The inevitable demise of monarchy and chieftaincy: How prepared is this nation?.
Whenever I think of Chieftaincy in Swaziland, my mind conjures up images of the Shakespeare Macbeth. In the interposed images, I see everything from equivocation, intimidation, mysterious rituals, witchcraft, and usurpation of power to the employment of desperate measures (like murder) as a means of gaining or holding on to traditional power. Just as the narrative of Macbeth presents readers or audience with a sense of a ticking time bomb, we Swazis, audience of the ongoing real life drama called Swazi Monarchy are perceiving similar sensations on our national stage as stool after stool, skin after skin, get engulfed in senseless endless squabbles, litigations and I will show you where power lies. Monarchy, the first form of governance in almost every nation of the world, has served us well for centuries but at this point in our national history, it runs the risk of having no relevance in our daily lives and absolutely no place in our coming democracy. We now see and hear the ticking hands of the CLOCK OF CHANGING TIMES as more and more Swazis realise that the Monarchy is the largest beneficiary of Tinkhundla system. Time has run out, the Monarchy is living on borrowed time. Monarchy has survived many years and this has prompted some folks to chant the resiliency of Monarchy system. Beloved Swazis, make no mistake, the institution is on its way out. It is not a question of when but how. Worldwide, the pattern is the same, democracy comes into a country/state and monarchy (chieftaincy) goes out. In some states, it goes out quietly, in others, it goes out with a bang. In France, it went out with a revolution. How will Monarchy leave our nation? Will it go quietly or with fireworks? The country of Nepal has recently voted to abolish monarchy (their version of chieftaincy). Can we Swazis take a cue? Unlike any other nation in the world, the Swazi bottom heavy institution of village chief, sub-village chiefs is numerically too large and organizationally too ingrained in the fabric of our society to be abolished with one mighty stroke of the pen. However, we cannot keep pretending and allow this cankerworm of Monarchy to gnaw right through the fabric of our future democracy. We cannot as a nation practice separation of powers (executive - president, legislative - parliament, judiciary - courts) at the top of government only to concentrate all three powers in the hands of some hereditary monarch whose ticket to authority is their birth to a certain familly. Some modern attitudes question the royal power to effectively punish recalcitrant subjects. While this is true to some extent, nothing has taken that power away from them (chiefs). The anti-monarchy camp looks at situations like this and calls for action but every call for the abolition of the institution results in a more entrenched pro-monarchy support. Can we as a nation afford to sit idle as tension between the two sides builds to a crescendo? Are we oblivious to the insults that follow every Swazi article on the issue? Can we openly discuss this issue on the streets of any Swazi village, town or city without resulting to fists, cutlasses, machetes, spears, bows and arrows or shot guns? This article is intended as the first of a series that seek to prepare the nation for the ultimate demise of the institution. Although my viewpoint is anti-Monarchy, I am very, very aware of the historical importance of the institution and respectfully ask our future democratic government to build a Museum of Culture to protect this wonderful relic after its demise. In these article, I will answer questions related to the history of the institution, its cultural, social, religious, and political roles in Swaziland as well as the rest of the world. My analysis will include popular assumptions and theoretical arguments that advocate, that can modernize and keep the institution intact with all its paraphernalia. Will the demise of Monarchy in Swaziland signify the end of Swazi culture? No - Culture is defined by Merriam-Webster Online as the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also: the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life. Culture therefore is not a single aspect of our life but the sum of all the individual little things we do everyday. It is the summary of how we as a people cope with our environment. It is not static but dynamic; evolving all the time as we drop certain practices and adapt new ones to suit our changing circumstances. Along the way, we have made some remarkable cultural changes although the lack of written records makes it impossible to chronicle them all. Since the breadth of culture is so wide, I will concentrate on something distinguishably Swazi - our clothing and textile industry and use it as a metaphor to advance this argument. Less than a hundred years ago, some of our indigenous people wore only emajobo and tidziya made cloth from tree barks, animal skin. We have given up that practice and have replaced it with wearing trousers and dresses. Are advocates for change cultural sell out who embrace European culture to the detriment of our rich heritage? No - We Swazis take special pride in our traditional wear. We wear our eight, ten or twelve yard cloth under one armpit and over the opposite shoulder with or without a T Shirt as dictated by the tradition of our particular locality proudly. We know we have a chip on our shoulder when we don our Tidziya, Emajobo, Indlamu or crown it all with our vividly coloured emahiya. Our women are just perfect in Emavadla and so some of us get carried away; point accusatory fingers at our country folks in shirts or a pair of trousers and shout: followers of the white man! We forget that the kanga themselves are either adaptations from or are made in the white mans world. The material used in our kanga, is also a product of that civilization. The coloured threads for our ligcebesha the needles