Rampholo Molefhe
26 June 2009
Great events and brilliant journalism thrive on each other. There is a dearth of both in contemporary Botswana.
The conversations at Mmokoldi and Phakalane, among the white elite and the Africans who emulate them, recount with reverence of Seretse Khama's arrival at Serowe as leader of the Botswana Democratic Party, prime minister and the proper King of the BaNgwato who had stabbed South African apartheid in the eye by marrying a white lady.
The promise of an election in 1966 electrified the eligible voters who had only experienced democracy by listening to stories about it from the 'return soldiers' who had come close to it after fighting in Europe in the world wars.
The lowering of the Union Jack and the raising of the blue, black and white stripes under the drizzling rain at the country's first national stadium in Gaborone at the midnight minute that separated September 29 from the 30th represented a defining moment in the birth of the Botswana nation.
Botswana would also meet Zambia in an unprecedented international football contest that would further cement the relationship between Seretse and Kenneth Kaunda, Botswana and Zambia.
Only in later years would it be revealed that Kaunda was the one who kept the Kenneth Koma's doctoral thesis on his thought about the anti-colonial struggle in Zaire led by Patrice Lumumba.
In Serowe, the only comparable events were the landing of a British army plane that closed all the schools, sending the pupils on a forced march to the aerodrome with scout master and teacher, Mothibedi Mothibedi, as the platoon commander, decked out in his scarf, badges and khaki shorts.
Then there was the famous trial of witches at the Kgotla by tribal authority, Rasebolai Kgamane. They appeared, bare breasts and all, at the Kgotla to brief the tribes-people about their nocturnal meanderings when the village was asleep.
One fellow - Ngidi or something to that effect - killed somebody and escaped arrest by travelling in reverse into infinity, sending the police in the opposite direction to where he was heading.
These were momentous events in the making of a new Botswana. As colonialism would have it, the most informed records of what happened at independence are probably at an archive in Pretoria in South Africa, or in a shelf at the British parliament.
Sadly for journalism, the only thing that approximated a newspaper after that momentous event was the Dailly News, with two 'ls', and Radio Botswana where Moruti Harsh Ramolefhe was King. The news was Khama, his cabinet and a few reports from RB offices in Serowe by Sehularo Tawana, Francistown, Maun, Molepolole and Mochudi, most of which went into Newsreel.
The only other news was Kenneth Kaunda, John Vorster's pronouncements on his successes in fighting 'terrorism' in South West Africa and Rhodesia.
The state newspapers and radio reported the events as if they gleaned them from the western wire services, as if they were written by the colonial police who kept track of events in the colonies to brief the resident commissioner, Peter Fawcus, who would in turn brief 'Mmamosadinyana' and her parliament.
Journalism then, was a thing of the state, for the state and by the state, leaving very little room for the establishment of dialogue between the citizens and the information officers.
Holding the small group of cheerleaders who followed Seretse accountable for the decisions they made and the money they spent on it was unthinkable. The duty of the press was to amplify the poems they related in praise of his good works, portraying themselves in his image when he was absent.
The state press has duplicated itself, establishing RBII which perceives itself as the commercial of RB which now pretends to some form of 'development journalism' or 'community service'. It has diversified into television, also capitalising on continental political agitation for African owned news in the 1970's, to establish the Botswana Press Agency.
So, the state press has established itself as that section of the national media that best characterises the values, aspirations and political functions of journalism in Botswana's nascent democracy. It refuses to move, and it promises to grow larger, and uglier.
The demographics of the country permit and encourage the flourishing of a state centred press that seeks to fill every space in the democratic discourse, constantly pushing all other alternative modes of journalism to the peripheries: -
It is in that context that the perceived obsession of the press with the Khamas should be seen. The Khama name marks the turnaround time in which the system of political oligarchy is able to renew itself, passing the baton from one generation to the next. Had he lived, there would have been no discussion the two term presidency, and the handover to Ian is likely to have happened without one of the caretaker presidents, most likely Ketumile Masire, who saved his bid only by appointing a MoNgwato, Lenyeletse Seretse, his vice president.
The scenario would not have been much different in Botswana as it is in Gabon where all the names of the possible successors come out of the Bongo household. The Khama legacy also points to something of a curiosity for political scientists. Whereas the first Seretse threw up the facade - real or acted out - of disdain for the trappings of the old feudal order, preferring something of democratic dispensation based on merit, to cultivate the charisma that lent legitimacy to his leadership of the BDP and the country, the new Khama has had to go the opposite way.
Merit or no merit, in the eyes of his subjects, Seretse carried all those things about him and used them effectively to political advantage even as he denounced them.
By a similar ingenuity, the new Khama negotiated his way to the presidency on the strength of being Kgosi, Botswana Defence Force chief and a Khama, thereby demanding the deputy presidency which according to Botswana system of 'automatic succession' would give him entitlement to the presidency when Festus Mogae left. There could not have been a straighter route from army leader to the presidency, meritorious democracy or not!
This progression of things - and the Gabon example is just as relevant in this respect as in the earlier instance - under conditions of underdevelopment: -
It is possible to undermine true democracy and to replicate systems of oligarchy led by 'benevolent patriarchs' going as far back as forty years after independence.
That is what accounts for the obsessive curiosity around the Khama name on the part of the media, and the private press in particular.
In addition, the curiosity was fuelled by the 'hype'- real or false- that like the arrival of Seretse Khama, the coming of Ian Khama would be 'a great event'. Instead the arrival of the new Khama, in spite the Botswana Guardian caricatures that made him larger than life next to Mogae a few years ago, came off like a damp squib!
There was no Rametsana, no black wife in an African republic, no Princess Marina, no Zebras vs 'Chipolopolo,' no Kenneth Kaunda or Julius Nyerere, no rain and nothing to compare with the prospect of Barack Obama beating HiIlary Clinton to become the elected president of the United States; only an April Fool's Day and a '4Ds' speech who's highlight was the postponement of the announcement that another army general, Mompati Merafhe, would be made vice president.
The new administration did its best to make a great event out of the uneventful occasion: The street vendors would be allowed to sell food in the government offices.
The council went after them a few days later. The government offices would buy local art whilst the Three Kings disappeared behind the Gaborone skyline at Gaborone West.
So, Khamamania was not entirely the making of the press, but the joint effort of two attention seekers , the BDP and the media ..
In the absence of great events the press looked for an alternative source of greatness, not in Ian Khama, but in the manner that he chose to rule.
The press was confounded by what it discovered, even though it was not entirely unexpected. The new regime would rule by a two tier strategy: lickerish and suurlemoen.
The magic bag contained a series of bills that would turn Botswana into a closed society, open only to a clique of the president's men, the Khama family and its home girls, a handful of loyal soldiers, a few careerists at the head of the civil service and an invisible cartel of white emigrant advisors.
This cartel would be supported by a bunch of spooks who would gain legitimacy through the media practitioners' law, the intelligence act and the law that would outlaw cyber crime. All this in addition to military and police intelligence, the National Security Act, the Corruption and Economic Crimes Act and liquor and traffic laws that would deprive the populace of any spaces that might allow contemplation of resistance or revolution.
The day now belongs to the soldiers and the police, and the night to their intelligence units and the prostitutes. That is the sour lemon.
Surprise visits, soccer balls, music competitions and fireside chats would complete the menu, causing the santhokwe to taste like moretologa.
(It is said that Stalin once replied Churchill, who had asked what the communists meant by dialectics, that it is the thing that caused the cat to chase all day after its tail to lick the pepper that burnt its anus. Cats, as a general rule, hate pepper. When it is applied at the right place, they learn to love it).
And so, the press, having failed to find greatness in the man, has found a great curiosity in his manner of governance.
That is by no means the main concern of this contribution. Rather, it is the manner in which 'the leading newspapers' have trampled on the most valued values of journalism in the past 20 years that should be the cause of great distress.
Botswana society, having nursed the press through its most painful birth pains between 1983 and 1989, have only been rewarded with a journalism without journalists, newspapers without journalism and an information industry that is hardly worthy of the task of performing its expected role in building 'an educated and informed society'.
I speak here of a journalism of the flesh, completely bereft of spirit. They print more newspapers, and less news. They have more reporters and no journalists. More pages and less content.
Thereis no real dialogue with the community. There are no words, grammar, or a sense of the history and psychology of the Batswana, to say nothing of any attempt to master the specific craftsmanship of journalism. Compositions takethe place of 'news'.
Obsession with the Khamas is the least of the problems of the newspapers. It is the systematic murder of journalism that should be the great concern of the journalists.
The distinction between fact and opinion is only important at the primal level.Journalists know that even comment must be tested for fact, currency and its connection to the public interest. For example, it is wrong for newspapers to publish the opinion of a witchdoctor who says he can cure AIDs when the editor knows that there is yet no known cure for AIDs.
A fact, refers to the incontestable truth. Fact must be verifiable, and that is why proper journalism, unlike teaching or preaching, insists on relating the story through the third person.
The reader must be allowed the opportunity to ask the quoted source whether in fact what was reported is actually true. Journalism does not permit: "I saw him do it".
That is why the reporting on the Kalafatis case has been somewhat disconcerting.
Warning: This does not invalidare the newspaper reports on Kalafatis. Brilliant journalism says the way one arrives at the conclusion is as imotant as the conclusion.
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