Lingashoni,
eSwatini Institute of Alternative Ideas, interviews Richard Rooney, publisher
of the human rights blog Swazi Media Commentary
15
December 2019
Many
people have known your work but very few seem to recall your connection to
Swaziland. I know, for example, that you taught journalism for years at the
then University of Swaziland and tried to introduce a degree program and all
the challenges that came with that. Take us back a bit, what were the
challenges working at the University in Swaziland and improving the academic
content of the journalism department specifically?
I was the
founding head of the department of Journalism and Mass Communications. I had
been the acting head of the English Language and Literature Department, which
included a journalism diploma programme. We de-linked JMC from English and
created a stand-alone department within the Humanities Faculty. By the time I
left we had created the Bachelor degree programme in JMC but it had not been
introduced. It took several more years before this happened – and by that time
I had left the university.
The
challenges were many. UNISWA had (and still has) a problem with capacity. That
means taken as a whole the staff (administration and academic) have little
experience working outside of Swaziland. Many of the lecturers, for instance,
went to school in Swaziland and then studied at UNISWA. This meant they had no
experience or knowledge or how things might be done differently. Many of the
academics had low-level academic qualifications. Of course, there were / are
individuals who had more experience, but they are not allowed to show
initiative and so are unable to make changes.
I left at
the end of my fixed-term contract because I could see that even if I worked for
another 10 years at UNISWA, nothing would change.
The
students were also a challenge. There was a problem of the English language.
University students had poor fluency in both written and oral English and the
students’ lack of competency in the English language was the biggest challenge
at UNISWA.
At
UNISWA, as well as a lack of language skills I found there were a number of
characteristics of journalism students that make educating them as journalists
difficult. Generally, they had poor reporting and interviewing skills, a low
commitment to their studies, next to no knowledge of Swaziland outside of their
immediate environment and slight knowledge of the world beyond the kingdom’s
borders.
They did
not read for enjoyment (and only reluctantly for their studies) and would only
undertake class work if it lead to academic credit. This last point made it
especially difficult to motivate students to practice to improve their
journalistic skills.
Especially
problematic for journalism students was that they had next to no exposure to a
range and variety of magazines, newspapers, television and radio. This was in
part due to the small size of the Swazi media industry, but it also reflected
their reluctance even to engage with media that was available within Swaziland.
You
obviously were teaching journalism in a country where the media space is almost
exclusively owned and controlled by the king/government. Did this present
specific challenges as a lecturer and how were you able to overcome them?
I come
from a background of human rights and I was very well aware of the situation in
Swaziland before I arrived. In many countries with similar human rights issues
to Swaziland the universities are centres of resistance to the undemocratic
regimes. UNISWA was not like that, except for one or two individuals.
The
political situation might have been challenging but I took the personal
decision to advocate for human rights and media freedom etc. I was well into my
forties when I joined UNISWA and had a long career in universities and
journalism behind me. I considered that the worst they could do to me was expel
me from the country. If they did that it would make little difference to me
personally. I had a home in England and I could get another job.
As it
happened I left when my contract expired. Contrary to reports from my enemies I
was not sacked, nor did UNISWA refuse to renew my contract. I gave ample notice
of my intention to leave and the Administration asked me to reconsider and to
stay. However, I knew (as I say in Q1) that staying would achieve very little.
During
your time in Swaziland the administration of the University itself came to resemble the
administration of the country in more ways than one. Was this not stifling
enough as academics and what were the problems of teaching in an institution
mirrored in the same manner as the state is ran?
The most
obvious problem at UNISWA is that it is ‘micro-managed’ – that means no
individual can take initiative and everything one does is checked and double
checked. There is a blame culture and people protect their own position, right
up to the Vice-Chancellor. This means it is safer to leave things as they are.
One example from my time was after students took their examinations every
single mark given for students’ work by a lecturer was checked and agreed (or
not) by an external examiner from a university outside UNISWA. Then – even
though it had already taken about a week for the external examiners to do their
work – every single mark was checked once again by the university Senate.
The
result of that is dispiriting for lecturers. It shows the Administration
doesn’t trust them to do even the most basic of their work. It is just one
aspect of the lecturer’s work. Multiply that by all the other work the lecturer
does you can see that it just grinds them down. Why bother to show initiative?
The
UNISWA Administration were poor communicators (to students and staff). They
preferred to place paid adverts in the local papers telling what was going on
and what decisions they had taken rather than actually telling people (through
a meeting, for example). This was particular the case during the many times
students boycotted classes in protest.
Do you
feel there is enough intellectual rigour at the University of Swaziland or
academics have cowered into silence and no longer use the academic space to
challenge reactionary policies of the government? What can academics do to
expand the frontiers of knowledge using the power of institutional autonomy?
