Kenworthy
News Media, 4 March 2016
“I am a
victim of circumstances”, says activist Mphandlana ‘Victim’ Shongwe of the
nickname he is known by because of the decades of state harassment he has
endured in his homeland, Swaziland. “But what has kept me going is the desire
to be free”, writes Kenworthy News Media.
“Victim”
is the name that Mphandlana Shongwe – a founding member of Swaziland’s
democratic movement, PUDEMO – is commonly known by in the small absolute
monarchy of Swaziland. He was given his nickname, after reflecting on his life
in Matsapha Central Prison, while awaiting trial for treason in 1990.
It was
here he started counting the many setbacks he had experienced. He has been
expelled from college, been denied a living by the government because of his
activism, been arrested on many occasions for trivial “offences” such as
shouting “viva PUDEMO” and wearing a PUDEMO-t-shirt, and been held in solitary
confinement, beaten up and tortured by the police on several occasions.
More
sadness than joy
As with most other ordinary Swazis, Victim had to choose at an early age
whether or not to accept the enforced poverty and cultural control that is a
fundamental part of King Mswati’s Swaziland.
“My
introduction to poverty and oppression at a tender age had prepared me for a
life of activism”, Victim says of his childhood. “My life has seen more sadness
than joy, more funerals than weddings, and more visits to police cells than
parties”.
And he
has had a life of struggle for justice and democracy that neither his daughter,
his daughter’s mother nor his own mother have been able to understand.
Uneasy
beginnings
Victim, who was born on the 27th of September 1960, did not have an easy
childhood. When he was six, his father was arrested and charged with murder and
died a few years later in prison. His mother suffered from a stroke that left
her temporarily paralysed and meant she had to return to her parents’
homestead.
Victim
ended up in a mission school, where he got his first introduction to oppression
and the struggle to end it. Firstly, by being on the receiving end of whippings
by his teachers, and secondly by hearing about the 1976 Soweto uprising in
neighbouring South Africa in history lessons.
Victim
and his classmate Richard, who were two of the top students, both listened
attentively. Later in life, they would put the learnings of these lessons to
very different use when they met on the streets of Manzini and Mbabane, Victim
as a political activist, Richard as a police officer.
No
independent thinking
It was in high school that Victim first started to reflect on the influence of
the unreflective “banking model” of teaching that was, and is still, employed
as the manner of teaching in many schools in Swaziland.
“As
students, we lacked independent thinking. We were treated as if we were empty
containers which needed to be filled up with knowledge. I would later discover
that this was intentional in order to keep the Swazi student docile. The school
curriculum was designed, as it is still designed, to produce a student who
accepts things as they are without question”, Victim says of his high school
days.
He began
to link the problem of Swaziland’s educational system with the broader lack of
democracy, leadership and direction in Swaziland, and as a result of these
reflections, Victim ended up taking a teacher’s degree after having finishing
high school.
No sleep
‘till justice
It was at teacher’s training college, that Victim truly became aware of the
injustices of the Tinkundla-system of Swaziland’s absolute monarchy. And it was
at here that he started his “career” as a more-or-less full time activist.
“When people went to sleep, we went to distribute pamphlets”, he says of this
period of his life.
It was as
a result of Victim’s involvement in a seemingly endless row of door-to-door
campaigns, pamphlet distributions and political meetings that the he ended up
facing a long prison sentence for the first, but by no means the last, time.
Treason
trial
Along with eleven other activists, including PUDEMO President Mario Masuku,
Victim was arrested and charged with treason in 1990.
Amongst
the charges was conspiring to form a political party with a military wing with
the intention of overthrowing King Mswati’s hand-picked government, organising
trade unions and holding political meetings where overthrowing this government
was discussed.
But as
several prosecution witnesses claimed that their statements had been made under
threats, and other prosecution witnesses’ statements seemed rehearsed, the
judge ruled that any treasonable or subversive activities had not been proved.
