By: Lucky Lukhele
The more things change, the more they remain the same. More than a decade after the German Philosopher Karl Marx described religion as the opiate of the masses, a means for them to ease their suffering from exploitation, oppressive regimes still use religious beliefs to control the populations they oppress.
This is the role played by King Mswati’s hypocritical Annual Prayer held at Mandvulo Grand Hall, a common feature in the national calendar. This is an event where the king’s loyalists in the religious fraternity converge at his lavish hall to preach values that neither they nor the king himself, upholds.
This abuse of religion by despots is an old and overused trick, dating back to some of the oldest civilizations brought to our shores by the European colonialists who used it as a pre-emptive psychological weapon to disarm and neutralize our ancestors before subduing us to their empires.
It is tragic and ironic to see our traditional leaders copying the antics of the very same colonial masters that they replaced. King Mswati is not a Christian and there is nothing in his actions that indicates that he lives according to the word of God as written in the Bible.
Just like his British colonial masters, King Mswati is using religion to bluff the nation to accept their subservient role, praying for a better after-life, while he and his family live lavishly off the wealth that should be shared equally amongst the nation’s citizens.
When the people see through his thinly veiled bluff, he sends mercenaries to kill them, breaking one of the most fundamental commandments of the very religion that he claims to live by. King Mswati is a murderer who killed over 100 activists in 2021 and went on to assassinate a humble soul, Thulani Maseko.
In his latest sermon, the king advised the nation to “avoid earthly things and those of the flesh”, as these would lead to God’s disaffection with the nation. One wonders if the gold in the king’s palaces makes him so disconnected from the people’s plight, or perhaps he was drunk from Marula.
Swaziland is a functional failed state with more than 70% of the population living in abject poverty, a situation that worsens daily and manifests itself in the breakdown of society’s oldest support pillars such as the family.
In the tiny country, suicide, parricide, prolicide, and homicide have become a common feature, and no amount of fake preaching will end it. People are suffering from poverty and the decay of public institutions such as health and education. With unemployment at an alarming rate of more than 70%, it is not God that has cursed the nation but decades of mismanagement of the country’s economy by a despot who thinks only about himself.
In a week’s time, the king and his entourage will be at a traditional beer-drinking ceremony, another opiate, where fornication and over-indulging in alcohol will be the order of the day, a ceremony where the country’s limited resources will be wasted. Where do fornication and alcohol abuse fit within the context of a Christian framework? Swazis need to voice out their thoughts about this hypocrisy and tell the king that he is not fooling anyone but himself.
*Lucky Lukhele is the spokesperson of Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN)
