Cultural quirks exposed in Africa

From the "You Just Can't Make This Stuff Up" file:
"More than 50,000 bare-breasted virgins vied to become the king of Swaziland's 13th wife ... in a ceremony which critics say ill befits a country with the world's highest HIV/AIDS rate," Reuters news service reported last month.
"King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch, arrived dressed in a leopard-skin loincloth to watch the Reed Dance ceremony, which he has used since 1999 to pluck new brides from the girls dressed in little more than beaded mini-skirts."
While the assets of the pluck-worthy teens were being considered by the 37-year-old monarch, the king's eldest daughter was reportedly partying in a manner that earned her a thrashing from the kingdom's official rule-keeper.
Princess Sikhanyiso, 17, has been in hot water before for pooh-poohing her country's traditions by wearing Western-style dress. (Insert your own ethnocentric punch line here.) What got the young royal in jake with her father's overseer of traditional affairs, Ntfonjeni Dlamini, had nothing to do with fashion. According to The Associated Press, she was beaten with a stick for hosting a party that featured loud music and alcohol.
Oh, the horror.
Cultural quirks
These tidbits of cultural quirks might have passed with little more than a chuckle except for one fact: This year, joining Fort Worth's list of sister cities -- after Reggio Emilia, Italy; Trier, Germany; Nagaoka, Japan; Bandung, Indonesia; Budapest, Hungary; and Toluca, Mexico -- was Mbabane, Swaziland.
The process for how this pairing came to pass is outlined on the Fort Worth Sister Cities International Web site. A committee researched the southern portion of Africa, then focused on four possibilities: the South African cities of Pretoria, Buffalo City and Cape Town, and Mbabane, Swaziland, which is landlocked between South Africa to the west and Mozambique to the east.
Two Sister Cities teams visited the sites, met with local officials, toured the land, "researched local attractions" (OK, stifle the snickers) and "learned firsthand" about the prospective cities. After the site teams made presentations to the Fort Worth Sister Cities board, Mbabane received a unanimous recommendation. More than 50 Fort Worth "ambassadors" traveled there in March to ink the agreement.
Sister Cities International's goals are to "create and strengthen partnerships between U.S. and international communities in an effort to increase global cooperation at the municipal level, to promote cultural understanding and to stimulate economic development." Worthy, even noble. The world can benefit from these types of person-to-person exchanges.
Without question, Swaziland could use an infusion of economic stimulation. Two-thirds of its 1.16 million citizens live in poverty. The agrarian-based country has limited supplies of potable water; wildlife populations are being depleted by excessive hunting; the land is overgrazed; and the soil is degraded and eroding. Mbabane, the capital city of about 50,000, could use all the outside help it can get, economy-wise.
The promotion of cultural understanding might be a tougher nut to crack.
Polygamy
Depending on which source one references, the percentage of adults living with HIV/AIDS ranges from 39 to 49. Yet the king engages in polygamy and teen sex.
Last month's Reed Ceremony included the lifting of a five-year ban on sex with girls younger than 18, which was decreed in 2001 to help control the HIV pandemic. Mswati married a 17-year-old days after the ban was put in place, but fined himself one cow. That must have really hurt: Rather than risk losing another cow, the king lifted the ban a year early.
Defender
When chided about the choice of Mbabane in light of recent news reports, one member of the Fort Worth delegation that traveled there in March defended the selection thusly (name withheld to save him from ribbing at the next Rotary Club of Fort Worth meeting):
"Mbabane and Swaziland are quite authentically African with a culture and three tribal families easily traceable back centuries. As one of the last examples of a form of government that had been the international norm for many centuries, and is in the throes of change to hopefully democracy, it is a unique lab study for our youth as constitutional and parliamentary initiatives progress. It is also a terrific opportunity to help others while learning to handle a pandemic, experience that may serve us well in the future."
So how are those constitutional initiatives progressing? They aren't.
The constitution that was adopted in 1968, when the country gained independence from Britain, was suspended in 1973 and abolished in 1976. A new constitution was promulgated in 1978, but it's never been presented to the people. Tinkering by a Constitutional Review Commission has occurred, but nothing has been ratified.
X Jill "J.R." Labbe is a senior editorial writer and columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.