Swazi Observer

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PETITIONS AND THOSE SAVOURY CUPS OF TEA

By Ackel Zwane | 2021-06-16

Antagonising highly mobilised and agitated youths in the various constituencies around the country has proven to be the wrong kind of reception as evidenced by the Ndzingeni youth, who were treated to a cup of tea instead of unleashing baton wielding cops on them. The area’s Member of Parliament Lutfo Dlamini, though at first defended that youths from his area were not the toyi-toying type, he admitted to treating them to a cup of tea after receiving the contents of their petition. The petitions have become endemic, the petitioners have used the same template throughout and therefore a template response may be ideal at this point, that of receiving the youths and their petitions and provide them the necessary escort as things have turned out lately. It is also encouraging to listen to National Commissioner of Police William Tsitsibala Dlamini also throwing in a word of advice to the youths of the country as they craft the contents of their petitions. “It is important to ensure that as they deliver the petitions, they should do so with respect and refrain from defaming the characters of their respective Members of Parliament,” warns Tsitsibala. The tone of the advice is not necessarily reconciliatory but advisory, chipping in the parental view to always consider respect for the character of their leaders. The national commissioner is congisant of the fact that the youths have the option to appeal to emotions given that for issues to reach this far and for them to put pressure to their political representatives, a lot of mobilisation and politicisation has taken place for any authority to simply react to the youths as a bunch of the usual urchins. The crafting of the mobilisation, it would seem, is such that pressure must bear on the leaders at grassroots level so that they should be the ones to carry the blame for all the ills that the youths are complaining about. The idea of sharing a cup of tea with the youths may sound a novel one, but it has appeared to be very effective as the Ndzingeni youths have themselves acknowledged having enjoyed a cup of tea with their leader for the first time in a number of years only best known to them. Emulated Maybe this first experiment of Lutfo and the boys could be emulated elsewhere in order for the breaking of the ice to bring forth the desired results, as equally articulated by Tsitsibala that the youth must focus on matters that address issues of economic growth, as well as other social issues and that he does not expect the youth to dwell much into politics but focus on issues that directly address their immediate needs.” Whether the youth is likely or unlikely to heed Tsitsibala’s word of wisdom especially that they must not dwell much into politics, is neither here nor there because the youths have already expressed the core issue in most of the petitions, unemployment or matters of the belly. Whether there is a third force behind the youths or not is indeed a matter for careful and immediate consideration, especially because most sectors of governance have acknowledged that as a matter of fact, the pressure is real. The Ndzingeni tea party diplomacy also reminds one of the women’s march to Solani’s to protest against the beating of one of their own by a director. They pitched placards bearing messages that the place should be closed down permanently, this was after a video of the brutal assault went viral on social media. The owner offered the women marchers bottled water recognising that they had a long march to Msunduza to deliver the petition. The engines of the women cooled immediately and since then Solani’s warding off women marchers is a forgotten event, life goes on. But then, it is not enough to just receive the petitions and wish the storm to calm. Privilege I once had the privilege of listening to Government Spokesperson Sabelo Dlamini responding to the youth categorically about their demands for employment and better livelihoods. He made mention of something he called a delivery unit of the government post COVID-19 roadmap or somewhere thereabout. The extracts from this unit, especially on what government has availed on the plate for the youth, contained far reaching information in terms of cooling tempers, unless of course there other issues that the youth seek to peddle to government. In our culture, even when a war mongering neighbour approaching menacingly with his knobkerrie, he is calmed down with prospects of a drink or a piece of meat further down the conversation. But if the other neighbour also produces his own knobkerrie, then the war drums begin to beat and by the end of the confrontation, the one man down could be down there for keeps. Eswatini is assuming an usually cam culture of listening to what the youth has to say, this is inspired by the fact that youth itself is not going about destroying infrastructure or forcing others to join in as has been what we were made to understand to be the norm. One could only say ‘let us listen and learn’, who knows, may be a cup of tea will bring solutions at the end of it all.

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