Swaziland,+No+Holds+Barred,+Mswati+Heresy,+Gondo+Gushongo

Financial Gazette, Harare, May 3, 2006
=Swaziland: No Holds Barred: King Mswati's Heresy=


 * Gondo Gushungo**

Africa, it would seem, is never short of embarrassing political clowns. And going by what he was quoted as having said over the weekend, one of these clowns is Sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch, King Mswati of Swaziland.

Now, I have never met him and my personal impression of the 38-year-old king who ascended to the throne 20 years ago is informed by what I have read in the media. But let me state right at the onset that I believe that at his age, the king should be one of that rare-as-virgins breed of flexible, courageous and evolutionising politicians.

But lo and behold. The lecherous young monarch is proving to be quite an inspiration to the legion of Africa's mad, bad and dangerous dictators who exude brutal lust for power and have done lasting harm to the continent. His attitude is as rigid as that of known dictators on the African continent, if not worse.

He unbelievably told IRIN in so many words that for his one million subjects, the Swazi political system is the last word in comfort.

" . . . They come from the school of majority rules . . . but here we have a case in Swaziland where the majority of people have said they do not want multi parties and we are supposed to take a minority view over and above the majority", he was quoted as having said in response to criticism from Britain and the Netherlands over the new national constitution which institutionalised the young king's powers.

"The manner of approach (by the British and the Dutch) has the potential of inciting the people against the state that may lead to serious internal conflict", moaned the king in his specious and spurious argument.

In other words "his people" are not yet ready to freely organise on the basis of their political convictions -- the political process in Swaziland cannot for now be based on the voluntary and individual choice of the people! Put simply, he was criticising Britain and the Netherlands for meddling in Swaziland's internal affairs. He is, to all intents and purposes, pushing the same absolutely sickening idea that stereotypes ordinary Africans as political stooges conscripted into the West's regime change scheme of things.

If this is not absurd and ludicrous, then I do not know what is. It simply is not conceivable that the Swazis will not be happy with the introduction of universal adult suffrage for them to elect their leader in a free and universal election. Don't they want to exercise that inviolable right? I am afraid Mswati's heresy stretches credulity to the limit to say the least. Not to talk of how insulting his hypocrisy, arrogance and contempt must be to the Swazi people who he has burdened with his excesses when he buys grandiose palaces and expensive cars for his more than 10 wives..

Has he ever run the idea of democracy and political pluralism up the flagpole to ascertain what the people of Swaziland say about it? If not, how did he arrive at his weird and warped conclusions? Or by saying the "majority" does he mean key members of his ruling elite who are enjoying the sweet crumbs of power falling from his high table and for whom the destruction of totalitarian structures will bring terrible losses?

What gives a man who was never voted into office and obviously speaks from an ivory tower, the moral authority and mandate to speak on behalf of the people? No wonder the monarch, known for his harem of wives at a time when people are dropping dead like flies due to the AIDS pandemic, saw nothing wrong with declaring his birthday a national holiday. What, in the name of God, other than lasciviously ogling the bare-breasted virgin girls during those reed dances, has he done to improve the lives of the Swazi people to warrant his birthday being declared a national holiday? So what is the difference between him and Jean Bedel Bokassa and Mobutu Sese Seko -- those two buttocks of the same bum or that deep sea monster, Idi Amin?

And to think that this is the same Mswati who in 2001 told journalists in Ludzidzini, Swaziland that ". . . We have already appointed three heads of state to deal with Mugabe on the land grab issue. We felt that what our colleague is doing was beyond the premises of democracy and he has to be stopped"? How can he be such a bundle of contradictions? I suppose that is why they say you don't have to be cook in order to criticise the cooking seeing that Mswati is reportedly blocking political rallies in Swaziland as can be testified by the pro-democracy People's United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO).

Sadly for Africa, what Mswati, who is probably always fantasising about teen girls, said does have a familiar ring. This kind of political accusation against the West by African dictators, who are so dazzled by their own "light" that they hardly notice anything around them, is not new. It has become a tradition in its own right and it would be naïve to expect anything different from the despots for whom any talk of political reforms based on democratic principles should be nipped in the bud in the name of their sinister political aims.

This is the mindset of every other dictator on the continent even with everything that has gone wrong over the years -- obsolete socio-political and economic structures, violation of basic human rights, corruption, shortages of teachers, doctors and basic commodities that have spawned hunger.

Little wonder therefore that Africa is slow with political reforms and that the fate of the hard-to-come-by nascent democracy is hanging by a thread. This has tended to complicate problems further for many African countries where despotic governments do not seem to understand why the people are clamouring for change.

In the early days of independence most of the regimes enjoyed some popularity, which was anchored by an egg-shell-thin veneer of national consensus. This was mainly because the various sections of the respective populations were rallied around a common hatred for outgoing regimes. As time went by however, deep-seated problems and disagreements emerged on the socio-political orientation and the quality and pace of political reforms. Hence the widening gap between the democratisation of most nations of the world and their new values on one hand and the anti-democratic nature of some African totalitarian and authoritarian regimes for whom even violence is admissible to guarantee their stay in power, on the other.

Just as an example, picture how some of these dictators have had to be dragged out of office screaming and kicking after losing elections they would have failed to rig. They find it extremely difficult to smile and shake hands with those that would have received the popular mandate to rule and retire to wherever it is they would have come from.

This is probably the reason why critics who say that the coming of political independence in Africa was the beginning of the road to nowhere have always maintained that there is no hope for the continent's hopeless. And unfortunately, with the way things are going, they could just be vindicated.


 * From: http://allafrica.com/stories/200605040113.html**

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