Over the years, President Khama’s critics have been unapologetic in proclaiming that Khama was likely to violate the principle of democracy.
Critics cited President Khama’s approach to the use of official and personal authority, his love for unilateralism, his perceived high-handed response to criticism and his crave for a Godly status.
The BDP leadership did not take kindly to this sustained criticism of their President and urged young Democrats to defend their president at every opportunity.
Such a clarion call did not fall onto deaf ears. A couple of people who claimed to be President Khama’s supporters sprang into action, incriminating every single individual who dared comment negatively on Khama and his style of leadership.
Unfortunately, most became overzealous in shouting Khama’s name and instead of defending him they actually damaged his reputation and undermined his “D” for discipline.
They became overly sensitive to criticism to the extent that they associated Khama’s critics with saboteurs and subversive elements hell-bent on destroying Botswana. At the time that this mad rush to defend President Khama commenced, my take was that these were a bunch of small boys who were still politically wet behind their ears, a bunch of na├»ve, overly adulatory and immature boys in the BDP who craved for political exposure at all costs.
I took them for adolescents who sometimes have to do scary things to show off their bodily growth. I was less bothered.
Of course the boys failed to match their imaginary enemies pound for pound. They lost steam or interest in public debates and slid into oblivion. Essentially, they failed to compete in the open market of opinions and rigorous debates. Well, transition from boyhood to adulthood is a taxing process.
The Kalafatis’ incident has rekindled the verbal war between President Khama’s rabid supporters on the one hand and level-headed citizens on the other. The boys who initially took on Khama’s critics seem to have handed the stick over to more mature and seasoned politicians, their chief cooks. Yet the character of their rebuttals remains the same ÔÇô a confrontational attitude, constant display of aggression, frightening intolerance and an indiscriminate categorization of Khama’s critics as embittered former seniors at the government enclave, uncivilized brutes and enemies of Botswana. They hardly discuss issues raised either by refuting allegations against Khama’s administration or merely explaining the issues being interrogated.
Instead they elect to intimidate and or make an appeal to Batswana to protect their country against elements bent on destroying the country, which by extension suggests that any good, just, reasonable, patriotic and peace loving citizen of Botswana would not act in manner critics do.
Thus, their attempt is simply to cast critics in bad light and malign them as people who do not love their country. This is stupendous and a safe heaven for small-minded people who prefer to degenerate into sentimentality.
Embarrassingly cheap politicking!
Recent hype seems to have been amplified by Mr. Sydney Pilane’s script that was run in the Sunday Standard a couple of weeks back. But truth be said, Mr. Pilane did not say anything that we did not know neither did he suggest anything out of this world.
Perhaps a significant difference is that this time the usual criticism and objection was told by one of their own, a BDP blue blood, a man of eminent good sense, someone not so easy to ignore.
Yet instead of refuting Mr. Pilane’s fears, they resorted to a brutal campaign of terror with increasingly belligerent, uncouth and commanding language instructing him to apologize or brace for a bitter taste of gory revenge.
Naked intimidation and hooliganism! Over his dead body will he apologize, did you hear chaps? You can go hang!
I am pretty aware that some and most of these threats from these recalcitrant nitpickers and hairsplitters are just what they are ÔÇô garbage, nonsense. Nonetheless, there is need for us to tread with caution.
This Botswana has changed significantly and it is possible that there are some elements in our midst who are ready to kill in the name of politics. Have they not been asked to defend their president? Obviously there are some who could adopt an uncivil game plan to defend the president at any cost. Not all of us have fully graduated from the animal kingdom. What more, they have never been reprimanded for their violent language, either by the Office of the President or the BDP Secretariat.
Thus, they could in a way interpret this silence by those who made the call as tacit approval of their mode of operation. This is perhaps revealing, as we now have ‘hate squads’ that thrive on bitch-fights, rivalries and petty innuendo – people who are permitted to act outside of the protocol of our traditional ideals of tolerance and respect for others.
As a result, commentators must bear the following in mind as they continue to question the manner in which our leaders conduct public business. First and fore most, commentators should not allow themselves to be baited into getting angry by some overzealous sycophants.
They need to keep calm, to remain collected and focused even against amplified insults, threats, victimization, character attacks and abuse. They should not be distracted by those who think they are more qualified to be citizens of Botswana than some of us. After all we know what they are ÔÇô perpetrators and architects of violence, masochists who delight in hostile banter. We shall continue to ask perfectly legitimate questions that Batswana deserve answers to. We shall remain strong against intimidation, harassment, investigation and smearing of all types.
Secondly, it should be made clear that some of us were not brought onto this earth to assume the roles of cheerleaders neither were we groomed to become praise singers or nurtured to provide comic relief to some privileged and moneyed chaps.
Despite our wallowing in poverty and in spite of so much ridicule visited upon us by those whose association with the political elites entitles them to the riches of this country, we shall continue to question the manner in which the President chooses to rule and shall give credit where it is due. Let us get inspiration from the following quote by Napoleon Bonaparte, ‘victory belongs to the most persevering’.
Cheerleaders and praise singers can as well continue to do what they know best and fulfill their roles expertly. We will not as a result of their harassment abdicate our responsibility as bonafide citizens of Botswana to provoke stimulating dialogue, challenging debate and honest inquiry so long as it is within the dictates of civil decorum and the laws of the country.
People are free to participate in these lively exchanges either as individuals capable of objective and independent thoughts or as half-minded, brainwashed morons out of step with the global consensus for greater democratization.
Their argument that some people are abusing their freedoms is a naked justification for the curtailment of civil liberties, in particular, the suppression of free speech.
Specifically they distaste all opinion that is not identical to theirs.
In their view, those who ask tough questions or who doubt the sincerity of some decisions taken by our leaders are unpatriotic and that those that are not affiliated to the BDP are not legitimate citizens of Botswana (Motswana wa nnete ke moDomi).
However, these are not isolated cases of censorship, but a part of a broader well orchestrated anti-democratic, anti-freedom trend which has become a fashionable and defining feature of contemporary Botswana.
