Politics
Analysts warn that the power struggle in Tigray between the TPLF and the interim administration carries the risk of conflict if the dispute in the northern region isn’t resolved.
Somaliland has rejected Somalia’s attempts to force companies doing business there to change their naming conventions. Mogadishu’s new strategy will only negatively impact civilians who rely on these services on both sides of the divide. The crisis between Somalia and Somaliland has entered an unusual phase, with Mogadishu attempting to reassert control through the regulation of names and labels.
Ethiopia’s decision to float its currency and begin liberalising its economy comes at a sensitive time, as similar reforms have sparked unrest in other African countries. Abiy Ahmed must carefully navigate the path ahead to ensure the success of this new policy mix. Ethiopia’s decision to float its currency and liberalise its economy, officially announced on 29 July, has sparked widespread debate and concern, as similar reforms in other African nations have led to unrest.
It's no longer just about the finance bill. Kenyans want fundamental change.If the point of protest is to create a counter-crisis, then the people’s movement in Kenya has succeeded. Emboldened by the 2010 Constitution, which transitioned the country into an open and democratic society, a people’s grab for power, unprecedented in scale and force, has captured global attention and put President William Ruto’s ruling party on the back foot.
Protesters in Nigeria have issued a clear warning to the Bola Tinubu administration, urging it to address their concerns over rising living costs. It would be prudent for him to take these grievances seriously or risk further unrest. It seems that east and west Africa have exchanged places, with protest-related turmoil moving from Kenya, east Africa’s largest economy, through Uganda to Nigeria, west Africa’s largest economy as growing numbers of young people demand a fairer share of the economic pie.
Opinion
A construction boom is transforming the Mogadishu skyline. But as investors pump money into new apartment buildings and shopping centres, they're also widening inequality in a city where hundreds of thousands of displaced victims of war and drought struggle to survive.The boom follows decades of development stagnation after clan-based violence wrecked the coastal city in the 1990s. A series of weak and donor-dependent governments have since struggled to impose their authority, challenged by a jihadist insurgency entrenched in the countryside.
The African Union is failing to achieve the purposes for which it was established for several reasons. However, the dreams of pan-African unity and continental development still depend on it, making reform urgent. The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was replaced by the African Union (AU) in 2002 to much acclaim. There was a consensus that the OAU had failed to fulfil its mission of uniting Africans around an agenda to coordinate the efforts of its leaders, pool resources, and drive development forward.
Somaliland’s leaders often tout the nation’s peace and stability in an otherwise volatile region. Yet beyond the rhetoric, corruption, economic inequality, and political decay are eroding its foundations. At the height of Britain’s winter of discontent in January 1979, Labour prime minister Jim Callaghan held a press conference. As the country ground to a halt due to widespread strikes, Callaghan dismissed the turmoil as merely the “parochial view” of a small number of critics.
Domestic workers in the Gulf typically face a double bind: as a foreign worker, you are governed by kafala laws, while as a female, you are governed by the male guardianship system.On a flight from Kampala to Dubai, I found myself surrounded by lines of young Ugandan women, all wearing the same uniform. I couldn’t help but notice the excitement and happiness on their faces. As the plane departed, I overheard some of their hopes and dreams and wondered how many of them would go back home carrying the same smiles.
Ethiopia has long exerted significant influence across Somalia, but the issues surrounding the Somaliland memorandum have brought a future conflict around its influence into the present, raising important questions about the type of country we want to be. As President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud governs from the heavily fortified Villa Somalia in Mogadishu, a significant drama is unfolding far beyond the capital, in the regions of Hiiraan, Gedo, and Southwest Somalia.
Culture
Suhaib Mahmoud reflects on the literature and reception of British-Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah, whose literary work tells the stories of Africa’s Indian Ocean region. The impact of Abdulrazak Gurnah’s 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature took many by surprise. The Nobel Committee often leans into the element of the unexpected, defying the predictions of those speculating on the potential nominees each year.
Patrick Gathara writes about western politics in the same way westerners write about African and Asian countries. His aim is to encourage reflection on the language we use and to highlight the offensive assumptions embedded within it. Following the televised debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, probably the defining political event of the presidential race, the internet was quickly flooded with hot takes about how it went.
Somali music needs to find a balance between those aspects that nourish our minds and those that are intended for our bodies. A long standing tension between mind and body has permeated modern Somali music since its early days. Rooted in the meaning-oriented disposition of the Somali psyche, xikmad (wisdom)—in this context referring to the depth and sobriety of a song’s content—has traditionally been the most valued aspect of music by the majority of Somalis.
The Horn of Africa today is deeply divided, both politically and socially. These divisions have led to widespread conflict and a belief, even among members of the same ethnic group, that our differences are irreconcilable. As a result, people often trace current issues back into the past, crafting elaborate tales of centuries-old feuds with groups they may not get along with. However, Mire’s new book offers a strong counterpoint to this centrifugal and violent trend, uncovering the threads that connect many of the cultures in the Horn of Africa region.
In 1957, a controversial Egyptian diplomat was murdered in Mogadishu. The police investigation that followed stoked dangerous tensions within the Somali nationalist movement, but it also exposed the weakness of the colonial state. On April 16 1957, at around 12:45pm, Kamal Al Din Salah crossed a quiet courtyard in central Mogadishu.
Somalis globally mark the second anniversary of the death of towering poet, Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame, widely known as Hadraawi A quiet anniversary passed on 19 August, marking the second year since the death of Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame, widely known as Hadraawi, a giant of Somali literature. Across the globe, Somalis and admirers of Somali poetry commemorated the occasion. Social media was soon filled with quotes from his poems, clips of his old interviews, and heartfelt tributes to the late literary legend.
How does a refugee camp, a transient place between A and B, become a home? Kakuma shows us how. The movement of people from their homes is not a modern phenomenon. Historically, individuals were forced to leave due to wars, persecution, environmental disasters, ethnic conflicts, and other push factors.
The Somali civil war, which started in the 1990s, has given birth to varied scholarly arguments about what caused it. Hassan Mudane surveys some of the literature. The Somali civil war was a brutal ordeal, causing state collapse, a huge outflow of refugees, significant loss of life, widespread damage to infrastructure, famine and multiple abortive attempts by foreign powers to reinstate and rebuild the government in Mogadishu.
Multimedia
Why have I dedicated myself to this arduous task, you may wonder? Well, as Fanon himself eloquently stated in his treatise, “Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.”
Stuart Reid’s new book, The Lumumba Plot, revisits Patrice Lumumba’s assassination, with strong insight into the role of the US in assassinating Lumumba and bringing down the government of one of Africa’s most iconic leaders.
Leaders across the Horn of Africa have touted the innumerable benefits of building ports for their people, putting them at the heart of their projects to develop their regions.
South Africa’s decision to take Israel to the ICJ on charges of genocide could cost his country, says former South African ambassador and anti-apartheid activist Ebrahim Rasool, but is an act of “enormous integrity”
Geeska is a platform that contributes to shaping the image of cultural media in the Horn of Africa.
Interviews
In a newly published paper, a group of researchers argue that checkpoints in Somalia provide us with an opportunity to explore and think about how clans make claims to land and why, in a new analysis that has important implications for how we think about Somali state-building. In early August, Jethro Norman published a working paper along with two colleagues, Abdirahman Edle Ali and Peer Schouten (Mr Roadblock), exploring the operations of checkpoints in Somalia.
After reports named Abdulqadir Mumin as global leader of ISIS, Geeska interviewed expert Christopher Anzalone to discuss IS-Somalia’s growing influence in the IS network and examine the reports’ credibility. On 31 May, Africom (US Africa Command) issued a relatively routine statement regarding an airstrike it conducted on IS militants in Dhaardaar, a town located just under 100 km from Bosaso in Puntland.
Helmi Ben Meriem speaks to Geeska about his research on Nuruddin Farah’s fiction and non-fiction writing, as well as broader currents in Somali literature todayHelmi Ben Meriem is a Somali studies scholar of Tunisian origin whose research focuses on Somali-Anglophone literature.
Dr. Guleid Jama “Dafac” engages in a conversation with Geeska regarding his research on rights of children living in unrecognized states, focusing on Somaliland, and discusses the path forward.Children face a myriad of unique challenges that significantly impact their well-being and development. Some of the specific issues they confront include:
Tom Gardner, the Economist’s Africa correspondent speaks to Geeska about Ethiopian politics and his new book on the “Abiy Project”