POLITICS BREEDING ANGRY PROGRESSIVES, CONSERVATIVES

The writing is on the wall.

All of us are very close to becoming angry. Before we reach political consensus as a nation, we will find ourselves in urgent need of counsellors to help us deal with anger issues. I am afraid that the dialogue table may be occupied by angry emaSwati, swearing at each other. Supposedly, one asks this question: “Why did you kill my brother who was a police officer? Your organisation is responsible for my sister’s death.”

The other person or persons respond: “But, the security forces killed our brothers and sisters during the civil unrest.”
Another person, perhaps, demands evidence that the murdered police officers, Correctional Services officers, soldiers and chiefs participated in last year’s killings of civilians, thus warranting the revenge by the underground forces. “Why did you burn my shop?” “You burnt my house.”  

When we think there is now order in the room, an Asian businessman peeps through the window: “You burnt my cars in Matsapha.” We need all sorts of healing and closure. All of us, including the leaders of the country, need something that will make us forget about past occurrences. Having said so, I have observed something. There is a possibility that people, including country leaders, will grow accustomed to whatever form of action is to be taken to force them or government into submission. Certain actions will cease to shake the people. Instead, they will grow accustomed to unfortunate incidents. That’s a bad society.

Demonstrations

My gut feeling tells me that this would happen in the same way some members of political parties are now used to police beatings, tear gas canisters and gun sounds during demonstrations. They now accept such incidents as normal.
There are people who have grown accustomed to abuse. I heard stories of some women who were beaten by their husbands to a pulp, to an extent that they wished to die. “Babe wa Gugu sale ungibulala (You rather kill me,” a heavily beaten woman would say.

Look at what happened at Mavuso Sports Centre a fortnight ago. Soccer fans did not drop to the floor in fear or run away to the nearby bushes at the gunshot sound. Ten years ago, they would have done so - sprinting to the bushes for safety. Last year, I did warn emaSwati about behaviours that would harden the hearts. We are now in this situation. Basically, we are either breeding a lawless society or converting some innocent, modest and moral people to a state of extreme cruelty. What is happening in the country affects all of us. In the end, we shall all need to deal with anger issues. Consequently, nobody will know who hit him.

For instance, the proposed public transport shutdown has dire consequences. We may take it lightly, but it has a potential of ending in tears. As a matter of fact, the public transport shutdown is meant to draw government’s attention to an issue. What’s the issue? Your guess is as good as mine, thank you very much.
Usually, a dangerous shutdown is one that hinges on bread and butter.

This is because workers want to sacrifice their jobs for something that will make their pockets look attractive. Many of our people in Eswatini haven’t reached a stage where they can sacrifice their lives for human rights. Therefore, forcing the transport workers, in particular, to stay at home for an issue that will boost personal coffers will result in chaos at the bus terminus. Wait and see! ue to abject poverty, low wages and high inflations, I wouldn’t be surprised at seeing some public transport workers get tempted to take a risk by working secretly. After all, they need money for Christmas and school fees for their children.

If they are denied the chance to make money for themselves and their employers, mistrust within the public transport sector will rear its ugly heads. This must be understood in the context that certain people within the public transport sector are opposed to the two-day unavailability of transport. I assume that most of the owners of public vehicles are not happy with the two-day shutdown. If things do not work out as planned for Tuesday and Wednesday, will government ever be shaken by a future public transport shutdown? Of course, in consideration of the dwindling GDP, government and employers are very much concerned about the inconvenience to be caused by the forced unavailability of transport on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Crisis

But, who suffers the most when government is in a financial crisis? Who’s government?  I don’t want to answer this question because I trust you enough that you have some quality responses. When we suffer for our own decisions, I have doubts that government leaders will be shaken enough to ‘quickly’ take action to rebuild the bridge we destroyed. However, if people are responding to government’s maladministration that has caused sufferings; I would say the leaders of the country are to feel duty-bound to ‘quickly’ rise to the occasion to address the issues. If they decide to stay at home, I foresee no soldier or police officer forcing the drivers to work.

