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TRIBUTE TO GIDEON J. MAHLALELA

07/04/2018 23:36:00 The Editor

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Sir,

What a shock one experienced on Saturday morning of March 31, 2018. Driving into town and then reading from the posts, this headline: ‘Gideon Mahlalela dies’. Obviously, the first question was: “was he sick and why did we not know about this?”

Or: “has he died from a car accident, this being a long and busy weekend?” All these questions ran fast in my mind while driving to find parking and then run to the News Stands to buy the paper in order to get answers to all the questions; the rest is history.

Who was Gideon Mahlalela and why does he deserve tributes from all those of us who knew him and worked with him? In 1990, I joined the Board of Directors of the Federation of Swaziland Employers, representing the Wholesale, Retail and Distributing Trades. Gideon Mahlalela and Alpheos K. Sibiya were the few black Swazis in this board at that time, but very effective in their contributions. This period also coincided with Government’s demands for the localisation of the position of Executive Director, a position orchestrated by African Unions and Employers in Geneva during those years’ annual ILO conferences.

Our Government of that time yielded to this scandalous pressure which used claims I cannot repeat here.

Due to pressure

Due to this pressure, we began looking for a credible and ‘suitable’ Swazi who could understudy Peter Dodds, who had excellently served the employer community of Swaziland. But due to the political pressure of that time, we had to do something - try to recruit this ‘suitable’ Swazi from among the crop of emerging human resources managers.
Gideon, Alph and myself were among the team charged with finding this ‘suitable’ candidate and we went through so many candidates such that one day, when we failed to agree on one candidate, whom I believed was the ‘suitable one’, I quit the team in protest thinking that my colleagues were looking for just another ‘white’ expatriate.

It was Gideon who called me first and chastised me for being impatient and not asking the appropriate questions of ‘what sort of qualities’ were we looking for. I told him to go to hell and put down the phone.
To my shock and surprise, the next call came from Dr. Derek Von Wissell, asking me to join him for tea at his office at Swaki. Not suspecting anything to do with the recruitment saga, I went there. To my further shock and anger, Dr. Von Wissell told me that I was betraying the trust of my colleagues by pulling out of the process because they were just unable to tell me the truth, which was that the person they actually needed was myself. I left him without saying anything except thanking him for the tea . The rest is history - except to say I was further amazed to receive a call from the Prime Minister of the time - one Obed Mfanyana Dlamini, accusing me of not willing to serve the nation.

Once I was in the office as Executive Director, I looked up to people such as Gideon, Alph, Dr. Gosnell of Ubombo Sugar, Dr. Von Wissell, although he was in Cabinet by that time, Tom Dlamini, Mark Ward and one newspaper owner - Doug Lofler. These are the people who made my arrival at the FSE the success I believe it turned out to be.
Now, taking Gideon Mahlalela exclusively, the 1990s were not easy years in Swaziland. What of the Mass stay-aways? What of a Government which only relied on force; sometimes killing some of the striking workers? What did all these mean to the employers in this country who were hurting because the strikes were targeting them? It was during this testing time that Gideon self selected himself to be on the frontline of confronting this situation.

group in mediating

He became the leader of the employers’ group in mediating between the Government and the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) during Prince Mbilini’s time as Prime Minister. It was during this time of crisis that Gideon’s leadership reflected itself as a unifier.

After the most destructive ‘Mass Stay away’ of March 12 and 13, 1995, with Government totally unable to manage the Unions and their ‘27 demands’, Gideon came up with an idea which he presented to his colleagues in the board. The idea was to engage the unions through a formal setting, either of dialoguing or for training or conflict resolution, facilitated by professionals from either South Africa or negotiated with the American Embassy in Swaziland.

Fortunately, the Americans had already created or established a capacity building structure called ‘Stride”, which was being funded by USAID. It was this outfit that responded quickly to this request and helped the two sides find one another.

It, therefore, came as no surprise when from May 2-4, 1995, at Ezulwini Inn, Gideon led all of us to develop a futuristic agenda of ‘Vision 2020’, which became the forerunner of ‘Vision 2022’. Such was Gideon Mahlalela. He had such foresight and such energy to do things that would benefit the nation.

thoroughly disappointed

In the late 1990s, the FSE, having been thoroughly disappointed with the Government’s misleading of our King by letting him launch a fake 2022 Vision, turned to other strategies of harnessing the national mindset to adopt other ways and means of getting this nation to a better future of peace and prosperity. This time it sought permission from His Majesty the King to try the concept of ‘Smart Partnership’.

With that mandate given, it wrote to Dr. Mihaela Smith in London, informing her and her team that it had been instructed by His Majesty the King that she considered establishing the hub here as well. She jumped at the challenge and it came as no surprise that we held both our national, as well as the global Smart Partnership conferences in Swaziland in 2003.
However, readers must remember that at the close of that National Smart Partnership Conference, the Prime Minister of that time stood up in front of our King and Queen Mother and all of us, to say that he was ‘the Lightning Arrestor’ and we immediately knew what he meant - killing the process, as it is dead right now in Swaziland!

But Gideon kept the light on , representing an unwilling nation at CPTM since that time in 2003 until he met his death. We, therefore, mourn with all those whose minds worry about the lack of development in this country 50 years after independence. We mourn with the business community of Swaziland for losing one of its very faithful and hardworking members in Gideon Mahlalela. We mourn with his family for having lost a husband, father, brother, uncle and or cousin. Your loss is a national loss, hence we are all mourning the death of our beloved brother and colleague. I have no doubt that his peers at CPTM are also mourning his untimely departure. He truly shall be missed!

But let us take solace in the knowledge that God had given him to us all, and that it is the same God who has now called him to Himself, and May His name be praised. Amen.

By Musa Hlophe