SWAZI KING’S PRIVATE LINE TO GOD

Pass the sick-bag please.

Even by its own extraordinary poor standards of journalism, the Swazi Observer today (21 October 2009) surpasses itself.

King Mswati III is, the Observer tells its readers, ‘ordained by God to lead his people’.

Says who? Well not God at any rate. Musa Ndlangamandla the Observer chief editor who wrote the article didn’t get a quote from a reliable source.

Instead, he used Lutfo Dlamini, Swaziland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.

In what has to be one of the most embarrassing examples of brown-nosing ever recorded Dlamini stood up in public and recited a ‘poem’ he had written about the king.

I won’t inflict much of it on you but it contained the line, ‘You are living proof that Kings and Monarchs are ordained by God to lead his people’.

He also calls the king who is sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, ‘the champion of unity’ and (this one particularly made me heave because the king forces 70 percent of his subjects to live in absolute poverty) ‘the anchor of prosperity’.

Dlamini went on to tell the king, ‘Your Majesty we once again wish to take this opportunity before your gracious self to pledge our unwavering loyalty to honest service to Your Majesty and to uphold the values whilst upholding the pride of the Swazi nation at all times.’

Editor’s note: The Swazi Observer is a newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati.