Sunak arriving too soon?

Iam duty-bound to explain this article’s frequent mention of the United Kingdom (UK) in recent times. I trust that my reasons will hold water with the esteemed readers; all 10 of them. The first is that, although Eswatini is my home and where my heart now lies, I cannot forget my upbringing and much of adult life spent in the UK. And, secondly, it is a kingdom with a political system which shows true democracy working, despite sometimes going a little wonky.

And I can’t be rattling on about the existing political and civil challenges in Eswatini. Others know more, and the reader wants variety. But the challenges do worry me, and rather than drift into a day-long moan I simply repeat a useful mnemonic – a series of capital letters capturing a key sentence. ‘HODSTOV’, I say to myself as I move down the street. This may leave passers-by somewhat confused. Is this guy singing? If so, he’s tone deaf. Or is he chanting some obscure religious mantra? Well it’s a sort of mantra – it means HOld Dialogue and STOp Violence.

Does HODSTOV really have any significance? I believe so. When you’re talking you’re rarely fighting. But be clear what is political disagreement and what are pay disputes. And cold-blooded acts of violence create fear but not support. The sooner

THERE is a myriad of signs of a government that’s headed for demise which history teaches us. I will mention some which interest me for purposes of the point I seek to drive across this week. One of those signs is unequal distribution of wealth, which creates a wide gap between the haves and have nots and a crack-down on any people who hold divergent views that challenge the status quo.

The justice system is normally used to persecute those people as a means to make a statement and silence other dissenting voices. At this stage, the leadership lives in a bubble of oblivion and becomes detached from the suffering of the masses. They make statements that do not seem to be from people who are part of the same society they are supposed to serve. Any challenge to authority, or complaints on gaps in service delivery, is met with brutal force. Real attempts at solving the concerns of the people give way to rhetoric and management of the people’s emotions. Sooner or later, under the yoke of suffering and disenfranchisement, the people’s patience runs out and their challenges become bolder those responsible see the country talking, and a united denouncement of the murder of fellow human beings and other destruction, that’s when harmony and progress start to shine through. You want examples? I can give you plenty. Take a look at the hatred and violence of the recent Northern Ireland troubles. And bad they were. On one occasion they got only metres away from assassinating the then British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Luckily she could run fast in those high heels of hers. Today there’s sustained peace.

But it’s interesting to observe how the warts and other blemishes can emerge in democracies. Most ‘democracies’ are not that anyway, with their rigged elections and lack of accountability for corruption. But the UK democracy is one of the most reputable, though the observer might easily be mystified how one man, Boris Johnson, can be dumped by his party in July and emerge as joint-favourite for the same leadership position in October.

Danger

He wasn’t going to win – hence his withdrawal – but he was a perceived danger. Why? Well, I have my own theory which is that, far from feeling he was the best for the job, Conservative Members of Parliament were looking ahead to the next election and to saving their own political careers. Despite his elite background and through-the-hedge-backwards hairstyle, Boris had the common touch. He’s an old-Etonian, an alumnus of the most prestigious, elitist school in the UK. Eton and Harrow colleges dominated the top level of the UK Conservative Party and the UK Government for decades until Labour’s ‘commoner’, Harold Wilson, burst the bubble. But old-Etonians can talk confidently – they are taught to believe they can take on the world – and Boris

and oftentimes chaotic. I’m no prophet of doom but that’s the path we seem to be taking as a country.

After all we’ve gone through as a nation, with all our scars and fresh wounds, one keeps being disappointed by the indifference demonstrated by our leadership on the plight of emaSwati. Being the optimist that I am, I always hold my breath each time the leaders get a chance to address us and, on tenterhooks, hope that they will seize the moment, restore the people’s confidence and steer us onto a path of reconciliation, prosperity and lasting peace. I reflect on this moment in history and see how opportune it would be for this regime to win the hearts of emaSwati by demonstrating true leadership and showing all and sundry that political tolerance and peace are possible if we are prepared to listen to the views of others, however opposed we are to them. That, to me, is at the heart of democracy. I get disappointed all the time.

Waited

This leadership, instead, chooses repeatedly to tread on the path of needless bravado that will serve the nation no good in the long run. When the nation waited in bated breath this week to hear government finally say something on the long-overdue national dialogue, against a backdrop of killings and arson attacks, all we were told is its readiness to spare no expense in giving resources to security forces to face the elements who have claimed responsibility for the deaths of many members of the security forces, and recently a chief, as well as many of the arson targets.

This doesn’t even begin to be a cosmetic attempt at addressing the issues we face. At best, it just fans the flames of violence. In essence, the regime has seen it in its wisdom, or lack thereof, to face fire could get votes.

I believe – but I’ll never be able to prove it – that Boris got so many supporters, only three months after being thrown under that bus, because the new leader of the Conservative Party and also PM until the next election, Rishi Sunak, is not white; as the son of Indian immigrants to the UK he might not get the votes. The BREXIT referendum of 2016 showed, in the dominance by older voters, that the amount of immigration in recent decades was not popular. It was not necessarily hostile racism but, more, a nostalgia about the much earlier days when the UK was almost entirely made up of indigenous Brits.

Educated

Both Sunak and the UK’s shortest serving chancellor, Kwarteng, are highly educated men, but both are from immigrant families. Capable guys? We don’t know yet. Both have already made mistakes, Sunak over the exposure of his wealthy wife’s massive overseas income with not a cent of tax for the UK; since remedied. But, that forgiven, we should be happy to see ethnic diversity in leadership where merited; a British-Asian prime minister, just as we welcomed Barack Obama to the position of president of the USA. But this indigenous issue is a sad distraction. Numerous community groups in the world fallaciously call themselves indigenous to their region. The UK whites themselves are not indigenous, since they are the progeny of a whole bunch of invaders, mainly Romans, Angles, Saxons, Vikings and Normans. We’ve relegated that to an interesting piece of British history.

Good luck Rishi; you have a huge challenge ahead; let’s call it ‘Brexflation’ – dealing with BREXIT complications and a galloping inflation. You won’t find it easy to convince your fellow-Brits of the need to endure the negative impact of the belt-tightening government measures, which include the ‘stealth’tax increases, when they know that you personally will feel no financial pain, whatever happens. In winning the leadership election you may have received what is known in rugby as ‘the hospital pass’.

with fire without attending to the root cause of the problem. Why government refuses to learn from history really boggles my mind.

The leadership seems to have convinced itself that the case of Eswatini is a special one. We think we are immune to the lessons that history is replete with. The barrel of a gun cannot pacify the anger of the people. Persecuting a few members of the Police Staff Association does not even begin to solve the problem. Meanwhile, we see a leadership that is at pains trying to convince the world that the kingdom is ready to do business. Unless we take care of our politics, we can never have an environment that is ready to attract real foreign direct investment.

Heartening

In my last piece, I decried the lack of mass action that should keep the flames alive. It was heartening to see some political outfits march to the embassies of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the European Union to deliver petitions on the political crisis in the kingdom. It was also encouraging seeing the church, as led by the members of the clergy, breaking its silence and storming Parliament with a petition. Even more exciting is the planned march on November 15 in the capital city.

The pith of my frustration when I expressed my scathing attack on the mass pro-democracy movement, civil society at large and the church was that the struggle for the democratisation of this country cannot be left to unknown elements and appear as though it does not enjoy the support of the masses. This support cannot be assumed but must be demonstrated for the world to see. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, one can only continue to appeal to the leadership to have a change of heart. Let peace be explored at all costs.