Dumsane Tembe: Liberalism or Liberation and Swaziland

Blossom of Thought

Mr. Dumsane Tembe comes to the platform to talk about confusing liberal democracy with liberation in Swaziland. Mr. Tembe has a master’s in political science. He is a governance specialist, and political analyst, has experience in public policy development in RSA, writer, columnist, and blogger (Kunjalo D.co.za). He is doing his Ph.D. on the relationship between political leadership and government performance.

Some of Mr. Tembe’s views and talking points in this episode are Swaziland and political negotiation, and liberalism versus liberation. Tembe believes that “If you are fighting for liberation, you don’t fight for dialogue, you fight for freedom.” If there are proper revolutionaries in Swaziland, they should intensify the struggle and not prioritize the dialogue. A dialogue is a smooth way of sustaining the status quo – it doesn’t bring change – a good example is South Africa. If the struggle is not won in the bush, it will not be won on the table – a fact to be learned from the South African struggle – a fact that has repeated itself.

His view on liberalism is that in liberal democracy there is more propaganda and make-belief than the actual substance of freedom. Liberalism creates phony equality. Liberal democracy is unsustainable in a society of abject poverty such as Swaziland. Liberal democracy is about the rules of the political game not improving the lives of the people.

Swaziland lacks servant leadership and it only has a parasitic leadership and needs a system that centers a Swazi citizen as the primary beneficiary.

--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mpilo-nkambule/support