Modern Africa suffered from the trauma of colonialism. After World War II , Africa set off a wave of liberation for national independence, marking the end of the five-century history of European colonists invading and enslaving Africa. So far, there are 54 countries in Africa.
Most African countries after independence established republican regimes, and only three countries retained the monarchy: Moroccan , Lesotho and Swaziland .
▲African monarchy
The first two are common constitutional monarchy political system, the cabinet government exercises part of the state power, and the monarch, as the head of state, does not hold actual power or has limited power.
But Swaziland is an autocratic country, that is, the king enjoys absolute legislative, judicial, and administrative power, and the throne is inherited from hereditary.
▲Mswati III , ascended the throne in 1986
The current king of Swaziland Mswati III Asced the throne in 1986, he was only 18 years old when he was in power. So far, he has taken 15 concubines and 35 children. He also ranked 15th richest king in the world with assets of US$220 million.
Swaziland The land area is 17364 square kilometers, which is about the same as Beijing, with a total population of about 1.2 million. The land is surrounded by South Africa and Mozambia on all sides.
▲Swaziland geographical location
So what made this ", the country of the country " in southern Africa become such a special existence?
1. Mediation left and right, and settled in a corner.
southern Africa has been attacked by colonialism since the opening of new routes in the 15th century. Nowadays, many countries in southern Africa are basically established by modern European colonists' division of forces, and have been independent only after World War II. Their social history has profound influence through Europe, and the indigenous political tradition has almost disappeared.
But Swaziland is one of the few indigenous countries that can retain the century-old tradition.
▲Overview of African countries
Around the 4th century AD, the indigenous ethnic groups in central and southern Africa Bantu people went south to Africa and expanded their power to East Africa and South Africa. Since the 9th century, Bantu primitive tribes of all sizes were established. Most of these tribes implemented the clan chief system with patriarchal power as the core, and had strong leadership advantages and combat capabilities.
After hundreds of years of survival of the fittest, they formed large and small indigenous Bantu countries such as , , , Congo , and the ancestors of the Swazis were one of these tribes.
▲Bantu traditional culture dancers
Time entered the era of great navigation. In 1652, the first batch of Dutch colonists had already arrived at the Cape of Good Hope area. Over the past century, immigrant descendants, mainly Dutch , formed a mixed nation in South Africa: the Boers.
▲The colony established by the Netherlands in southern Africa
The seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries were in the process of great development of maritime trade, and European countries were competing for maritime trade and colonial hegemony.
The seventeenth century was the glorious period of the Netherlands, known as the "sea coachman", but soon, after several wars with the new overlord Britain, he lost his hegemony. Then in the early 19th century, the British colonists occupied the Cape of Good Hope area and then officially bought the land from the Netherlands.
▲English-Dutch naval battle
836, due to dissatisfaction with British rule, the Boers began to leave the Cape of Good Hope in batches and established a number of scattered colonies in the inland areas further north.
▲Boer escape route
These colonies finally merged into the two largest Boer countries: Transvaal and Orans.
▲The two countries of the Boers
And it was also in the mid-nineteenth century that under the leadership of the royal family, a group of Bantu people gradually formed a unified nation. They claimed to be the Swazi people, namely the Swazi people, and established the prototype of the Swazi Kingdom today.
But the Kingdom of Swaziland, which should have continued to develop, met the Boers during this period.
▲ Swaziland traditional houses
After encountering a series of indigenous kingdoms, including Swaziland, it soon had a conflict with the local residents. However, due to the high terrain of Swaziland in the west and low terrain in the east, it was backed by the Drakens Mountains on the southeast side of the South African plateau .
▲Topographic map of southern Africa
Boers are not convenient for large-scale cross-mountain march, so in order to annex Swaziland , the Boers preferred Huairou wisdom to take.
▲A Boer family
At this time, Swaziland has established a clearer feudal state, and coincided with the internal royal succession conflict. The Boers took advantage of the situation to intervene in Swaziland's succession, supported Mubanzenni of Swaziland's throne, and continued to embezzle Swaziland's land.
In the twenty years from 1846 to 1866, Swaziland lost more than half of its territory due to the expansion of the Boers.
▲Boers expand into the inland Africa
At the same time, Boers also had a large-scale conflict with Zulu, the most powerful indigenous kingdom in the east at that time. The Boers suffered heavy losses in the war and internal finances also encountered difficulties. The British, who had been eyeing the Boers' land, saw the opportunity and sent people to persuade the Boers to accept their rule.
