In his response last Sunday to my submission a fortnight ago on why BDP belongs in Socialist International(SI), Moeti Mohwasa, my brother of many years standing went off on a tangent instead of contesting the arguments I had advanced. At the tail end of my piece I had stated that the identity politics of this country suffer the problem of ideologues who have arrogated to themselves the licence to attach incorrect and self serving labels on rival organisations. I am afraid but the brother’s article drips with this patronising attitude. In reading the commentary in question I tried very hard to find out if it is the writer’s contention that the 152 parties that comprise SI could all be wrong in concurring that BDP is a social democratic party that is worthy of membership to the august assembly. Glaringly there is no attempt at all to engage with this point which for me is the crux of the matter.
For an organisation to assume membership of SI, it must be peer reviewed. The review process was indeed undertaken by members of the Ethics Committee before making a submission to the SI Council in Cancun/Mexico July 2014. That was followed by the formalisation of membership in December in Geneva December 2014. No where during this process did the BDP review itself and author a report trumpeting its credentials. That was the work of an external group led by Gwede Mantashe and they were satisfied with what they saw. Is brother Moeti after this thorough process contending that the SI fraternity long established in 1951, this time around in the case of BDP bent the rules to admit a right wing party? This amounts to questioning the integrity of the rest of the SI fraternity simply because it refuses to share the brother’s views about the BDP. In any case what would be so special about the BDP that its admission would circumvent all procedure? Unless he knows something which cannot be shared with the rest of us, we assume the whole exercise conformed to laid down rules that have been followed previously with respect to parties other than the BDP.
My brother cannot claim more wisdom than the collective judgement of Socialist International members. I still insist his anti BDP prejudice on the subject of SI can be traced to his party’s exclusion from the same fraternity. And that is another critical omission on the part of my interlocutor. He omits to state why the BNF which has through the years always associated itself with SI, and so proudly wore the badge, now finds itself in the wilderness. He owes an explanation to those not acquainted with this change in fortunes so they understand better the source of his unease. However, I trust in any follow up to this particular article he will be transparent enough to furnish the reader with the precise reasons.
Proceeding, I am mindful not to rehash my previous arguments about our government’s developmental posture and resource redistribution model which support BDP’s social democratic credentials for SI membership. No matter how I explain these key factors which underpin our enviable record of socio economic progress which includes reduced poverty levels and an expanding middle class, the brother is beyond persuasion. For instance he refutes that we offer free education and healthcare in this country. Granted there is some token cost sharing at secondary level, introduced in 2006 where government pays 95 percent of fees with parents expected to cough up the remaining 5 percent(which few bother paying). At primary and varsity level no single learner has ever been denied access to the doors of education because they were required to pay fees. For all practical purposes this is free education and it is this singular policy intervention that has transformed the lives of thousands of our citizens for the better. If this is not social democracy brother Moeti owes us a further duty to show a country of humble beginnings comparable to Botswana where the public health system asks for a token 5 pula fee for patient registration with all medical care offered free including referrals to outside for complex procedures.
And while we are there, why is Botswana ahead of its peers when it comes to achieving the Millenium Development Goals? I can go onto cite other example of social democracy at work, as opposed to being imagined by those who have never had to implement it. If as my brother says, the policies I mention constitute a simple definition of social democracy, then it is this definition that matters most to the citizenry because it addresses the broad range of needs and welfare of Batswana. In challenging my submission these are some of the social programmes I had expected him to counter with solid argument and alternatives instead of cold war era rhetoric. Of course others have said the policies in question promote a dependency syndrome but we see them as resource redistribution because they are aimed at the upliftment of the lives of ordinary Batswana.
Moving on, if the brother still disagrees that we practise social democracy then what is his response to external voices who assert the BDPs bonafides as a social democratic party? Let us take the Africom Report and its observation about the BDP running the economy along social democratic lines. My correspondent has been unable to challenge academics who compiled the report for the United States government. What motive would they have to lie and define Botswana as a social democracy if such wasn’t the case? Why? As far as I can tell the team that put together the Africom Report have studied and know more about political ideologies and economic systems than him and I put together. Turning to the problems the brother lists as facing this country; embellished as they are we acknowledge they exist. But how do they discount Botswana as a social democracy? Who said countries ruled by social democratic parties are utopian and free from socio economic and other ills? Individually, they too experience worker strikes, famine, unemployment, inequality, disease and so on. That is precisely why we have fraternal organisations such as SI to provide a forum where solutions to difficulties afflicting our peoples can be thrashed out on the basis of a common vision and shared experiences.
