CONSENT FORMS TYPICAL BLUNDER

It still has not dawned on government that this country passed the point of no return when the armed forces were unleashed on the streets culminating in the alleged murder of dozens of emaSwati – as concluded by the Human Rights Commission’s verification exercise – who were protesting against the oppressive nature of the tinkhundla political system because it continues behaving in the exact contemptuous attitude of regarding and treating people as minions as aptly attested to by the imposition of consent forms that parents and guardians had to sign as a pre-condition for reopening schools.

Protests

That (ab)normality of the pre-democracy protests wherein government and the leadership were accustomed to barking orders arbitrarily and expecting a prostrate people to conform evaporated with the alleged random murder of unarmed emaSwati protestors, which was akin to Zimbabwe’s Robert Magabe’s massacre of the Ndebeles in the 1980s by his North Korean trained Fifth Brigade in what became known as Gukurahundi – something to do with early rains washing away the chaff in preparation for a new planting season. The sin of the Ndebeles was opposing and resisting Mugabe’s iron fisted rule. Whether or not the kingdom transitions to a pluralistic body politic in the immediate future, the fact is it will never return to what it was before that red line was crossed when the blood of innocent emaSwati was spilt with the unintended consequences of turning them into martyrs.

The so-called consent forms were created on the erroneous premise that children, specifically pupils, were being dragged into politics. That is a direct outcome of a government that is in the habit of ensconcing itself in an ivory tower - when its head is not buried in the sand - that has lost touch with what is happening on the ground. We are not talking about yesterday’s children here who grew up herding cattle but children of the information age and whose wealth of knowledge probably precede them. They are not as naïve as the all-controlling and patronising government probably believes. And unlike their parents before them they will not lie prostrate and allow government to ride rough shod over them. Consequently, they should be taken seriously instead of being thought of as stooges that have been brainwashed and manipulated into doing something they are not committed to.

Consent

As it turned out, the consent forms were roundly rejected by parents and guardians in schools across the length and breadth of the country. Without extrapolating the circumstances informing the decisions by parents and guardians to reject the consent forms with the contempt they deserved, the common tread appears to have been the abysmal failure of government to address the subject matter of the petitions by pupils before its unilateral and arbitrary shutdown of schools. Indeed government’s penchant for creating obstacles where it should be providing – or seeking – solutions singularly or collaboratively has become a trademark of its operations. Government was directly responsible for the orgy of violent protests that exploded in late June for making wrong and bad decisions occasioned by its failure to read the mood of the people and the political temperature on the ground at that opportune time. It triggered the protests with its banning of delivery of petitions and arrested lawmakers associated with the call for change.  

As I see it, government seems to be incapable of dealing with difficult crises. In this particular instance the pupils called for, among others, the release of the two Members of Parliament (MPs), Mduduzi Bacede Mabuza (Hosea) and Mthandeni Dube (Ngwempisi), who have been incarcerated and repeatedly denied bail for allegedly inciting the pro-democracy mass protests that enveloped the kingdom towards the end of June and early July. Instead of responding and addressing the demands by the pupils and – before the eruption of the pupils’ protests – those of the electorate, government created problems by, first, arresting pro-change lawmakers and, second, shutting down schools arbitrarily with the hope that the crises will either go away or resolve themselves instead of providing leadership and solutions.

In-between its gaffes it unleashed royalty in the names of Housing and Urban Development Minister, Prince Simelane to outlaw protest marches in towns and cities and Information Communication and Technology Minister, Princess Sikhanyiso to switch off and on the Internet whenever it suited her temperament even when they were acting out with the letter and spirit of the enabling laws. Out of this melee of muddled leadership popped up Deputy Prime Minister Themba Masuku and Commerce, Industry and Trade Minister Manqoba Khumalo as champion peddlers of conveniently manufactured truths – from government’s perspective – and, by so doing, sacrificed their statures. After all the stock-in-trade of the tinkhundla political system is perverting the truth because it is built on a foundation of lies and paraded on the fallacy of grassroots democracy. In modern democratic countries public officials who lie knowingly fall on their swords but not so in Eswatini where this art form is policy.

Rejection

Hopefully the issue of the consent forms is now history after its overwhelming rejection, unless government, as usual, is spoiling for a fight with the people. Paradoxically in the midst of all this gloom is the candid and exceptional work accomplished by the Human Rights and Public Administration/Integrity Commission in unravelling what happened at the height of the pro-change protests. Kudos to Commissioner Sabelo Masuku and his team for displaying such rare and unparalleled professionalism in the face of an immoral system. They have done an exceptional job even under a hostile environment. The more surprising being the hostility and a lack of cooperation from the police service, an institution charged with maintaining law and order that increasingly has become a law unto itself. But that is a story for another day as shall the uninspiring visit by South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa.

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