Instead, I presume that government may wait for the moment when the public vehicle employees will feel the pinch for the stay away. When they feel the pinch, they are likely to turn against their masters. In fact, public transport shutdowns potentially turn the worker against their employer. When the action flops, the shutdown turns the worker against the union. Primarily, this action ruins the employer-employee relationship more than it does to government. Supposedly, a bus driver’s mother would want to go to hospital on Tuesday and there is no transport to ferry her to Hlatikhulu Government Hospital. What if she dies at home? God forbid!

Ordinarily, the employee will never forgive the union, particularly if he was opposed to the action from the onset.
Calamities or unfortunate incidents usually happen, where there are transportation barriers to healthcare.
In their analysis, Samina T. Syed, Ben S. Gerber and Lisa K. Sharp agreed that transportation barriers often lead to rescheduled or missed appointments, delayed care and missed or delayed medication use.
They point to the fact that these consequences may lead to poorer management of chronic illness and thus poorer health outcomes. I personally often say that transportation is connected to life. Without transport, there is no human capital. Nothing ever happens without the involvement of human beings. Even a drone needs a person to set it in motion.

Shutdown

Technology requires our input as well. Doctors and nurses who depend on public transport will stay at home. As much as the public transport shutdown is crippling the economy, the effects shall be felt not by government alone, but all of us are to feel the pinch. When the effects of the shutdown begin to hit the companies and workforce, the employers will not be able to pay bonuses, overtime allowances, increase salaries and may in future consider retrenchments.

Some of the people who have been around for a couple of decades can bear testimony that there is hardly an industrial action to be appreciated by an employee who has lost a job - no matter how genuine it has been.
Transportation shutdowns cripple any country’s supply chains. That is the reason USA President Joe Biden held talks with Congress in an attempt to avert a railroad strike. Biden is aware of its repercussions on the economy.
It could, just as it does all over the world, send prices higher for goods from gasoline to food and cars. The question is: “who suffers?”  

Before the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) formed a merger with the Swaziland Federation of Labour (SFL) to set up Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA), it (SFTU) had by then lost its original steam.
Since then, the federation for the workforce in the country has never been the same again. Why?
It was partly due to the fact that the main strike in 1996, organised by the leadership of that time, was followed by too many ‘subordinate actions’ thereafter. Observably, this resulted in government growing accustome to SFTU’s strike actions.

When the dynamic SFTU aligned its policies with other formations, workers who supported Tinkhundla System of Government began to distance themselves from the activities of the federation. We saw some of their leaders resigning. Headlines began to scream: ‘SFTU strike flops.’ Look at the demonstration to deliver a petition to the US Embassy in October 2021, over 10 000 people attended. That was a huge turnout. I had not seen this in many years.
How many people attended the recent demonstration to petition the Embassy of Taiwan in Mbabane? EmaSwati are susceptible to weariness. They don’t want to do one and the same thing.

 Okay, which one is second to the US Embassy demonstration? When people get used to something, they go weary and lose interest in it, particularly when there is no textbook for effective plan, B, C and D. There would come a time when emaSwati will get used to the killing of people for holding different political opinions or sticking with the status quo. In short, the levels of shock will not be the same. When they get used to this unfortunate thing, the killings, perhaps, of the security forces or other persons will gradually lose steam and the networks responsible for such assassinations ‘may’ turn against each other.

Constructive

I always advocate for constructive dialogue founded on honesty and citizenship to prevent probable catastrophes. It is a dialogue founded on logic and intellect that can solve all of our problems. South Africans did not destroy the infrastructure provided by the apartheid regime. They did not burn the bridges or destroy the cities; hence they have their Durban, Johannesburg, Cape Town and other towns across Mzansi. They knew they would need the infrastructure in future. Walter Sisulu was aware that her daughter, Lindiwe, would need the infrastructure.

Nelson Mandela knew that his grandson, Mandla, would use the roads. Govan Mvubu did not want to destroy the Union Building because his son, Thabo, would use it during his presidency.  Let us not destroy the country because our future generations will need it. As we dialogue over reforms, we mustn’t lose our identity as a people and everything that binds us together.  I urge the conservatives and progressives to put aside political differences to forge a way forward through a meaningful dialogue that will be embraced by all the people of Eswatini. A sectoral decision is not needed to take the country forward, but a national consensus is what can make all of us happy.

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