Nothing to celebrate in 2009

Yet another year has come and gone, and we have nothing to celebrate for having lived through it. We come to the end of 2009 with the same level of uncertainty with which we began the year.

Some of us were not so sure whether we were going to end up in detention or not. For quite a long time, for the best part of 2009,  some  of us travelled every day, with a week’s supply of one’s medication because one did not know when the regime would decide to incarcerate you.

That did not happen; we can only thank God one survived.
That a citizen could have lived like this goes to show how changed Swaziland has under the leadership of Prime Minister Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini.
We now live at their mercy.

In fact, I find it very fascinating that, during A T’s Premiership, I was never stopped by the police, something that had become a routine under Sibusiso’s previous administration.
Yet, guess what? One week of Sibusiso’s return to office, the police started their routine of stopping me on the road, for the flimsiest of excuses!

Such has been my lot in 2009.
I do not know what have been the experiences of others, but for me, there is nothing to celebrate for the quality of life during this particular year.
What I have enjoyed though has been the interaction with readers of this newspaper, which happened every Sunday.

There have been times when I have written from a sense of despair, having lost hope about the future of this great country, which, however, seemed destined to be going to the dogs.
There were the seasons of my troubling dreams which I shared with the readers, which seemed to have struck a positive chord among many readers, judging by the response I got each time I had written about one of my many bad dreams.

Some have asked me if indeed these were real, and my answer has been of course, yes.
Going through life in Swaziland is a bad dream, which haunts us every day of our lives. The sad thing is that there appears to be no end in sight to this haunting life of mere existence instead of living, thanks to the system of shear greed, called Tinkhundla.

What then does the future hold for Swazis?
Should we be optimistic about 2010 and why?
Looking into the scenarios for Swaziland in 2010, what one sees is not a promising future at all. On the economic front, we expect more company closures, with massive job losses.

The much publicised closure of SAPPI, with some worrying signs that its current owners want to retain the forest for feeding their operations in South Africa, should be serious cause for concern for all Swazis.
This is one area of agreement between me and Umzala Mgabhi Dlamini.

We cannot be seen to be allowing jobs to be exported to South Africa, using trees grown in what was Swazi Nation Land, which King Sobhuza gave to the investors to create wealth for the Swazis, particularly those who were moved out of their ancestral land to make space for development.

I will not dwell much on the issue of those displaced citizens because Dr A.T. Dlamini, has treated it well in his Saturday column. So, economically, the future is bleak.
To further compound Swaziland’s economic outlook in the future is the reduction of Swaziland’s share of the SACU receipts.

To have lost almost E4.5 billion at one go means Swaziland is technically bankrupt.
Given the insatiable greed from the ruling elite, where will the money to feed this greed come from?
Has anyone ever stopped to think about that?

Again, even here, the scenarios do not look good, for the ordinary Swazi taxpayer.
Remember this; the greed must still feed on something, it is not going to reduce its pace of consumption, and therefore new sources of money must be found! Where will these be found?

The answer to this question is simple: from the poor Swazis, of course. But how? Ask Majozi that question, but I must tell you, no one will escape Majozi’s axe next year.
Every living person will be made to pay tax on anything he/she owns, including tinkhukhu emakhaya.
Every grain of maize will be taxed by a regime that does not care how those rural people struggle to produce one grain of maize.

The sad thing in all this is that Swazis will grumble but pay these taxes, without a single finger of protest. That is Swaziland for you.
Socially, we can expect an even greater hype on Incwala being the biggest supported event, thus making a case for the supporters of Tinkhundla that Swazis are still happy with the way they are currently governed.
It is this silly notion that if I am seen supporting my culture then I must be supporting the discredited system of Tinkhundla that has stopped me from attending Incwala.
It has been made to lose its innocent meaning to the average Swazi like me. The way Incwala has been politicised just makes me sick.
It makes me so sick that I have even abandoned wearing emahiya, lest I be said to have started grovelling to the system.
It has become that sickening.
Politically, what are Swaziland’s prospects?

Can we hope to see some movement in the direction of resolving the political impasse that confronts Swaziland?
If yes, who will make the first move to open the space for serious negotiations over our future?
During the Human Rights Day celebrations at the Royal Villas, Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Ndumiso Mamba, made some reference to Government being ready to dialogue, but that they were being held back by the disunity among the so-called progressives. He did not elaborate.

What could he have been referring to? Ready to dialogue on what?
Swaziland’s authorities need to accept that they cannot be seen making peace with other countries in conflict while they ignore the political conflicts in their own back yard.
It is just not intelligent to do that.

Worse still, it tends to undermine the credibility of such a mediator.
Therefore, if Swaziland wants to be taken seriously by those it seeks to help resolve their internal conflicts, it must first, demonstrate that it has resolved its own internal conflicts.
We just cannot go about claiming to be assisting others find peace when we fail to find peace within ourselves.
It just does not work like that.

We cannot give others what we do not have, simple.
Therefore, as we approach the new year, and leaving behind us all the challenges of 2009, we take solace in the knowledge that God will not abandon us, that is, if we allow Him dominion over our lives.
It is only Him we can trust as we face the uncertain future with all its challenges.

I take this opportunity to thank owners of The Times of Swaziland Group, for affording me space to share my thoughts about the only country I have, trying to make sense of it, while provoking varied responses from the readers.
I have enjoyed even the reasoning of those who differed with my thoughts, so long as they avoided being personal and insulting.

Most of all, I have been greatly enriched by the various comments people have sent to me through various means of communication, encouraging me to go on writing the way I do.  
Your words of encouragement give me the energy and motivation to want to write on.

I pray that the God of Love keeps in His mercy as we face the New Year and its challenges.
May we each continue to grow in the knowledge of His plans through each one of us! May He bless all our honest plans about our future, and may He guide and keep safe each one of us!

HAVE A HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR!!

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