▲The position of the Zulu Kingdom (orange)
Finally, in 1879, the Boers accepted the merger request of the British sect leader, and the United Kingdom launched a war to destroy Zulu.
▲Engzu War
After the strong British destroyed their powerful neighbors The Kingdom of Zulu , Mubanzenni deeply realized that head-on battle with the British was seeking death. Only by retreating and advancing can we avoid the same fate as the Kingdom of Zulu.
So he saw the opportunity and quickly showed goodwill to the UK, actively placing the UK into the Boer country , helping it to achieve control over the Boer country , and sent troops to help the British army eliminate another indigenous neighboring country, and significantly relaxed the restrictions on Europeans' activities in the country, thus gaining recognition and protection from the UK, allowing it to gain uninterrupted peace time for decades, and its monarchy remained unmoved.
After the Boers accepted British rule in 1879, the British did not start to improve the local economy and living standards, but instead increased taxes on the Boers.
880, because he was dissatisfied with the British policy towards the local area, the Boers launched an armed resistance, and the First Boer War broke out. Britain was defeated. Transvaal gained full autonomy under British rule and continued the British recognition and protection of Swaziland.
▲The Boer warriors in the First Boer War
But the good times did not last long. After the war, the Boers discovered the largest gold mine in the world in South Africa. The Boers countries thus developed rapidly in the economy. They were already dissatisfied with the British sovereignty over their , and the friction with the UK was increasingly frequent.
In 1890, Transvaal issued a series of decrees against British foreigners, increasing their taxes and intending to restrict their suffrage.
This directly aroused the dissatisfaction of the British. After experiencing a series of skirmishes, the Second Boolean War broke out in 1899. At the beginning of the war, Britain suffered consecutive losses and suffered heavy losses.
But under the policy of the British cabinet at that time, the Boers began to be unable to resist the protracted war in Britain. The war lasted for three years and both sides invested a lot of resources.
The British army invested a total of 200 million pounds of military expenditure, killing more than 21,000 people in battle; the Boers' troops decreased from 88,000 at the highest period to 22,000. On the eve of the armistice, the Boers' ammunition and food were completely exhausted, and they could only rely on spoils to fight the fragments of guerrilla warfare .
▲The Second Boer War
Finally, in 1902, the two sides signed an armistice agreement. The Boer state no longer existed, and all the Boers were united in Britain. Transvaal and Orans merged with the British colonies in the Cape of Good Hope, established the South African Federation, and became the British Dominion like Australia.
In order to show comfort to the Boers and show equality, the capitals of Transvaal and Orans were set alongside the capitals of the British colonial capital as the three capitals of the South African Federation. The UK has also begun to shrink its efforts to expand externally since then.
▲Three capital locations in South Africa
Although The Second Boer War Britain won, it greatly promoted the national cohesion of the Boer people and created a deep ethnic gap with the United Kingdom. In order to fight the Boer guerrillas in the war, Britain established concentration camps and detained the Boer people regardless of gender, age and age.
▲British South African Federation Flag
According to statistics, a total of 1,676 elderly people, 4,177 women and 22,074 children died in concentration camps throughout the war. These national emotions continued to ferment, causing Boer 's relations with the UK to deteriorate within the next hundred years.
▲Boer concentration camp
931 The UK passed " Westminster Act ". South Africa obtained actual complete autonomy and launched anti-British operations in both World Wars . In 1961, South Africa restructured the Republic and broke away from Britain's independence.
However, due to its apartheid policy, has aroused dissatisfaction with many Commonwealth countries. It withdrew from the Commonwealth for more than 30 years and became the "most unfamiliar" dominance .
And the UK naturally knew the Boers hatred for it, so a pro-British force was needed to help "seize" in South Africa, and their choice was Swaziland.
Because he was involved in the Second Boolean War , Swaziland briefly became a British colony after the war, but was not included in the South African Federation.
After five years of negotiation, Swaziland became a "protected land" in the UK at the cost of handing over two-thirds of the land use rights. The High Commissioner sent by the UK "consulted" with the royal family to "consult" in conjunction with the royal family, which is the common "indirect rule", retaining Swaziland's own system to the greatest extent.
