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.
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