Hama Tuma

Born Iyasou Alemayehu, the Ethiopian activist and satirist was a leading revolutionary in opposition to Emperor Haile Selassie—who was overthrown in 1974—and his repressive successor, Mengistu Haile Mariam, who ruled until 1991. “Ethiopians have bittersweet sayings and proverbs in line with their tradition of double entendres,” Tuma wrote in a 2015 essay about the high cost of satire. “What you hear is not the real message, what you see is not real at all. Go figure. Your mouth is your first enemy—shut it up.”