History tells us that a struggle founded on the legitimate grievances of the people,galvanising and unifying all sectors of society, can never be defeated by the evil guns of an illegitimate government.
It cannot be denied that the Mass Democratic Movement and the opposition parties have serious homework to do if the struggle of the people of Swaziland is to rise above the mediocrity and comedy of the ruling royal aristocracy.
The Swazi Society has been highly abused and taken for granted by the ruling class and treated as second-class citizens since independence. The failure of the regime is everywhere and self-evident and every Swazi is a witness to it. How do we convert the failure of the system to be the fuel for mass mobilization and deep reforms?
It is not enough to just show the failures of the regime. The political opposition needs to conceive and articulate a vision and a strategy to advance a people-centred agenda for Development and accountable constitutional governance. We must have a clear agenda for the youth, to empower them to succeed in school and out of school, engender a culture of self-determination and refuse to allow the spirit of the nation to be broken. We must fight the system whilst at the same time offering solutions to the people.
Just as the organised trade union movement must lead the struggle for the liberation and improvements of the conditions of workers in the country, organised labour must offer the best examples of empowering their members, whether through the launch of workers’ cooperatives that are supporting members to save and invest or through services or wholesale cooperatives offering essential products at discounted prices.
In Singapore, workers own cooperatives supermarkets that generally determine prices for food products.
We must endeavour to demonstrate a higher level of political acumen, organisation, and capacity to imagine better alternatives and demonstrate an intentional commitment to make a clean break away from the culture of mediocrity, corrupt governance, and bad leadership that has led down the country and Africa in general.
African people are ingenious, creative, and capable of finding solutions within their own environment. Outside of our core business of demonstrations, mobilization, and protests against the regime, what positive contributions are we offering our communities and members as part of projecting the values of the struggle?
Mandla Hlatswako.