Today, September 6, is the a double ‘celebration’ for Swaziland’s royal family: its the 40th birthday of the Swazi king, Mswati III, as well as that of the country’s independence. The people won’t be celebrating: 43 % of Swazis are HIV positive and almost two-thirds survive on foreign food aid.
Women’s rights are non-existent. So are political rights. Political parties have been banned since 1973. The Constitution was suspended that same year and King Sobhuza II (Mswati’s father became an absolute monarch). Recent constitutional reforms are a sham. Opposition politicians are assassinated (in March, Gabriel Mukhame, a PUDEMO leader, was murdered in neighboring South Africa; fingers point to security forces). Trade union activity heavily policed and protest outlawed.
Meanwhile, the King pampers his 13 wives with shopping trips (last week they went to Dubai), bought a private jet and owns half the country. As the recent film, Without the King, shows Mswati III and his advisers (and heirs) are out of touch with the reality of his subjects. But his people are restless. Despite harasshment, 10,000 people turned up for a march on Friday and the country’s women’s movement turned up to protest the princesses’ shopping spree last week. The King’s traditional prime minister shot back that that “protest was against the Swazi culture and an act by disrespectful women who have taken the fight for women a bit to far.”
The region’s governments won’t do much about events in Swaziland (the powerfull South African government feels it owes King Sobhuza III’s “legacy;” he sheltered the ANC there during its long exile and allowed them to pass through there). Neither will Western governments or their media raise a stink (except maybe this weekend; but then write about it in a “humorous” way).
Like his father, Sobhuza II, Mswati II is good at playing the exotic card — Western media crews go to Swaziland for two things: the annual reed dance and to interview the King about his “strange customs” when it comes to accumulating wives.
The brave people of Swaziland it seems will eventually have to save themselves.
* Oh, what’s the “hip king” reference? Can’t give it away so easy.
*King Sobhuza doing da Reed Dance on the Ebony and Ivories.
Short live this king
The king represents traditional family values. How can the west impose their values on Africa?