Ethnic cleansing - a people at the brink of extinction.
Once upon a time, royalty was the fashion cloth of many a nation of the world but gone are those days. Even though Kingdoms ruled by autocratic Kings have faded out of vogue, the vestige of this once sought after status resides in the small land locked Kingdom of Swaziland in Southern Africa, no more than 200 km north to south and 130 km east to west. While Kingdoms are typically associated with wealth and prosperity every wise, prosperity in any sense of the word is a guise worn as a mask by a few elitist royalty and close associates in Swaziland.
Something is happening in Swaziland, something similar in proportions to the ethnic cleansing which threatened Kosovo and Rwanda which the world needs and must pay more attention to or never again will we as a race ever be able to look in the mirror of our humanity and see humanity, all we would see would be distorted inhumanity, thick skinned enough to let an entire nation evanesce from the face of the earth. HIV AIDS is slowly, deliberately, subtly, fazing, and decimating an entire people with the certainty of a high richter scale magnitude quaking tsunamis. All of this is happening before the idle watch of the world.
Ever since the first Swazi cases of AIDS were reported in 1986, the virus has spread untamed and now 26.1% of the country's adult population are infected, effortlessly making it the highest HIV prevalence rate in the whole world, and the spread is still on like a wild harmattan fire. To better appreciate the devastation AIDS is causing the country, out of a population of about 1.1(one point one) million, around 10,000 adults and children died from AIDS in 2007 alone, and around 15,000 Swazi children up to 14 years of age are living with HIV, with an estimated 56,000 children orphaned by the disease. As a sequel of this unspeakable devastation the life expectancy of Swazi’s is now just a meagre 32 years - the lowest in the world. This figure projects that for every child now born in Swaziland, ceteris paribus, they would die in 32 years, almost two score years shy of the Bible prescribed three score and ten. This fractures my mind to imagine that if I were Swazi, because I am living through my thirty first year now, and not even at the prime of my youth yet, I would have one year to live. I cringe at the thought – God have mercy.
If these facts and figures hold true then this country is one at the brink of preventable extinction from the hands of an enemy which we now know and can ably contain. To get a better perspective of the woes of this nation, if you can, watch "Without a King", a documentary which literally tugged my heart strings and drew a tear to my eyes, with realities of life which made my whole being coil back in protest, almost refusing to accept them, yet they are true for so many. Some of the realities leave me almost guilty for the quality of my small life.
Oh my goodness, before my eyes I can still see that kid drinking from the dirty stagnant cesspool which is an only source of drinking water, I can still see a people so oppressed it has almost become an acceptable way of life, a people so choked by fear of the iron fist of a cruel and selfish king, so much so that, they would embrace, worship and adulate the same hands which oppress them; I can see before my eyes, behind a haze of tears a gap between the poor and rich so wide it makes good and evil look like brothers; I can see the contrast between the ruling and the ruled so stark, it makes light look like darkness. A person is a person, born in a palace or born in a cave and no person should go through what some go through.
Oh how the twin fiend of poverty and HIV AIDS, wedded in polygamous union to ignorance can ravage and decimate a people!!... There is an unfolding tragedy endangering the entire existence of a people before the watch of the world and a selfish King. There is possibly more work to be done than we can finish in our lifetime and while it might be naive to expect to see these multiple and unacceptable yawning gaps closed and completely bridged in our lifetime, God helping, we must watch no longer. I personally feel dwarfed by the enormity of the challenge but let it better be said that we didn't succeed, but never that we didn't try.
With a story like this we can have a better appreciation for the freedoms and luxuries we enjoy, what we have become, and we honestly didn't do anything to be born in our countries or families and not so much to be in circumstances where we can continue to pursue the dreams of our lives. While my heart strings were painfully tugged, a fine chord of gratitude was struck by 'Without a King' and getting to know Swaziland. The world must act now or history will judge this generation harshly. We have borrowed this present from our children and we have an obligation to give it back to them better and brighter. Let the international organizations of the world and powers which be, help this nation out of this dark valley of despicable health and economic malaise.
1. UNAIDS (2008) 'Report on the global AIDS epidemic'
2. Government of the Kingdom of Swaziland (2008, January) 'Monitoring the declaration of commitment on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS) Swaziland country report'
3. UNAIDS (2008) 'Report on the global AIDS epidemic'
4. CIA World Factbook (2009) 'Swaziland'
5. Government of the Kingdom of Swaziland (2010, March) 'Monitoring the declaration of commitment on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS) Swaziland country report'
© 2010 afeseh ngwa hilary
I am also including with this post, comments from my friend and brother, Kingah Stephen Sevidzem who has way more experience with this issue than I do. He worked on it as part of his PhD thesis. He has worked/works in Brussels, Belgium as an Oversight for Commission relations with the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other regional development banks wherein EU Member States are shareholders (08/09); and At the University (EU Commission; Free University Brussels), drafting publications on a) international and European rules on access to medicines and b) the World Bank; and also acting as visiting lecturer, i.a, at the College of Europe and at the Universities of Amsterdam, Mozambique and Strasbourg.
"Which article I found to be really good and strongly worded. And rightly so as this is an issue that provokes passion and neglect in equal measure. I felt so strongly about the issue that it was part of my thesis. Yet one is often baffled by the mismatch between the need and resources. I have actually come to realize that some efforts are being made to deal with the problem at various levels or scales. However as you rightly noted the enormity of the task is great. This is not eased by the fact that various countries are confronting different kinds of problems associated with aids. It is a complex issue bro. I believe that the Global Fund, the Global Business Coalition, the International Aids Vaccine Initiative, the Gates Foundation, the Clinton Foundation and even some trade flexibilities have been put in place to help some countries.
But the snag is often at the receiving end where governments may be ignorant of the challenge and solutions or where they me be simply unprepared or unwilling to deal with the problem. So there is an issue at the receiving end that can be partitioned into a problem of political will (which you rightly raise in the case of Swaziland); ignorance and poverty. The giving side of the equation is not entirely holy. One can always bullet the bureaucracy and delays that stiffle efforts to channel resources to those in need. In addition, solutions are often to generic and detashed from what is happening on the ground. I have moved around a bit in Southern and Western Africa and came back with the impression that those at the headquarters are often not aware of what they are talking about par rapport the field. Even in the field, international diplomats and NGO types are so tugged in their own ghettos that no one really knows how to match the enormous resources that have been earmarked to the needs of those in Kayelitcha (SA), Nyanya (Abuja), or Old Town Abakwa. The challenge is enormous but as you rightly put it we have to try."
