatment, today TB continues to claim over one and a half million lives every year, […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The privatisation of the Zimbabwean state
By Mike Mavura There is consensus that safety, security, justice and the rule of law are core functions of the state as well as basic service delivery, financial and macro-economic management, inclusive growth and job creation, the protection of human-rights protections and so on and so forth. These are state responsibilities stipulated in the constitution […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Tsvangirai, it’s time to step up or step down
To anyone who has been paying close attention to developments in Zimbabwe since 2009 – after the formation of the government of national unity (GNU) – the 2013 election result was almost a forgone conclusion. Governments of national unity, as I have written elsewhere, create a false sense of security and unity in deeply polarised […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Zimbabwe elections: A conspiracy theory
While Egypt became the first example of expedience over democracy being openly accepted, if not actively promoted, by Western democracies it is going to find its match in Zimbabwe during the course of this week albeit without the fanfare and publicity that is occasioned by a military coup. The outcome, in my most humble opinion, […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Any hope for Zimbabwe?
To sincerely (and fiercely) discuss Zimbabwe’s future, we must first recount what we know about Zimbabwe’s past. The past is the appropriate context within which we must frame our judgment of Zimbabwe’s progress. We know that in the “Scramble for Africa” Zimbabwe became a British colony. That in 1930 land ownership was racialised by the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Zimbabwe, it’s complicated
This month marks two key milestones in Zimbabwe, a country that for over one and a half decades has attracted significant attention to itself because of an ailing economy, limitations on civil liberties and political rights and what has been described as the ”mass exodus” of its people to other countries the world over. One, […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Have we forgotten Mohamed Bouazizi?
Two years ago last Friday, a young man from Tunisia named Mohamed Bouazizi died of burn wounds after literally igniting what the world has come to know as the Arab Spring. Bouazizi, a fruit and vegetable vendor immolated himself after suffering humiliation at the hands of a police officer who confiscated his goods, ostensibly because […]
Posted inGeneral
Yes, there’s more to Africa than poverty
By Zdena Mtetwa Let us be wary of becoming blindly defensive Africans who deny the challenges faced by our continent, sweeping the dirt under the rug, as though it did not exist. But with the same breath, let us also be brave Africans who stand for the brand Africa, highlighting the hard work of our […]
Posted inNews/Politics
On Zim’s wounded political beasts
Addressing the recent ZANU-PF annual congress, party leader and Zimbabwe president, Robert Mugabe likened the (mis)fortunes of his party to those of a wounded beast. “We are now like a wounded beast,” Mugabe said, adding emphatically, “You know how a wounded beast fights. Let’s fight back and restore our own pride.” Mugabe’s unhappiness with the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Tsvangirai: Zimbabwe still needs Mugabe
By Leo Cendrowicz Morgan Tsvangirai is a man under pressure. Ahead of next year’s elections the Zimbabwean prime minister is trying to deliver a new constitution, revive a troubled economy and manage a difficult relationship with the country’s president, Robert Mugabe. Yet one of Tsvangirai’s main concerns right now is keeping his love life from […]
Posted inGeneral
Zim’s new constitution?
By Musa Kika So finally there’s news from Harare. The second draft of the new constitution was submitted to parliament and the not-so-united government of national unity this month. For over a decade we have tried to come up with a new constitution that reflects the people’s will and replaces the 1979 Lancaster House Constitution, […]