Topless virgins vie for king in AIDS-hit Swaziland

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=6045409&cKey=1125322531000

LUDZIDZINI ROYAL VILLAGE, Swaziland (Reuters) - More than 50,000 bare-breasted virgins vied to become the King of Swaziland's 13th wife on Monday in a ceremony which critics say ill befits a country with the world's highest HIV/AIDS rate.

King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch, is due to attend the annual Reed Dance ceremony, which he has used since 1999 to pluck new brides from thousands of dancing girls dressed in little more than beads and traditional skirts.

Clad in short beaded skirts and colourful tassled scarfs and carrying machetes, the girls sang tributes to the king while marching around the royal stadium flanked by male minders dressed in animal skin loinclothes.

"I want to live a nice life, have money, be rich, have a BMW and cellphone," said one dancer, 16-year-old Zodwa Mamba. "But the king will not choose me, I am too ugly."

[Teaser]

1. It's good to be the king.

nt

[William Seger]

8. Oh, but he's not TOTALLY above the law...

"Monday's ceremony was the culmination of a week of preparations, which included the lifting of a royal ban on sex with virgins, decreed in 2001 to help rein in HIV.

"Days after reviving the ancient ban, Mswati in 2001, married a virgin and fined himself one cow."

[iconoclastic cat]

2. Matcom? Is that you?

[Yavin4]

3. Now That's A Reality Bachelor Show That I'd Watch

Take note ABC.

[LisaL]

5. The king is not a bachelor. He got 12 wives already.

[Yavin4]

13. Okay. Even Better. Man With 12 Wives Picks A 13th

from an array of topless babes. Man, let's sell this to ABC.

[Niccolo_Macchiavelli]

4. no pics?

:hide:

[no_to_war_economy]

30. link here .. pic of LOOOOOOOONG line

http://www.dosima.org/home.pages/anand.madhvani/south.africa/swaziland/reeddance2/

[eissa]

34. That's a lot of virgins

Wonder how long the line would have been where I live! HA!

[MGKrebs]

6. How can a woman be the king of someones wife?

Oh wait... I've been reading my style manual too much.

[patdem]

12. Yes, the King of Bla 13th wife, instead of the 13th wife of the King of

Bla. Very sloppy, I agree.

[GregW]

7. Lots of pics on Google ...

e.g.

[TheWraith]

9. Not the typical image of a king with 12 wives.

Grabbed this from the Swaziland internet portal. Not really what you expect when you imagine a King with a dozen wives shopping for virgins.



King Mswati III of Swaziland

[Nia Zuri]

11. He looks happy! n/t

[LisaL]

16. Hmm. Why not? I think he looks the part.

[TheWraith]

44. I just had a mental image of somebody older and less handsome.

Probably a residual impression of European royalty. This guy looks like he could net a few wives even without being the King.

[NNN0LHI]

10. The Gods Must Be Crazy n/t

[HamdenRice]

14. A Swaziland primer for the ignorant and racist ...

I guess for some people it is fun to take photos of people in African countries when they are dressed in traditional garb and engaged in traditional ceremonies and snicker at how much fun it is to reinforce stereotypes of the primitive African savage.

Assuming the Swiss authors of the referenced web site had never actually been to Swaziland, or studied its history, they would probably be surprised at what it actually is like.

I hope it is obvious to everyone on DU that people in Swaziland wear western clothes except during ceremonies like this. I mean, after all, the Japanese dress like this during certain holidays:



but of course, no one here presumes that Japanese salarymen wear loinclothes in downtown Tokyo, 9-5 Monday through Friday, right?

Swaziland is a small country with income and development levels higher than most African countries. It is often called in southern and South Africa, the Switzerland of Africa, because of its lovely mountainous terrain.

The majority of Swaziland's economic is generated by industry and commerce.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2841.htm

Swaziland has had a tumultuous political history, but has avoided violent dictatorship or civil war. Much of the difficulty of Swazi history has come from being almost entirely surrounded by South Africa, especially during the period from the mid 1800s until majority rule was achieved in SA in the mid 1990s.

Hence Swazi politics has had to balance avoiding being incorporated into SA (the policy of British colonial officials for most of the 20th century), accomodating black South African refugees, while also avoiding military retaliation from South Africa, tempering economic dependence on migrant Swazi labor in South Africa, and incorporating or suppressing progressive and radical internal political movements that offended Swaziland's behemoth neighbor.

Kings Mswati and Sobhuza are generally considered by historians to have been masters of resistance to colonial conquest, diplomacy and manipulation to achieve those goals, and at independence the monarchy was very popular. But Sobhuza and now Mswati II (who of course, 350 our of 365 days of the year favors conservative business suits:



)

have used the popularity of the monarchy and the various threats posed to the country as excuses to suspend parliament, and interfere with the courts, political parties, and other political institutions.

