The ‘feudal regime’ of Swaziland’s King Mswati III comes in for comment in a documentary film from the UK that is presently circulating in the kingdom.
The documentary called Distant Horizons looks at civil rights in Swaziland and how ordinary people don’t know ‘they have the right to have rights’. Political parties are banned in Swaziland and it is difficult for many workers to form effective trade unions.
Distant Horizons looks at the work of the Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations (SCCCO) as it goes around the kingdom educating ‘very oppressed’ people about the new Swazi Constitution and giving them information about ‘the causes of their suffering’.
Musa Hlophe, coordinator of the SCCCO, tells the documentary that although what they do is not popular with the Swazi authorities, SCCCO is not a subversive organisation. He claims that what SCCCO does is above board. Meanwhile, the phones at the office are tapped
The documentary made by the Northern Ireland region of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) says that Swaziland is descending fast and without ‘dramatic reform’ it will descend further. It visits rural Swaziland where people often live without electricity and running water. The poverty is grinding and ‘hunger is a normal part of life’.
With the HIV rate the highest in the world, death is all around.
At one point in the documentary viewers are told that Swaziland is a small country that nobody cares about. Which is probably a truer statement than the documentary makers realise.
I don’t think the documentary makers are themselves very interested in Swaziland. The main purpose of Distant Horizons is not to look at life in Swaziland as such, but rather to follow around Stephen Donaghy, aged 41, a man from Northern Ireland. Donaghy is a volunteer civic society worker who has been placed with SCCCO by Skillshare International.
The main purpose of the documentary is to see how a man from Northern Ireland, where the programme makers are from and where the documentary was originally shown, copes in a new environment. It is a story about a rich person in a poor person’s world.
Donaghy is open about his desire to help Swaziland move towards democracy and how difficult this can be in a kingdom where people are deferential to people in authority.
We follow him as he tries to drum up media interest in the attempts by police officers to form their own trade union. He says that he gets more interest from journalists outside Swaziland than from the local media.
‘[We have a] better chance of getting coverage with the international press than we have locally. They don’t really cover much of our stuff, especially if it’s too radical.
‘They’re very scared of upsetting people in power. They do it a little bit but they certainly won’t do it too much.
‘They’re like little boys who throw stones and run away laughing, but they won’t stand there and pelt stones until they’ve broken every window in the house.
‘They just do it a little bit and say “aren’t we naughty”, rather than saying there’s a proper issue here and let’s fight our way through it.’
Distant Horizons was made for BBC TV and originally shown in the UK. It is not available to buy, but pirated DVD copies of the documentary are circulating in Swaziland.
It may not be as raw or controversial as Without The King, another documentary that is circulating under-the-counter in Swaziland, but it does offer an insight into what life is like in Swaziland for ordinary people. It’s worth watching if you can get hold of a copy.
See also
SWAZI POLITICAL DOCO AIRS IN UK
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