A few months ago, Rre Khama extended General Masire’s contract as Commander of BDF.
He also extended Commissioner Tsimako’s contract as Commissioner of Police. In both instances, the private media suggested that the extensions were motivated by a failure to have a succession plan on the part of both institutions.
In my view, the media’s tendency to sensationalize issues blindsided the trade union movement in that, had the media not suggested that the extensions were motivated by lack of succession planning, the unions would have seen the extensions for what they were.
I submit that the extensions demonstrated that Rre Khama was very much aware of what was coming. He needed to keep the security cluster stable, because he knew that he was going to have to deal with a civilian upheaval.
If you have to find a solution to an equation with many variables you keep some of them constant. This allows you to deal with one variable. A president who has reason to believe that a civilian upheaval is forthcoming will not want to destabilize the security cluster. The need to keep the security cluster stable may also explain Rre Khama’s reluctance to appoint a substantive holder at the Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security.
The public sector strike is a civilian upheaval with many variables of its own. Anybody who believes that they are in control of all the variables will be misleading himself. We are now witnessing the movement of a variable that neither the government nor the trade union movement is in control of, students. The student uprisings in the various schools demonstrate that neither the teachers nor the government are in control.
When some students went to see Kgosi Kgolo Kgafela he is said to have remarked that there was nothing he could do, and that the students’ futures were in their hands. In future he will not be able to control the students, for they will, applying his excuse, be justified to exclude him from their affairs. The students are now in control and can determine whether they are being taught or not. Once the strike was suspended the students got the upper hand in regard to their schools. It is going to take a lot for both the teachers and government to take charge of the situation.
The union leadership has asked teachers to return and to teach what was programmed for the period when the teachers were on strike. Our private media editorials support what is called “no pay no work”. There is a clear refusal by teachers to follow the instructions of the union leadership. Either the unions suspended the strike or such suspension was not in good faith.
If you are paid in advance before you do work, then you can raise the “no pay no work” argument. If you are paid in arrears there is no room to raise the argument.
The other question is whether all teachers who are arguing for “no pay no work” were on program with the teaching program. If they were not then they cannot raise the argument. Rather they owe the government labour that has been paid for.
One also needs to draw a distinction between a programme and work itself. If work is programmed to be done and you go on unpaid leave, can you upon your return, argue that you are not going to do that work because it was programmed to be done when you were on unpaid leave? I do not think so. It seems to me that our teachers are confusing work with its programming. The employer pays you for your labour for doing work. He is in control of the programming.
There have been calls for review and reform of our constitution. Some have even given it labels, calling it a colonial document. I have taken the position that we first have to inform our people of what obtains in our constitution before we undertake any review process. Labels do not define a document or the principles enunciated therein. I have also maintained that there is a strong theme of betrayal running through our country going way back to the time when we were declared a protectorate.
It is relatively easy to create labels and rally around them. But our greater task is to build a viable society within the midst of billions of people, competing for resources with our own people. How will changing the constitution provide a solution to our problems? If people have little regard for their own laws and agreements the problem is not the laws and agreements, but the people themselves.
Why should members of one family be the only ones who lead a tribal grouping? They are human beings like everyone else. They breathe air and out comes carbon dioxide. They drink water and out comes urine and sweat. The eat carbohydrates and out comes human waste. What particular attribute, peculiar only to themselves as human beings, do they have, to claim to be the ones who can lead a tribe and preserve culture?
Can any of our Dikgosi produce a tribal constitution? I submit that they cannot. Tribes are not natural formations. They are created by people. The idea of tribal purity that is being promoted by some amongst us has no basis in truth. I see no reason why if we want to forge together one nation we need each tribe to create regiments. Why can we not have Batswana of a certain age group belong to one regiment? In my view tribal regiments are the basis for a future federal state with its inherent contradictions and conflicts.
Why can people not opt out of a particular tribe with their lands? After all most tribes in Botswana are settler tribes. We have agreed that rock paintings were made by Basarwa. They have a superior claim to these lands than any tribe. No tribal grouping can argue that any section of it cannot opt out of it on the land in which the group currently resides, for no tribe has a better claim to the land than a new tribe. In my view a new tribe need only have Basarwa grant them the claim to any particular land in Botswana. They do not need permission of any existing tribe.
We have a complex equation to resolve. No amount of propaganda is going to advance us in regard to its solution. We need an economically viable state. We cannot be viable if we shortchange our young.
The current situation whereby for the sake of money, our government will allow students to go without lessons, and where for the sake of money our teachers will not teach, exposes what we are really about. We need to ask what kind of people we are who can do this to their young.
This failure to put our young first happens even during times when we are supposedly at peace.
Parents will not take steps to ensure that their young do not go hungry. In societies that care for their young, parents sometimes do two jobs. In Botswana some parents will not take certain jobs out of pride without regard to their children’s interests. Their children will not have winter clothes, and instead the law has to be amended to spare children from going to school when it is cold.
Mahatma Gandhi developed a method of non violent resistance that he called, satyagraha. He said that it was a weapon of the strong that admits of no violence under any circumstance. It has been loosely translated as “truth force”. He said that “truth does not admit of violence being inflicted on ones opponent, but he must be weaned from error by patience and compassion”.
In a situation where both the government and the unions do not seem to particularly care about the truth, it is difficult to see how either side can claim to be acting in the best interests of our people. Much as I appreciate Gandhi’s position on the pursuit of the truth I think truth does not really need anyone. It forces its way to the surface. Absence of violence is not a necessary prerequisite for the truth.
Martin Luther King in his last speech remarked that “ all we say is that America be true to what it has said on paper” He was addressing the right of Black people to protest for their rights. But in another speech he remarked that the black man had to look into his soul for his emancipation, not to some injunction or law. He recognized that a person’s worth is not founded on what is written on paper.
I must confess that like others I am throwing accusation about, but this is what happens when people who put themselves forward as leaders both at national, tribal, union, and party political level fail to lead. The issue is not about who can put forth better propaganda, but who can bravely acknowledge the numerous variables at play in nation building and have the courage to resolve the equation. There is no point in pretending that only one variable is at play.
Our national, tribal, union and party political leaders are failing us.