Of course, no one here on DU believed that Swaziland was just some primitive country full of dancing bare breasted native maidens and lecherous illiterate chiefs, right?

[LisaL]

17. 12 wives? And a fiancee? Looking for number 13?

Add to that that the girls can be as young as 13 year old. If he was doing any of it here, it would have gotten him a long time in a slammer. Excuse us if we find that a bit strange.

[HamdenRice]

18. Did you read the South African Press article? Most of your info is wrong

or misleading. When you have read the link to the SAPA article then post your question. The ceremony acording to SAPA is not about the king looking for wives; it's a coming of age ceremony called the Reed Dance.

I personally am not into polygamy, but then again I'm not Swazi. I'm also not into a lot of cultural artifacts of other societies, but I don't ridicule them with racist stereotypes either.

BTW, his eldest wife is older than him and an advocate before the high court. A couple of years ago he tried to marry an 18 year old, which led to extensive litigation.

He has never married or been engaged to anyone younger than American women are allowed to marry, and certainly no one as young as 13. That's mythmaking, and you ate it up because it fit into the "funny" stereotype of "savage" Africans.

<edited>

[LisaL]

20. Sorry. You lost me somewhere after wife #12.

:sarcasm:

[HamdenRice]

21. Then I hope you don't get involved in debates about Iraq, Afghanistan ...

Saudi Arabia, Korea, China, South Africa, Nigeria or any of the other places that are deeply implicated in American foreign and economic policy, and whose resources you rely upon, or whose infrastructure your tax dollars are destroying or whose people your military is killing and displacing, because you might be offended by their customs as well.

Better stick to Jesusland.

sarcasm off.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[HamdenRice]

25. You stated an untruth, and should take responsibility for it ...

you said girls as young as 13 may become his wife. That's a lie. It is based on a racist stereotype. Girls as young as 13 participate in the reed dance.

Sorry if the truth and pointing out articles that show how you have played into stereotypes disturbs you, but I'd rather not "put a sock in it" and let misinformation and stereotypes proliferate.

[LisaL]

27. I have read that girls as young as 13 participate in a dance, and

he is supposed to pick a wife among them. Apparently, he won't be picking a wife from a 13 year old, according to a second article.
I guess he is looking for an older girl, maybe 17? And before you go off your rocker, the second article does state he did marry a 17 year old a few years back.
He has been using this dance to pick himself a wife since 1999, so your claims it's just a dance don't hold much water either.

[HamdenRice]

28. And marrying a 17 year old is what?

Normal for Tennessee? What's your point?

[LisaL]

29. My point is he is picking a young girl to be a wife #13.

He has been using this dance to pick himself a wife since 1999. Pardon me if I find those customs a bit peculiar.

[HamdenRice]

45. Swaziland and polygamy ...

It may seem strange to you, but you have to understand it in the context of southern African history. I am not defending polygamy and don't think Mswati is a good guy, but I wouldn't call the marriage tradition peculiar in context.

Look at a map. Look at Swaziland, then look at Lesotho. These tiny little countries managed to fight off the Boer (Afrikaner) frontiersmen, as well as the British imperial army, for 150 years; and when they weren't fighting to maintain their independence, they used diplomacy. Both Swaziland and Lesotho managed to retain their independence largely by playing the British off against the Boers -- especially pledging allegiance to the British, as against the Boers, when the British were trying to control southern Africa and their biggest problem was expanding Boer settlers.

There were lots of other kingdoms in the area that weren't so lucky. The main way that both the British and Boers managed to swallow whole kingdoms (like the Zulu, the various Xhosa kingdoms, the Tswana and the Pedi) was by getting the kingdoms to split.

This is very important to understand. If read you histories of every single kingdom that was split up and conquered, the most important tool, especially of the British, was to "seduce" one clan or sub-kingdom away from the main kingdom and recognize it.

The kings of both Lesotho (Moshoeshoe) and Swaziland (Mswati) (who are both heroes to people throughout southern Africa) used marriage to keep their kingdoms together. As one historian explained it in the context of Lesotho in the mid 19th century, powerful chiefs within the kingdom would send daughters to Moshoeshoe as wives. Because bridewealth would be paid, Moshoeshoe would send gifts of cattle back to the young woman's family and tribe. After a while, she might herself go back to her family, and get unofficially married to someone else. But now that chiefdom was solidly cemented to the central chiefdom, and her children were the children of the king.

This meant that a huge number of people in both Swaziland and Lesotho believed, even if it was not true, that they were related to the house of the king. While other kingdoms desintegrated, these chiefdoms remained in tact. The myth that almost everyone is pure Swazi or pure Sotho is central to the stability they maintained in the face of South African pressure and aggression.

