BOGUS SWAZILAND TERROR FEARS

When will the Times of Swaziland stop insulting the intelligence of its readers over al-Qaeda terrorist threats in the kingdom?

The Times and its companion newspapers have been running articles designed to raise the level of fear among Swazis that they are in immediate threat from ‘Asians’ or ‘Muslims’ who are secretly in Swaziland plotting destruction.

The latest episode in this fantasy comes in the Times today (26 January 2010). The newspaper reports that the Muslim cleric Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal has been in Swaziland ‘recruiting young men who would act as suicide bombers during the FIFA Football World Cup to be hosted by South Africa in June’.

These so-called ‘suicide bombers’ are, the Times tells us, ‘Muslim extremists who would cause terror at the upcoming world showpiece’.

And what’s the Times’ evidence for this? It copied the story down from the City Press newspaper in South Africa.

And where did the City Press get the story? It copied it down from the Sunday Standard newspaper in Botswana.

Do the remember the Standard? Obviously the journalists at the Times don’t. The Standard is the newspaper that in early 2009 told us that al Qaeda terrorists may be in Swaziland disguised as secondhand car salesmen.

They weren’t and they aren’t.

The Standard went further and reported that al Qaeda terrorists were infiltrating Botswana and 10 nations across the world, ‘Brazil, Namibia, South Africa, Malaysia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Lesotho, Mauritius, Swaziland, and Trinidad and Tobago’.

Nonsense. But the Swaziland journalists fell for it (that time it was mainly the Swazi Observer).

Still the Swazi journalists don’t stop and think. They are going great damage to ‘Asians’ and ‘Muslims’ by spreading a fear that they may be terrorists.

They are also playing into the hands of the repressive regime led by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch. Every time the media raise fear it gives the anti-democratic supporters of the king the excuse to clamp down on legitimate dissent in the kingdom.

SWAZILAND NEWSPAPER TURNS PIMP

Just when you think the newspapers in Swaziland can’t get any worse, they do.

The Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper, is now acting as a pimp.

This week, the newspaper that has no shame, published a letter from a man in the United States who is seeking a Swazi woman for a wife.

And, according to his letter, any woman will do.

The sad man is visiting the continent next year to watch the soccer at the FIFA World Cup in neighbouring South Africa and while he is over here he wants to pick up a wife.

Don’t worry, he writes, ‘I’m not too picky; I just want a woman with a good heart to help me raise my daughter and take good care of me. I make good money so my wife will not need to work or worry about finances.’ His email address is then given for responses.

The Times editor, in a footnote to the letter says, ‘We [Swaziland] have beautiful women, who were raised right’. Presumably by ‘right’ he means will prostitute themselves to this man.

SUSPICION OVER ‘TIMES’ LETTERS

I smell a rat. There has been another letter published by the Times of Swaziland from a reader in Europe following the showing of a documentary about the kingdom there.

Just like in the previous letter (written by a different person) the reader doesn’t give the title of the documentary (so we can only take his word for it about the contents) but uses it as an excuse to criticise people who he says are are putting Swaziland down. Like the other letter it also talks about a desire to visit Swaziland next year (2010) at the time of the FIFA World Cup.

And just like the previous letter the editor of the Times adds a footnote to extol the virtues of Swaziland.

The reader writes, ‘Most media reports suggest that public gatherings are banned in Swaziland and that violent clashes with the police are the result of such gatherings. Does this mean that Swaziland will not have any fan parks during the 2010 World Cup?’

To which the editor responds, ‘This place [Swaziland] is not only beautiful, it is also very peaceful, and I am afraid you have been misled. It is not true that gatherings are banned, but maybe what you mean is gatherings of a political nature where people intending to have such gatherings only have to request permission to hold them. It is not abnormal.’

Tell that to the striking security guards who earlier this week had rubber bullets and teargas fired at them by Swazi police.

In his footnote the editor also says that the Swaziland 2010 Committee (that is organising things to coincide with the football tournament in South Africa) says there will be ‘fan parks’ (that’s places for people to see matches televised on large screens in public areas) and ‘these won’t just be in the urban areas, but will be spread across the country’. Considering the committee’s inability up to now to organise a drink up at a brewery (to coin a phrase) I think this statement is definitely one for our Fantasy Watch game.

So who are these letter writers from Europe and why have they suddenly taken the urge to write (of all places) to the Times of Swaziland? And why do they say share similar sentiments about Swaziland. And why does the editor see fit to add footnotes to these letters, but not to any others he publishes?

Next time I’m at the Times’ office I’ll look out for one of the paper’s hacks hunched over a keyboard in a back room knocking out another ‘reader’s letter’ to the editor.

FOOTNOTE: The editor gave this link for the letter writer to get more information about Swaziland’s preparations for the World Cup. When I tried it I got a message offering to sell me a website for a dollar ninety-nine. Looks like another victory for the Swaziland 2010 committee.

IS SWAZILAND A MAD STATE?

Swaziland not a mad country in some unstable state – heading to a letter from a reader published in the Times of Swaziland.

As any academic might be I was attempted to append the word ‘discuss’ to that statement.

For those who didn’t see the letter it comes from someone from the Netherlands who has never visited Swaziland but saw a documentary about the kingdom on television.

He didn’t say which documentary he watched but it was so powerful he felt compelled to write to the Times of Swaziland to say, ‘What I knew about Swaziland mostly circled around the absolute monarchy and so called liberators running around like chickens with no heads.

'If one was to believe most of what we hear of Swaziland, one would think it is a mad country in some unstable, revolutionary state.'

Now, he reckons he and his pals are coming to Swaziland for the FIFA World Cup next year (2010).

The letter prompted a response from the editor of the Times inviting people to ‘come visit, and experience the true royal experience, and the true beauty and tranquillity of this beautiful country’.

I hope the writer does visit Swaziland but avoids the five star hotels and instead visits the rural areas where more than 70 percent of the population live. Perhaps, the writer would care to live as an ordinary Swazi (70 percent are in abject poverty earning less than a dollar a day) in squalor without health care or clean water and at the mercy of tuberculosis and other disease.

Then he can visit some of the HIV sufferers (at 40 percent the highest rate in the world) and talk to the countless thousands of children who are now head of their household because AIDS has ravaged the Swazi population.

Then he can visit the people in prison whose main crime is poverty (they can’t pay the fine imposed upon them for often quite trivial offences so have to take a prison term as an alternative).

Then he can visit the one in three girls in Swaziland who are sexually abused by their relatives and discuss with them what a tranquil kingdom Swaziland is.

After that he can meet some of the women at Swaziland’s textile factories who are paid such poor wages they have to share one meal with three people, share a bed with six others and prostitute themselves to the local soldiers just to keep from starving.

Then he can go watch a game of football in South Africa with tens of thousands of other Europeans. He won’t see any Swazis there and hardly any black South Africans. They can’t afford a ticket.