Venting Should Be Nationalized [Everywhere]

There are so many things that can be said of last week’s public Twitter spat between popular hip hop artist AKA and the mother of his child - the equally well-liked DJ Zinhle, who were both in Swaziland last weekend for the Bushfire festival. 

I will deliberately not speak to the direct parenting deficiencies that stem from the separation of a child’s biological parents; I’ll obviously be heavily biased towards DJ Zinhle because of the way my life is set up in this regard.

AKA is childish and immature for taking his most intimate feelings about his private life into the public space, some said. Others accused DJ Zinhle of the same after she responded fiercely to the fight started by AKA. 

AKA started the fire when he lamented, to ever-supportive fans, about how the DJ won’t allow him to visit their child who stays with her even though he “paid for the child to have his surname”. 

He also wailed about how Zinhle and her friends continuously harass his new girlfriend TV/Radio star Bonang and how confuzzled he is by Zinhle’s keeping of portraits of HIS mother in HER house. 

I’ll confess confrontations, public or private, do NOT make me uncomfortable AT ALL so...

I also do not mind experiencing people in their realness and truth because I value honesty and freedom of expression so…

This is why I’ve always found it to be disturbing that as society, we tend to encourage people to hide, far away from the public, when they are in a bad space. 

This is a regressive tendency in a highly stressful world where we speak of the importance of keeping one’s mental health in check.

Nowadays people tweet, instagram and facebook feelings and thoughts as and when they happen and we have each witnessed at least one ‘my favorite couple’ comment on our friends’ photos of them posing with their lovers/wives/husbands of two weeks, two months or whatever…we just love to love people who are in love or say they are in love. 

We always make sure to like and comment on their posts and I think some of us secretly want others to know that we too know the couple and better than anyone else. At times this looks like a mini competition as friends want to feature on comments more than the other.

But when the proverbial [insert appropriate euphemism here] hits the fan, we are ever so quick to maturely and calmly (not) request our friends to ‘don’t allow the devil and enemies to win my friend, delete this post and inbox or call me’. 

I think this is really unfair on the aggrieved – this is how people end up depressed, suicidal, violent and abusive. What is an occasional vent and rant on facebook in a country where access to regular professional psychological and psychiatric counseling is as rare as an air-conditioned home in Ngwenya town?

Getting things off your chest has proven to be therapeutic and Swazis don’t need academics to tell them that because we have first-hand experience of the inner peace that this brings. 

We can certainly teach the rest of the world a thing or two about the benefits of getting things off your chest. We’re probably the only unique ones in this area where we’ve been able to use the act of kutihhamula (venting) to direct our path towards national-building.

The last session esibayeni  (also referred to as People’s Parliament) is proof that letting off steam should be nationalized everywhere. 

When His Majesty summoned the nation to talk about whatever bothered or excited us about the country and the future of the country for two days in a row, we were never going to come out the same. 

That was August 2012 and look at us now - the Swazi nation has come out with renewed zeal to advance our Vision 2022.


Prince Masitsela’s words that our People’s parliament was nothing more than a colorful national venting exhibition; that no resolutions towards molding the country’s future would be implemented from any of the submissions made by members of the public at this session, may have hit a raw nerve but they were not going to dampen our spirits. 

We’ve come a long way and the world, if they ever watch tiny old Swaziland, should learn about the benefits of nationalizing frustration and excitement. 

Related reads:
His Majesty Launches Sibaya

Masitsela Hits Raw Nerve

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