Greetings Dramatards 
You guys ever wondered about these two micro states on the edges of South Africa? 
And why they aren't part of Safrica? 
I found some weird future alt-history thing where South Africa invaded these two micro-nations and was just like 
"The motive behind the invasion was to boom the South African economy and military power." hahahahahahahaha 
ok, ok, let me explain.
BACKGROUND:
Why both Lesotho and Swaziland remained separate and unconquered by the powerful white governments of the Union of SA and Rhodesia is because of extreme levels of tribalism and racial wingcuckery - or at least tribal wingcuckery.
Amongst all of the Tuislands/Homelands designated for black peeps during the official Verwoerd era of apartmaking (to make apart) in the period of 1948-1950s, in which South Africa enshrined segregational policies officially into law, the Tuislande/Homelands which fell most greatly into line was Lesotho and Swaziland.
Throughout all of it's tenure between 1910 and 1993, the Union of South Africa could have squashed 
any amount of political and military dissent within these regions at any time - SA had the most advanced military of Southern Africa below the Equator, and it would take until the communist Cubans and Soviets imported their advanced modern russian weaponry into Angola and Mozambique before any black nations could even imagine posing a threat to white dominance, alongside the air supremacy which Soviet MIGs projected. 
And even during that period, both Lesotho and Swaziland were well within the easy reach of the South African Union military. Instead these micro states remained largely autonomous for different reasons.
BLACK RESISTANCE DIVIDED DURING APARTHEID STRUGGLES:
1st, they never posed a threat to the Autocratic white regimes of Rhodesia and Union of SA. The ANC (African National Congress) and other Black independence underground movements would never be able to find traction within these regions and their peoples. It continues to surprise many liberal peeps when they actually take a glance at South African Black history, to realize that black South Africans resisting Apartheid were never united, were not always socialists and that even the various ANC splinter factions were perpetually bickering.
Many black peeps agreed that they wanted to depose the Union and Apartheid for a better black future, but what exactly that future consisted off varied VERY dramatically! It's also important to know that despite the propaganda and bias of the current government, was that nearly half of all those black groups resisting Apartheid police, despised socialism, and were fearful of communism. Some black groups despised communism because they were what we'd call capitalists, and others despised communism, because they were tribalistic and envisioned carving up the defeated white Union, into new black ethno-nationalist lines, and soviet doctrine opposed that.
The ANC would only emerge the most powerful dominant group by the time the 1980s arrived because of Soviet funding, support and armaments smuggled into the country (it's not like Burgerland or other free nations were providing outside resistance support), which the ANC would use to destroy competing factions, in literal underground ganglike shadow wars.
AND YET, the two regions in which the ANC would never gain ground in terms of propaganda, or winning the hearts and minds of peeps against their Mayo oppressors, would be both Lesotho and Swaziland.
TRIBAL WINGCUCKERY:
The racial/tribal wingcuckery of both these micro nations are truly something to behold. I've spoken a lot here on rdrama.net, about the tribal and racial wingcuckery of Zulus 
, in South Africa, and how Zulus, or at least their poorest and least educated members can be really foolish and wingcucked when it comes to supporting their corrupt leaders, even when it is literally obviously to their own detriment.
The most famous Zulu wingcuck moment in recent memory, is the 2024 RSA election, in which the dominancy of the ANC supermajority for 30 years in SA parliament had been broken due to the splintering of the ANC voting base, largely into the Zulu and non-Zulu cores, where pretty much all Zulu local and tribal leaders endorsed their people to vote for Jacob Zuma - THE very famous uber corrupt ex-president of South Africa, whom had quite literally sold the ground (mineral/mining contract & tenders) to the corrupt Indian Gupta families during his times in office.
https://www.voanews.com/a/judge-orders-release-of-report-on-zuma-corruption-allegations/3575811.html
This was in SPITE of all of the accounts and proof we had of Jacob Zuma's extraordinary amounts of corruption, nepotism and incompetence. 
It didn't matter for them, because their tribal allegiance towards their most infamous Zulu anti-Apartheid freedom fighter overruled all of their emotions.
Now imagine the tribal wingcuckery x 10 = and you have the tribalism of Swaziland and Lesotho in mind!
LESOTHO AND SWAZILAND RESIST ANC:
The tribalism of Swaziland and Lesotho was such, that ANC guerilla fighters could not find lasting strongholds, because the sothos and swazis feared the communists would depose tribal leaders for the sake of equality, they feared their royalty and chiefs would lose their influence over their people, and the lowest status sothos and swazi ALSO DIDN'T WANT THIS! Even if it mean they would literally obtain greater freedom and equality under a new ANC black government rule! Even the majority of women living in such stark patriarchal societies did not want their way of life changed or altered under new communist regimes.
It sounds insane, but the force of peer pressure and society are so great to resist in the face of tradition. Even by the time the 1990s arrived, many peeps in Lesotho and Swaziland still lived as they had 1000 years ago, albeit with T-shirts and denim jeans.
What this meant was that Swaziland and Lesotho were relatively cooperative with the white Dominated autocracies of Rhodesia and the Union of South Africa, while ANC guerilla fighters/ sabotaging bombers who fled there to hide, were often given up by Apartheid police and military. This sounds insane, but in the context of not getting the 1960s early years of ANC hyper militant mentality of the ANC youth which believed they aught to force socialism over Africa for freedom.
In the later years however, just as Nelson Mandela had mellowed in his most extreme views of enforcing communism through whatever means needed, so too had the mentality of much of the ANC's elders mellowed in terms of obtaining compromise, not just with whites, but especially with enabling much of autonomy from government for many Homelands for peeps like sothos and Zulus, and to have multi-national concessions between the new future Democratic South Africa, and her monarchic neighbours, which warmed relationships between the ANC and Lesotho/Swaziland.
PROTECTORATES:
https://www.fotw.info/flags/sz_prot.html
Both Lesotho and Swaziland had been formed in 1906-1910 period when the British Empire had consolidated South Africa post Anglo-Boer war. Lesotho and Swaziland were proclaimed as protectorates of the British Commonwealth. Both were formed as ethnically homogenous states around ethnic boundaries for once (GOOD JOB FOR ONCE BONGLAND 
). South Africa would basically never interfere with that, even after 1948, when Apartheid was enshrined into law. As the white Autocracies of SA and Rhodesia already exerted such extreme influence over both nations, and continued to obtain very preferential contracts to mine and extract resources from both of these micro states.
But even then, both micro states were such backwater godforsaken, resourceless shitheaps, that there was never any motive to rule or conquer them. Lesotho was primarily a mountain range, and Swaziland was underdeveloped. Both micro states already had royalty cooperating with the white governments and ruling their respective peeps, and the Union regime had little desire to to be responsible for managing new money-sinks 
The poverty and underdevelopment was often so extreme that for the entire duration of Apartheid, black peeps who immigrate into South Africa, even if it meant literally becoming 2ndary citizens, with less rights, due to the crushing poverty 
just to find work.
A trend continuing to this day, as something like 50% of Lesotho's men work seasonally between 3-6 months of the your outside the country to bring back money to their families back in Lesotho.
MIGRATION OF SWAZIS TO SOUTHERN AFRICA:
The House of Dlamini is the royal house of the Kingdom of Swaziland. Their coat of arms displayed below.
They had ruled the approximate region of modern Swaziland, since about 1745, when the ancestors of modern Swaziland had emigrated from Mozambique and Tanzania, to come and settle in Swaziland, because extreme droughts and weather climate conditions in East Africa at the time, had driven many many ethnic groups southwards into South Africa. Other groups like the Matabeles and proto-Zulus had also been driven southwards, during which time they clashed with local south african black groups now extinct, as well as early Boers in the Free State, and portuguese in Mozambique. It was a time of great flux in populations in Southern Africa!!
https://www.101lasttribes.com/tribes/swazi.html
Swazi peeps can speak much of modern Zulu, because there is large language overlap between them. Both modern Zulus and Swazis are from the same Nguni People Group, originating from the Great Lake areas of Central Africa. Swazis can also have some understanding with modern 
Mozambique peeps, as they are often proud of anouncing as being the ethic middleground of Zulus and modern Mozambicans.
HISTORY OF SWAZILAND'S MODERN FEUDALISM:
As a further example a to how neutral most of their foreign policies had been for the past 150 years, here is excerpt:
"As the Boers expanded, treaties established boundaries with Transvaal. Though there were wars with the Zulus, the Swazi king Mbandzeni refused a British request for help in 1879 in the Anglo-Zulu war. Shaka never attacked the Swazi during his expansionist activity. In the mid-1800's Dutch (Boer) and English groups settled in the realm by contract with the king on various occasions." 
Modern Swazi peeps still live in an extremely stratified society. "The dominant Dlamini clan created a hierarchy of control by amalgamating and ranking through conquest, treaty, and peaceful incorporation over seventy disparate, equal clans under a hereditary monarchy."
Basically through 2 centuries of intermarriage, the large royal family and sub chiefs have absorbed complete clan control over all of the peoples within the country of Swaziland. But Swaziland is also weird because of their incorporation of eurocuck colonial era laws, during their time under the influence of colonial powers of the Dutch/Boers and British.
" The colonial powers altered some Swazi customary legal rules and procedures and imposed Roman-Dutch law as the general law. As a result, Swaziland developed a dual system of law and courts consisting of traditional councils, in which procedures are not controlled by legislative enactments or by codified legal rules, and modern courts, which have been formalized by national legislation."
"Traditional councils consist of the clan/lineage council (lusendvo), the chief's council (bandlancane), and the king's council. Modern courts consist of both Swazi and European-influenced courts at lower levels, including the Swazi Courts, two Courts of Appeal, the Higher Swazi Court of Appeal, and the king on the Swazi-influenced side, and the Subordinate Courts, the High Court, and the Court of Appeal on the European-influenced side. The Swazi Courts Act of 1950 provided for the formal composition of customary courts, the type of law they may apply (customary law), the procedure to be followed, and the limits of the courts' jurisdiction over persons. Swazis may exercise some discretion, depending upon individual circumstances, in choosing which legal forum to pursue a case."
Translation: 
The ENTIRE Swaziland legal system is under the power and jurisdiction of the monarchy and chiefdom of local clans They technically have modern Roman-Dutch common law, and british commonwealth laws built into their systems, but at the end of the day, the Swaziland nobility and monarchy fricking controls the entire nation's legal system.
In other words, it's literally the last feudal society on earth!!! 
As you guys can all imagine, all this shitlib euphemistic speak about "Customary Law" is just a way to refer to a literal feudal society, with modern constitutional laws on paper, but with the real power in the hands of indoenas and the royal family!
This is COMPLETELY inverted from the 
British Crown in which the royal family is more traditional and ceremonial, and hold no proper real power, and only holds their positions because of their popularity in the public. I've heard that Bong monarchs do hold modern political power in the form of the ability to dissolve 
the parliament with the Prime Minister, but any actual exercise of such power would be political suicide, and would enflame anti-monarch sentiment, and hasn't ever been practiced within the past century to my memory.
Instead the Swazi royalty holds absolute power, and the country's constitution and common laws are in comparison subject to the whims of the monarchy and nobility. 
As you guys can imagine, with such an absolute monarchy system in place, such a ruling system is just prime for abuse and misuse, in the hands of the undeserving. And just like monarchies of the past in Europe, the kingdoms of queendoms were only as strong as the sensible/competent rule of their monarchs. And often tiny kingdoms were destroyed and conquered by more powerful neighbours if their despotic moron rulers could not rise to the occasion.
But in the modern era, with much less conquest going on, and no survival of the fittest forces on states to elect good rulers, such imbecilic and inept rulers can rise to degrees of r-sluration and stupidity.
And oooooooh boi, does Swaziland have a great past 40 years with regards to despotic decadent rulsership! 
MSWATI'S FATHER:
The current reigning monarch of Swaziland is the famous Mswati the 3rd. Our boi was born in 19 April 1968, and was 14 years old when his father Sobhuza the 2nd kicked the bucket 
Mswati was introduced as crown prince in September 1983 (after his father died), but at that time, since he was only 14 years old, his mother would rule as Regent (whose regent title is Indlovukati or "Great She-Elephant" ) 
Mswati had to 1st grow up to be 18 years old, and was finally crowned in 25 April 1986, after he had studied in Bongland to become more versed in matters of rule and diplomacy and language, after the urging of his family elders.
But before we get to the current king of Swaziland (Mswati the 3rd), we should talk about his dad 
so we can understand the influence on his upbringing.
Sobhuza the 2nd ( lived f22 July 1899 β 21 August 1982), was Ngwenyama (the title for King) of Swaziland for 82 years and 254 days, the longest verifiable reign of any monarch in recorded history. 
In the early 1960s Sobhuza played a major role in events that led to independence for his country in 1968. Sobhuza would spend his life trying to rid the country of the influence of whitoids, and would visit Bongland multiple times, and would even attend the coronation of Queen Elizabeth the 2nd in 1953.
https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/king-sobhuza-ii-of-swaziland/
In his visits to Bongland, Sobhuza would constantly b-word and beg the royalty of England, or try and bring his case towards the high courts of England, regarding the independence of Swaziland from the British Empire. He was very influential in the talks between Britain and the independence of Swaziland.
He also "rejected the constitution proposed by the Bong Government, because he didn't want to become a constitutional monarch like the Bong royalty."
Instead in the 1967 pre-independence elections, Sobhuza would form a party called the "Imbokodvo National Movement" which consisted of the National advisors of the King and his nobles. They won BOTH the 1967 election AND the 1973 election 
which the British held for the independence of Swaziland, because the British literally didn't just want to hand one guy and one fricking family ultimate autocratic power!
Yet in spite of this election, the "Imbokodvo National Movement" party, aka the royalty party won with overwhelming supermajority! The people of Swaziland VOTED their monarch into absolute power TWICE!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imbokodvo_National_Movement
From 1910 - 1967, the monarchy of Swaziland had gradually lost power under the influence of Boer and Bong european common law, and had literally through cultural and legal osmosis become more egalitarian, not through any virtuous intent of the european states, but because the dominancy of the Rhodesian and Union of South Africa states held in the region. England in 1910 even had a constitutional Commonwealth law be enshrined in the nation of Swaziland, which gave women there unprecedented equality for the 50 year period - at least in comparison to the very very very conservative Zulu/Swazi/Bantu/Nguni culture at the time.
And for fricking 50 years the peeps living their 
seethed about it, and wanted to return to tradition, and absolve much of these European laws, even if it meant return to a feudal society in all but name, even if it meant a stark reduction of women's rights, even if it meant literally giving up common law for equality and subordination unto indoena chiefs and the Swazi family - and the people voted for it!
Culture is a strange peer pressure from our ancestors, and even the Swazi women voted for it in overwhelming assent!
ELECTION CRISIS:
"The immediate context of the election was a wave of strikes in 1962/63 and a general strike in June 1963 that culminated in the imposition of a state of emergency, the shipping in of a battalion of British troops from Kenya and the curtailment of trade union activity" 
There was such unrest in Swaziland prior to the 1967 election, that Bongland had to call in troops from neighbouring commonwealth strongholds to keep the peace.
"The INM had considerable resources at its disposal, the prestige that Sobhuza had accumulated through his astute dealing with the British, the persuasive and coercionary power of the hierarchy of chiefs and the support of capitalist interests and were able to persuade the voters that the interests of the King and the survival of the nation were one and the same"
"The INM's victory was overwhelming for it won all eight elective seats with 85.47% of the vote"
ABOLISHMENT OF CONSTITUTION:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14095711
And incredibly, INCREDIBLY, the winning party under the King, would reinstute an absolute monarchy into the very laws of the nation state, and basically immediately banned all political parties and suspended the constitution!!!