In the fractious 1960s, King Sobhuza kept his kingdom together and out of South Africa's clutches largely by rallying his people to tradition. Not the choice I would have made, and Botswana's king Khama by contrast appealed to modernity, development and democracy instead and modernized his country. But at least tradition worked for the Swazis to the extent it never was swallowed up, which South Africa wanted to do.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Swazis and Sothos were very proud that they did not live under segregation, apartheid and second class citizenship; that they had land; that they had first rate schools. Middle class black South Africans sent their kids to Swaziland for their excellent schools, and so they could experience what it was like not to be a second class citizen.

But remembering the marriage tradition, the Swazi kingdom still uses the image of the king marrying people from all over the country to hold the kingdom together.

It may sound bizarre to you, but so should the marital practice of the British royal family, the debutantes of upper class US and the Japanese royal house. The point is, royal polygamy exists in Swaziland not because the British educated Swazi king is some kind of lecher, but that is the tradition, and he uses it for reasons of political control and aggrandizement, not merely because he lustfully picks out bare breasted virgins from a pagan festival.

In the apartheid years, Swazis and Sothos were very proud of their accomplishments. To see their culture reduced to some kind of joke by people who know nothing of their history and seemingly don't want to know the truth, is sad and infuriating.

[Judi Lynn]

22. Thanks for your comments, HamdenRice. n/t

[Karenina]

42. Who's this "we" missy???

You GO, Hamden!!! :yourock:

[Jade Fox]

26. Thank you for interupting this thread, HamdenRice

It was looking like it belonged in Freeperland.

[theHandpuppet]

32. This is what bothers me

This country has some serious problems that have nothing to do with virgins dancing for their king. Check out the infant mortality rates, HIV/AIDS rate and life expectancy:

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/wz.html

[HamdenRice]

36. Catastrophic HIV rates across southern Africa

Swaziland's catastrophic HIV rate is, unfortunately, comparable to its neighbors in southern Africa, which region has the highest rates in the world.

Botswana's and Zimbabwe's are almost the same as Swaziland's -- differences are statistically insignificant all being in the upper 30% range.

Obviously this has nothing to do with "dancing virgins," but international news media and "gawkers" prefer to focus on picturesque irrelevancies while ignoring the important issues.

HIV infection rates are higher in Swaziland and Botswana because they have high rates of migrant labor -- ie people (especially the men) leaving for long periods to work in South Africa, but being legally unable to become permanent residents -- which encourages prostitution, promiscuity and broken families.

Because South Africans are less likely to have to migrate their rates are somewhat lower. But rural parts of South Africa that rely on migrant labor to the cities have rates comparable to Swaziland and Botswana.

One tragic aspect of this is that the black population of Botswana and Swaziland actually had higher standards of living than the black population of South Africa before the HIV epidemic.

[theHandpuppet]

38. Oh I agree with you

If the international media would focus 1/10th as much scrutiny on combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Southern Africa as it does a festival with topless virgins, perhaps we could make some headway in fighting this disease -- one which is wiping out entire generations of people in southern Africa.

[maxsolomon]

40. ignorant, fine. RASCIST?

that's uncalled for.

i, for one, believed that swaziland was a country surrounded by SA, and once a year there is a traditional ceremony in which many of the country's young women dance bare breasted to win the hand of the country's lecherous monarch. the entire affair reeks of misogyny, but not to the degree of some african cultures.

i didn't see where anyone said he was illiterate.

[HamdenRice]

41. please see post below re inaccuracies per word nt

[Karenina]

43. It's called for.

When you understand why, you will have reached higher level of comprehension, tolerance and respect.

[HamdenRice]

46. why lecherous? rather than the anthropological polygamous?

Isn't it racist to read that into a situation and culture that you know nothing about? Where did the "lecherous" image come from? From facts, or an imagination flooded with pre-existing images of African men and their appetites?

[Kipepeo]

50. I appreciate your comments

and your correction of stereotypes being laughed at in this thread - but I also wanted to add that dressing in Western wear isn't somehow superior (not that you were saying it was - i know you weren't, but I couldn't read this post without wanting to also emphasize that). In many east African countries, for example, those who don't conform to Western dress codes and lifestyle patterns (the Maasai for ex.) are sometimes subject to ridicule and scorn - which is ridiculous considering that their traditional way of life has worked just fine for hundreds of years, and western dress: well it would be ridiculous to wear a fucking suit in the heat while herding cattle.

