I have been trying to understand why the BCP Youth League seems to be pissed off with the donation of blankets by the church through the President. Anybody who understands Tswana culture will not miss the symbolism of the donation of blankets and toiletry to poor old people by a church. I know that the president of the BCP Youth League has relatives in Mahalapye, and if he had taken some time to talk to them, he would have noted that such a move by the church is a gift to an astute politician on the opposition side.
In Setswana when someone dies one of the first things to do is to prepare the corpse by washing. One can therefore see the need for toiletry. If you link this with the relatively advanced age of the people who receive the gifts one cannot but note the appropriateness of the gift. Appropriate in the sense that the church deals with life and death. A church with full knowledge of that the old are near the grave might find it appropriate to make this type of donation.
In Setswana in preparing for a burial, one of the things to have in hand is a “sephutho” or “kobo”, a blanket. Those who know Tswana culture will know that “sephutho” or “kobo” means a coffin. This means therefore that a play on words can result in blankets symbolizing coffins. A government and church that donates blankets can from a poetic perspective be seen to be donating coffins or of being harbingers of death, when one has regard to the relatively advanced age of those who receive blankets as gifts.
The men of the cloth also play a crucial role when a death happens in a family of Christians. A church that donates blankets as shown above may seem to be getting ready for the funeral. When one has regard to the donor, the nature of the gift, and the advanced age of the receiver, one cannot miss the poetic symbolism of impending death. Of course the big question then becomes, where was the church when my best years were wasted? Are they mocking me by appearing on my side when my best days are behind me, and I am only a few meters from the grave?
One must not forget that some of the people who are being given blankets form part of the 20 percent that we are told live in abject poverty. I have heard one minister say that poverty levels have dropped from 50 percent at independence to 20 percent in 2011. Surely this 20 percent is not wholly made up of new entrants into the ranks of poverty. Some of this is made up of people who were poor at independence and continue to be nearly fifty years later. The donation of blankets to these people seems like a crowning of the glory of their continued poverty.
Some of the people who are poor were in their teens at independence. They have seen their best years go by in this state of poverty. No person can claim to respect the dignity of a person who has lived his entire life in poverty, under his watch, by giving such a person a blanket at the end of his live. The donation of blankets to old poor people may not be such a good idea after all. It exposes a certain level of insensitivity to the situation of the old poor. I am reminded of the story in Chinua Achebe’s book about an old woman and bones.
The donation of blankets also seems to me to be insensitive to our unemployed young. It sends a powerful message to our young that we are preparing to bury their old who have nothing to show for our celebrated economic advancement, and that that is the fate that awaits them. If you are young and your government seems clueless in getting you to improve your lot you cannot but feel despair at the gift of blankets to your old. You know that your parents were always told that development was a process and the donation of blankets becomes a reward for their patience. If I were a young person I would be greatly worried by this donation of blankets.
I am surprised that we are yet to have a poet or artist who sees things in the manner that I set out above. I have read that one of the traits of a great poet is criticism of life. I have no claim to being a poet or artist, but current events provide rich material for our poets and artists. If the maestro Ratsie Sethako were alive, I believe he would have long picked up the relationship between blankets, requests for patience because development is a process, impending death and the situation of our young.
Imagine a situation where someone who you pay to formulate policies and programs for your benefit implores you to be patient because development is a process. You gladly oblige and time passes by. At the time when you are old he comes to you with a blanket. Where is the respect for your dignity in this? The person does not even bother to apologize. The person clearly has very little regard for the one life that you have. It is as if the person is celebrating the fact that he wasted your time.
A politician well versed in Tswana culture and knowledgeable of the excuse of development is a process, and how old people were told to be patient, will look at the donation of blankets and a budget for the same as a gift from the Gods. The blanket issue is not something that the opposition should thumb their noses at. It provides a platform for putting into proper perspective the situation of the old and using it to demonstrate to our young how allowing the same people to experiment with their lives will result in the same future.
If the process of development terminates in the donation of blankets then the process is useless. What is the point of going through a process for nearly fifty years if the result is a blanket? If I was a young person I would refuse to be led by people who having been in charge of the process of development for nearly fifty years, at the end give my father a blanket and me unemployment.
Our young must understand that if they graduated in 2009 at 23 years of age and remain unemployed for five years up to 2014 chances are they will never get employed unless there is a radical change in the economy of the country. There will be at least four more classes that graduated after them. These will stand a better chance of employment than them. If you have a political party that has played with your parents’ lives what reason do you have to believe that they will take yours seriously, when they have showed in the last five years that they do not particularly have a solution to your problem?
If you applied for a residential plot in 2009 and have not been allocated one you should be aware that building material prices will have gone up by 2014. If a political party in charge of government has failed to ensure that you be allocated a plot in the last five years, what reason do you have to believe that it will ensure that you get a residential plot in the near future? If you were a business and government, you would talk about opportunity cost. But it seems to me that our leaders think opportunity cost applies only to government and business.
The Chinese are masters of symbolism. Having studied our culture and its rituals they may have donated blankets to have a laugh at our leaders’ expense. If foreigners can design and build, with public funds, a useless stadium in Serowe, the birth place of our founding president and seat of our current president, who knows to what extent they will go to insult our leaders? That stadium is a powerful symbol of the low regard that foreigners have for our leaders. The stadium was not built by the Chinese. The Chinese therefore had a good teacher.
The older churches were partly founded on disrespect for our culture. It is possible for them to miss the symbolism of their actions. A church that is sensitive to culture and that subscribes to human dignity cannot lightly donate blankets to poor old people in the manner that is taking place. A church that partakes of this is too far removed from the teachings of Jesus Christ. The Lord taught that if you are to donate, do so quietly, do not proclaim it from the rooftops. This means preserve the dignity of the one to whom you are donating.
As for the BCP Youth League, sometimes take a pause. This is not a gift.
