Make way for co-rule by the She-Elephant
By Nury Vittachi
An alert reader wrote to me to tell me that tomorrow (April 19th) is the birthday of King Mswati of Swaziland. I was stunned by this. I was so stunned that I ran around the office, informing my colleagues about this important news: “I have a reader, nyeh-nyeh na nyeh-nyeh.”
After calming down and returning to my desk, I prepared to write back to My Reader thanking him for existing. But then I read the rest of his note. “One of the top news stories at the moment is Asia’s growing links with Africa. Well, Swaziland has exactly the same problems that most Asian countries face, but it has dealt with them in unusually creative ways,” he said. “Check it out.”
I did. He was right.
Both Asia and Africa are having to deal with the whole “Equal Opportunities for Women” thing. But in Swaziland, a decree has been passed that the land should forever be “co-ruled” by a ruler AND his mom. That’s a way cool idea. I mean, how can a guy focus on doing bad stuff like organizing invasions if his mama is sitting there barking, “Put that laser pointer away, you’ll have someone’s eye out.”
In Swaziland, as a show of respect, the ruler’s mother must always be addressed as “The She-Elephant”. WARNING: Do NOT try this with the senior-most woman in your parliament, your corporation or (especially) your home.
In both Asia and Africa, modern young women are demanding respect. So every August, King Mswati requires 20,000 of them to dance in skimpy costumes outside his house so that he can give them that respect. Is that not a creative response to feminism?
Both Asia and Africa are sniffing around the whole democracy thing. But in Swaziland, they’ve introduced a system which is “democratic” in name but which simply omits the troublesome stuff about residents having a say in choosing their own leaders. A neat, easy solution.
Both Asia and Africa are pussyfooting around the relationship between business and politics. Swaziland has dealt with this using a system classified by economists as kleptocractic, which literally means “rule by thieves”. The term signifies “a system in which people with wealth and people with political power work together to further enrich themselves at the expense of the poor”. The Asian elite I know would totally go for this.
Most Asians think their leaders are business-obsessed. But we’re nowhere compared to Swaziland. Their economy is based largely (and this is not a joke) on Coca-Cola. Forty per cent of GDP comes from the Coca-Cola Company and the King of Swaziland makes an annual pilgrimage to the headquarters of the soft drink firm in Atlanta, Georgia to pay obeisance to the CEO.
Both Asia and Africa live in fear of pandemics. To stop the spread of HIV/AIDS, King Mswati made a rule that it was illegal to have sex with women under 18. Two months later, he broke the law himself by marrying a 17-year-old (his ninth wife). But to be fair to him, the King admitted guilt and fined himself a cow as punishment.
King Mswati announced that all young unmarried women had to wear Scarves of Chastity for four years. The programme was eventually abandoned as a failure, perhaps because the Scarves of Chastity were worn around the neck.
Hey, you win some, you lose some.
