NEW DEPTHS OF SWAZI GAY HATRED

Swaziland’s Times Sunday has sunk to new depths in propagating its hatred of homosexuality.

In an extraordinary move, the newspaper has given space to one of the world’s most renowned hate groups, the Family Research Institute (FRI), to peddle lies about homosexuals.

The publication follows two weeks of vilification of two Swazi lesbian women who have told friends they intend to marry.

The latest move came yesterday (13 September 2009) with the publication of a reader’s letter under the heading Homosexuality, Murder and AIDS, from BB Nkosi detailing ‘research’ from the FRI. (Readers of the Times Sunday will recognise that Nkosi is regularly given space in the newspaper to peddle his offensive views, often about women).

The ‘research’ cited is so full of lies that it’s impossible to know where to start in contradicting them. The lies are so obvious that even someone with the most cursory knowledge of homosexuality should be able to see through them

What on earth was the editor of the Times Sunday thinking of when he allowed Nkosi to claim that the majority of men in the US who have sex with other men have AIDS? That ‘homosexuals, not the straight people, are responsible for molesting boys’, ‘homosexual “homes” often become prisons of torture’, homosexuals are serial killers. And so on and so forth.

You can almost see the spit running down Nkosi’s chin as he hammers the hatred into his keyboard.

The Times Sunday is so crass in its treatment of homosexuality that it is becoming a menace to the people of Swaziland. It is not conducting a reasoned debate about homosexuality in the kingdom, it is simply fanning the flames of hatred.

There is no excuse for the Times of Sunday publishing this letter. The editor cannot say he was ignorant of the FRI and what its stands for, the organisation is world renowned for its vilification of homosexuality and the lies it tells.

By its own admission, the FRI exists to ‘generate empirical research on issues that threaten the traditional family, particularly homosexuality’.

It sums up its fundamentalist credentials thus, ‘We welcome all who would join in the fight to restore a world where marriage is upheld and honored, where children are nurtured and protected, and where homosexuality is not taught and accepted, but instead is discouraged and rejected at every level.’

The FRI, which is based in Colorado Springs, US, is considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. (SPLC). To put this into context another SPLC ‘hate group’ is the Ku Klux Klan, the group famous for burning crosses and lynching black people.

The leading ‘scientist’ at FRI is Paul Cameron. According to the SPLC, ‘While he makes no attempt to disguise his personal bias, Cameron dresses up his studies with footnotes, bibliographies and charts, and then publishes them in bogus “academic” journals. His work is propaganda masquerading as science and has been repeatedly unmasked as such by many legitimate scientists.

‘Cameron himself has been cast out of both the American Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association. The ASA declared that, “Dr. Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented sociological research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism.”’

It added, ‘One recent Cameron study concluded that lesbians are 300 times more likely to die in car accidents than heterosexual women.’

Surely, even the Times Sunday can see through that.

‘OBSERVER’ BACKS SWAZI HATE GROUP

A new hate group has launched in Swaziland with the support of the Swazi Observer.

A group calling itself the Prolife Movement in Anglophone Africa (PMAA) was given a full page in the Observer yesterday (Wednesday 27 February 2008) to highlight what it says are the ‘evils’ of
- Condoms
- Sex education
- Radical feminism
- Homosexuality, and
- Abortion

The Observer allowed a spokesman purporting to be the ‘regional coordinator’ of the PMAA to spout dangerous nonsense such as ‘condoms may even be one of the main reasons for the spread of HIV and AIDS’ and the use of condoms ‘may lead to certain deaths’.

The Observer gave the ‘spokesman’ the opportunity to say that ‘radical feminism’ had the ‘potential to increase the rate of abortion, substance abuse, homosexuality and lead to moral decadence of society’.

At no point did the Observer require the PMAA to offer one shred of evidence to support its assertions.

Also, PMAA claimed to be already present in 82 countries around the world with the aim to be in every country by 2010.

I don’t know who this PMAA is because when I searched for it on the Internet its name didn’t appear. Not on any of the general search engines I used, nor in search engines for news articles, nor in search engines for blogsites. And all of this despite the organisation’s claim to be in 82 countries around the globe.

So who are the members of PMAA? The Observer article claimed that it has connections with the Catholic Church and the Salesians in Manzini.

By publishing this nonsense from PMAA the Observer has broken the very first article of the Swaziland National Association of Journalists (SNAJ) Code of Conduct, which states it is the duty of every journalist to write and report, adhere to and faithfully defend, the truth.

To properly serve the public, a journalist should make adequate inquiries, do cross-checking of facts in order to provide the public with unbiased, accurate, balanced and comprehensive information, the code states.

The Observer has also broken Article 6 of the same code of conduct. Article 6 states that a journalist shall not originate material which encourages discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity, colour, creed, gender or sexual orientation.

It also contravenes Article 13 on ‘hate speech’, by publishing material that might promote hatred, spite and conflict.

I would like the Observer to tell its readers more about PMAA. Some of the questions its reporter could ask PMAA are: who are your leaders? Where does your finance come from? Why are you such a shadowy organisation? Why do you tell deliberate and dangerous lies about condoms and HIV AIDS?

