← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · xmetalhead
Thread ID: 19877 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2005-08-29
2005-08-29 19:08 | User Profile
[I]These chicks do it all for the nookie, the nookie, the nookie.....and maybe a BMW if they're reeeaaaallllllyyyyy gooood.
Actually, this story is just so freaking bizarre yet not surprising considering where it originates. And this king of Swaziland? He qualifies as a worthy successor to Nero's fiddling while Rome burned, yet this King plays the "G-string" while his Swaziland crumbles.[/I]
[SIZE=5][COLOR=Red]Topless virgins vie for Swazilandââ¬â¢s king[/COLOR][/SIZE] [B]Critics rip ceremony as inappropriate for a country afflicted by HIV/AIDS[/B]
[IMG]http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/050829/050829_swaziland_hmed_10a.hmedium.jpg[/IMG]
Reuters Updated: 12:48 p.m. ET Aug. 29, 2005
LUDZIDZINI ROYAL VILLAGE, Swaziland - More than 50,000 bare-breasted virgins vied to become the King of Swazilandââ¬â¢s 13th wife on Monday in a ceremony which critics say ill befits a country with the worldââ¬â¢s highest HIV/AIDS rate.
King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africaââ¬â¢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.
Wielding machetes and singing tributes to the king and queen mother, also known as the Great She-Elephant, the girls danced around the royal stadium in the hope of catching the eye of the 37-year-old monarch.
[COLOR=DarkRed]ââ¬ÅI want to live a nice life, have money, be rich, have a BMW and cellphone,ââ¬Â said one dancer, 16-year-old Zodwa Mamba, who wore a traditional brightly colored tasseled scarf.[/COLOR]
Critics say Mswati, who has courted controversy for his lavish lifestyle while two thirds of his subjects live in abject poverty, sets a bad example by encouraging polygamy and teenage sex in a country where 40 percent of adults live with HIV.
[URL=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9116360/]FULL STORY ON MSNBC[/URL]
2005-09-07 21:04 | User Profile
[QUOTE]...by encouraging polygamy and teenage sex in a country where [B]40 percent of adults live with HIV[/B].[/QUOTE] SHOCKING! Even considering the source.
2005-09-08 00:25 | User Profile
What's the big deal? When in Rome, do as the Romans, when in Swaziland, if you don't like how they live their lives, leave and leave them alone. :unsure:
Swaziland, apparently with the consent of its own population and-or legitimate government (it has a seat in the UN, right?) chooses to practice monarchy and old, time honored, cultural rites and practices as is appropriate to their own culture. Isn't this a sovereign exercise in cultural pride and heritage? Isn't this what the modernist do gooders insist is an equal cultural experience?
What are the "western do-gooders" doing, whining about this mating ritual in an officially polygamist society? These reporters are not being forced to participate! What a bunch of voyeurs, standing around staring at 16 year old breasts all a jiggle in the reported "dance a thon for a hubby king." (Such staring at nude minors would get them arrested in Virginia, I assure you)
Live and let live, or, given the the reported AIDS/HIV incidence rate, live and let die.
Robert Heinlein once said "there is no sin but stupidity, it's punishment death." Maybe he was referring to Swaziland, and maybe idiots like the reporters full of righteous indignation.
Not sure.
AE
[QUOTE=xmetalhead]Critics say Mswati, who has courted controversy for his lavish lifestyle while two thirds of his subjects live in abject poverty, sets a bad example by encouraging polygamy and teenage sex in a country where 40 percent of adults live with HIV.
[url="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9116360/"]FULL STORY ON MSNBC[/url][/QUOTE]