I read with interest some of the reaction to what Rre Masire and Rre Mogae have said recently about this beautiful country of ours. Most comments seem to suggest that these gentlemen are father figures or elders and that their views must therefore be accorded some weight. Some suggest that Rre Masire was endorsing the UDC and others that Rre Mogae was echoing what Rre Masire had said at the funeral of the late Gomolemo Motswaledi.
In my view these position are informed by a need to be approved of. There as some amongst us who feel that views only carry weight if they are pronounced by these two gentlemen or those that some refer to as elders. Such a position misses the true point of what has happened and what is happening in this country. Supposing young people had never stood up to express a view that our country is regressing on the democratic front. Would Rre Masire have just without being prompted expressed the views that he did at Serowe?
Would he have had any reason to suggest that the opposition had people capable of taking this nation forward if no young people had stepped forward to say that they were ready and able to lead this country to greater heights? I do not think so. Would Rre Mogae had had the courage to say the things he said about our country if no young people had stepped forward to express the view that the absence of the current president in the international arena was hurting this small country of ours? Would the old have engaged Rre Mogae in the media in the manner that the young did during his tenure? I do not think so. The point is that these two gentlemen found and based their courage to speak on the basis that they have seen that our young have no fear or self doubt in regard to their capacity to take this country forward.
There is no way that any person who has reached the top of his intellectual development to accept that they cannot do better than someone who has not gone to university and is president and someone who supposedly only went up to Form 3 and is head of the DIS. It would be a form of self denial to expect our young to believe that the current crop of leaders is the best that this country can ever get. During Rre Masire’s rule we spoke out about citizen economic empowerment and we saw him formulate policies that were favourable to sectors where his relatives were present such as building construction. We did not lose courage even when some betrayed us in order to be given a few projects. During Rre Mogae’s rule the same anti citizen attitude continued supposedly on economic grounds. We knew and believed that Rre Mogae had no idea what nation building was about. There were some amongst us who benefitted from betraying the cause by disowning positions that we had agreed upon but we did not give up. The idea therefore that Rre Masire and Rre Mogae are making pronouncements that should be given some weight just because they come from them is with respect and insult to value based politics. The identity of the individual or their station in life should not matter in regard to any proposed position. In philosophy this type of approach to issues is treated as a fallacy and appeal to authority instead of substance.
What should matter is the quality and substance of the proposal and not the identity or standing of the proponent. That is why for me I submit that both Rre Masire and Rre Mogae are really riding on the backs of those who have for long suggested that something is wrong with our country and who have set out that the democratic space is being reduced. There were also those who were clearly and openly opposed to people being declared prohibited immigrants without reasons or justification being advanced. Our young must understand that the most difficult point of Rre Masire’s political development occurred when he was young fighting against the arbitrary rule of his tribal chief. He must therefore be seeing a picture of his early years in our young who are standing up to the current government. An elder in this position will likely have the courage to speak out because he sees himself in the young who stand out. It must be relatively easy to identify with those who remind you of your youth when you had the courage to stand up for your values. Rre Mogae as I have said before comes from humble beginnings.
Even though he rose to the highest office in the land he can never forget how as an ordinary person he rose through intellectual prowess to the highest office in the land. Such a person is likely to identify with young people with no royal pedigree who stand up on the basis of their intellectual prowess and refuse to be subjected to hereditary rule. I can add to this list people like Rre Kwelagobe even though he did not go too far on the academic front and people like Rre Kedikilwe who went far on the intellectual front. It is highly unlikely that these people will be comfortable with a situation where suddenly their efforts on the intellectual front are subjected to rules that have no intellectual basis. The majority of our young have been taught that the ticket to success is a education. They have been to some of the best schools in the world and now find themselves subjected to two powerful individuals who have no claim to have gone as far as they have gone.
They are unlikely to take kindly to this. They want clear and transparent justification for the superiority of others over them. Any appeal to heredity or friendship or loyalty is unsatisfactory justification. Elections can never be a justification for subordinating intellectual prowess to heredity and loyalty. Any person who thinks they can rely on elections to subordinate intellectual prowess to mediocrity is fooling themselves. I once suggested to a friend of mine that there are people who survive on trading about my alleged anti government stance, translated into being anti-Khama. I said to him that I am doing a favour to these people, by maintaining the posture that I do, and that if I wanted to make life difficult for them I could very easily make arrangement for me to be seen to be pro establishment. After all it does not take a lot of courage or effort to be seen to be pro establishment. I can change my posture within seconds and they will have nothing to trade with. In a situation where former presidents express misgivings about the current regime surely someone like me would attract a premium if they were to assume a pro establishment posture.
After all those who have been part of the establishment are now taking positions that suggest that they had had to keep quiet in order to accumulate certain financial rewards. I have in the past asked what tools Rre Khama was supposed to use to end factions within the BDP and no one has stepped forward to set out an answer. This suggest that there was no expectation as to how factions were to be eliminated and that Rre Khama was at large in terms of choice of tools. I have in the past suggested that Batswana know how to bring a leader to his knees. It is only a matter of time before Rre Khama accepts that Batswana are masters of governance. If one has regard to his reaction after the death of Gomolemo Motswaledi one can see this already happening. His first reaction was as president, the second was a kgosi of Serowe. Surely this is like using tools with reducing capacity.
If you cannot silence people as president what reason do you have to believe that you can silence them as a kgosi? The issue of fear is only a smokescreen. Batswana do not for a moment believe that if Rre Khama posed a real threat to their lives they would not know how to deal with him. The history of this country is not based on ideas of big men. I remember that when I was chairman of ACDC we invited Rre Kedikilwe to be a guest speaker at one of our events. I then remarked that during the Seretse/Tshekedi feud a blind man had stood up after hearing Tshekedi speak and said “sephetso ga se molato”, meaning it is not wrong to change your mind about something. Rre Kedikilwe corrected me and said the proper expression was “sephetso ga se bolae monna” That is Batswana for you. They are not prisoners of positions. They can and do change positions.
