Street art in Edinburgh depicting Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Kim Jong un as babies playing with toys.
Alan Wilson / Alamy Stock Photo
A new documentary pokes fun at the regime and it’s leader, but are there risks to laughing at North Korea?
Some of the titles published by Weaver in their 25 years.
Courtesy Weaver Press
Dozens of young writers were published first at Weaver Press, which believed in fiction as a way of telling the truth.
Opposition supporters calling for free and fair elections outside the offices of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission in Harare in 2018.
Jeksai Njikizana/AFP via Getty Images.
Zimbabwe’s 2023 elections look like their predecessors: stolen. But this one is a bit different. Opposition strategies and regional responses have changed too. What does this mean for the future?
Taffy Theman uses YouTube to deliver funny, scathing critiques of the ruling elite.
Screengrab/YouTube/Taffy Theman
Taffy Theman and Bustop TV are YouTubers who use comedy to criticise the ruling elite.
Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Tafadzwa Ufumeli/Getty Images
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has not faced official investigation or prosecution over his role in Operation Gukurahundi – 40 years on.
NoViolet Bulawayo, Zimbabwean author of the politically charged novels We Need New Names and Glory.
David Levenson/Getty Images
Writers have challenged oppression, exposed social injustices and advocated for political change.
Alan Hopps/Getty Images
Novelist Petina Gappah’s call for translators on Facebook has resulted in the publication of Chimurenga Chemhuka.
Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa addressing a rally in Bulawayo recently.
Zinyange Auntony/AFP via Getty Images
Zanu-PF’s anti-American rhetoric is not only deployed to win friends abroad. As elections approach, it is also a prominent campaign tactic at home.
Winky D’s hit Ibotso has seen him removed from stage by police.
Screengrab/Happy Again/winkyonline
In his music, he positions himself within the people’s struggles and identifies with them.
Former American President Jimmy Carter.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
The motivations for Carter’s interest in Africa are deeply personal. His record should remind all democrats, including those in Africa, to hold leaders accountable to high ethical standards.
Noviolet Bulawayo, Zimbabwean writer.
Leonardo Cendamo/Getty Images
Playing out in an animal kingdom, Glory is a devastating political commentary on Zimbabwe today.
Former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe died in 2019.
EFE-EPA/Yeshiel Panchia
Moore did not unearth any treasures in his research of Mugabe’s legacy. He has not even drawn a map that might lead us to them.
Photo by Visual Narphilia courtesy Synik
Synik’s new album continues to shape identity and consciousness in a country with limited freedom of speech.
Former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe greets supporters massed at his party headquarters shortly before his ouster in 2017.
Jekesai Njikizana/AFP via Getty Images
Leaders typically spread power among their ‘rival allies’ to keep it and co-opt enough of those elites in exchange for political support.
A still featuring opposition leader Nelson Chamisa from the film President (2021).
Louverture Films/President/Encounters South African International Documentary Festival
The award-winning documentary - now on in South Africa - follows opposition leader Nelson Chamisa. But it spends too much time in meetings instead of giving insight into the bigger picture.
Joseph Kazibwe, with his wife Magere, listen to radio updates of the Uganda presidential election result in January 2021.
Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images
For those keen to advance democracy and freedom in Uganda, the starting point is to take in the lessons of history.
Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa meets his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping in Beijing, in 2018.
EPA-EFE/Lintao Zhang / POOL
The more President Mnangagwa’s government fails to engage democratically with its own citizens, the more it will negate any prospect of re-engagement with the West.
Zimbabwe Defense Force soldiers during protests against President Robert Mugabe in 2017.
EPA-EFE/KIM LUDBROOK
A forensic archaeologist and former Zimbabwe police officer uses his investigative skills to find the missing and the dead in his homeland.
A scene from a play about the Gukurahundi genocide, 1983 The Dark Years, performed in Harare in 2018.
JEKESAI NJIKIZANA/AFP/Getty Images
Artists are filling the state’s silence by revisiting history so that it can be discussed.
Grace Mugabe at the funeral of former president Robert Mugabe.
JEKESAI NJIKIZANA/AFP via Getty Images
Sexist slandering has been used not just to describe Grace Mugabe, but to denigrate any women who aspire to political positions.