King Mswati III remains our best chance at sustainable development
It was the late American poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou who said, ‘when people show you who they are, believe them the first time.’
That is the Sober Eye Eswatini’s message to emaSwati as we wind down a very tumultuous year where common sense was thrown out the window as criminal power-hungry elements terrorised us and sought to overthrow our monarchy and plunge our kingdom into poverty and lawlessness.
At the onset we want to make it clear that we recognise and agree that life is harder today than it was two years ago. This is a reality for most of the world, and not unique to Eswatini and its Tinkhundla system.
COVID-19 actually hit us at a time when our government, under the Tinkhundla system, was working on a solid plan to grow the economy, create jobs and improve the general standard of living of our people. And it is because of systems put in place under Tinkhundla that we have been able to deal with the pandemic much better than many other countries in the world with bigger economies, better facilities and many more medical specialists and personnel.
A Travesty
It was a travesty and the most obscene treason for rogue elements in parliament, in our communities and outside our borders to mislead the nation by misdiagnosing the cause of our problems and inciting people to a point where a fair section of emaSwati thought that ‘self- mutilation’ was the apt ‘treatment’ of our challenges.
What else can you call a situation where people who claim to be living in poverty go out into the streets to burn and destroy the very means of generating income? Self-mutilation is exactly what the culprits were doing out there.
King Mswati III is not the problem. We repeat, King Mswati III is not the problem! EmaSwati will plunge deeper into poverty, and open the door to real oppression if we will continue to allow the false narrative about the cause of our problems to stand. Let us not allow ourselves to be misled by wolves in sheep skin.
We cannot believe that we are sitting here after the five months we have just gone through trying to convince emaSwati that political parties and the renegade MPs are not the solution for this country. Looking at how these snakes have conducted themselves this year alone should be enough for us to see them for the power-hungry, self-serving traitors and terrorists they are.
This year has already shown us that they are ‘oppressors in waiting,’ and we need to wise up and believe what they have already shown us of their methods.
This year alone emaSwati have been witness to numerous incidents where basic human rights were callously trampled on by these people who have over the years presented themselves as paragons of democracy and all its freedoms.
Freedom of Expression
We now know that they do not believe in the freedom of opinion and expression. They have created and encouraged a culture of threatening and attacking anyone who holds an opinion that differs from theirs. And they attack and call for arbitrary action against institutions whom they do not like.
A large section of emaSwati have been scared into keeping their heads down, and not voicing their opinions about their support for the monarchy and tinkhundla lest they be attacked and killed, or have their properties and businesses targeted.
On the issue of numbers, emaSwati should not be fooled by the seeming huge following the anti-monarchy pages and publications seem to have on Facebook. It is not real. There are people on the payroll of PUDEMO President Mlungisi Makhanya who wake up every day to log into numerous fake accounts per person, and post the rubbish that they present as the views of
emaSwati.
We now also know that they do not believe in freedom of movement in that we have seen them fund and applaud a form of lawlessness where citizens were being blocked on the roads by intoxicated bandits who demanded payment for passage.
They have now stooped to a new low of taking their politics to primary and high schools and plying our gullible children with dagga and alcohol to excite and incite them into protesting and vandalising schools. They forget that the right to education they are interfering with is a basic human right under the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
We could go on and on, but the bottom line is the time has come for emaSwati to take a step back and look at this situation with sober eyes.
Would you rather live in a lawless country where the rowdy run amok forcing everyone to agree with them under the threat of physical harm and burning down of property as we have seen this year, or do you want to live in a Eswatini where the rule of law reigns and we are all allowed the basic universal freedoms?
This hype yabo Magawugawu is taking us straight into the pits of hell, unless we look at it with sober eyes.
