KHOLWANE DECLARARTION: IS IT A GOOD MOVE BY GOVT?

I am a proud Christian and fully subscribe to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I have to declare this bias from the beginning. I, however, wonder if what we now call the Kholwane Declaration is a good move by the government of this country.

What raised this question with me were the explanations coming from government on why it decided on such a move. The only reason given was that children are now misbehaving because they are not taught Christianity in schools. From face value, this is a good thing and it promotes the religion that we Swazis are known for or we wish to be known for, hence we are ‘The Pulpit of Africa’.

The preamble to the Constitution of the country states that; “It is necessary to protect and promote the fundamental rights and freedoms of all in our kingdom in terms of a constitution which binds the Legislature, Executive, Judiciary and the other organs of government.” So government is called upon to protect and promote even Section 23 of the Constitution. If government then says it has not violated the Constitution in the declaration, I wonder what it is talking about.

If the preamble says government is to protect and promote freedoms of all, it means government is to give equal opportunities to all the religions in the country. Introducing one religion to be taught in schools to the exclusion of other religions is not in the spirit of the Constitution. The ALL in capital letters in the preamble I think was done to give emphasis to the importance of respect for even the minority religion. I therefore tend to disagree with government and I say it has acted against the spirit of the Constitution.

I also worry on the timing of the declaration. We have seen and noticed that sometimes religious fundamentalism led to conflicts. We are just from a period where there were some heated debates and arguments on some religions in the country. Workshops and consultations were done as the situation was getting out of hand. Even before the dust settled, government gave preference of one religion over others.

For me this may exacerbate the problems as those of the religions not given the preference may react in certain ways which may not be good for the country. As a country we are also getting some assistance from countries that follow certain religions and the declaration may jeopardise such relations, and we may lose that assistance. Then it is the ordinary Swazi who was not consulted when this declaration was made who will suffer.
Observing the implementation of the declaration, it appears that the same government was not ready for its implementation. The mad rush in getting teachers at primary school level to high school level gives credence to my observation.

This may be a good thing because the teachers will now be teaching at the level which they are qualified to teach, but there are a number of problems as well. Teachers are always complaining that there is a shortage of accommodation. Where will the teachers who are suddenly transferred going to lodge? Has government sorted the accommodation problem? Have there been identified replacements for the schools where these teachers were? Where did the money to engage more teachers come from? If all these questions are not satisfactorily answered, I see more problems.

Such problems will even go as far as not inconveniencing the teachers and head teachers only but the pupils as well. Some pupils will be without teachers for some time as this sudden movement of teachers is still ongoing. Some schools will find themselves with more teachers as they will have to add to those they already have. At the end of the year pupils will fail, not because they deserve to fail but they did not have teachers to teach them.

I therefore observe that proper analysis was not done before the declaration. The sudden introduction also makes me wonder. Us Christians will applaud the move and think it promotes our religion but forget that this may cause us problems with the other religions.
We may think that we are promoting the gospel of Christ yet Christ is so powerful to promote His will without the assistance of declarations that will cause more problems for His people.

 I also want to differ from this move from being called a declaration because you declare something that is already there. This is a view of an individual or a few individuals which was forced down on others, hence the confusion and problems with its implementation. Maybe that is why it had to be made at Kholwane instead of Cabinet offices. 

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