Constitution has made political change

As the dark cloud continues to gather over the Tinkhundla system, the contradictions of this unique ‘democracy’ are starting to manifest themselves.

The coming of the constitution has not meant anything to the people as the ‘masters’ of this system continue to do as they please. Our unique system is soon catching up with us; it disintegrates right before our eyes. The hope of a new political dispensation has vanished with no rays of hope in the horizon of the setting sun.

Those who still believe the ‘constitution’ was a step in the right direction have since been proved wrong because there is still no space for ‘free political activity’ in the country, other than the thanks giving stokvels thrown left, right and centre by those who happened to get into parliament by hook and crook.
Dialogues have been announced for as many times as we can remember but there is still no sign that it will ever happen at our initiation.

As the world around stands and watches, surely, they no longer consider our ‘unique’ democracy worth the sufferings of the people. If after their investigations, find nothing wrong with this country; then, they owe a special apology to the people of Zimbabwe for having suffocated them through sanctions.

Anyway, this is the price that the people are prepared to pay for their liberation. The question that is to be asked is: Does Swaziland not qualify to face sanctions?
Tinkhundla has failed

As Mzwakhe Mbuli once observed, ‘the great monster is being killed by the people on the road’. This was during the period in the history of South Africa where a total rejection of apartheid could be felt at every sphere of society. He said this not referring to conferences and capacity building workshops but to the numbers on the streets not these ‘Sunday morning picnics’ but when people were marching and singing ‘ayancikaza ayesaba amagwala’. Freedom is our birth-right but hunger and gross exploitation is our daily experience.

As Tinkhundla faces its ultimate demise, it is bound to go down with some people just like apartheid in South Africa. The arrest and detention of people is not new in the mental games played by dying regimes. The flouting and breaking of their own laws is to be expected of all regimes facing extinction.
It is very unfortunate that in Swaziland there are some people posing as progressives, yet they clearly show signs of being ‘reactionary and counter revolutionary.

It is their reactionary politics that has delayed progress all over the world. They come as people who do not like violence yet conveniently forget that we are violently oppressed and suppressed. Or perhaps it is because they don’t feel the oppression because they get paid at the end of the mouth.
To them, we have to ‘request’ for our rights yet to some of us who have no ‘accounts’ and make no ‘budget’ at month ends, we feel we must  demand our rights and this is where we differ with many of these people. We do not forget that some people were ready to die in old South Africa just like there were those who preferred dying in Egypt in the biblical times. There are those who are not aware that Tinkhundla is defeated, in fact it is dead, but not buried and is stinking badly. May I assure all those who are not sure whether change will come or not that most of the work has been done. In the last 25 years we have continued tirelessly to mobilise and conscietise the people; organised the unorganized and stared the bull in the face. We unionised the ununionised and what is left is to defend the gains of our struggle as we are left with just one mile to our freedom. When solutions are sidelined, tricks cannot become substitutes.

As we walk this last mile, I must admit that I sometimes get angered by people, who like the Tinkhundla followers believe that our struggle will be different from other oppressed people’s struggles all over the world. We have people in the progressive’ camp who believe that because we are Swazis, our approach should be different to those used by other oppressed people of the world yet we want the same commodity—democracy. The answer is no; we cannot reinvent the wheel. Oppressed and hungry people are by their nature violent.

When we come to the streets we do not go to a conference or concert and try to please the masters by being ‘good behavioring boys’ of the system but we go there to make concrete demands and show the state how angry we are. To all those who claim that the latest marches were characterised by violence; let them explain to me what they understand by violence.

The word violence is a largely exaggerated word, for I argue that small pockets of deliquesce or spilling of bins does not justify calling the march violence. If you want to know violence perhaps people should go to the marches in Europe by workers, the recent being the one against Capitalism.
As progressives we must avoid the temptation of wanting to please some certain people, whose idea of a struggle is begging for your rights cap in hand because to them they come to the streets  because they are ‘bored’ or have nothing else to do.
Fellow country men, stop playing with our emotions because we are angry. We would like to be fathers and mothers like you; and you know that we were not born violent instead we have been violently suppressed when we demanded change.

Those of you who do not know the inside of a police cell or have not come across the ‘tube’ better think twice before you speak about violence. No one must hypocritically put himself to be loving peace more than we do. To them we must beg for our freedom and we promise not to succumb to this lowest point.
PULLING OUT OF SUDF
We built the Swaziland Democratic Alliance (SDA) and that vehicle broke down. Again we built the SUDF and if it has to break down it will do so and this should not be a surprise to anybody. These are political vehicles which break down from time to time.

People and organisations should not assume that they are doing any person or organisation a favour by being members of the Front. In fact we better sort our differences this side of the democratic victory so that some people’s true colours can be known because we appreciate that some of the people we are with are not actually with us.
They have cast their eyes in the future and long to benefit materially from the revolution. They must stop intimidating others who are thirsty for freedom. The weight of the yoke of oppression is not the same as the anger of the people. Our freedom day can not be delayed by a ‘fake’ respect of the laws of the country.
We are closely watching the tendency of some people who have assumed the positions of ‘disciplinarians’ and trying to give us a moral lecture. To them we say, we will never succumb to your cowards approach to the final missions.
VIOLENCE
When we stood up to challenge the system, anger was the reaction from the authorities and silence was the result from the people who are today hypocritically talking about violence. They never said a thing. When some comrades in the SDA were beaten by police, the then and present prime minister claimed that we banged ourselves on walls but strangely no one said a thing in spite of the fact that police were never provoked.
For all the years that we have been subjected under violence, nobody has said a thing and now that we have intensified the resistance, people are complaining. This is hypocrisy of the first order—violence from which ever camp is violence and it should be treated as such, not to pick and choose softer target for rant.
It is therefore unfeasible to have peaceful change in a violent environment and that is what people must know. Those who see violence where there is none must stop doing so because our spirits are too high to be broken by imaginary violence. There can never be a struggle where the victim could be one (Noxolo).
CONCLUSION:

It is during the last mile of any journey that more uncertainties come to play. In both world wars, the most casualties came during the last battles. St Peter of the New Testament could not stand the last mile following Jesus Christ. He denied when confronted about his relationship with the man about to be crucified.
In the latest theater of struggle, South Africa, the most fierce battles were fought during these period which recorded the highest number of death. More ‘askaris’ were recruited during this time. More spies and reactionaries were busy during this period.

This is the busiest period in the history of any struggle. More blunders are to be made during this period.
Some of us are not surprised at the cancellation of the march that was to be held on the 19 and 20/5/2009. This is the work of the enemy which is having sleepless nights. To the true revolutionaries of our struggle I salute you with the words of Rudyad Kiplings (poet) who advised his son: ‘If you can keep your head high when all around you are loosing theirs and blaming it on you – then you will be a man my son’.
NB; Shongwe is a mem,ber of PUDEMO. These views expressed here do not reflect those of his organisation but his own.