KENYAN VIEW OF KING’S OPPRESSION

Some Swazis are reportedly saying they would rather be in Zimbabwe and not Swaziland as far as exercising their democratic rights is concerned, according to this report in the Africa Review, Kenya.

SOURCE

Muting opposition the royal way

26 February 2011

Behind beautiful sceneries and rich culture in a tiny landlocked country in South Africa lies the real face of oppression. This is the reality in Swaziland, which has only come in the limelight because of the famous Reed Dance and its leader whose appetite for marriage only rivals the biblical King Solomon.

Issues dogging Swaziland include economic stagnation, poverty, open corruption, censured democratic space, and high unemployment rate among others.

These put King Mswati’s III leadership style at par with the former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak who was recently given the boot by his subjects during the mass protests that have been sweeping across the Arab states. The situation is so desperate in this country that some Swazis are reportedly saying they would rather be in Zimbabwe and not Swaziland as far as exercising their democratic rights is concerned. Here, disapproval of the king decree puts an individual at risk of losing land, job, house or even life if the king deems so.

As strange as their preference for their northern neighbour may sound, they are arguing that while Zimbabwe is currently facing political turmoil, it is better off as the world knows about her affairs, unlike this little kingdom which is a cauldron of human rights abuses.

The Kingdom of Swaziland became independent from Britain in 1968, but the government has successfully silenced opposition parties by banning all political organisations, frustrating human rights groups, trade unions, and civil society by declaring them as "enemies of peace, stability, security and national progress."

This iron-fisted rule did not start with King Mswati III. In 1973 King Sobhuza II dissolved parties, banned political parties and declared the country an absolute monarchy. The royal family reportedly owns everything from the land, mines and even the mobile phone company, which the ruler can switch on and off as he pleases.

King Mswati remains the ultimate determinant of law and under his ‘visionary’ guidance; sedition and subversion laws scare off any form of resistance to his policies. Although, the country’s constitution was ratified in July 26, 2005, the level of power invested in the king is still enormous such that executive, legislative and judicial powers are all levers in his hand.

And he is not stopping there; he also introduced the controversial terrorism legislation - Suppression of Terrorism Act that gives powers to the Prime Minister to declare anyone or anything to be a terrorist entity. The law gives the government discretion to declare any organisation, statement or documentation a terrorist threat.

AFRICAN TAKE ON SWAZI KING

I offer this article from Kenya’s Daily Nation almost without comment. Except to say that it is an African take on King Mswati III and what is happening in Swaziland at present. It concentrates on the Reed Dance, but like so many of the international media in the last week or so it attacks the king for having a wealth estimated at 200 million US dollars while 70 percent of his subjects earn less than one dollar a day.

A rich ugly king will always be handsome

By Charles Onyango Obbo

Daily Nation, Kenya

Posted Wednesday, September 3 2008 at 18:57

The other day, Daily Nation's naughty little brother, Daily Metro, had a huge photo of Swaziland’s King Mswati III bare chest and in loincloth, on the day of the Reed Dance.

The Reed Dance is an annual event where thousands of bare-breasted “virgins” gather at the royal court, bearing reeds for the queen in a colourful ceremony, that is one of the kingdom’s biggest tourist attractions.

The dance is the occasion when Mswati selects a bride. This year, the 40-year-old king, already the proud husband of 13 wives, was expected to exercise his royal prerogative and pick the 14th.

I look down on the Reed Dance, and believe in a more competitive and democratic way of choosing a bride, but this year, something interesting happened.

The number of maidens who registered for the Reed Dance rose sharply to 60,000 from 40,000 last year.

The curious thing is that the King Mswati we saw in the Daily Metro is unlikely to be many women’s idea of an attractive man.

He was better looking when he was still a young king, and hadn’t put on the weight that has left him with breasts bigger than those of some of the maidens in the parade.

Yet the news agency Reuters reported that; “Tens of thousands of bare-breasted virgins competed for Swaziland King Mswati III’s eye on Monday in a traditional Reed Dance.”

Another one, the French agency AFP spoke to a young Swazi woman Landile Hlongwa, a university student, who said: “Being chosen by the king would be a bonus for me. I would like to occupy one of the royal palaces one day.”

If you take it that the increase in the number of maidens registering for the Reed Dance is crudely reflective of the rise in King Mswati’s sex appeal, then his attractiveness increased by 50 per cent!

That cannot be explained aesthetically because, as we have noted, King Mswati is a far cry from his youthful days.

The logical explanation, we are afraid, might not please all men. The enduring appeal of Mswati seems to prove that women, according to experts who study these things, tend to be attracted to powerful men (while men tend to be attracted more by women’s looks or just bits and pieces of them).

However, Mswati is also cynically benefiting from his failure to solve the mountain kingdom’s many problems.

He has been slammed for his lavish lifestyle, while nearly 70 per cent of his subjects live in poverty. Despite that, recently Forbes magazine listed him as the 15th-richest monarch in the world. He was the only African on the list.

Marriage into the King's harem is, therefore, an escape from poverty for many Swazi women.

Thus Tenene Dlamini, 16, told Reuters; “I came here to dance. I wish the king would have chosen me because it’s nice at the king’s place. The wives live a nice life.”

Critics also say Mswati sets a bad example by encouraging polygamy and teenage sex — he is the one who turned the Reed Dance into a grand event in 1999 — by picking brides during the ceremony, in a country where about 40 percent of adults live with HIV.

Without being unfeeling or frivolous, we have to point out that Swaziland’s infections rates are ironical because a company called YKK Zippers is based in its “neighbour” Lesotho.

YKK Zippers manufactures nearly 100 per cent of the world’s jeans zippers. Maybe there is a message there for Swaziland and its king.

As an absolute monarch, everything in Swaziland basically belongs to Mswati, so we can’t hurry to accuse him of pinching from the Treasury.

REVOLUTION. WHAT REVOLUTION?

I wrote last week about how the foreign media was taking a different point of view to the Swazi press on the two day general strike.

The Swazi press (and radio and television) saw the event as mostly about disruption and violence, whereas the foreign press saw it as a protest in favour of democratic reform.

I criticised Channel S television for exaggerating the extent of the violence and suggested there may have been a bias against the strikers in the report.

But, Channel S is not the only media outlet that exaggerates. I saw this news report from the Nation newspaper in Nairobi, Kenya. Here is the opening sentence, ‘Swaziland, Africa's last obsolete monarch is ripe for a revolution following widespread pro-democracy protests that brought the tiny kingdom to a standstill.’

There’s a wonderful typing error in the paragraph. Or maybe, the king really is obsolete. Perhaps the writer needs to go put more water in his whisky.

Read the report here