The event to launch mindset change campaign by president Mokgweetsi Masisi was widely marketed.
And the nation as a whole was looking forward to it.
It was well hyped event.
Clearly Botswana is flapping around for a national agenda.
Anything we can find to cling to is most welcome.
There is no doubt that we are a divided nation.
Public confidence in anything the government says or does has been badly diminished.
Even when government means well, motives are always questioned and analysed.
Our national institutions have been soiled, polarized and politicised.
Others have been so badly discredited that any effort to save them might have to include killing them first.
We need something that can unite us. If the mindset change campaign can do it so be it.
Mindset change is an issue of both the will and ability.
Strictly speaking, the task of effecting mindset change in a society is not for politicians.
It is way above politicians.
It is a task for leaders who people want to emulate. It is for people who don’t divide but unify.
These could be church leaders, business leaders, community leaders or such other person who is truly looked at as a hero by many people.
There are not many people in our society today who will point to a politician as their hero.
But politicians still have a role to play.
They can act as facilitators.
Admittedly, there used to be a point in history when politicians were also seen as moral leaders.
Those days are gone.
In fact both Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi were honest enough to admit defects and flaws in their personalities.
It is important for leadership to demonstrate that they too are living the change that they want the nation to adopt.
People will instinctively rebel if they feel that the leadership is trying to impose on them a way of living that they are themselves not adopting as leaders.
For example leaders cannot be successful in telling the people to eschew corruption when they as leaders are clearly involved in corruption.
Otherwise it becomes a rose tinted glass.
Our different views on what constituters a mindset change should not get in the way of fixing what needs to be fixed.
There is clearly a need for a mindset change.
Botswana government, or should we say president Masisi should avoid being preachy on the subject.
He should not appear to be like a doctor who knows what the patients need.
Lest we forget, former president Ian Khama’s 4Ds were also about mindset change.
Ian Khama failed because there was a lot of resistance to his tone.
He sounded too preachy and excessively prescriptive.
For example he talked non-stop about Discipline.
For him there was a culture of indiscipline among Batswana.
In a way he was right.
But people did not believe he was the right person to tell them how to live their lives because many Batswana felt they did not grow the same way Khama had grown.
For them Khama had had a life of luxury, wealth and power all his life.
To them he was totally detached and could not have known the daily struggles of a typical Motswana except from his brief grand visits and tours across the country where cameras were following him.
So Batswana pushed back.
What happened recently at Jwaneng during the Toyota 100 Desert Race is nothing but gross indiscipline and lawlessness.
More than half of the people who were there were drunk and unruly.
It is important that government officials like ministers call those out.
Any mindset change should target such hooliganism first.
Governments cannot tell people what to do. They can facilitate people to achieve what the people themselves want to do.
This is a fundamental reality that Ian Khama failed to grasp.
He thought he could use his will power to achieve a mindset change.
We can only hope that the current administration has learnt the lessons from all the pitfalls that Khama’s 4Ds campaign had to stumble over.
President Mokgweetsi Masisi is notorious for arriving late to his official engagements and public duties.
This is annoying.
It is a sign of disrespect.
Not so long ago, the State of the Nation address started late because the president was not there to deliver it on time.
This is terribly demeaning to the nation.
So in him talking about mindset change, he should publicly acknowledge that he too needs to change some things about himself.
President Masisi has also become notorious for arresting and harassing political opponents, including from his own party.
That too requires a mindset change.
The same day he launched the campaign, his security services arrested journalists on what has been a clear abuse of process.
That is clear impunity.
Just what message are they sending?