The
obvious problem at UNISWA in my time (and it hasn’t changed much since) is that
most of the programmes taught to students are at the diploma level. There were
few bachelor degrees, and I can’t remember any graduate masters degrees being
taught. There were definitely no Ph.D doctoral programmes.
What that
means is that UNISWA was not (still is not) a UNIVERSITY. In other countries it
would be called a technical college (or tertiary college). Most of the academic
staff themselves have relatively low-level academic qualifications and are not
themselves trained in high-level research, for example. Perhaps, UNISWA could
tell us how many lecturers have Ph.D doctorates. I don’t know that
academics were ‘cowered’ into silence. I think they were mostly unaware of what
university academics were supposed to do.
For
things to improve requires a root-and-branch change at the university. It needs
an Administration that recognizes it has a problem and then it needs a plan to
improve the quality of the staff. That’s not going to happen.
You make
an interesting observation that in other countries the University would be some
kind of a college. Would you mind expanding on this and give us your take on
the infrastructure capacity of the university to meet global University
standards, the quality of the course and importantly how the lack of PhD
courses hampers the University academic standing.
We must
remember that Swaziland is a developing country with particular needs and the
university and schools and colleges more generally should support these needs.
This means teaching around agriculture, science, engineering and technology. At
UNISWA so many students are on law or commerce programmes. That is an irony
because Swaziland has a tiny formal economy and there is little or no ‘rule of
law’ in the kingdom.
I
won’t give my personal opinion on the problem because a publication from the
World Bank written by Mmantsetsa Marope called The Education System in
Swaziland, analyses the situation so well. It was published in 2010
but nothing like it has been published since and it is still relevant to the
situation today in Swaziland. The report revealed that UNISWA was placed
7,321st among all universities in the world (and 84th
among universities in Africa) in the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities.
This is based on the amount of research published by academics at the
university.
The World
Bank published report stated that UNISWA’s core mandate is generally accepted
by the university and government as producing people with knowledge and skills
to benefit the national economy.
‘In
reality this purpose seems to have progressively received less attention as the
focus seems to have shifted to providing young Swazis university qualifications
regardless of their relevance to the economy and to overall national
development,’ the report concluded.
The
report said UNISWA produced its own strategic plans to show where it saw its
priorities, but the link between these plans and national development ‘is at
best obscure’. There was no firm connection between ‘the national development
agenda and university study, research and community development programs’.
The
management of the university was out of touch with the needs of the kingdom,
the World Bank stated. UNISWA has King Mswati as its Chancellor and he directly
appoints the chair of the university council. The council governs the
university and oversees its administration, is dominated by people from the
public service and has very limited representation of organisations and
industries that could be expected to employ the university’s graduates.
The
appointment of council members was not necessarily ‘merit-based’. ‘As such it
lacked balance between expertise and experience of the members and the most
important sectors of the economy,’ the World Bank published report stated.
Courses
offered at the university were limited to undergraduate levels of study with
less than 1 percent of students in graduate programs (in 2007) except for those
in the post-graduate certificates in education.
‘Therefore,
UNISWA does not produce the level of knowledge workers who could spearhead
research and who could foster research and development partnerships with
industry,’ the report stated.
UNISWA
was mainly a ‘teaching university’ that did not do much for producing graduates
with ‘high-level research and analytical skills’.
UNISWA
also excluded children who were poor and from rural areas and because of this
could be ‘reproducing social inequalities and cementing the current social
class structure.
‘The fact
that gifted children from poor families have little or no access to higher
education is not just a personal loss to them and their families; it is an
unaffordable wastage of the county’s potential human capital base and its
associated development impact,’ the World Bank published report stated.
‘The vast
majority of university students comes from rich urban areas, and relatively few
from more remote rural areas. Since secondary schools in remote, rural areas
tend to be considerably weaker than schools in urban areas, it is difficult
even for talented children, to qualify for university education.’
In
summary, UNISWA lacked relevance to the needs of the kingdom. The World Bank
published report noted there ‘seems to be no formal processes for placing the
university [UNISWA] at the center of the national development dialogue’. In
plain English that means the university and the government don’t plan together
for the kingdom’s needs.
The
report also analysed what it called the education, training and skills
development sector (ETSDS) (that is preschool, schools, colleges and
universities). It found it was inadequate to supply people capable of working
in a modern economy, especially where skills in technology and innovation were
needed.
‘The
current ETSDS is not sufficient to support national development aspirations and
goals, accelerated and shared growth, and global competitiveness,’ the report
stated. Among the key weaknesses in the education sector are low
attendance at schools and colleges, inequalities of access and inefficient use
of resources.
