WHAT THE LIST TEACHES US ABOUT SWAZIS

Let’s talk about ‘The List’. Yes, the (in)famous list of Top 100 influential Swazis Towards Vision 2022 as reportedly compiled by the Rethinking Africa Foundation.

For me, (to borrow from the wise Norma Gigaba) it’s the reaction to the list that unearthed a few ‘did you knows’ about Swazis including the use of the term Swazis itself. So let’s delve straight into the lessons learned.

No, wait! A disclaimer first; I’m not addressing The List just because I’m on it…well I’d like to believe that was me at number 44 with that misspelt surname. In fact, maybe I should tell you about my reaction to it. Someone (also on the list) directed me to it and I immediately dismissed it when I saw the many spelling mistakes, ‘What happened to listing in alphabetical order also?’ I asked without expecting an answer.

Another minus was that for some on the list, the only descriptor was their job titles, which isn’t an accurate description of the activities they are involved in to influence others.
Anyway, that was just my Copy Editor skills allowing me to be professionally petty.

Other than that, I thought how encouraging that there’s a young person with this kind of progressive mind-set in the kingdom; a person who’s deliberately alert to observing positivity in others and wanting everyone else to know about the positive influence with the purpose of directing this inspiration towards a national goal. I had left it at that. But my, I was never ready for the ‘national’ reaction.

I’m using ‘national’ cautiously here because I’ve learned once again through The List that the use of all-inclusive terms like ‘Swazis’ tends to be problematic. I’ll revisit this later. First some key take-aways from the ‘national’ reaction.

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