To Musa Hlophe, with love

I write to respond to Musa Hlophe’s article for December 6, 2009, “To Mgabhi with Love”, where he portrays the multiparty system of governance as the best thing ever, though he later contradicts this.

People like Hlophe need to realise that in this day and age, the readers are well educated and therefore intelligent independent thinkers, who read and form opinions, not only about what they read, but about the writers as well.
With the emergence of information technology which has made communication so easy, these readers know exactly what is happening in the world.

Don’t write as though you are writing to the readers of three decades ago.
Today, the average reader knows what is happening all over the world, politically and socially.
Most readers know that multiparty has its own shortcomings, just like the one party system which was tried by many African countries after liberation, and the non - party system.

To be specific, I am really disappointed by people like Musa who know the truth but elect to distort it in order to please certain individuals, which is not very different from what Enoch from the Bible did - selling his birthright for a plate of food.
Today, Musa claims to have been in the youth league of the Ngwane National Liberatory Congress (NNLC) with Mgabhi.

He puts it as though he was an active card-carrying member when in fact he was not but Mgabhi was.
As an active card-carrying member of the youth league of the then NNLC in Manzini, where Musa was also based during those days, I can honestly testify that I never saw Musa during engagements with the colonial authorities, as well as other activities of the youth league, such as assignments to organise meetings around Manzini and Matsapha as well as in the rural areas.

He never attended youth meetings, both at a branch level and nationally. Yes, I did know him as an ordinary sympathiser of the party.
Actually, we had several such people, old and young.

These are people who watched from a distance when things became real though.
What I remember about Musa is that immediately after completing school, he found himself a job at a time when it was almost impossible for NNLC youth members to find employment in this country, because the employers were very prejudiced against them.
We were labelled trouble-makers who would incite other employees to rebel against the authority of their employers.

I was one of the many who could not find employment at that time.
Many of us members of the party were harassed and arrested but Musa and the likes of Dr A.T. Dlamini, who also claims to have been in the youth league, were never subjected to this kind of treatment.
This explains why Musa’s education at Matsapha was sponsored by the Swazi National Council after being recommended buy the late Dr George Msibi. Instead of being grateful to the Dlamini dynasty, today he is shamelessly biting the very same hand that fed him.
As for Dr Dlamini, upon completing High School, he got a government scholarship to pursue his studies outside the country.

These are privileges that any Swazi young person who had connections with party never had.
I find it shocking that today Musa, as if he did not know why people like Mgabhi had to abandon the party label them opportunists, who voluntarily left if to join Imbhokodvo National Movement. Let us suppose there is substance in these accusations, who then is a better opportunist, between two NNLC youth members Musa and Mgabhi who both benefited from the most hated Dlamini dynasty?

It is now history that around 1965 to 1967, there developed a fierce infighting within the ranks of the NNLC, which culminated in the mass resignation of several leading members of the organisation to save their lives from possible harm.
These included leaders like the late Prince Dumisa and the late Arthur Khoza. As for Mgabhi, it is not true that Imbhokodvo found him a job. This is a lie.
What I know and remember is that after leaving the NNLC, Mgabhi found himself a job in Big-Bend, and later at the Ngwenya Iron ore mine. He had earlier been fired by the Usuthu Pulp Company because of his links to the NNLC, and he was not the only one to have lost his job in that fashion during those days.

The reader may then ask, ‘Where was Musa Hlophe when all his comrades in the NNLC were shown the exit for belonging to an organisation that was perceived by many to be out to turn this country into a communist state with all private companies nationalised?’

Musa must know that some of us who were there are still alive and watching things from the sidelines.
I am not here trying to defend Mgabhi, who I believe is old enough to defend himself. Nor am I here to defend the Tinkhundla system though I admire it for the peace the country enjoys. Having become a senior citizen of this country, and having seen it all in the world of politics I find the challenges facing the world today the same - poverty accompanied by its twin sister-corruption.

These two neither respect political systems nor national borders.
They are found in both multiparty and the Tinkhundla system of governance. So our politicians and writers must desist from manipulating the ignorance of the population and promise them heaven and earth as if these exist in other countries.
What a shame that people like Musa have allowed their hatred for the Tinkhundla system to blind them from the realities of life.

Instead of seeing and appreciating the freedom he enjoys to express himself freely every week in his column, chooses to see himself dwelling in a country under a terrible regime that denies the people any basic human right.
Actually, their propaganda is now working against them, because the international community has begun to realise that after all, things in Swaziland are not as bad as we had been made to believe. No wonder Musa is turning his attention to and intensifying his hatred of the Dlaminis.

Another of Musa’s double standards that need to be exposed is his claim of being opposed to all forms of violence, yet only two year ago, he stood before the coffin of Musa Dlamini who had been killed by a bomb he was trying plant to kill innocent people at Lozitha bridge, singing the deceased’s praises.
As he stood there before mourners at a memorial service in honour of the deceased he uttered not a single word condemning violence. Today he has joined the bandwagon of those condemning the country’s Terrorism Act.
Who is fooling who here?

Musa also needs to be told that belittling the Dlamini’s and hurling insults at the parliamentarians for no good reason, does not elevate him to any higher level. Calling the country legislators ‘blessed dummies who are there at the mercy of the Dlamini dynasty’, is the lowest level any self-respecting person can stoop to.

On the call for a referendum as suggested by Mgabhi, one would have thought Musa and other progressives would give this their full support as an internationally recognised democratic process to determine the will of the people. If conducted the referendum would put to rest the current bickering about whether the majority of Swazi’s are opposed to the Tinkhundla governance as the progressive claim.

Yet, another of Musa’s lies that needs to be dismissed with the contempt it deserves, is that since the establishment of the Regional development fund, the average people of Swaziland have ‘grown poorer than before...’ Actually, the opposite is true.

As I approached the end of his article I was perplexed when I came across a sentence that read: “I will be the first to admit that not everything is good with multiparty system of governance. “What a damn contradiction! If that is the case, why then must we abandon our admittedly not perfect Tinkhundla system for another imperfect system.
Anyway thanks for shaming the devil with this truth Mr Hlophe.

He also boasted about the right of the population in a multiparty system to bring to order those parliamentarians who abuse their power, by voting them out at the next elections. I am happy to inform him that this is also the case under our Tinkhundla.
Most probably some of his own relatives have fallen victim to this democratic process, already.

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