[HamdenRice]

15. Another link:Swazis irritated by racist, ignorant foreigners re Reed Dance

http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/&articleid=249395

Swazis irritated by foreign ridicule

Benita van Eyssen | Mbabane, Swaziland

29 August 2005 04:28

Tens of thousands of unmarried Swazi girls performed a final dance on Monday culminating a week-long celebration of chastity as Swazi authorities moved to defend the centuries-old "reed dance" from international ridicule.

...

The reed dance has become popular with tourists, journalists and photographers from across the globe who converge on the Swazi capital to watch the bare-breasted girls offer reeds to Africa's last absolute monarch.

...


Meanwhile, Swazis from all walks of life are growing increasingly irritated with the manner in which this key cultural celebration and the Swazi monarchy are held up to ridicule.

"Downright offensive" is how some Swazis describe the international portrayal of the event by foreigners whom they accuse of having little knowledge of Swazi customs and culture. Others decline to engage in any discussion on the subject.

"The reed dance has nothing to do with the king wanting another wife. It is meant for girls who are proud of their virginity and their culture," says Lufto Dlamini, Swazi Minister for Enterprise and Employment.

The king, who has 12 wives and a fiancée, is not obliged to select a bride from the mass of maidens, according to Dlamini.

...

Dlamini said similar misconceptions surround the recent lifting of a five-year ban on premarital sex, which prompted tens of thousands of girls to burn tassels denoting their chastity on the eve of the reed dance.

...

"The king never said he was declaring this for five years. He said, 'I am launching this campaign to achieve this and I will tell you when it is finished,'" Dlamini said.

...

King Mswati is the only Southern African leader to have declared Aids a national disaster while constantly encouraging his people to go for testing and counselling, he said.

"We respect and love our king, despite what people say," Dlamini said. -- Sapa-DPA

[Judi Lynn]

19. I appreciate your remarks on this subject so much.

I envy your ability to articulate your views, as this is a subject I'm having trouble with: racism is surely the major component in creating and publishing this view of Swazi events, as it doesn't lend itself to a deeper concern and appreciation for people we haven't met, yet.

The word "ridicule" is excellent. "Gawking," "gaping," "snickering" also come to mind. The world is in agony now because there ARE people who are happy to view others as far less "human" and "intelligent" or "urbane" or "conscious" as themselves. People in distant countries are so odd aren't they? Sad.

[HamdenRice]

23. And it's great to know that some people are thinking about ...

just what this kind of reporting means and what kinds of attitudes it perpetuates. So thanks for the support!

[SemiCharmedQuark]

33. Thanks for your post, Hamden

This is just another one of those articles that comes along every so often so the West can say "grunt, we're so much better than those savages, grunt". It's the same reason people loved "cowboys and indians".

[HamdenRice]

37. Hi Semi,

how have you been? Long time, no read <is that how to put it?>

[SemiCharmedQuark]

49. Howdy Hamden

I've been busy around the house...cleaning and stuff. Glad to see you're still on the ball though

:hi:

[phusion]

31. Breaking news: President Bush vacations in time of bloody war.

n/t

[SemiCharmedQuark]

35. Shh! We're busy congratulating ourselves on our own superiority.

[HamdenRice]

39. How many inaccuracies can I find in this article per word?

There was so much wrong with the original article, I don't have time to point them all out now, but will eventually.

First, they are not all "topless". Some girls prefer traditional dress, which is elaborate, but reveals the breast, and others choose not to. Also, they are not topless in the way we think of "topless dancers" in strip clubs in the US but are wearing tradition costumes. They also are not "virgins". They are girls and young women. Maybe "maidens" is a better term, but basically they are simply unmarried.

They are not "vie"ing for the king. The whole point of the reed dance is that they are symbolically presenting reeds to the queen mother, which she symbolically would use to thatch the roof of her "great house." The king's presence is incidental. It is a coming of age ceremony for girls, not a parade of potential brides or child rape victims.

Immediately, any thinking person should be able to see that the entire OP article is based on a set of fantasm images, rooted in racists stereotypes of sex-crazed Africans, rather than reality. Throw in "AIDS-hit Swaziland", and the obsession with African sex being superimposed on African culture becomes clear. What does AIDS have to do with the reed dance? It's a stupid, racist conflation of different issues.

That's how many inaccuracies in the first nine words, and that's just the headline?

<edited>

[VADem11]

52. I think the point is

that they are trying to point out the corruption of the king when so many people in Swaziland live in terrible conditions.

[NNadir]

47. I hate to think the thought of them dancing for the absolute monarch of

the US, another dark, primitive country.

[HamdenRice]

48. another?

That's the whole point I am trying to make -- Swaziland is neither dark nor primitive, and it's pretty gauling for you to call it so.

[Swamp Rat]

51. Right on!

All your comments on this thread are RIGHT ON! :yourock: