Being (un-) Swazi

It’s only just over three months into the New Year and I think I might have already committed one of the biggest undocumented crimes of my motherland. 

Yep! Probably high up there next to treason, blasphemy, not tithing and refusing your Holy Spirit drunk Jericho Christian Church member husband sex. You would think he’d want to come home to a well-deserved rest after an all-night session of duracell bunny powered non-stop jogging in a circle, growling at the top of his voice punctuated only by incomprehensible murmurs of bible verse recitals and spitting mucus-laden saliva!

Anyway back to me. As the New Year’s resolutions making tournament kicked in at the beginning of 2013, I joined the bandwagon for the first time in years and jotted this one as my first priority and March 31, 2013 as the deadline 1). “Refrain from being un-Swazi”.

Don’t ask. But I had a plan you see – I would start with the simplest of things, those things that would make me Swazi or is it ‘more Swazi’, ‘truly Swazi’ or ‘real Swazi’…who cares anyway?  The point was to make an effort to be anything but un-Swazi.  Perhaps if I did this then I’d be halfway to stopping another thing that many of us, including my homosexual friends have been called - “un-African”.

Simply Swazi

I figured I’d do more Swazi things like:

•  Go to church every Sunday to pray to a living Jesus than to a bunch of dead relatives called ancestors
•  Lay-bye an expensive 17 piece set of shiny pots and pans and gift these to myself on my birthday,
• Stop eating KFC because unlike my Lucky Star Pilchards, KFC is halaal,
• Buy a Samsung Galaxy S3 so I can update my facebook status daily with a verse from the bible or tell people what they should or shouldn’t be posting on their facebook profile…

You know…simple things like that. You might be thinking, “But why?” 

See, I don’t want to lose myself, my identity, my nationality or even citizenship over things I can easily change or avoid and then end up with a jail sentence hanging over my head like Nation Magazine editor Bheki Makhubu.

I saw too many things, way too many utterances, events and tendencies (including mine) last year being labeled by others – obviously Swazi nationals themselves - as ‘un-Swazi’. The other day I saw an article in the Swazi Observer Newspaper titled….wait for it….; "Pastors are un-Swazi”.

Well what do you know? Who would have guessed that the peaceful, god-fearing Christian nation of Swaziland is led by aliens? Ignore the pun and move on to the read the newspaper article's opening paragraph:

 “Chiefs who attended a workshop on child abuse last week are of the view that being a pastor is un-Swazi. One of the Chiefs, Sipho Ngwenya said that being a pastor was something that was just brought into the country and it was un-Swazi."  - Swazi Observer Newspaper: 20, August 2012 (It just had to be published on my birthday)

(un)Swazi tendencies

Even when questioning government/authorities (especially if you do this whilst staying outside Swaziland’s borders) you are not only described as unpatriotic but straight up un-Swazi “…because Swazis know all the proper channels of addressing issues”, I heard one say before he broke it down for me.

He said, if you have an issue of concern, say you are tired of fetching and drinking water from the murky well you share with all the livestock in the village, you take it to the village runner (umgijimi), who will then take it to the village Chief who will then send the village runner back to summon you to his quarters to address the issue. Most times these runners will need all these trips between you and the chief’s quarters to be completely funded by you – transport, ‘cold drink’, everything.

If the issue isn’t resolved to your satisfaction at the chief’s quarters– then maybe you could go straight to the ruler of the land – the King (kwembula ingubo in siSwati). And straight to the King means when you get to his residence, the King’s runners at the gate will go in and report that you are here to get his counsel. Mind you, you have to bring with you someone called lincusa (emissary) who will speak on your behalf. 

Lincusa is someone who is supposed to know you well but most importantly have some form of clout – surely it can’t be political clout because “Khohlwa, kute ipolitiki eSwatini” (“Forget it, there’s no politics in Swaziland”) many a pro-democracy activist have been told. So I’m assuming your lincusa’s clout lies in his Swazi traditional cultural background if there's anything like that.

I’ve heard of people who said this direct line to the king got them heard by His Majesty after about three months at the earliest. Forgive me; I forgot to mention the Member of Parliament representing your village – the one you elected to represent YOU in the august house. Well, it’s because I’m really not sure where, if at all, s/he comes into this chain of communication as you attempt to get safe drinking water into your household even though clean water is probably what he promised to get you during the election campaign trail.

But generally this is how I understand the flow of communication to run in true Swazi fashion.