The Observer has disgraced itself by publishing this propaganda for an extreme organisation that has one aim only and that is to spread hatred throughout Swaziland.

HATE SPEECH AND GAYS

Hate speech is rife in the Swazi press. Hardly a week goes by without some disparaging reference to religious, ethnic or sexual minorities. At the moment the gays are getting a particularly hard time of it.

The hate writing is so casual I wonder whether journalists actually think before they put finger to keyboard. An item in the Scene and Heard column of Times Sunday newspaper (1 July 2007) is about a performance by the all male Chippendales dance group which attracted some gay men to the audience. This the journalist found annoying. The unnamed journalist concludes, ‘I hate gays and the sooner we rid ourselves of such evil the better.’

Article 13 of the SNAJ code of conduct says journalists should avoid publication of words that might promote hatred. The Times Sunday failed abysmally. To assist reporters and their editors here is a definition of hate speech: ‘Type of speech or writing which can do any of the following: deliberately offend, degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against someone based on their race, ethnicity, profession, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. It can be aimed at an individual; or racial, ethnic, religious or other group. Such speech generally seeks to condemn or dehumanize the individual or group; or express anger, hatred, violence or contempt toward them.’

Unfortunately, such hatred as published by the Times Sunday is not isolated. Late last year, days after South Africa confirmed its same sex civil partnership law, Swaziland’s Weekend Observer ran a comment piece by Dr Ben Dlamini with the headline, ‘Same sex marriages are an abomination of the human spirit’. His words are so hateful that I don’t want to repeat them here, but the gist of his writing is that because animals do not engage in homosexual acts, men who do so are lower than animals. He is undeterred by his own ignorance, because, of course, one can find examples of homosexual behaviour all over the animal kingdom.

Ben Dlamini concludes his article by stating that anyone who is ‘afflicted’ with homosexuality needs serious medical attention and he looks forward to the time that the ‘condition’ of homosexuality can be treated by hormone therapy.

The same edition of the Weekend Observer carries an article by Pastor Justice Dlamini on the same topic. Interestingly, he too, writes from a position of ignorance. Introducing his column ‘Only Jesus Can Help Homosexuals Overcome’, he describes homosexuality as ‘the desire to be the opposite sex or belief that one is “trapped” in a body of the wrong sex’ (he has confused the transsexual with the homosexual).

He then goes on to extensively quote Biblical references that he claims lament ‘bitterly about the men who practice homosexuality and the women who are lesbians’. ‘God vows that such people will not escape His wrath’. He writes, ‘I must quickly mention that if such people are not helped they are likely to have a tragic ending.’

The Weekend Observer is not alone in encouraging hatred of homosexuals. A couple of weeks before these two articles appeared; the Swazi News reported that gays and lesbians were responsible for the increase in child sex attacks in the country. A report with the stark accusatory headline ‘Gays and Lesbians Are To Blame Here’ introduced a report that publicity about gays and lesbians in Swaziland had increased the number of sodomy cases in Swaziland. This, the newspaper reports, is according to two Save The Children regional offices that have been dealing with sexual offences. However, a third regional office says gays and lesbian practice does not have any effect on cases of sodomy against children. The newspaper’s report is clearly contradictory and does not justify the headline. Also, the reporter fails to explain how lesbians can engage in sodomy.

The recent decision of South Africa to confirm the constitutional status of gays and lesbians in its country comes as an embarrassment to Swaziland. In February 2006 its own constitution came into force and unlike the South African version, which places human rights at its centre, Swaziland’s confirms the present ruling elites in their positions in the kingdom.

The Swaziland constitution has been criticised by civic society organisations inside and outside Swaziland for not embracing democratic principles. Defenders of the constitution like to point to Swaziland’s uniqueness, often citing the belief that God blesses its traditions. These traditions include forcing under aged girls into unwanted marriages; the whipping of children as both domestic and judicial punishment (the Bible commands spare the rod and spoil the child); and the right of men to have as many wives as they chose (a practice that has helped Swaziland to the dubious honour of achieving the highest HIV rate in the world). In this context it is not surprising that gays and lesbians are attacked.

Among all the hatred there is at least one voice of reason in the Swazi Press. Kath Manson, who writes in the Times Sunday, has tackled homosexuality (especially in the lesbian form) arguing that homosexuality is a natural human characteristic and not something you can wipe out.

Manson is a voice in the Swazi wilderness. The week after one of her articles in April 2007, the Times Sunday published a letter from a racist reader in which Manson is denounced as ‘a white female’. The letter, like the articles from the brothers Dlamini mentioned earlier, expresses the writer’s own ignorance on the subject of sexuality, and goes on to warn readers about the ‘tide of western liberalism’ that is sweeping Swaziland.

Clearly, there is a long way to go before the Swazi press is adult enough to have a proper conversation with its readers about homosexuality. But until this can happen journalists and their editors should study Article 13 on hate speech and consider what part they play in stigmatising people who are members of minority groups.

DRUM BEATING

There is manufactured outrage in the Swazi press about the way the activities of the kingdom’s autonomous King Mswati III are reported in the foreign press. This time the victim is the South African magazine Drum (3 May 2007), which reported on the king’s lavish birthday party under the headline “The Swazi king celebrates his birthday in style while his people suffer in poverty”.