In this way, Swaziland avoided the same destructive fate as other indigenous kingdoms by actively compromising and pursuing the European colonists. Not only did it seek survival in the cracks, but it also gained the opportunity to continue as a country in the country and retain the monarchy.
2. Being versatile and autocratic, continuing
During the "Protectorate Country", the King of Swaziland was on the one hand the "supreme chief" in the eyes of the British, and on the other hand the real head of state in the hearts of the Swaziland, and continued to enjoy absolute control of the country.
▲Sobuza II , reigned from 1899 to 1982
Former King of Swaziland Sobuza II During his reign, while relying on the UK to protect its rule, he continued to make demands for land return to Britain and established a fund to try to repurchase sovereignty, but it was unsuccessful.
After World War II, the Swaziland national independence movement was in a high momentum, and Sobuza royal family also actively promoted the development of domestic movement, indicating its own demands. Under the pressure of international public opinion and the needs of its own interests, the UK also encouraged the local democratic reform. Under the control and concessions of Britain, the royal family continued to promote the development of the independence movement and quickly promoted the first national independence election.
▲Sobuza II at the Swaziland Independence Ceremony
In order to respond to the requirements of democratic reform in Britain and accelerate the pace of independence, Sobuza II established the "Inbokodvo National Movement" party. In the first parliamentary election in 1967, the royal party won nearly 80% of the votes and occupied all 24 seats in the parliament.
. In order to stabilize the United Kingdom, Sobuza passed the Independence Constitution stipulated that Swaziland was a constitutional monarchy country, and implemented a multi-party democracy. On September 6, 1968, Swaziland was officially independent.
▲After independence, Swaziland flag
After independence, he also actively promoted relations with South Africa. He not only carried out economic and military cooperation with South Africa, but also joined the South African customs alliance dominated by South Africa, allowing many South African companies to engage in economic activities to circumvent international rules in Swaziland , and allowed South African legal staff to take up their posts in Swaziland. South Africa's relations with Swaziland rose rapidly.
▲After the independence of the South African Customs Union (SACU), the royal party has an absolute monopoly position in the political arena, and the constitutional monarchy is in name only.
Compared with the British constitutional monarchy, the British king has no actual control over the cabinet executive power, and cannot involve justice and legislation. He only has the symbolic etiquette identity of the head of state.
and Sobuza II has multi-faceted control over legislative judicial administration. Since the members of the political party are all royal relatives, the royal party is actually just a power tool for Sobuza II. In the years since
, most political parties were merged by the royal party. The only one that could be called an opposition was Ngwani National Liberation Congress (NNLC), which won nearly 20% of the votes in the first general election, but because it did not receive a seat in the parliament, its power was completely monopolized in the hands of the royal party.
And because Sobuza II actively and good governance is committed to improving the good people's image of people's livelihood and the influence of the tradition of the monarch, the public also supports the royal party more.
▲Swazi II gave a speech in public
972, Swaziland held its first national parliamentary election after independence. This time, NNLC won three parliamentary seats, but it was this small victory of the opposition that aroused the uproar in the heart of Swazi II .
He originally believed that party politics is the product of colonialism guidance. The victory of the opposition party in this election directly challenged the authoritarian tradition of Swaziland and challenged the authority of the royal family.
So in 1973, Sobuza II abolished the independent constitution and issued a decree to prohibit restricting the development of the party and government and establish a political party, and established an election law called "Tinkhandra".
candidates can only run as individuals, not as representatives of political parties, which further excludes political parties from participating in politics in disguise. In 1981, Sobuza II even publicly declared that Swaziland is a country called " party ban ".
, and because of the lack of complete control over the territory before independence, resource development was limited, and economic development was slow. After independence, the royal government's corruption and excessive fertility rate were low, economic diversity was high, external dependence was high, and the gap between the rich and the poor in society was large. The level of people's livelihood has been slow for a long time. Nearly 80% of the people were in a state of extreme poverty. In 2020, the per capita GDP of was more than 3,000 US dollars.
▲Swaziland culture
People are more concerned about people's livelihood and living standards, and their attention to democracy is far from enough. Civil society has poor development. A survey data once showed that 64% of Swazilanders believe that political parties will only create division and chaos, and there is no need to exist.
In 1982, Sobuza II died. After four years of regent of the Queen Mother, the 18-year-old Mswati III ascended the throne. Due to the wave of democratization in Africa in the 1980s, Swaziland protests and marchs were one after another, and calls for the king to abdicate, lift the party ban, and return to the people. Pressure from international public opinion also requires Swaziland to carry out political reforms.