Freedom of expression 

Forget about petty issues like safe drinking water for a second. Let’s just say you want to exercise your constitutionally provided and protected right to express yourself freely, you want to vent, just throw a tantrum about how rubbish your life is because you feel some of the people trusted with the decisions that could change your life for the better are just not doing it. 

You would still have to wait to be rescued by this direct line to the blue blooded one – *Sibaya – a scheduled mass vent occasion.

Your life won’t change for the better after Sibaya, but at least you would have tasted freedom of expression and under high security for that matter – more security than I could ever dream of in any of these crime-prone townhouse complexes in Johannesburg.

Anything outside of that, like venting on twitter, facebook, blogging, calling into the current affairs show at Swaziland Radio SBIS is un-Swazi as a pastor in Swaziland; as un-Swazi and un-African as ‘western’ democracy as Swaziland MP and Youth Affairs Minister Hlobsile Ndlovu once tweeted: “Why the pressure for African leaders to consolidate Western democracy when it’s a foreign phenomenon. Surely this call is a tall order”, her tweet read on October 9, 2012.

Fashionably Foreign

Trust me, I fully get the minister's point. I know how overwhelming it can be with these foreign-inspired trends, particularly the western ones. In fact at some point I was feeling so besieged, I decided I’m not going to continue to feel pressured by western influence and society in general, TV fanatics in particular, so I stopped watching TV reality shows that had nothing to do with competitive cooking. So you will never again catch me watching or imitating the Kardashians, Basketball Wives, The Real Housewives of wherever etc.

I fully understand my minister friend because sometimes, in my quest to refrain from being un-Swazi and un-African at the same time, I get nervous about carrying my Louis Vuitton handbag, wearing my Gucci sunshades, Christian Louboutin stilettos and Mac lip-gloss while on a night out at Randlords Exclusive Lounge in Johannesburg. 
It always feels like such a mammoth task – especially knowing there’s a high probability I will be courted by some broke foreign man who might just only be interested in taking off with my imported accessories. 

What kind of man courts a woman knowing full well that he’s broke anyway? Ever heard of money? Yes, that thing that we didn’t have before it was brought into Africa by westerners? Never mind that the late King Somhlolo warned us Swazis about this money thing. After having this vision from god, His Majesty told Swazis that god wants us to choose only one of the two things that the missionaries had brought into Africa with them. 

We were to choose the bible and stay far away from the money. Yup! The very same money that I need to be able to pay tuition for my sons at one of these great western universities – the education is apparently better there hence Africa’s rich and famous ship their offspring to those parts of the world. Personally, I've always dreamed of taking my sons to the U.S.A. in my own private jet. I hope this doesn't just stay as a dream, I'm known to be delusional and unstable at times.

But you see why I’m unstable? Who wouldn’t be confused about their (un) Swaziness at this stage?

“Take the bible…”

“Pastors [and by default the bibles, tithe monies they carry and German foreign-registered sleek machines they drive] are un-Swazi”…

I get nervous about posting congratulatory tweets to leaders from the West like President Barack Obama for winning a democratic election a second time. I just wait for their majesties, through the prime minister, to do it “on behalf of the Swazi nation…”

Yes, I am spoken for, from the dusty cow trails of my village all the way to the White House; I’m proudly Swazi. 

Now to brainstorm about what I can do to refrain from being un-African. Sigh! Where to start? Counselling from my pastor maybe? No wait maybe not, this lot are unSwazi remember? Probably unAfrican too. Maybe Sis’ Dolly? Is that even an African name? Dolly? Sigh. This is just too much for an African. Dear Dr. Phil…mayday! mayday!...May 25(Africa Day) is around the corner, I ought to have resolved this one by then.

*Sibaya – at his discretion, the ruling King summons the nation to meet with him at the cattle kraal (sibaya) at his eLudzidzini residence.  Swazi residents take turns on the microphone talking about whatever bothers or excites them about their country and the future of the country. At the last Sibaya held August 6-10, 2012, the king’s elder brother Prince Masitsela who is regarded as one of the custodians of the monarch, told thousands of attendees that the “people’s parliament” was just an exercise to let off steam (kutihhamula) and that no resolutions about moving the country’s future would come of any of the submissions made by members of the public. 

More on Sibaya:
Sibaya: Masitsela rebuked
Masitsela hits raw nerve at Sibaya 
His Majesty Launches “Sibaya” – The People’s Parliament