A school head shown in a now viral video, which Sunday Standard posted to its page on Thursday night, is getting a lot of love on Facebook.
The video opens with a shot of bare-backed male students lined up on the floor of an outdoor teaching area at Dikgatho Junior Secondary School in Kudumatse. Standing over them is a casually-dressed man holding a cane who first lambastes them for stealing loaves of bread. The number of loaves is undisclosed but as a result of the theft, some 60 students reportedly went without during a meal. The principal then proceeds to cane each one of the boys once on the bare back. As he hovers over one student, he contorts his body in apparent effort to somehow block the cane and lessen the pain that he knows is coming.
“Bliksem!” the principal exclaims as he strikes the boy’s bare back.
When he is done caning the boys, the principal orders them to put their shirts back on and the video ends as they get back up on their feet.
What the principal did is unlawful and in not too long he will certainly be hauled over the coals, possibly at the Ministry of Basic Education headquarters in Gaborone. Even at the customary court, where the recipients are adults, judicial corporal punishment is administered in a private space and on bare buttocks, never on a bare back. However, on the basis of commentary that was posted to the Sunday Standard Facebook page, the principal, whom some recognise and identify as “Mr. Kwapa”, was praised by an overwhelming majority.
“Parental love, saving the children from future prison sentences,” wrote Phil Ar’mando, expressing a sentiment that others (like Gomolemo Mathuba) expressed using a different set of words.
“There is no punishment here … I see a reward for bad behaviour,” Mathuba observed sarcastically.
Obonye gave one more detailed and well-reasoned responses: “Good move. It starts with bread next thing phones and before we know it they start heists. If you watch the second video you’d notice it wasn’t the first time these kids did this. Lore lo ojwa le sa le metsi [a child is moulded in its formative years]. Ba BONELA bone ba iketle. Another student was killed they kept their silence. All lives matter, even those of the victims. So ba re tuu.”
The issues Obonye raises need to be separated out. The second video, which is much longer, shows the principal interrogating the culprits, in the process unearthing a lot of really useful information. Apparently the boys had been in the habit of stealing food from the kitchen – which raises the altogether different question of whether they and other students were properly fed at school. Standing not far from the principal is a man wearing watchmen’s uniform – and is probably a watchman, who also provides quite useful information. Through the latter’s interjections, we learn that they were two groups of culprits – those who broke into the kitchen to steal food and those who didn’t steal but ate the stolen food. Lying prone on the ground, one boy raises his head during this interrogation to confess that he has indeed stolen from the kitchen.
BONELA is the acronym for the Botswana Network on Ethics, Law and HIV/AIDS, a western-styled human rights organisation which is strongly opposed to the use of corporal punishment in schools. Last month, a group of male students at Moeding College stoned a fellow student to death right within the school premises. Some see this murder as the natural outcome of a situation in which male students at senior secondary schools don’t just typically play out problematic behaviour but are downright criminal. When it has quick to condemn incidents where teachers corporally punish students, BONELA has not said anything about the Moeding murder. “Ba BONELA bone ba iketle” translates as “the BONELA people should calm down” and is a variation of “So ba re tuu.” Lesole directed stronger language at BONELA writing, “Very good punishment, to hell with BONELA.” In a comment tail-ended with many, many dots and even more laughing-face emojis, Carlos Rammile indicates expectation that BONELA press statement is on the way: “Bonela has learnt, with dismay, about a video circulating showing ….”
For now, Thobo House-Addict Manqola isn’t saying much because he is waiting for Gaborone people, BONELA and those who went to elite private schools (commonly known as “English-medium schools”) to complain about child abuse: “Ke emetse Magaborone, Bonela le Ma English medium gore ba kue Child abuse.” And speaking of private schools, Sharon Siwawa Sidume proposes that bare-back corporal punishment should also be extended to such schools. Historically, there has been no corporal punishment in private schools.
Not everyone is happy with the caning of the boys. In a statement that some (like Pabalelo Max Sedimo) explicitly disagree with, Tosh Ntshole deems the punishment to be too harsh for the alleged offence: “All of that just for bread? I wonder what punishment his kids face for breaking a glass. Probably they lose a finger.” Sedimo’s own feeling, shared by most, is that the strokes of the cane were way too weak: “Even the Principal didn’t eat the bread you can see that he doesn’t have energy to punish.”
Kay Stillworship makes what is perhaps the most profound comment. In a period of time that diseases spread through blood, his fear is that the cane could act as a disease vector when used on all students: “My fear is that malatsi a go a lwalwa. What if cuts, blood, transfer of megare. Thupa e siame but mo maragong hela e lekane, if mokwata then let each have his whip. Otherwise I’m a firm believer, not in punishment but correction. No matter what form it comes in, coz that way kids learn that their actions have consequences, in this case a cane co it could be something worse.”
There is an issue with the principal’s use of “bliksem”, which a Setswana tongue renders as “black Sam.” The word (which is Afrikaans for “damn it!”) is not really as offensive as might appear to be the case. Angelinah Florah Bele writes that “Apart from the word bleksem which I believe le mo hologile [was a slip of the tongue] … Well done mogokgo [principal]… now that’s a good of instilling discipline.”
