On Leadership and the tragedy of African Freedom All over Africa, there is a continuing familiar refrain, young people battling their Parents, Uncles, Neighbours and others for political control and or influence. Often it’s merely for survival. There is nothing unusual about this except that African Youth are particularly affected by the corrupt practices of their parents’ generation and the complicity of their peers. It remains to be seen whether in 50 years any of the current crop of African Leaders will have the same aura of importance as their noble predecessors that were slain by imperialist and reactionary forces in the last Century. Here I am in particular making reference to Patrice Emery Lumumba, the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, murdered on January 17, 1961 :Amílcar Cabral, Conakry, Guinea , Thomas Sankara Burkina Faso: Eduardo Mondlane Mozambique: Ruth First South Africa: Joshua Nkomo Zimbabwe....etc African youth are particularly affected in the beginning of this century because they have made the least gains politically, socially and economically. Instead they have had visited upon them the further tragedy of HIV and a wide range of illness like TB that have become predators of their bodies and damage their minds. African Youth are mainly poor but they carry the immense burden of the fight for freedom and any square centimetre of democracy that is attainable, they are unique fighting force for which all Africans should be proud. Without their total commitment to freedom its unattainable, as its their sacrifice that flows down our dusty roads and into out gutters and the only names that are only remembered by their families. There are few if any African Countries where the role of the youth does not continue to have as one of its major thesis, the destruction of the Post Colonial Power Structures, for while the Colonial Structures had an inevitable short life, the Post Colonial is still haunting us. Africa has no FREEDOM, that’s the only FACT we can all agree about. PUDEMO Leaders need to focus wide on the matter of freedom and close on the procedures and practices that ingrain the substance that gives History to the Will to Allow and be part of the Process that gives Life to Freedom. Our members and our people need to know what FREEDOM MEANS and how to achieve this. This is that battle field for our leaders and this is the goal. PUDEMO Leaders have a seasoned youth its time they were allocated the responsibilities to fight unrestrained and with all means available. There is no point in PUDEMO Leadership expecting the youth to master the skills of battle if they are not given the political and methodological hardware to fight. Our youth have the pain and death syndrome under their belt now they must also see the process of accumulating victories so that the mapping of the battle fields is not just an illusion that ebbs/wanes in the twilight. Unless every battle can be understood its gains remain fleeting. It’s the job of this current Leadership to consolidate the past and visualise the future. Let’s get the battle field slogans right without exaggeration and the sentiments of our people right so we are sure that we are fighting for something they understand and want. Due to the fact that Post Colonial Africa is characterized by the blatant appropriation of both the resources and the rights of the African people and by Arrogant and Violent African Leaders, there has been a continuous battle between the youth and “progressive organizations” on the one hand against the entrenched political elites that rule African mainly without ANY democratically achieved political power. This is the legacy that PUDEMO Leaders must contend with, failure to address this will result in marginalisation and an inability to produce cogent strategy to minimise that corrosive effects of these political elites supporting each other to subvert the creation of the capacity for change and the destruction of the agents of change. In Southern Africa there is a dreadful complicity that perfumes all the hands of the elites and they shut the doors long before opposition can even visualise their presence. Change is not welcome, its imposed. The transition between what is now, in terms of the relationships across the Southern Africans Borders and the visions of PUDEMO Leaders for a Free and Democratic Swaziland depends on the commitment and skill that our Leaders will show in dealing with this refusal to allow change. PUDEMO has been in this trench for too long. It’s time we showed why the Swazi People should put their backs into this struggle with us. In some of the modern Political Elites such as in Namibia, Mozambique, South Africa, Angola, and Zimbabwe, Congo, even Uganda the role of the Sole Political Organizer has been entrenched. It would take a miracle of biblical proportions to deliver an opposition force that can remotely match the sheer power and ruthless control of this new elite of African Political Managers. And for the Modern African Youth such as SWAYOCO, that faces disapproval from this group, the fight to achieve political goals is formidable. This group seeks to close the door to political power by entrenching the one party state, no matter how it is clothed in so called democratic garb. This African Political Elite know and support each other creating the “no hiding place” phenomenon that strangles any organized action against them. In Swaziland we even have the absurd position of the Commonwealth, Leaders drinking tea with tyrants such as Makhosetive, unwilling to see how utterly foolish they look in the company of unelected leaders while garbed with the noble ideas of a community of free and democratic states. How much more ridiculous can a group of states be than to sit together in this haze of illusion. Some of you may