THIS IS THE SWAZILAND I WANT

graduation ceremony

Just yesterday after concluding my first lecture, there goes my phone “shhhhh” and that’s a message notification. So I did as expected looked at it, it was a comment to my last blog post. So I went through it and suddenly I started smiling as I read through, it felt good seeing someone coming out to the open voicing out the Swaziland she wants. I couldn’t contain myself and felt very compelled to share it with everyone.

Lack of freedom of expression and action in Swaziland has created the scandal fatigue. We are totally afraid of victimization by government. Worse is that at least 70% of Swazi's are civil servants. So how do we revolt against this system, especially if it’s the hand that butters our daily bread? Its truly a difficult situation, particularly because the culture of sacrifice and risk is not in most of us, worse is that most of us come from Christian backgrounds which have been used indirectly by the system to doom us, thus we are passive and accept horrible situations in the name that the next world will be better & earthly things should be left the way they are. Imagine a country where every graduate was guaranteed of a job, all children had access to education, the elderly were taken care of, there was comprehensive health care at an affordable price, freedom of expression without fear of victimization, access to sexual and reproductive welfare, affordable and fair trade terms with a booming private sector and investment, easy access to and exchange of technology, good governance where accountability and performance were key performance indicators to determine the tenure of the government in office. THIS IS THE SWAZILAND I WANT...

A Swaziland where people know that they have an active responsibility to shape their futures and the powers to shape these futures would fully reside with them & not the government or the ruling system in place. People should have influence on at least 90% of what occurs in government particularly if we say Swaziland is democratic country. Radical change is important for the liberation of Swaziland and its people. Bit by Bit has run its course. Now is the time to formulate strategies and try to improve what’s on the ground. We should start now to change the lives of our people and ourselves in the communities we live in. We should start now initiating programs for a sustainable Swaziland. Good Governance should start in our communities, homes, work place, etc. Now is the time to change and shape the culture of doing things.

We young people should join hands and start doing things for ourselves so that the government that we put in place would be a way to elevate us.

HAVE WE DEVELOPED A SCANDAL FATIGUE?

Teachers in Swaziland have engaged in an indefinite strike

Few days ago I was chatting with my friend, discussing the current situation that the country is facing. The crisis that we see almost on daily basis in the country. We looked back where huge degradation happened to the citizens of Swaziland. This dates back to as far as I can remember but to pencil in up a few scandals that have happened recently, we had a judicial crisis, where we saw lawyers taking to the streets for over a month, secondly we experience an educational crisis where we also saw teachers taking to the streets boycotting classes for over three months, right now we experienced a constitutional crisis where a vote of no confidence was passed against the cabinet and the King did not uphold the Parliamentarians in this regard as required by the Constitution. All the above happened and no minds were provoked. While chatting with my friend, he then told me something, I can even recall “Colani you know what, Swazi are now used to this things, we have actually developed a scandal fatigue”.  I took some time thinking, recalling all the instances where all these disappointing things happened. Like for real, have we developed a weakness in challenging all these? For how long are we going to keep like this? What is the worst that we are awaiting to happen before we can realize that there is actually something that can be done to sort this mess? Many years of unfavourable conditions has created a culture of submission and natural passiveness reaction to issues of paramount importance, but how come as a nation seemingly we are going against nature on this? I am trying to figure out this, my way of thinking is saying by now we should at least be strong enough to stand on our feet. 

I would really hate to admit that of course we have developed a scandal fatigue. Do we lack men and women who have a clear vision of what a free Swaziland would look like? A clear vision of how a free and open society looks like? I do not want to believe that we do lack these people. One then tends to wonder how is the coming generation going to cope if we allow such conditions to happen without being challenged, is this the kind of environment that we want them to operate in? What is it that will motivate them to continue with life and keep going? 

One thing for sure is that we don’t need a prayer alone. 

Just thinking out loud...

Getting Ready for this Set

On your marks, get set for success... (and the whistle goes).   Is your engine on? (Motivation). Do you have the fuel to last the journey? (Passion). Do you know where you will arrive? (Destiny/Direction). Do you know why you are running after all (Purpose)? You will achieve more if you know what motivates you, what you are passionate about, where you are destined and the reason why you occupy space.

In one of the previous years I took some time to think of my life, focusing on the gap ever since I finished school, it was some sort of a reflection, and one question popped into my mind, ‘what have I achieved thus far?’ Looking at those past years I actually struggled to count or point at things that I can be proud of and say ‘I have achieved this and that,’ I am not sure how many of you do take time to reflect and look at their lives and ask themselves the very same question like I did. Me struggling to count my achievements during my reflection never meant that I was sitting at home or relaxing somewhere, I have been busy, moving up and down, doing different projects. 

 I noticed that most of the time we just live our lives without setting targets or goals that we want to achieve at the end of each year, so that makes a year come and go without any growth or achievement that has contributed straight into our lives. Sometimes it is not that we don’t plan at all, but we set goals that will not benefit us personally but someone else, which is totally a good thing. For example, one may set a goal of establishing a community based charity organization, and be able to achieve that goal. That person would have done it for the year, because he was able to achieve what he has set for him/herself, but what has that person benefited personally or what has he gained on his personal capacity. We too often fail to balance our personal lives with other commitments that are meant for our attention, yet in real sense these two needs to be properly balanced. Talking about that another question may pop up again, What would be the way out now?

It is never too late for planning about what you want, this is to say there is time for finding out what you are passionate about, focusing on your destiny, finding your purpose and setting what motivates you to keep going.

What have been planned mustn’t end in imaginations or in paper but should also be started, what have been started should be finished. This requires one to go beyond the goal setting to goal getting. Action gives motion to one’s ideas. It is sometimes easy to start something but fail to finish. Many projects have been started and abandoned midway, similarly to marriages have lasted until the honeymoon was over and real work began. People usually shy away from things that require perseverance. It is easy to set goals that are easy by design but difficult to achieve. Goals should be something simple and achievable. In setting goals, look at a completed building and examine what it takes to make it. Have a vision for the ultimate and desired results. Work backwards and say ‘how do I get there’. Most people do not struggle in the setting of goals; it is the requirement to get the goals to become a reality. Ever since I did that first step of reflection I have now made it my yearly formula, which has helped me in achieving a lot of things and also in having clear and smooth years

I pray that you find courage in setting your goals that will transform you and the people living around you. Let this piece be the beginning of new things not a new beginning of old habits.

Cherish your visions and your dreams, as they are the children of your soul, the blue-print of your ultimate achievements.