Chinese poster from 1987 promoting one-child policy. Text reads, “Fewer and better births revitalize China”. Provided by IISG, via Flickr. January 8 2019 – It has to be easy to imagine the smiles on faces of millions of Chinese men and women over this great piece of news: the Chinese government has decided to reverse...
April 6 2017 – Education, as we commonly talk of it, is that process by which an individual is taken through formal structures that inculcate in him/her a certain body of knowledge and values qualifying the individual for a useful and serviceable existence. This usually denotes the school system, complete with its classrooms, teachers, syllabuses...
March 9 2017 The debate around the need to have a serious constitutional review in Tanzania is simply refusing to go away. Every week we learn of new legal action taken by members of civil society that seek to challenge this or that act undertaken by government officials that people find unjust, unfair or illegal....
March 2 2017 Chirau Ali Mwakwere “Zipapa” is a former Kenyan minister and ambassador who is so funny he could make the Sphinx laugh. He can also belt out a song at a moment’s notice, in Kiswahili, English or Lingala. He speaks impeccable Kiswahili, and claims the language originated from Kwale, his home county where...
November 11 2016 – An object lesson in how to do unto your opponents was delivered many years ago in one central African country which was ruled over by a particularly obnoxious dictator. The president had been in power for close to 20 years when an old school friend came to him to ask for...
November 3 2016 At about this time in November of the year two thousand and seventeen, President John Pombe Magufuli will have spent two years in office, and he will still have not reached the halfway mark of his first term. That means he will be far from being worried about his reelection, which will...
October 13 2016 I cannot in any way be characterized as a Luddite, one of those people who suffer from a morbid fear of technological advances as were witnessed in England at the onset of the Industrial Revolution. The term “Luddite” itself is supposed to have come from Ned Ludd, a Leicestershire worker who led...
September 29 2016 – Most of our cities on the African continent are bursting at the seams with motor-vehicle traffic. It is divine bliss when one finds oneself in a capital city like Lilongwe, Malawi, where one can afford to take out one’s car for a pleasure ride around the town. Generally the scene is...
September 22 2016 – Am I alone in having this feeling, that we are witnessing unprecedented police shootings of African Americans in the United States? Feelings, of course, do not need empirical evidence to be credible, but I suspect that if one did a scientific study in this area, this feeling would be borne out....
September 1 2016 We now find respite to pause on the verge of a plunge, and ponder just what might have been. Or, imagine just might be after the pause ends and the perilous race to the abyss resumes. We have had a shrill shouting match between the authorities – President John Magufuli, his assistants,...
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