by BILL BERKOWITZ
Since its inception in 1886, Coca-Cola has had more slogans than the US has had presidents. In recent years, “Can’t Beat the Real Thing,” “Life tastes good,” “Make it real,” and “Live on the Coke Side of Life,” have all become part of our advertorial lives. Back in the early 1960s, the catchphrase was, “Things go better with Coke.” In Swaziland these days, the only person that the multibillion-dollar beverage company is making things “go better” for is King Mswati III, Africa’s last absolute monarch. For the rest of the Swazi people, the company has come to represent misery and abject poverty.
According to Swazi Media Commentary, Coca-Cola, which owns a concentrate-manufacturing plant in Swaziland, “is said to be so large in Swaziland that it accounts for 40 percent of the kingdom’s GDP, but it is said to be exempt from paying full taxes” (http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2012/01/coca-cola-supports-swazi-dictator.html).
Now, human rights activists are calling upon Coca-Cola to do the right thing: withdraw its support for a notorious dictator.
“Coca-Cola also has an impact on the international standing of Swaziland’s economy,” Swazi Media Commentary pointed out. “The money generated by Coca-Cola is what largely accounts for the kingdom being classified as a ‘lower-middle income developing country’ (and therefore not eligible for certain types of international aid), even though seven in ten of Swaziland’s one-million population live in abject poverty, earning less than one US dollar a day.”
Swaziland is a former British protectorate that gained independence in 1968.
In 2010, The Hindu, a newspaper based in India, reported that, “Swaziland’s autocracy is based on the ‘Tinkhundla’ system through which royally-sponsored traditional leaders dispense patronage and exercise control at local level. The system is celebrated by the government as an authentic product of traditional Swazi culture, and those who question it are routinely denounced as ‘not Swazi enough.’ But Swazis themselves reap no benefits from it” (http://www.hindu.com/mag/2010/09/19/stories/2010091950080400.htm).
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