Twice in one week the Times of Swaziland has said that King Mswati III is ignorant of all the problems in his kingdom because his government isn't telling him.
Today (28 August 2008), The Times in an editorial comment lists a catalogue of problems in Swaziland ranging from poverty to poor schooling through crumbling (if existent at all) health services to a week economy.
The Times blames the outgoing Prime Minister Themba Dlamini for painting a rosy picture of Swaziland to the King.
On Monday (25 August 2008) in another editorial comment the Times blamed the Swazi Cabinet for keeping information from the King about the inappropriateness of spending so lavishly on the forthcoming 40/40 celebrations, which will celebrate the King's 40th birthday.
The Times blames the Government for not defending the King when he subsequently gets blamed in the international community for being out of touch with his subjects.
I don't know what game the Times is playing. I know that in Swaziland censorship and self-censorship is rife in the media, but to say that King Mswati III is incapable of knowing what's going on in his own kingdom because his ministers aren't telling him is wide of the mark.
Even the Swazi newspapers have been reporting on the abject poverty in Swaziland and the 70 percent of the population who earn less than one US dollar a day at a time when the King has an estimated wealth of 200 million US dollars.
The newspapers have been full of complaints about the cost of the 40/40 celebrations and the outrage that eight of the King's wives went on a shopping trip to the Middle East in a chartered aircraft. To add insult to this, people at the Matsapha Airport in Swaziland were forcibly removed when the wives returned from shopping (presumably so they couldn't see all the luxuries the Queens had brought back).
For the Times to suggest that King Mswati III doesn't know any of this because his ministers haven't told him is to insult the intelligence of the King.
He does know. What is more, if the Times insists that the King doesn't know, why doesn't it tell us what would be different if he did. Would the poor be any less poor? Education any better? The health service not crumbling.
I very much doubt it.
The Times also needs to be careful about insulting the intelligence of its readers. The Times' website has many readers' comments attached to today's editorial.
One reader writes that the Times' editor does not write sense.
Another says, 'The media should stop protecting the king by pretending he is being misled by the people around him. He is an adult now and is aware of what is going on.'
Another reader writes, 'If Mswati is mislead that only shows how stupid and gullible he is.'
And so the comments go on.
Let's stop pretending that the problem is that the King doesn't know what is going on. Let's admit that the system that lets the wealth and power remain in a tiny number of hands is rotten. Once we recognise that we can have a grown-up debate about what to do to save Swaziland.
1 comment:
The following comment in the above post appeared at the Swaziland Solidarity Network Forum http://groups.google.com/group/sa-swaziland-solidarity-eom-forum
Isn't Martin Dlamini the weekly editor for the Times?
Can anyone explain if he's a 2nd or 3rd cousin to the dlamini lion?
From his picture online he looks like a young person and one wonders where he studied journalism and what were his credential in hooking that job!
To me, whomever the editor is, he seems like just one more non-Observer?
Hey Editor, since you may read this Forum as well, take off your rosy glasses. Don't you know manure is really just cow shit?
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