And not least, if the BDP is not a progressive organisation, the brother still falls short of telling us why the Presidium of Socialist International would back in 1986 decide to hold its high level summit chaired by a former Chancellor of Germany in Gaborone, hosted by the president of a right wing party in the figure of Sir Ketumile. Surely it could not be convenience alone. Why was it not held in other free Frontline States? For an individual who holds strong opinions on this topic brother Moeti ought to favour us with more plausible explanations at this level of discourse. This then brings me to the heart of the matter; which is his big stick to beat the BDP; the detention of Chris Hani in 1967. But let me digress a bit to explain the deliberate absence of perspective on this particular incident. Due to free education many of us have read Things Fall Apart, that masterpiece of post colonial literature by Africa’s man of letters, Chinua Achebe. We know the story of Enoch. He is the character said to have killed and eaten the sacred python of Umuofia. It is chronicled that as a convert to the new religion, Enoch’s devotion to the white man’s religion seemed so much greater than that of the missionaries. Such was Enoch’s zeal for the new faith that the villagers called him the outsider who wept louder than the bereaved.
In questioning our commitment to the struggle, without any wish to be impolite, but merely deploying a literary device, my brother impersonates Enoch by displaying a devotion to the ANC greater than functionaries of the same party. I will explain. In South African History Online(SAHO) on the chapter uMkhonto we Sizwe in Exile, it is recorded that the Luthuli Detachment of which Chris Hani was commissar, mounted two successful raids into Rhodesia and then had to retreat across border into Botswana where they were apprehended by the then police mobile unit(PMU) and later incarcerated. The same historical account states that the arresting party was led by a British officer and subsequently it emerged that Botswana which was barely one year into independence had come under pressure from the British, South Africans and Rhodesians, respectively. At the time a lot of the personnel in charge of operations were whites from the Protectorate era who were probably partial to their settler kin in the minority states. Surely this brand new and extremely weak country could not have been expected to withstand pressure from 2 powerful states on its borders. With the matter eventually resolved by the OAU and Hani and his comrades freed, the account says ‘ after 1969, a more assertive Botswana offered open moral support for liberation movements’. My basis for evoking Enoch is that the ANC who should have been the bereaved party comprehended better the circumstances obtaining at the time.
On the other hand my brother who is an outsider continues up to this day to weep about the 1967 Hani incident long after the bereaved moved on. History as they say does not happen in linear fashion and appreciably the liberation struggle was a time of tumult in Southern Africa during which mistakes including those that resulted in loss of life were made protagonists, including within the ranks of the liberation movements themselves. Now what qualifies the brother to question a man of rare distinction like Thabo Mbeki who on the occasion of the Sir Ketumile Masire Foundation dinner, May 2012 uttered this declaratory, ‘ consistent with the conviction of President of the Republic of Botswana, Sir Seretse Khama and his Vice President Rre Ketumile Masire, the government of Botswana gave us, the ANC, the space to establish for ourselves the ways and means to work in Botswana in a manner that would not unnecessarily compromise the entirely delicate position of the country relative to South Africa’. Brother Moeti makes it sound like it was cardinal sin for Botswana not to have permitted itself to be a launch pad for direct military attacks into apartheid South Africa. I and others say the consequences of that to Botswana could have been crippling economic strangulation or even an invasion by a much more powerful neighbour.
The resultant question is how would any of the two possible consequences helped the prosecution of the struggle? In any case I am eager to find out from my interlocutor why Mbeki would sing such fulsome praise to former presidents of the right wing party. This is because in the same speech, Mbeki revealed that ‘ the story I am trying to tell is that Botswana was a genuinely Frontline State and despite its vulnerability to possible punishing reprisals by the apartheid regime played a critical role in the struggle to end apartheid’. Nor does it end there. A hundred years after its formation in 1912, a historic gathering of the ANC returned on 8 January 2012 to Bloemfontein to celebrate as well as honour old friends for their assistance. In the centennial roll of honour, this is what President Jacob Zuma said to the audience ‘ Botswana played a very important role in our struggle when it was at one time, the only exit and entry point for our cadres. As a result of its role, it was subjected to many attacks and raids by the apartheid regime. We will forever be grateful for the contribution it made’.
Because he is an outsider who cannot possibly be privy to what Mbeki and Zuma intimately knew, including the clandestine mission, albeit abortive, arranged by then Botswana Police Commissioner Simon Hirschfeldt to airlift Steve Biko in the dead of night to meet Oliver Tambo in Gaborone back in 1976, my brother says the ANC is just showing magnanimity by lauding our contribution. Seriously? As far as the brother is concerned these two ANC presidents are leading everyone up the garden path; they are just being nice to BDP. It doesn’t get more patronising. In resting my case, brother Moeti can continue to dispute the observation by myself, the 152 member strong Socialist International as well as the Africom Report that BDP is a social democratic institution.
But his is a minority voice smarting at his party’s exclusion from this assembly of progressives. It’s as simple as that. His castigation of the BDP, which did not impose itself on SI, shows that hell hath no fury like a party scorned. As for the BDP government’s role in the anti- apartheid struggle; after the above testimonies of Mbeki and Zuma respectively, for an outsider sometimes it is prudent to take pause and defer to the bereaved. In this case, I maintain that brother Moeti and is organisation cannot claim to be more bereaved than the ANC when it comes to the history of the liberation struggle and our role in it. Consequently it must be accepted that nothing can undermine the relationship between the ANC and BDP.
*Botsalo Ntuane is BDP Chairman/Gaborone Region