▲Sobuza II's 83rd birthday ceremony was also the last time he appeared in the public
At the same time, African countries generally experienced profound changes. The decline in Africa's economy and years of severe droughts led to large-scale famines, and a serious economic crisis occurred. In the 1980s, it was even called Africa's "ten years lost ".
After the drastic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, most African countries carried out democratic reforms with the conditions of Western economic aid. The number of countries that implemented the multi-party system increased sharply from 13 in 1990 to 41 at the end of 1999, and only three African monarchical countries were left quickly.
▲The European transport aircraft that distributes disaster relief food to Africa
is different from other African countries during the same period. There is another important reason why Swaziland can retain the monarchy - South Africa .
South Africa's attitude is very important to the situation in Swaziland. Due to many geographical and historical factors, Swaziland's economic development relies heavily on South Africa. For example, the Swaziland currency is pegged to the South African currency . 80% of Swaziland's imported goods come from South Africa, and about 60% of export goods are sold to South Africa, and South Africa is also the main export place of Swaziland's laborers.
And as a member of the South African Customs Union, Swaziland's fiscal revenue also relies heavily on the tax sharing of the Customs Union, which accounts for nearly 60% of its fiscal revenue.
▲The Swaziland royal family talks with South African officials
As Swaziland's economic and political geopolitical reliance, South Africa has a strong influence on the Swaziland authorities, but South Africa rarely uses this influence to put political pressure on Swaziland. It hopes that Swaziland will remain stable so as to maintain its economic and political interests and influence in southern African countries through the cooperation of the Swaziland royal family.
After all, maintaining the status quo to gain benefits is always lower than promoting reform. This is also a major external guarantee for the Swaziland royal family to maintain their political system.
In order to deal with domestic conflicts, Mswati III began to implement democratic reforms in 1992, established the Tinkhandra Review Committee, and promulgated a new constitution in February 2006, which stipulates the protection of judicial independence, the protection of human rights and the rights to freedom of association, etc.
In 2013, national parliamentary elections were held in accordance with the new constitution and a new parliament was formed. But its series of measures did not fundamentally touch on the king's absolute power over judicial, administrative, parliamentary and military affairs.
3. A century of autocracy, moving forward swaying
In 2018, Swaziland workers conducted a three-day strike in Mancini City in order to protest the low wage level. In order to calm the strike protest, Swaziland police used a large amount of tear gas and rubber bullets.
Interestingly, in April of the same year, in order to commemorate the 50th anniversary of independence and to avoid confusion between the pronunciation of the country's name and the Swiss (Swaziland and Switzerland), Mswati III ordered the change of the country's name to Swatini (Eswatini), meaning "the land of the Swatini", but China still uses the old name.
In 2021, due to dissatisfaction with the autocratic system and the bad livelihood level, marches and demonstrations broke out in Swaziland. A large number of people from 10 regions took to the streets and demanded the reform of the autocratic system. The march then turned into riots.
protesters began to set fire to cars and shops on the streets. Eventually, the army entered the riot areas and used tear gas and live ammunition to disperse the protesters, causing injuries to a large number of civilians and even shutting down the Internet for a time.
In order to alleviate the contradictions, Mswati III has been using democratic reforms of all sizes to maintain actual monarchy.
▲Mswati III inspected the business situation of the enterprise
Looking at the history of Swaziland , the ability to maintain a century-long monarchy today, which was beyond recognition a hundred years ago, is inseparable from the unique "smart" and "capacity" of the Swaziland royal family.
From Britain to South Africa, the Swaziland royal family can always take the lead in retreating and adhering to the principle of taking the minority of the two evils. It seems cowardly, but in fact it takes the lead and plays a good card that can rely on the strong to protect themselves.
, and it survived the difficult years of colonization in a group of tigers. Compared with other indigenous peoples, it not only survived, but also maintained the cultural tradition of African indigenous peoples quite completely, which also made the people have nationalistic emotional love and admiration for them.
Just as Sobuza II once said: "Driving steadily."
On the basis of maintaining the status quo, gradually improve, ease contradictions, and protect yourself. It is the "secret" that the dictatorship of the Swazi royal family has survived and continued to this day.
▲Swaziland traditional clothing