The
report went on, ‘Access is limited across all levels of the ETSDS. Current levels
of access are inadequate to supply the right threshold and mix of skills
required to meet national and regional labor market demands, to support
accelerated and shared growth, and to make Swaziland globally competitive.
Access is particularly low from the secondary level upwards, the very levels
which are proven to be essential for the supply of knowledge workers required’
While at
the University it was always rocked by student protests. Did you feel those
protests achieved anything and if not why?
Clearly,
nothing has changed or there would be no need for continued protests. Students
protest about the same thing year after year: allowances and resources. Once
the allowances are paid the protests stop: until the next semester. I have
never seen any student-led campaign calling for an overhaul of the way the
university is organised so that it can teach them properly. Perhaps that tells
us something about the mentality of the students: they are only concerned with
their own short-term interests.
One of the
successes of the Swazi Media blog is not so much that it provided a digital
archive for the happenings in the country in the last ten or more years but
that it inspired a lot of online activism that surfaced long suppressed voices.
However, those blogs and internet presence seem to have disappeared. What do
you think accounts for this dearth of internet presence of alternative voices
in Swaziland?
There are
many webpages and blogs about Swaziland and there are also lots of Facebook
pages. In my opinion the issue with many is that they are very ‘emotional’ –
they will, for example, sound off against the King or whatever, but contain
very few facts. This means that readers LEARN very little from reading these
posts. What Swazi Media Commentary does is to give information (and commentary
based on that information) in support of human rights in Swaziland.
You
have worked in different countries. Can you share what is the one thing
that you found distinctly different about Swaziland with regards how the
University is managed and importantly the content taught?
I wrote
above (Q4) about the issues with UNISWA. Of course, there are other
universities across the world (especially the developing world) which face
similar issues of capacity. UNISWA might not be unique in this but the fact
that it has the absolute monarch as its Chancellor demonstrates that it is part
of the political establishment and will not challenge the power structure in
the kingdom
Your blog
is read extensively and is used a source of news and information on Swaziland.
Is there a particular style that you use in your articles that ensures that
even a first time reader about Swaziland understand what is happening in the
kingdom or they need to read back to a lot of your previous posts to get a picture
of the happenings in the kingdom?
I always
assume the reader is not an expert and even if they read the blog often they
will not remember details of what has been written before. I often repeat
information already published in previous posts.
Other
tips:
Keep the
writing simple. Short sentences. Lots of space on the page.
Base
commentary on information / facts. There is no value in simply abusing the King
for taking resources from the poor: demonstrate how he does it. Remind people
constantly that he wears a watch worth US$1.5 million, a suit beaded with
diamonds, he has two private jets, 13 palaces, fleets of BMW and Rolls-Royce
cars. He and his family spend millions on lavish foreign trips. Then talk about
the seven in ten of his people who live in abject poverty, the children who
have died because of lack of cheap medicines (e.g. for diarrhoea.) Make the
connections between the king’s wealth and the people’s poverty.
Repetition.
Always refer to Swaziland as a ‘kingdom’, not a country or nation. The word
‘kingdom’ suggests it is run by a monarch and is not a
democracy.
Repetition. As much as possible refer to King Mswati III as,
‘an absolute monarch’ or ‘sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch’. That
phrase shows Swaziland is not a democracy.
Use ‘hot
links’ within posts to direct the reader to the source of the information so if
they wish they can read more.
Give two
or three ‘See alsos’ at the end, which are links to other posts on the same or
similar topic – these can give context.
Have you
ever been threatened in any way for the work you do? I ask this because in the past
government has accused you of spreading propaganda?
When I
was in Swaziland I had a long-standing invitation from the US Embassy that
should I be out and about (driving on the highway, for instance) and feel that
I was being followed or in some way in danger, I should drive immediately to
the US compound for sanctuary. (I am a UK citizen, but the UK did not have an
embassy or such representation in Swaziland). I get a lot of abuse online.
I don’t share information about my personal life to make it more difficult for
enemies to keep tabs on me.
You have
watched from a safe distance this battle between the pro-democracy movement and
the government rage on for years. Most observers are generally harsh on the
pro- democracy movement for not being effective enough to push the government
to change. What most commentators miss is that Swaziland is a small country and
you cannot expect thousands of Swazis in the streets like you normally see in
countries with bigger populations. And the spatial distribution of Swazis is
such that most are in rural areas and very difficult to mobilise into joining
protests. This coupled with the fact that the state has a tight control of the
society it means it will be a long while before we see the Egypt uprising type
of numbers on the streets. Given this, what do you think has been the
weaknesses of the pro-democracy government both internally and internationally?