and crotchets, the sewing machine and the loom we weave on are also products of the industrial revolution that occurred years ago in the world some of us love to hate. Indeed, we have successfully adapted or have seamlessly imported the very fabric of our Swazi identity. Is Monarchy uniquely Swazi? Does it embody the Swazi or African culture as some claim? No - The institution predates modern Swazi or ancient Swazi for that matter. It is found in ancient civilizations on all the continents except unpopulated Antarctica - from the southern tip of the Americas to Siberia in North Eastern Europe. Zulu land, Ethiopia, Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Italy, Britain other countries of feudal Europe, India, China, Japan, native American tribes all had kings, queens, chiefs long before our nation was founded. We might have adapted Monarchy from some earlier civilization. Some argue that our forebears stumbled onto Monarchy without outside influence. After all historical records show monarchy in Egypt (Africa), Mesopotamia (Middle East), Peru (South America) and China (Asia) around the same time period. They say no group invented the institution. Fair argument, but the presence of the institution on other continents also negates claims that it is exclusively Swazi or the embodiment of African culture. It shows that we Swazis are late adapters of a system of government or social organizational structure that was tried by others before us. If we are late adapters then what happened to those who practised Monarchy before us? About ninety-five percent of the world’s population had monarchs / chiefs at some point of their history then moved on to other forms of governance.Currently Britain, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Brunei,Bahrain, Thailand, Japan, Ghana and Native American Reservations in the USA (to name a few) still maintain some form of chieftancy or monarch. Monarchs of the world are usually grouped into two broad categories depending on type of power they wield - ceremonial or absolute. Ceremonial monarchs only represent their country at functions that require no executive decisions. Absolute monarchs have executive, legislative and judicial powers.They also control the pulse or revenue of the country. Almost all ceremonial monarchs began as absolute monarchs with executive power. At some point in their history, ordinary people of the realm stood up, demanded and got change. Does the Swazi Monarchy have ceremonial or absolute power? The Swazi story is an enigma. Historically, the Monarch did not have absolute power in the areas of their influence. This was the case only after the 1973 usurping of powers by the late king Sobhuza II. Although the national constitutions of Swaziland has ascribed very few (if any) of these powers to a separate branch of government on the national level, none has specifically striped the Monarch of real power. Usually when a country becomes a republic, it does away with monarchy and all its entrapments. Ghana became a republic in 1960, got rid of the queen who lived miles and miles across the ocean but did nothing about local chiefs whose activities permeates their daily lives. Should Swazis ditch the traditions of our fathers for western way of life? No, not summarily but we should not accept everything old as gospel either. The realities of Swaziland today are far different from the Swaziland of our forebears. We should go through our traditional ways with a sieve, preserve what is worth preserving in our daily lives and consign others to museums or history books. As we go along, we should remember what Marcus Garvey said: people without a history are like a tree without roots. Monarchy is our history, not our future and we should make provision to preserve it as such. We should remember that westerners did not arrive at democracy by chance. They went through periods of tribulation, wars and strife. They had chiefs /kings and queens just like we do. Who knows what we would have come up with if we have been left alone to develop at our own pace without the interference of the white man? History tells us that for centuries the Greek City States practiced some rudimentary democracy while the rest of Europe languished in serfdom. It took years of efforts by English and French philosophical writers as well as American pragmatists to put democracy on the map. Is Monarchy set in our traditions? Yes, it is. However, we can practice most of our good traditions without chiefs or the monarchy. For example, we can always pour libations in our homes, at our meetings or functions. And we don not need a chief to preserve our forest. We will still have our family heads, extended family elders and community leaders. That is stratified family system and not chieftaincy. A chief is dependant on that structure and not vice versa. What do we draw from this article? This article has shown that we are at the twilight of the Monarchy system.The institution is part of our culture and not our culture. The word culture simply means our way of life. Over the years, our way of life has been changing with our natural and human environment. We have adjusted to earlier changes and will adjust very well to having no Monarchy. While the death of the Monarchy is not yet upon us, it is imperative that we make provisions for its inevitable demise and be prepared to: march into full democracy for all and stop this partial democracy for the educated, very rich or politically connected few. NB: This article was adjusted and moderated to fit the Swazi contest. Initially it posted on www.ghanaweb.com on 10 July 2008. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SA Swaziland Solidarity EOM Forum" group. Visit the group site at http://groups-beta.google.com/group/sa-swaziland-solidarity-eom-forum for more options, pages and files. To post to the group, send email to [email protected] or reply to this message. To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
