SWAZI PRESS AND ‘WARLIKE’ MUSLIMS

The Swazi newspapers report Muslims as warlike people who are plotting against Swaziland and who have no respect for Swazi customs.

This is one of the conclusions from an academic research paper I have written that has just been published.

In June 2007 inhabitants of the Swaziland capital Mbabane panicked when it was rumoured that a group of cannibals was at large in the city.

To report this, the Swazi News newspaper dominated its front page with the headline EMAZIMU! [the siSwati word for cannibals) and a photograph taken from the Internet that purported to be of cannibals in the Amazon jungle. On page two the newspaper reported that Mbabane was ‘ripped by a tense sense of fear’.

The report continued, ‘The city has been engulfed by fear that strange beings, or man-eating beings, have descended on the city’ (Swazi News June 16, 2007).

‘Cannibals are feared to be in Mbabane, and the nation has pressed the panic button in fear that their safety cannot be guaranteed anymore.

‘Panicking members of the public have flooded with calls the Royal Swaziland Police Service and His Majesty’s Correctional Services.”

The report went on in similar terms until the newspaper saw fit to inform its readers that the ‘invasion’ of Mbabane and other areas of Swaziland was not an invasion of cannibals but a visit to the city by a group of Muslims.

The following week the newspaper returned to the story and revealed that the cannibals were in fact a visiting group of Muslims from Pakistan and there was no need to panic. However, the report included this sentence, ‘Obviously, confused by a group of at least 15 men with beards and of foreign origin it was easy for everyone to refer to the group of cannibals.’ (Swazi News June 23 2007).

The newspaper did not explain how a group who were visiting Swaziland to engage in prayer could be confused with flesh eating cannibals.

This news report indicates the extent of prejudice towards Muslims that exists in the Swazi media. The reports of panic in the streets of Mbabane and the glib assertion by the Swazi News that it was ‘obvious’ why Swazi people could mistake Muslims for cannibals highlights the question of how newspapers in Swaziland frame what I am calling in this article the ‘Muslim threat’. My article explores more fully the role of the press in this framing.

To examine coverage of Muslims fully my paper concentrates on three themes about Muslims that are present in the Swazi Press. These themes are (i) the perception that Muslims were to blame for the changing of the Swaziland constitution itself; (ii) a report that Muslims were enticing university students to convert to Islam in return for scholarships; and (iii) a public symposium run on the subject of Islam.

This newspaper coverage affords an opportunity to discuss how the framing of the Muslim in Swaziland has been organised with particular reference to professional and operational determinants and the creation of stereotypes.

The article concludes that the Swazi Press frames Muslims as warlike people who are plotting against Swaziland and who have no respect for Swazi customs. The religion of Islam is inferior to Christianity ‘the only true religion’ and Muslims are conniving to force decent Christians in Swaziland to convert to Islam in return for money.

The research is published in Lwati, A Journal of Contemporary Research, Vol 5. For subscription details contact the editor Dr F Mogu on lwatijo@yahoo.com

See also
MORE RACISM IN THE SWAZI PRESS