Swaziland
is a feudal state. That means that the King has power over his subjects
day-to-day lives. He does this through chiefs who have power to allocate land,
jobs and local resources. Chiefs can also literally decide life-and-death as
they are usually involved in deciding who gets international food aid. If a
person steps out of line he / she and their family face ruin, exile and
possible starvation. Many schools and churches also support the King and will
tell people he is sent by God. And who would want to fight the will of God?
Pro-democracy
groups in Swaziland are banned under the Suppression of Terrorism Act and all
political parties are banned from taking part in the national election. This makes
it difficult to organize. If parties were allowed people could more easily get
together to discuss the situation in Swaziland, to identify what needs to
change and to put forward a programme on how to make these changes. Without
this ability to organize there is little chance of developing and testing
ideas. We see this all the time in Swaziland.
A least
two things have to happen. People have to understand their position and why
they are poor (Swaziland is considered a ‘middle-income’ country and poverty is
driven by the fact that wealth is not distributed) and they have to find ways
to change that situation.
Second,
political parties must be un-banned. Then the parties can organize properly and
attract the brightest people who can build their capacities through
organization. People should be allowed to elect parties based on their
economic, education, social etc. programmes. The party that gets most support
should form the government. The party (parties) that did not should form a
‘shadow government’ that would continually monitor the government and hold it
to account. It would be waiting in the wings to form the next government if the
people so decide at the next election.
The Swazi
state is very repressive than it is officially acknowledged. Most of activists
do not get media coverage because the local press is tightly controlled and
their stories are not juicy enough for South African press. South African media
prefers to report things that relate to the king. How can alternative media be
developed so Swazis can tell their own stories and build a movement for change?
The best
‘alternative media’ is word of mouth. Tell one another what’s going on.
Exchange experiences. Let people realise that they are not alone in their
difficulties. Together discuss what you personally can do to change things.
Build a movement from the ground up. Social media can assist later. For
example, by sharing practical information – where a meeting is to be held. The
place for a demonstration etc.
There is
a lot of ‘feel good’ effect that social media has presented to many activists.
There is a growing view that venting out on social media will change Swaziland.
How can activists translate this important online presence with real on the
ground organizing?
I might
have answered this in my answer to question 11. Venting out on social media
will NOT change a thing. But, it can be helpful in letting people know that
they are not alone. I suspect the LGBTI social media is very important
for this.
Social
media often times creates a false picture of the state of resistance in the
country. We saw this with the April 12 uprising that became a damp squib and
recently with the purchase of the king’s cars social media outrage. The media
gets hooked into the social media outrage and only to be disappointed when they
travel to cover the impending uprising in Swaziland. What are the pitfalls of
reading too much on social media?
There are
no pitfalls. Every little helps. But if you want to change the government you
have to work on the ground. I suspect the big problem with the April 12
Revolution was that it existed only on social media. This was unlike the
so-called Arab Spring that inspired it. There activists were working
politically on the ground for a long time before and social media kept people
informed of what was going on.
Was there
a specific idea that sparked the idea of the blog and how has it grown over the
years?
Yes, the
clue is in the title: Swazi Media Commentary. The blog started as a teaching
tool for my students at UNISWA. All the books on journalism in the university
library (and there weren’t many) were published in the US or UK and related to
the experience of doing journalism in those countries. They had very little
relevance to Swaziland. I set up the blog so I could upload examples from the
Swazi media of good and bad practice. Those posts are still on the blog if
anyone wants to read them.
Shortly
after I launched the blog I was commenting on the media coverage of a textile
strike in Swaziland when it became evident to me that the blog was being read
by people outside of my class and outside UNISWA. I was asked by the Swaziland
Solidarity Network if I would share my posts on their email forum (this was, I
think, before Facebook took off). I did this and very soon the character of the
blog grew to become about human rights generally and not just media.
I cannot
tell you how much it has grown because I just don’t know. The posts appear on
swazimedia.blogspot.com and are then copied onto my Facebook pages. They are
then shared across Facebook (I don’t know how often).
All
Africa <allafrica.com> a news aggregator asked for permission to copy my
posts. It is a global news organization, specializing in stories from Africa.
My posts appear on its website and any number of websites copy posts from All
Africa.
Posts
have been cited in many publications from mainstream newspaper to the World
Bank, the US State Dept, Human Rights Watch and Commonwealth Human Rights
Initiative. This is in addition to academic work in refereed journals.
I am
regularly contacted by journalists working for international media seeking
background information on Swaziland.
Lastly,
you surely must miss a few things about our country. What are the good things
you miss home about the people or even the country as a whole?
Parts of
Swaziland are very beautiful. That is the main reason tourists visit (that and
the fact it is very easy to get to from South Africa which was their main
destination). However, we cannot forget that it is in the most beautiful areas
of Swaziland that the harshest poverty exists.