wonder how all of this has anything to do with Swazi Youth, and the answer is that we also share the same historical problems. In the case of Zimbabwe Mr Robert Mugabe, in the tradition of The Mabuto’s of Africa set about destroying all semblance of opposition. Zimbabwe more than any of the contemporary African political formations had a real chance to have a strong thriving and challenging opposition in the form of Joshua Nkomo Leader of Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU), the father of Zimbabwes fight for independence. Maybe I am being hopeful for missed chances, but it seemed possible. By robbing the Zimbabwean people of this important African, Robert Mugabe entrenched the phenomenon that I am talking about here today of this impoverished African Political Landscape that forces its children into exile as the only hope of escaping violence, hunger, disease and death. All around the world the wheels of change have brought the youth closer to their families and those that leave often do so in search of a better life. African Youth often face a stark choice, stand and fight or run and live to fight another day. Swaziland Started out with an independence constitution in 1969, “graciously” granted by her majesties Colonial government. However, like most post colonial documents it was without muscle; as soon as the tyrant Sobhuza 2 felt that there was momentum in the Opposition Ngwane National Libratory Congress, lead by the late Ambrose Zwane he scrapped it, detained all its leaders and those that survived eventually lived in exile. This is the African Template. There is this totally bizarre notion about Africa, maybe most spectacularly emphasised by comrade Thabo Mbeki’s ideas about an African Renaissance that Africans have something special or unique that demands preservation, as its African Created and Owned. Look closely at most circumstances that are used in this context, especially Swaziland but not unique to Swaziland and you will find that this uniqueness is most likely a colonial invention. Without the arrival of the Europeans in Southern Africa when they did, and without the “protection” provided by this presence this “Swazi” identity would have had no less a forlorn history as any small group in the region. Swaziland is a colonial fixture, now that it has taken its bearings from this epoch we are faced with this unnerving conundrum about it being unique. Thus we have a wide range of confused individuals and organisations repeating false history and giving sucker to tyranny. This is the way of Africa. In 1982 /83 the People United Democratic Movement was created mainly by Students and Young People in the Trade Union Movement. From 1973 to 1983, there had been total suppression of all opposition to the Swazi Royalty. When The Autocrat Sobhuza 2 died there was chaos as the various Royal Factions competed for positions. The ordinary Swazi People had no voice as usual. Swaziland belongs to the Dlamini Clan and its accomplices, and nobody can interrupt a private squabble like who is going to be the next Autocrat. It was in this time that PUDEMO and later SWAYOCO were created. Student representative councils were setup in large schools and colleges and Trade Unions were formed. Since then SWAYOCO has grown into a fully fledged Youth Movement. It has harried the Swazi Government at every chance. The Swazi Government responds with characteristic brutality. Just as you see today in Zimbabwe, the Swazi Authorities arrested and violently attacked anyone that they felt/feel was associated with the movement of democratic change in Swaziland. Since 1983 there have been a number of Treason Trials, one of the favoured ways in which the Swazi Government harasses the opposition in Swaziland. There is one such trial pending from January 2006. Due to years of struggle for a democratic Swaziland there was eventually and grudgingly an attempt to give credibility to the de facto control of the machinery of State by the Swazi Government through a process called Vusela. Vusela means greeting. The creation and management of this process was entirely in the hands of the Swazi Government. The predictable result is that shambles they call a Constitution and that stokvel they call a Parliament. This being a parliament only because the building that they waste time in was called the parliament at independence and apart from that has no semblance with what most of us understand by the word. The youth in Swaziland have been and continue to be the only force that is thriving for a Democratic Swaziland in which all its citizens can have an equal stake in the management and future of their country. For those of us that have dreams of a better tomorrow for our people and the Continent, the primary question is whether if in power we would not make the same mistakes we are complaining about. Africa needs new Leaders, North to South, East to West. Until we have Leaders that do not see their people and the Youth and Opposition parties as their worn enemies, many Africans will attend countless meetings and stomp their feet in the dust, glaring at police lines, and prisons, singing about freedom with the same broken hearts and talk of organizing the people for this elusive freedom. I wish all you Young Africans strength and the courage needed to persist in your dreams because this is probably how history is made and here in this new PUDEMO Leadership we may have the first leaders of this great yet damaged continent that will lead without greed and jealousy and celebrate difference without marginalization. My Name is Gavin McFadden. I am a member of the Peoples United Democratic Movement of Swaziland. I wish you all the best and a Free Africa.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 12:07:47 +0000
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