ESWATINI IDENTITY WITHIN GLOBAL WORLD

The Kingdom of Eswatini has to find a political dispensation that will be acceptable to the ever changing world so that it can survive globalisation.

Basically globalisation is a process of interaction and integration among the world’s population, companies and governments internationally. Globalisation has accelerated since the 18th century due to advancement in transportation and communication technologies. The fundamental principles of the Batswana economic success story has been centred around two important realities.
1) Political stability. The Batswana Democratic Party (BDP), which was formed at independence by the Batswana royal family under their first President, Sir Seretse Khama, has ruled Botswana almost as a one party State for more than 50 years.  
2) The economic sacrifices the Batswana people, led by the BDP, accepted the unfair exploitation of their diamonds in the hands of a transnational corporation called De Beers International, which is owned by Anglo America.  

The political stability enjoyed by Botswana over the years has allowed that country to develop steadily under the banner of a democratic State but without the constant political bickering and challenges that come with a strong opposition in a multi-party democracy as we have in Lesotho. Botswana was very poor until it discovered diamonds in 1971 and then the transnational mining company, De Beers, took over. This company acquired 85 per cent of the diamonds mining company, Debtswana, and gave the Batswana only 15 per cent. For many years, Batswana held only 15 per cent until more recently when they acquired an additional 35 per cent shareholding to make it 50 per cent. In a strong multi-party democracy, this situation would have never been allowed. Botswana would have disintegrated into political chaos as the opposition would have challenged and won. However, given their weak status, I am sure they tried and lost.

The country has remained united under one political party (BDP) with a single purpose to raise the standard of the Batswana people and this has paid off. The country, which some 20 years ago was one of the poorest, is now considered one of the richest with a currency stronger than the South African Rand. The Batswana people endured economic hardships at the hands of the transnational company, but they showed wisdom in the part of the BDP leadership. It also shows what Africa has had to deal with over the years. The Oppenheimer family has owned De Beers since 1920 (through Anglo America as a parent company) and has controlled 80 – 85 per cent of the world’s rough diamond distribution and was considered a monopoly until more recently.

One Jewish foreign family can own 85 per cent of the diamond wealth of a whole nation for decades in a democratic country and the opposition parties are not able to say anything. This wealth represents 90 per cent of the country’s GDP and all is well politically, showing that BDP had real power. Over time, the percentage ownership of Debtswana (diamond company) has shifted to 50/50 per cent ownership, which shows passive strategy on the part of the Batswana leadership. Who knows, they might eventually own it all. How do you fight with a multinational De Beers company which had revenue of US$6.08 billion in 2018, with billions of diamonds in reserve in their offices in Europe. Zambia tried to fight a multinational company and they dropped the price of copper long enough to starve ordinary Zambians and get President Kenneth Kaunda out of office.  

Globalisation and Eswatini

The population of Eswatini as of 2022 is 1 178 665 emaSwati and of this population 38 per cent are below the age of 14 years, representing 447 893 children. The remaining population is 730 772 of which more than 58.54 per cent are 15-35years representing about 438 463 emaSwati. This means the active adult population is 292 308. We need to note that four per cent, which is 47 147, represents elderly emaSwati above the age of 65.  Let these figures sink in because they shocked me into the reality that we are very few in this seven billion plus world population. Globalisation means that this 292 308 emaSwati adults and a few senior youth (47 per cent unemployed youth) must quickly get their political situation together and remain united against a very big world. “The true measure of society can be found in how it treats its elderly and its most vulnerable members,” said Mahatma Gandhi.

As we dialogue we must realise that unfortunately our traditional comparative advantage as a low income country is gone; we now need to compete at world market prices. As the northern industrialised countries export more manufactured goods (which produce higher profit margins than the raw materials and agricultural produce we sell), they get richer than us as a southern developing nation. This creates and expands the wealth gap.

Globalisation is by nature capitalism at its highest and capitalism is fuelled by profits. Globalisation will not be good for African nations wasting time fighting for political power, building and destroying valuable infrastructure as they throw their nations from one political party to the next. The developed world now has technological advances and subsidies which cut away at the developing world’s traditional advantages. The price instabilities caused by climate change have eroded the advantages enjoyed in the past. The terms of trade, which are the countries’ relative price of exports compared to their imports, have been shifting negatively in the last 25 years. We need to industrialise.

Conclusion

As in Botswana, we need to have a stable political dispensation with a strong accountable fully democratic (elected prime minister and government) evolved tinkhundla political system or a very strong national political party (100k members) with accountability and the decision on our future must come from a strong mandate from emaSwati in a free and fair referendum.
We also need to open our mining laws to attract capital. However my first option would be to establish a national mining corporation, which will find an international mining partner and develop all our mineral resources for the benefit of the whole nation including the royal family.

This support must include our royal family to maintain our unique cultural identity which will pay us big through tourism. This is our economic advantage, having an African cultural identity in globalisation. Then we need to attract a multinational company, say Google or Yahoo for data storage, and grow the Royal Eswatini Technology Park (RETP); with this we would be on our way to success. Surely we can do it as we are a small population less than many cites in South Africa. septembereswatini@gmail.com

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: