“Does Rre Motswaledi really support Democracy?”
I had just arrived from a jolly weekend in South Africa (they don’t sleep at 2am) and was reading through local newspapers to catch up on what had been cooking here at home when that headline screamed in the in-depth pages of the Sunday Standard newspaper.
Lediretse Molake is a lawyer and engineer so whenever I come across his articles in newspapers, I take a proper seating posture, clear my eyes and eat out of his hand.
That is how serious I take the man and his pen. I never ignore his writings so there was no way I could have ignored the latest in which he questions and casts doubt on Rre Motswaledi’s support for democracy.
Let me give you the good side about writing this column.
When I write this column, I do not have to consult anyone. I do not have to go to great lengths in coming up with what I write here because nothing obliges me to seek consent from the subjects of my deliberations.
That is, I do not have to seek your permission before I write about you. Good, isn’t it? So the good thing about this column is: I write what’s in my head without anyone’s influence. So when I defend or criticize anyone it’s only because I personally feel that particular person deserves to be defended or criticized.
To me, writing here is just like breathing or talking. It comes naturally. I write here to express my views and my views only. I can write something very stupid here and would not be ashamed to own up to the crap when it turns out to be.
I can write here and not be shy to smile when it turns out I have written a master piece.
Ok, all I’m trying to explain here is, even as I trespass in a matter that is supposedly between Rre Molake and Rre Motswaledi, I am fully alive to the wrath that may come with go phapha ga me (intruding in other people’s matters).
I’m ready.
Rre Molake may feel who the ‘American word’ does Sonny think he is to defend Rre Motswaledi and on the other hand a lot of people may take my defence of Rre Motswaledi as bootlicking (but really why would I bootlick someone who’s trapped in litigation debts and leave someone who has money like dust and power like God).
I am not Rre Motswaledi’s spokesperson and just like everyone else he will only get to know my views on Molake’s article right here. Why should I consult him when this column is intended for my views and mine only? It is here that I have a leeway to intrude in matters that are not necessarily my business.
Back to Rre Molake.
In Law, we are taught that if you cannot convince them, then confuse them. I don’t know what they are taught in Engineering. I had a Law lecturer who taught me that ‘convince or confuse’ line and maybe if I had gone through an Engineering lesson the lecturer would have told me if I cannot tell the truth I should engineer lies.
Rre Molake’s article left me confused and not convinced. If that was the whole intention, I can say with conviction, mission accomplished. Rre Molake has, without doubt, left many heads spinning and ringing with confusion.
Rre Molake asserts that one of the instruments that often reflect public position is the decisions of our courts of law.
This assertion is strategically placed at the beginning of his composition so that by the time he argues that Rre Motswaledi’s position on democracy and presidential immunity was not in line with the public position prior to his court action, the reader would have already been brainwashed to buy into the crap.
Crap because it can never be true that the decisions of the courts of law are often a reflection of public position.
Examples that pour cold water on such pedestrian belief are in abundance. Take this for example; a murderer is arraigned before the courts of law. The court of law grants the suspected murderer bail. This is not a public position but a position taken at the prerogative and interpretation of law by the presiding judicial officer without being influenced by public position for, if public position played any role in the administration of justice, the courts of law would not be granting murderers and rapists bail.
Rre Molake further says, “What the above suggests is that contrary to popular myth it is Rre Motswaledi who stood against democracy. To therefore suggest as some have done that his court action was a fight for democracy is therefore a fallacy.”
Awo batho ba Modimo, maybe I shouldn’t be arguing with Rre Molake for I really don’t know what he intends to achieve through his article. For him to viciously bring back the Motswaledi/Khama issue might be more than just tabling an issue for debate.
I’m just saying because with more judicial posts up for grabs and the appointments assigned at the pleasure of the president we should brace ourselves for more articles that endear the authors to the appointing authorities.
Anyway that is besides the point. I do not believe anyone in their right mind could take Motswaledi’s court action as standing against democracy. This was instead opening the flood gates of democracy.
It was through Motswaledi’s court action that this country got to gauge it’s democratic credentials. It was through Motswaledi’s court action that this nation woke from deep slumber and realized that contrary to Molake’s assertion, courts decisions are not always a reflection of public position because the public’s position was that Motswaledi’s case should have been heard and determined by the courts of law instead of being guillotined without consideration just because an undemocratic clause of legislation prohibits any form of litigation on a sitting president.
Rre Molake must wake up to the reality that what formed public position some forty five years back cannot be automatically relevant now. Public position changes with time and this is why some of us are calling for constitutional review so as to allow public position that is relevant to our times.
If public position at independence was that a sitting president should not be dragged to court I doubt forty-five years down the line the position still stands.
Rre Molake should not confuse court outcomes with outcomes of national referendums because only the latter is reflective of public position. My intention here is not to engage in a legal tug of war with Rre Molake but to only confine myself to common sense for law itself is common sense and that is why they say ignorance of the law is no excuse.
As for the rest of Rre Molake’s grind as to why Rre Motswaledi ended up taking the baton from Rre Ntuane I will leave it to the BMD to respond or ignore him because my column is not representative of the views of the BMD.
On a totally different matter and still of no business to me, I read with curiosity at how Vice President Rre Merafhe apologized to Rre Kwelagobe.
I wonder, what was the General apologizing for?
It appears his apology was the main course of the BDP retreat as the apology became so publicized and received so much prominence than all the other deliberations made at the meeting.
I ask myself, since when did the vice president learn the importance of apologizing when he has failed to offer public apology after he made repugnant comments that the killing of one or two citizens were nothing to worry about.
If the BDP leadership finally realizes the importance of apologizing to Rre Kwelagobe, why can’t it start with the President apologizing to Rre Kwelagobe for the humiliation meted on him prior to the Kanye congress? Why can’t the president apologize for forcing Rre Kwelagobe to forgo his ministerial post while others continued to hold ministerial posts while vying for party office at Kanye? You remember when the President publicly discussed Kwelagobe’s health!
Why can’t the president apologize for saying Kwelagobe is an old and frail man who he would never be at peace working with?
Well, it’s all none of my business but it leaves me wondering.