A public
face
Victim was given a six month-sentence, for a couple of minor charges, instead
of the yearlong sentences that the prosecutor had called for. And instead of
crushing the movement, the trial had given PUDEMO and Victim a public face both
in Swaziland and beyond.
The High
Court had also proved that there was no armed insurrection being planned by
PUDEMO, but that the organisation was simply concerned with bringing true
democracy to Swaziland.
As he had
already been in jail for this duration, Victim was released immediately.
“It was
that trial that registered the people’s movement, and from thereon we have been
in and out of courts but never looked back”, Victim says of the importance of
the trial.
The usual
suspect
Another effect of the trial was that the state increased the victimisation of
PUDEMO leaders. President Mario Masuku was dismissed in the local bank he had
worked in for 18 years, Victim was expelled from college, and many others
suffered a similar fate.
In fact
it only took a couple of weeks for the police to detain Victim again, this time
on consecutive detention orders without him and his two co-detainees being told
what the charges against them were.
The trio
went on a hunger strike that only ended after several weeks of agony, a royal
pardon, and after Victim had suffered from heart failure and was told by a
doctor that he could easily die.
A bright
future?
Since the hunger strike, Victim has been in and out of prison and has been
constantly harassed and on occasion beaten up and tortured by the police. He
has also remained unemployed because of his PUDEMO activism.
In 1994
he was arrested for demonstrating peacefully against the government, and became
an Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience. In 2006 he was beaten
unconscious by police under interrogation and dumped in a hospital bleeding
profusely. In 2009 he was arrested for shouting slogans wearing a PUDEMO
t-shirt, and charged with terrorism. And the list goes on.
“Long prison terms are a risk that anyone who stands up against the system
face”, says Victim. “But every time I face danger, I recall the words of ANC
member Solomon Mahlangu, who, when leaving the court to be hanged by the
apartheid regime in 1979, said: ‘Mama, tell my people that I love them and my
blood shall nourish the tree of freedom’”.
No
personal agenda
And regardless of the setbacks and endless victimisation, Victim is today a
free man in an unfree country (although out on bail since 2006, and having to
report to the police station every Friday).
He is
optimistic about the future of Swaziland and believes that it is a matter of
years, not decades, before it will become a democracy.
But
Victim also warns of the dangers of the struggle for democracy and freedom, the
closer victory seems at hand.
“The hour before dawn is a period where some people start pushing personal
agendas at the expense of progress. And any agenda which excludes group
representation is bound to keep the status quo intact”, he says, alluding to
the fact that the struggle is not about personal gain but a constant fight for
a better future for everyone.
Not on a
silver plate
He also insists that it is obvious that democracy will not be delivered on a
silver plate or necessarily or automatically follow a collapse of King Mswati’s
Tinkundla-regime.
“There is
no scenario in history where the ruling class voluntarily handed over power to
the oppressed”, Victim emphasises.
“The
country is where it is today because people were quiet when they were supposed
to speak. But change will only come when the people of Swaziland choose to die
on the streets, so to speak, if necessary. There has never been a time when I
thought of giving up the struggle and I have never looked back with despair,
although I have nothing in material form except the willpower to hold, even
when there is nothing to hold on to”.
This
article is based on Mphandlana “Victim” Shongwes book “The Last Mile”, as well
as on conversations and correspondence between the author and Shongwe.
Swaziland
has been an absolute monarchy since 1973, where the King Sobhuza declared a
State of Emergency that banned all political parties and centralised all power
within the monarchy.
The 2005
constitution reinforces this by leaving freedom of speech and control of
virtually all aspects of government and the judiciary at the mercy of the king,
as does the Suppression of Terrorism Act, an “inherently repressive act”
according to Amnesty International, which defines terrorism in very sweeping
terms.
Swazi
legislation thus leaves almost no political space for the population but gives
the police and security forces almost unlimited powers to clamp down heavily on
peaceful demonstrations and meetings deemed to be “political”.
