Stiffkitten blog
7 May 2012
Let them eat cake,
Princess Sikhanyiso
“Most people have
the Internet on their phones – I think almost everyone in Swaziland is on
Facebook.”
Princess Sikhanyiso, the eldest daughter of Swaziland’s
absolute monarch, King Mswati III, is speaking about the telecommunications
industry in Swaziland at her graduation at Sydney University, where she also told the Australian tabloid, The Daily Telegraph, that she
wishes to put her newly attained Master’s Degree in Digital Communication to
good use when she returns to Swaziland next week.
She might as well have said “let them
eat cake,” though – the infamous remark erroneously attributed to France’s
Queen Marie Antoinette when she was supposedly told that her people had no
bread during a famine.
Because only a little over 50,000 people in Swaziland
have a Facebook account out of a population of 1,3 million, according
to Internet World Stats, and 95,000 have an Internet connection. And, more
seriously, two thirds of the population survive on less than a dollar a day,
many on food aid from the United Nations. They are hardly going to use what
little money they have on mobile phones.
Princess Sikhanyiso’s father, King Mswati III, is no less
prone to realism. In a speech he held when opening parliament in February, he
urged all Swazis to work harder to help save an economy that he and his
handpicked government has virtually bankrupted. “This is a time for every Swazi
to stand up and be counted amongst those who contributed to the economic
revival of our country,” he said at the time.
But before asking his subjects to tighten their belts, he
and his family had taken a 23 per cent increase in their budgeted income for
2012. And this from a king who has an estimated personal fortune of over US$200
million, personally controls a trust fund of over US$10 billion, has built a
palace for each of his 13 wives and recently treated himself to a McDonnell
Douglas DC-9 luxury jet for his birthday.
2 comments:
Those who know me know me well and those who don't can go to hell. I imagine she is saying this to your bloody useless article.
Hmmm. Just watched a film called "Without the King" and looked up the princess on Google. I, unlike the previous commenter appreciate the information. See the film. It may help to change your view. The princess should care about the difference between PR image and real faux paus.
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