There can be no greater indictment of our country than the fact that many of our people still subsist on handouts and there can be no greater indictment of our country than the fact that our political leadership in particular, President Khama seems to derives maximum pleasure from handing out blankets and food hampers to fellow citizens. This represents an abnormality whose solution
lies in empowering the poor rather than literally feeding them like hapless pets.
Unfortunately, many of today’s political leaders are treacherous and heartless. It may not show in the way they behave because they have mastered the art of deception. They have become the architects of theatrics and emotive grandstanding. They would ride on poor people’s donkey carts, dance and dine with the poor or weep and sob uncontrollably just to play a trick on unsuspecting citizens. Outside they come across as compassionate and morally splendid yet in the inside, they are heartless, brutal, vindictive and dangerously self-seeking. We have been told that the worst slave owners were the ones who were nice to their slaves!
Many of us have at one point or another benefited from charity or something like it, be it from the church, individuals or wherever. However, in the last couple of years, charity has become a new form of exploitation of poor people and this is partly so because we have allowed national leaders to play at charity. National leaders and phony politicians of all make and type are playing a greater role in charity yet their convictions for charity are motivated by long term personal benefit than an inner sense of concern for the less privileged in accordance with biblical and traditional demands. Basically, most politicians give without necessarily being charitable. Put differently, their giving is disconnected from caring and has to be reciprocated at some later stage.
It is a give and take affair which has stigmatized charity and rendered it an act of naked exploitation and a theatre of unparalleled humiliation. President Khama’s enthusiasm to give to poor people in front of television cameras humiliates and insults recipients who are always shown on television screens literally crawling, scrambling and begging before their lord as in the manner dogs do when they are being fed by their owner.
Certainly, this type of charity puts the giver in a position of power as they feats on the fame of feeding malnourished citizens, yet the Bible warns us that ‘do not exploit the poor because they are poor, … for the Lord will take up their case and plunder those who plunder them’ (Proverb 22: 22-23). From a biblical perspective, today’s charity not only insults poor people, but it also insults GOD who promised them to inherit the kingdom. ‘So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets to be honoured by men, but when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you (Matthew 6:2-4).
Charities are central to welfare provision but for them to remain relevant and dignified, it is advisable that they are managed by relevant experts or bodies. Botswana has numerous charitable NGOs that politicians could route their blankets and food parcels through so that they reach deserving people in a manner that is clean and respectable. A majority of today’s charitable activities are careless, disgusting and distorts the basic tenets of charity. We have arrived at a point where charity is used as a weapon to convert people with little regard to their choices and dignity.
Thus, it is only proper and decent for President Khama and all other politicians to donate to charitable NGOs. The State President must at all times be focused on policy issues rather than mundane activities like distributing blankets. Botswana is currently grappling with huge challenges that require the state president’s undivided attention. The education sector has literally collapsed; the cattle industry is on its knees; basic needs like water are inaccessible to a considerable number of citizens; unemployment levels are out of control and so forth. These and many other challenges require President Khama to refuse to be distracted by petty things like distributing toys and sanitary pads. It is ridiculous and disgusting and in many different ways belittles the State President. It trivializes the importance of his office and makes it seem as though he is idling and has to keep himself busy by doing menial jobs.
It is shameful that these self-professed champions of the poor would go around giving senior citizens useless stuff while fattening themselves. Certainly, the only hard evidence we have that these compassionate philanthropists love poor people is that they are ever determined to develop policies and programs that consolidate poverty and create many more poor people. ‘If poverty were an infectious disease, which could be caught by the rich as well as the poor, it would have been eradicated long ago. Political will and financial resources would have been found in abundance’, (The Oxfam Poverty Report, 1995).
Many citizens are willing to give to the poor but are turned off by the manner in which charity has been rephrased as a sickening game of politics. The state president and fake politicians have virtually taken over the management of charity and this does not inspire genuine philanthropists to come forward and give a helping hand which inevitably create more room for political crooks to abuse citizens in the name of charity hence the nation is weighed down with what I prefer to call ‘dirty charity’.
Given this scenario, specifically with a view to restoring and protecting the dignity of those who, due to their circumstances, will continue to subsist on charity for the foreseeable future, government must promulgate a law that would regulate charitable donations and activities so that mischievous political fraudsters do not distort charity. Obviously, this call would not make any sense to President Khama because the way charity is handled at the moment favours him.
Nevertheless, charitable organizations must petition President Khama and demand that he stop playing desperate dirty games and must resolutely mobilize communities to boycott all charitable donations that are disgraceful and stupefying to protect the dignity and honour of our senior citizens.
