Please be assured that in making reference to stupid people, I do not in any way make reference to you, good reader, not even our elders.
I am sure you know a couple of really stupid people and I am sure you are not one of them.
In the same manner, the words ‘stupid people’ as used in this context is not meant to be derogatory or insulting but it is used as the opposite of persons of high intelligence.
For those readers who are hyper-sensitive, you may wish to replace the word ‘stupid’ wherever it appears with your preferred equivalence but the story will remain the same. In December 2009, I wrote an essay titled ‘Politics brings out the fools in us’ (Sunday Standard, 13th December 2009) in which are argued that there are some people who are innately stupid and those who do stupid things because of politics. However, it is often difficult to distinguish between those who are factually stupid and those who act for it. Many people have allowed themselves to be screwed by smart politicians who promise them milk and honey during every general election. At the end they do not get the milk and honey but continue to give support to these blood-soaked crooks on the basis of the phony promises and wild rhetoric.
Pause a little longer and try to figure out why it has been possible for smart politicians to screw the voters every five years unabatedly. I get one simple explanation for this paradox, which is that the majority of voters are poor and stupid. Here is a simple logic: a majority of people are poor because they are stupid. They meekly accept and celebrate their subservient position that ensures that they continuously slave to support smart leaders. They believe in the pre-determination of life by God to the extent that they argue, often loudly and confidently, that everyone cannot be a millionaire or a middle class or a worker.
So they are somewhat satisfied with their sub-human position in the society. They therefore have no desire to reason their way to prosperity but prefer to provide comic relief to the smart leaders, pushing and competing with each other to show off their absurdity. They do not dedicate their time to what really matters but rather to impress their political masters by singing, dancing and ululating hoping that someday they will strike it rich for their efforts in cheering. The comfort zone of welfare schemes such as Ipelegeng makes them accept, with rampant arrogance, that menial low paying brain dead jobs is what they deserve.
It is a simple logic that we poor people accept our inferior status because of the stupidity in us. Overtime this status inculcates our state of stupidity and poverty into our psyche hence we have become proud of our poverty and stupidity. Indeed stupid people are always happier and the source of their happiness and pride lie in their being on the destitute assistance program. No one permits him/herself to be screwed and remain unconcerned for his/her entire life unless they are seriously stupid. However, this exceptional stupidity reasserts itself at every general election and is displayed by stupid people’s voting patterns where they have a preference for inanity and cheap promises.
They will therefore prefer to cast a vote for politicians who appear to be less stupid than they and these are actually smart people who are willing to screw stupid poor people. In other words, poor people’s stupidity makes them conspire against each other while giving smart people more opportunities to screw them and entrench their (smart people) superior position. The Botswana Democratic Party’s (BDP) government is pretty aware of this social order and has, over the years, suppressed intelligence for a majority of people. The BDP is convinced that stupidity is essential for their survival because it ensures that there are no objections regarding social inequalities.
The stupidity and poverty of many voters creates rich life-styles for smart leaders and makes these smart leaders look like distinguished scholars. Since stupidity and poverty is the BDP’s source of strength and sophistication, the party has invented cunning ways to keep many people stupid yet poor people cannot detect this mischief because of their stupidity.
Thus, poor people are not aware that they are poor because they are stupid and irrational. The BDP government therefore promotes and encourages conditions that breed stupidity for the majority of voters through formalizing unquestioning mentalities. After all, the smart leaders or the intelligent elite control the social system and will always steer it in the direction they desire, of course using sophisticated stupid voters. In the same essay cited above, I had noted that an outspoken politician in New Zealand once proposed to pay the underclass (parents who give their children no hope or opportunity from the moment they are born) large sums of money so that they do not breed [more stupid people] with a view to changing the course of evolution by upsetting the daily and generational reproduction and maintenance of stupid poor people whose only notable contribution in politics is to legitimize to evil regimes. In a cruel but smart exploitation of stupid people, smart leaders often feign sadness and grief at the sight of nauseatingly poor people. They would cry in front of television cameras to give the impression that they are genuinely hurt by the poverty situation of their diehard supporters.
As a result of our meticulous stupidity, we fall for the booby trap and hence continue to pull their cart while they ride in comfort. At a BDP press conference after the Tonota North bye-election at the beginning of September, Honourable Minister Rammidi was captured by television cameras sobbing uncontrollably and ostensibly because he was hurt by the poverty situation that defines the constituency. Unless they want to tell us that they are not familiar with the standard of living of a majority of people in the rural areas, they should know that by comparison the Tonota North constituency is relatively far much better.
Some villages, especially remote villages are stinking of poverty and disease that could cause Minister Rammidi to cry many times than he ever did when he was a toddler crying for breast milk.
The Minister should be frank and reveal that he was hurt by the extent and manner in which his government has systematically and deliberately impoverished and stupefied many people who nevertheless continue to give them a mandate to govern and carry on with their abuse of unsuspecting poor stupid people including some esteemed members of the BDP. When Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly threw himself to the ground and tumbled over and over like a chimpanzee that has swallowed rat poison, he merely wanted to excite voters and of course only stupid poor voters without a decent life found his deceitful antics funny and fascinating enough to tempt them to give their votes to his party colleague. When President Khama chooses to visit desolate rural villages, he is sure to find a good number of dumb, bovine people ready to cheer him for visiting their dirty and inhabitable places. Perhaps this explains why he always walks about in Old Naledi in Gaborone and Botshabelo in Selibe-Phikwe.
These are slums you are sure to find countless dumb people who only complain about the reluctance of government officers to register them for the destitute package and the president never misses the slightest opportunity to visit these places to entertain himself with the sight of poor dopes stampeding to greet him.
So long dopes, after all we live in a democracy even if it is a democracy for dummies.
