Simply Philile

The ridiculousness of the things I see and hear about marriage these days, particularly as it relates to women is increasingly disturbing.   It all has me asking what Tyler Perry asks with his movie title: Why did you get married? Additionally, why are we getting married? I'll start with the woman in the mirror. In my 37 years of living I've agreed to at least three marriage proposals. Reflecting on it today, I realise I agreed only because they had asked.  Yes, I'm polite. I’ll blame my parents for this because discussions on manners and love featured more prominently than marriage – marriage was just never really a thing in our household. Hence ‘knowing’ serious follow-up questions to ask when a proposal to lead me to a place called 'Happy Ever After' is made wasn’t part of my reflex. It probably serves me right then that “uNumber one” as Gogo Louisa would say, dumped me only a few months after I’d taken him to my parents and allowed him the priv...

So many things disrupted me about reading a report that Nkilongo Member of Parliament (MP) Hans Steffen is advocating for the addition of Afrikaans and Portuguese as official languages in Swaziland.  If you could see the red pen markings I made on the news article you’d swear you were looking at my high school Math paper where I averaged at 30%.  I actually had to print it out to read over and over because I had to make sure I was feeling the same way each time I read the report. And each time I reached the same conclusion; White Swazis will always be self-serving.  In 2014 I tweeted about this very observation and a white European tweep (person on twitter) who lives in Swaziland was quick to point out that I’m making dangerous generalizations.  I’m happy to report though that after we engaged each other over several tweets, he returned the next day to state that he’d done his own little ‘research’ and it seems it is a sentiment shared by other black Swazis...

This article first appeared in the column 'Opinionated in the Times of Swaziland on September 11, 2016. The author, a guest writer to the column, believes that there's a point (that's quiet easy to miss) to traditional ceremonies like Umhlanga/Reed Dance because of our never ending rat race to acquire material possessions rather than values to live by. Back to Afrika where 'each hand washes the other' is where Joy wants us to stay.  --------------------------------------------------------------- What’s The Point of Umhlanga? By Joy Zulu My! aren't we festive these days? We just had the Umhlanga ceremony in Swaziland, followed by same in Zululand. But what’s the meaning of Umhlanga?  I'm invested in both the Swaziland and Zululand ceremonies as I hope you are too. Calm down, I'm anything but a litjitji, what I am though is a WOMAN, a MOTHER, and a WORLD CITIZEN. All these roles come with responsibilities, that despite my...

When I started with this column last year; I broadcast a message on twitter asking my network what they thought I should publicly opine about; what would be interesting and engaging to them and fellow Swazis of our time.  One of the first suggestions was, “Write about hair”. At the time the public conversation about hair – specifically black women’s hair – was a topic as hot as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie before Jay and Bey came on the scene.  I wasn’t part of this robust dialogue and had no interest in it. But judging from the level of interest from Swazis in recent events at Pretoria Girls High School, I figured it’s time I engaged.   When it was suggested I write about hair,  legendary Jazz musician Hugh Masekela had been among the first in contemporary Southern Africa to directly address black women‘s hairstyle choices and what their choices said about their identity and self-love or lack thereof.  It was in early 2015 when Masekela cut of...

The below article first appeared in my column 'Opinionated' in Times of Swaziland on August 27, 2016. The Guest Writer is named Vumile Mabusela. Enjoy these rumblings of a grateful but tired 'independent' young and black African woman and mother. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bring Back Our Men!   By Vumile Mabusela We have come a long way since the days of women ‘are seen and not heard’. Their place is no longer only in the kitchen and we’ve seen real progress in the fight for equality, although slow but evident nonetheless. However, as a mother raising ‘the boy child’, I do worry about the future – the relations between the empowered girl child and my not so empowered ‘boy child’. Gains Made Even though Patriarchy is still rife and very much alive we have at least managed to spit in its face and shame the perpetrators.   It has become shameful to comment about a woman’s looks, in fact as a man, you co...