There is no doubt that the last few months have been the most difficult for the private press in Botswana.
It does not look like there will be respite any time soon.
In fact, grimmer times lie ahead.
Routed and bashed from every angle by its splinter, the BDP is now taking it out on the private press.
To them, Botswana Movement for Democracy is a creation of the private press, which, of course, is rubbish.
BMD is a creation of Ian Khama ÔÇô and alone he remains the new party’s priceless asset.
While the hostility has always been simmering underneath, the recent split of the ruling party has meant that a totally new dimension has been added to the milieu.
There is no question that the BDP is smarting from the recent split.
A country that not so long ago had a reputation for openness, transparency and political tolerance has in a span of just over two years descended into a dark sheathe reminiscent of the cold war Soviet Union.
The open hostility by Government, led by the Office of the President, has now reached new heights.
There is a whiff of China policy about the whole thing.
But we should not be surprised. In ostracizing the private media and trying to put a wedge between them and the state media, Khama is simply playing true to type.
He is treating the private media the same way he treated the Barata Phathi faction of the BDP.
We should also be the least worried by the negative treatment. If anything, we should fear for our country that at the moment there seems to be nobody in charge.
Since the formation of BMD, Khama seems to have lost control of events.
It may be cold outside, but being sidelined to the fringes by a government that is perilously poised, a government that is increasingly unpopular – thriving more and more on patronage and less and less on public approval, the private press (or at least a majority of them) are to their credit standing on a moral high ground.
The true test of character can only come to the surface when the chips are down; and for the private press in Botswana the chips are unmistakably down.
For the private media there cannot be a trading environment worse than dwindling advertising volumes and an actively hostile government.
But still the private press should hold their heads high, remain more focused on their mandate to their audiences and be less distracted by a barrage of hostile and negative treatment they are receiving from a government that has all the clinical symptoms of a battered spouse.
Rather than waste time wailing in self-pity, the private media should wear their alienation with pride.
It is infinitely better to be outside than be inside of such an inherently flawed system ÔÇô a system that only recognizes those that sing and dance to its tune, a system that spurns and discourages diversity of opinion, a system that abhors and punishes dissenting views.
Politicians and journalists are two different tribes.
By their very nature politicians are control freaks who are always looking for obliging souls to do their bidding.
For their part, journalists take serious offence at the slightest attempts to influence, control or muzzle them.
In our growing maturity as a craft in Botswana we should accept it as normal that there will be those times when we will pay heavy prices for our attempts to remain independent of political influence.
It all started at a Francistown City Council meeting where the private media received a resounding booting as they were shown the door when their state counterparts remained behind to cover the State President.
In keeping with their now too familiar reputation for denying the obvious, a statement was issued exonerating the Office of the President from the embarrassing gaffe.
It’s a humiliation of sorts that at the apex of this circus sits a man no less than Jeff Ramsay, a man of letters who has been assigned the ignominy of rubbishing the private press every turn of the way.
It still remains a mystery to me just how a reputable historian, sired from a nation that has personal and media freedoms as its inalienable foundations could allow himself to be a carrier of bad tidings like he did this week when, without flinching, he implied that the private press in Botswana was now seeking to attend cabinet meetings.
I suspect even the crudest of Khama’s one-eyed apologists must have been secretly ashamed by Dr Ramsay’s unnecessary hyperboles.
The issue, as I am sure Dr Ramsay understands so well, is not that the private media wants to contaminate the sanctity of cabinet meetings.
Rather it is the rational for allowing the state media in parts of those meetings while expressly excluding the private press as happened in Francistown when the President recently visited.
Sitting by Ramsay’s shoulder and effectively working as a foot soldier in implementing the directives is one Sipho Madisa, who officially wears a title of Press Secretary to the President. There is no evidence to suggest that this amiable gentleman with a gracious demeanour has a slightest idea what his job entails. He seems to genuinely believe that as Press Secretary to the President his job is to keep the private press away from the President, like he so ably did when the British princes recently visited.
But in all this madness, just where is the Permanent Secretary to the President?
When Molosiwa Selepeng was banished to Australia in 2003 there was a lot of hope and fanfare premised on the false belief that Eric Molale was a clean broom that was going to clean up the civil service and make it more accountable. Five years on, I doubt if the man would be able to say what his success has been since he became the most senior civil servant and secretary to cabinet, that is putting aside the high number of people he has since sacked.
I agree with an analysis by Mmegi’s Titus Mbuya that our civil service is in a crisis mode.
While everybody has been showing a shocking haste to climb the private media bashing bandwagon, by far the biggest revelation has to be Minister Frank Ramsden, a traditionally silent man who until recently would not even want to be heard cursing a fly.
Up until he attacked the private media at a press conference somewhere in Maun I never thought this man had a voice.
We must thank BMD for shelling even the most dormant spirits out of the BDP cocoons.
Now we know Ramsden can speak ÔÇô only he waits until things are really bad for himself, his BDP and his Khama.
It’s a pity though that even as he opened his mouth for the first time since his public life began, the minister chose to bark the wrong tree – accusing the private media of stoking fires of intolerance and potentially inciting a civil war.
It’s possible the minister confuses the private press with President Ian Khama, his employer.
Otherwise how would he accuse the private press of having created the Botswana Movement for Democracy.
BMD is Khama’s creation, it has always been. In fact unless Khama changes his ways, BMD can only grow popular. This is the ground truth our normally morose Ramsden should internalize.
If the minister really wants anyone to blame for BMD’s arrival, it should be Khama and nobody else.
Whatever its defects, for which we should strive to correct, journalism in Botswana has grown ÔÇô not so much because of the Khama administration, but rather despite it.
Under President Khama practicing as a journalist has become one of the hardest undertakings in Botswana.
He came in with a clear vision, nowhere more clearly captured than in his inaugural speech when he said the media had to be tied to short stumps with tight leashes if only to protect the ruling elite from scrutiny.
It is possible that I am prejudiced against Khama.
I have always had an impatience for his badly disguised populist antics, his divide and rule tactics, which, by the way, are at the bottom of a current wave of antipathy against the private media. Let us hope that the current state-sponsored vilification of the private press is only a passing phase.
