Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Why does this man look so pleased?

Why not? He's a King! King Mswati II of Swaziland! Worth 200 million dollars. Africa’s last absolute monarch assumed the throne at age 18. Wealth derived from investments, real estate. Lavish spender is building palaces for each of his 13 wives. Recently held a reported million dollar-plus birthday bash for himself; critics denounced the spending given the country’s poverty and high AIDS rate. Almost every year, he chooses a new bride from among 20,000 naked bare-breasted virgins; so far, he has 13 wives and is building a palace for each.

With A-holes like this one and quite a few like him, creaming Africa's wealth and leaving natives starving, can anyone convince me why should I or anybody else in the West contribute our money to so to say 'make poverty history'? I mean, really?! Why don't we start by cleaning the darn place from characters like this one, first? You know that for a fact, every penny you contribute to fight poverty down there ends in the pockets of these individuals, whichever country we are dealing with... like the billions we shipped to the Tsunami victims in Indonesia and India. I bet you, quite a few personal bank accounts of local authority smarties and 'businessmen' get explodingly fat and juicy in the great Swiss Confederation, Singapore and the Cayman Islands...

So, why bother?

By the way, it's all relative. Maybe those 'dream-on' virgins think their king being next to God rich and can't thus close a eye before the annual virgin '(s)election' day... but, think about this... even if his Majesty owned every single penny of his alleged 200M, this is just chickenshit money for juggernauts like the Borg (aka. Bill Gates the III) who actually, right just now, made this kind of money in less than the time it took me to write this blog. And how about Donald Trump who recently put one of his residences for sale with an asking price of more than two thirds of his Majesty's Net Worth? So, those 13 palaces? How much of a real palace are they, really? Maybe big in Swaziland compared to the average hut... but, by the rest of the world standards? Give us a break!

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