The press
No Black Mischief
Paul Johnson
It's not every day that an old-style monarch aged 83, who has reigned 61 Years, has a state funeral. When King Sobhuza II ascended the throne of Swaziland in 1921, Lloyd George was Prime Minister, Warren Harding had just gone to the White House, Hitler was unheard of, Mussolini had not yet marched on Rome and Lenin was still murdering the Russian peasantry. The British Empire was at its greatest extent. All in all, Sobhuza could be described as a grand old survivor; and not only a survivor — a perpetuator. Some 25,000 of his half-million subjects attended the obsequies, and they were able to watch what the Daily Telegraph called 'a proces- sion of the enormous Swazi royal family'. According to this account, the old monarch `had at least 100 wives' and leading the pro- cession were 'many of his reputed 400 sons'. The Guardian put the number of wives at 'more than 50' and the children at `over 600'.
With all these actual or potential heirs, one might expect a bit of a succession pro- blem. But Swaziland has agreeably archaic ways of coping. The Telegraph's Johan- nesburg correspondent, Ray Kennedy, reported that the favourite to succeed is 11-year-old Prince Makhonsenvelo, the old king's youngest offspring. The actual choice will be made by the Liqoqo, 'the in- ner council of the Swazi nation', but there is, apparently, no great hurry: It will be done according to the timelessness of Africa, without any regard for the Western scale of priorities'. In the meantime, and until a successor is chosen, the country will be governed by a regency, presided over by old King Sobhuza's senior wife, the Ndlovukazi, or 'Great She Elephant' as she is known.
The funeral was an impressive affair, ac- cording to the Guardian, with the Swazi Defence Force Band marching at slow time and playing 'Auld Lang Syne', while 'Swazi warriors, dressed in skins and carrying staves and knobkerries, began a low, keen- ing whistle'. It is true modern politics raised its divisive head. South African represen- tatives had not been invited to the old King's diamond jubilee. But they were pre- sent for the funeral in the shape of their Vice-President, Alwyn Schlebusch, and the Foreign Minister, Pik Botha, alongside presidents and kings from Botswana, Mozambique, Lesotho and other black African states not officially on friendly terms with the representative of apartheid. `Staring stiffly ahead,' the Guardian noted, `the two South Africans appeared to make no attempt to talk to representatives from the black states'.
Actually, what most mourners appeared to have been absorbed by was the manner of the King's burial. The generally held view, it seems, was that he would be 'buried in a secret cave, sitting upright, with a spear in one hand and a shield in the other. A wild bull' — I am quoting the Guardian ac- count — 'was to be left outside the cave to guard it, along with several cows and locally brewed beer left for the King's nourishment'. Hence most Swazis thought the burial would have already taken place privately before the funeral, and that the coffin or catafalque would be merely sym- bolic.
Imagine the excitement, therefore, when it was discovered that the King was actually in the 12-foot coffin, shaped like an upright box. It had glass panels at the front and sides, and the King was clearly seen 'in the sitting position prescribed by tribal law for
the burial of elders'. His face was visible and he was in uniform, wearing (according to the Daily Mail) the 'ceremonial dress of the National Prison Service'. He looked a bit slumped, it was true, but it was the King all right, the 'Lion of Swaziland' on his way to the royal burial place in the mountains known as `Sheba's Breasts'.
You might have thought that, with col- ourful news still scarce and the papers with little but squalid trade union activities to report, Fleet Street would go to town on this splendid event. Not a bit of it. It left the field to TV. The Telegraph, it is true, did have a story from its own man. But it had no photograph. The Guardian had a photo, but of King Sobhuza still alive, dressed in his leopard-skin rampaging gear and leading 'a group of elders in a tribal dance'. Its copy came from the agencies. The Times had no story at all (I am referring of course in each case to the editions available in the village of Iver, Bucks). But it did have two striking photographs, one of the dead monarch in his wooden box, being carried on the shoulders of tall officers and of- ficials, and one of the 'Great She Elephant' herself. The same photos reappeared in the Sunday Telegraph, the only paper to have a really well-informed feature on the subject of Swaziland.
The populars came out of the test badly. The Express had a measly story at the bot- tom of Page Six, with Sobhuza's head, still alive; the Mail also submerged it, on Page Four, and carried no photo at all. The Sun found space for a page and a half of Princess Di, a gigantic Page Three pin-up, a double-spread on Esther Rantzen's new teeth, 'Andy Cheers the Bikini Showgirls', `Sexy Slip-up by a Sizzler' and other delights, but not a word about the dead king in his box and the elephant-queen. The Daily. Mirror ignored the story too, though it also had pages of the Princess ('What Did Diana Tell the Bride?'). I must say, the tabloids don't show much imagination these days, especially when it comes to unusual photo-material: the concentration on royalty is obsessive and increasingly tedious. One is tempted to say: Come back Hugh Cudlipp, Fleet Street hath need of thee. Or better still, were it possible, come back Evelyn Waugh. What a story he would have made of Sobhuza II's last rites!
`Darling, I'm crazy about you — it's just that I'm not crazy enough to marry you.'
Previous page