SOME EXCERPTS OF SWAZI HISTORY AND HOW THEY WERE CLOSE TO WHITE REGION POWERS:
"The first government of King Sobhuza II was headed by a member of the royal family, Prime Minister Prince Makhosini Dlamini, the leader of the Imbokodvo National Movement (INM); the cabinet consisted overwhelmingly of aristocrats, while a white finance minister reflected settler interests and some members of the cabinet were businessmen or professionals (Levin 1997, 84). The government thus largely reflected the power that had been accumulated by the monarchy and the traditional aristocracy and excluded the growing middle and working classes that had voted for the opposition and the peasants who had provided the INM with its overwhelming victory (Booth 1983, 65). At independence Swaziland joined the UN, the Commonwealth and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Throughout the Cold War Swaziland allied itself with the West and had close ties with the USA and the UK and maintained diplomatic relations with Israel and Taiwan, receiving development aid from those countries (Macmillan & Levin 2007, 1159)."
"The choice of a white as minister of finance was aimed at soothing the fears of foreign investors, who were woed by the King and senior INM politicians in the run-up to Independence, and the stable climate in the period that followed investment flows continued, primarily from South Africa (Levin 1997, 84; Macmillan & Levin 2007, 1155). Between 1977 and 1982 real GDP grew by an average of 3% per year "
As you guys can glean, they were never ever a threat to the white totalitarian states of Rhodesia and Union of SA, and even greatly worked WITH then in matters of economy and foreign investment - it was a........weird time period. 
THE BULL OF SWAZI:
Our boi King Sobhuza died on 21 August 1982.
"Sobhuza's official incumbency of 82 years and 254 days is the longest precisely dated monarchical reign on record and the world's longest documented reign of any sovereign since antiquity."
He didn't just live long he FRICKED LONG 
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/08/23/obituaries/king-sobhuza-of-swaziland-dies-reigned-82-years.html
Here's a shitlib article 
written in 1984 about how totally cool this guy was for "blending 500 year old culturally practice with modern law" nonsense and how cool he was for walking barefoot amongst his own people, and how noble savage noble savage and cool he was for fricking reinstituting a fricking absolute monarchy and literally setting back equality and woman's rights 50 years.
BUT AT LEAST HE FOUGHT THOSE WICKED MAYO OPRESSORS! 
Also polygamy!
=====(from article)
Known by the honorific "Bull of the Swazi" by virtue of his numerous progeny,[10] King Sobhuza continued the tribal practice of maintaining many consorts.
According to the Swaziland National Trust Commission, King Sobhuza II had 70 wives, who gave him 210 children between 1920 and 1970. About 180 children survived infancy, and 97 sons and daughters were reported living as of 2000. At his death he had more than 1,000 grandchildren.
https://web.archive.org/web/20010725080851/http://www.sntc.org.sz/cultural/swaziculture1.html
"Sobhuza 's grandchildren (list not yet complete): over 1,000."
==========
CONCLUSION: NEXT UP - Mswati the 3rd, son of Sobhuza the 2nd
Join me next time when I cover how much of a frickup Mswati will be when he rules the fledgling nation of modern undemocratic Swaziland from 1984 to current era! 
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Have you ever actually met any
or 
?
Good post as usual
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yes plenty of Lesothos work in the Free State, the province with the largest concentration of Sotho people outside of Lesotho
My father often hires seasonal workers from Lesotho who lives for 10 months of the year in South Africa as farm labourers or fence builder specialists, or tractor drivers ect, and conscripts them to work for a weekend on his small patch of land for stuff
There is one guy called Lucky ( not a joke Lesotho peeps choose and English name like Grace or Hope or Shine) and he can barely speak Afrikaans or english, and my father can only passably speak sotho, which can be different than the Lesotho dialect (there are a north and south Sotho languages in RSA)
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-difference-between-sepedi-northern-sotho-frenchsidecc
so my father and Lucky LITERALLY communicates through some combination of caveman grunts and sign language, and a combination of the few words or Sotho/afr/english between the two - and in spite of this they get along extremely well, and my father has taken care of Lucky (his sotho name Ngosi) for 3 years
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Me and asian immigrants.
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Very cool. Grace and Hope aren't unheard names in the anglosphere. But Lucky or Shine reminds me of the Trevor Noah bit about Zambian names
Although Felix and Felicity mean lucky!
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