There have been calls for the magazine, which is freely on sale in Swaziland, to be banned and legal action has been threatened against it. All because Drum misidentified a Swazi prince as the king in a photograph.

The article runs for about 1,100 words across two pages and describes the king’s birthday party in April 2007. There were two parties: one attended by 10,000 subjects in a stadium in eastern Swaziland and another exclusive garden party at the royal residence. The total bill for the day came to 15 million emalangeni (just over two million US dollars).

This extract gives a flavour of the article. “They [critics] might roll their eyes a little in exasperation sometimes – after all, this is a king with 13 wives, each of whom he has provided with a BMW X5 while he drives a 500,000 US dollars Daimler Chrysler Maybach 62, one of the most luxurious cars in the world. But as far as his people are concerned he’s their absolute ruler and it’s not their place to criticise him.”

The article then gives what it calls these “hard facts” about Swaziland: the kingdom is crippled by debt, 42 per cent of the population is HIV-positive and more than 46 per cent don’t have work, 70 per cent of the country’s 1.1 million population live on less than one US dollar a day.

The king is reported to have said the party was justified as it was good for morale and enabled the country to “come together as one”.

Swazis canvassed by Drum were nothing but supportive of the king. One is quoted saying, “He is entitled to such expenses. This is part of our culture and tradition and we are tired of the West trying to enforce their ideals on us. We are happy being ruled by the king – and he should live in a palace and drive a nice car. It’s his right.”

Reaction in the Swazi press was swift. The day after Drum appeared on the shelves in Swaziland the Swazi Observer chief editor Musa Ndlangamandla, in a full-page article in his own newspaper, called the journalists at Drum “fools” who “insult our king”. Significantly, he openly refused to tackle the accusations made in the article, preferring to hide behind rhetoric of “glaring untruths and misconceptions in the article.”

The misidentified picture became the story in the Swazi press. The Times Sunday reported that Prince Lonkhokhela (the man in the picture) was “humiliated” by the picture and was taking legal action against Drum.

In an editorial comment the Times Sunday called for the government to intervene in the row, believing the king had been ridiculed by the mistaken photograph.

The Weekend Observer reported prominent Swazi businessman Walter Bennett calling on the government to consider stopping the distribution of Drum in Swaziland unless it made an unreserved apology to the king and the nation.

Bennett echoed a sentiment that is often expressed in the Swazi media when he reportedly said it was high time the country reacted to negative reports written in the foreign media.

The most extreme outburst came more than six weeks after the Drum publication. Almon Mbingo, a columnist for the Weekend Observer wrote of the woman journalist who wrote the Drum article, “She deserves to be hanged from the nearest tree.” He went on to say, “She deserves to be declared a Prohibitive Immigrant who should never set foot in Swaziland again. What a pity we do not have the 60 days detention order anymore, otherwise, she would be His Majesty’s guest in the Correctional Services before she is deported.” This invective clearly contravenes the SNAJ code on hate speech.

This outrage in the Swazi press is part of its continuing campaign to protect the king’s reputation against what it sees as unfair reporting in non-Swazi media. However, the outrage about the photograph is entirely synthetic. An editorial error was made and the prince was misidentified as the king: it was as simple as that. The Drum magazine published a correction in a later edition.

The Times Sunday in its editorial comment attacked South African journalists for making such an “obvious mistake” in not being able to identify the king, but the reality is that King Mswati III is not an international figure. He rules over a small country, landlocked between South Africa and Mozambique, that has no significance on the international stage. The country has neither geopolitical strategic significance nor economic significance, such as a wealth of raw materials, and therefore what goes on in the country is of little interest outside Swaziland.

A systematic analysis of international news coverage of Swaziland demonstrates that hardly anything about the country appears in the foreign press. The King’s birthday went largely unreported outside Swaziland, although the South Africa Press Association agency did distribute a report based on comments from the Swaziland Solidarity Network that the cost of the celebration was extravagant. The South Africa Sunday Times ran a short piece based on the agency report, but I have been unable to find any other newspaper that felt the report interesting enough to publish.

The Swazi press is making its protests purely for internal consumption. The monarch in Swaziland holds all the power and no criticism of the king is tolerated. The manufactured outrage over the Drum article follows closely a report in Times Sunday in March 2007 from the Afrol news agency that suggested that economic and social problems facing Swaziland stemmed from the private spending of the king. This type of criticism was considered entirely out of order and after pressure both the Times Sunday and its stablemate Times of Swaziland issued apologies stating that the article was “disparaging to the person of His Majesty in its content, greatly embarrassed him and should not have passed editorial scrutiny”.

This was a very clear warning to the Swazi media. There have also been threats from the government to make further controls on a media that is already subject by more than 30 restrictive laws. The manufactured outrage over the Drum article gives the Swazi press an opportunity to once again demonstrate its loyalty to the king.

The miscaptioned photograph is a distraction. What remains unchallenged by the Swazi press are the central accusations of the Drum report that the king lives a lavish lifestyle while most of his subjects are in abject poverty.