Swazi Journalism and the ‘Muslim Threat'

This paper reports the findings of a research project undertaken in Swaziland (a small kingdom in southern Africa) that interrogates the way in which the press frames Muslims and Islam as a threat to the state and to ordinary people. It begins with the misidentifying of a Muslim prayer group as a group of ‘cannibals' and then examines three major stories regarding Muslims: i) the perception that Muslims were to blame for the changing of the Swaziland constitution; (ii) a report that Muslims were enticing university students to convert to Islam in return for scholarships; and (iii) a public symposium run on the subject of Islam. It concludes that Swazi newspapers frame Muslims as warlike people who are plotting against the kingdom and who pose a threat to Swazi culture. Islam is also depicted as a religion inferior to Christianity.LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research Vol. 5 2008: pp. 429-44