Here is to Hope: Reviving The Mikocheni Report in Interesting Times

Facing the blank page on a blog hosted on Google after a hiatus of one-and-a-hald Tanzanian presidential terms is a good feeling. When I stopped writing in 2018, I was protesting the introduction of fees that would make blogging a commercial endeavour whether or not the writer wanted to monetize their efforts. This was made mandatory by the Tanzanian Communications Regulations Agency and it also came at a time when the crackdown on all media, press and even arts and culture was heightened due to then-President Magufuli's personal feelings about freedom of speech. 

I want to say that the situation has improved in terms of regulations but I cannot be confident of that since I haven't looked into it deeply. There have been one or two posts since the hiatus, when I would check if the blog was still alive on Google servers, and to my delight it is. 

What is definite is another watershed moment in the Freedom of Expression environment that has prompted me to start writing again, perhaps because there is such a dearth of material in the past few months. On October 29th, 2025 the general elections were held in Tanzania. They were accompanied by protests that broke out country-wide and that caused a strict internet shut-down as well as the gagging of the media for a period of roughly five days. 

During that time a lot happened that was atrocious. Initially the number of people believed to have been killed during some violence between protesters and elements of the police and other militias was set between a few thousand people and roughly seven hundred people. However the story is only beginning to be told on the ground in Tanzania and somewhat through international media, and due to the absolute lock-down on movement and on communications it will take a long time to it seems as though the number might be in the high hundreds to a thousand. This Global Dispatches interview with political scientist Constantine Manda about the situation in the first few days gives context, some history and facts from the first week of reactions and I think it will stand the test of time.

It is in this vacuum of news and information and that the need to revive a strong and independent formal and citizen media  landscape with a plurality of voices has become apparent. We are all using the platforms that we have available to us to the best of our abilities and that of the technologies we can muster. There has been no real direct communications from the Head of State, President Samia Suluhu Hassan, since the brief speech at her inauguration. It is a rare vacuum in a conversation that has always been active between the public and the leadership, one that is indicative of the shift that has taken place this year. 

All of which is to say, it seems like a good time to come back to the work of blogging about politics - yes - but also the everyday of life in Dar es Salaam as the Mikocheni Report was intended to do from its inception. If I had little to say in the years of hiatus, the mood and the situation has changed and there is much to be said now to try and craft a link between the past, the present and what the future might hold. Here is to hope.