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Yet it’s only just across the border and the people this side cannot be so different from people that side. But how it has changed over those years! Once a staid, attractive, clean, white town with many beautiful turn of the century houses and several real architectural joys, it has now become busy, not as clean as it once was, but seemingly growing like mad. There used to be an orthodox, attractive town square, doubtless with a statue of someone on a horse waving a sword - but I cannot now remember. If there was, it and the square has gone. Being replaced by yet another shopping mall/centre. Change occurs faster than one can keep up but as a generalization it seems that, in development terms today, consumers are more important than producers.
I wondered what could possibly explain such a phenomenon and was told by a shop assistant that this growth was largely fueled by the very large numbers of Batswana students there each enjoying a generous monthly allowance. Mmabatho’s Mega City is now a ghost town, he said, and all development is along the Mafikeng road to Ramatlhabama. Reduce the number of those students, as is apparently this government’s intention, and Mafikeng will undoubtedly be deeply hurt. Drive around the horribly poverty stricken outskirts of Mafikeng and the enormous value of that investment is immediately clear.
Drive back through the border, and on a wonderful autumn day enjoy that long empty stretch to Lobatse where, incidentally, there is not a single stop-off point provided so that we, tourists, shoppers or even businessmen might enjoy that immense landscape. And wonder why there is no visible evidence of linkage between one community and another, particularly between Mafikeng and Lobatse. Do the leaders in these two communities talk together, find common ground, work out they can better interact and how each can benefit from the other? With nothing to suggest otherwise, the impression gained is that here are two communities which rarely enjoy such contact although they have everything in common except a country.
That point is brought to the fore by van Rensburgs’s suggestion that in the 2010 World Cup this country should push for a quarter final match to be played in Gaborone (or Francistown). Might Bhamjee have pushed this same idea in the pre-vote trade off talks? Or, having earlier betrayed Bhamjee, might South Africa now feel that it owes Botswana something or is the point of these recent accusations about Bhamjee’s supposed perfidy, that it owes it nothing? And can therefore forget about a match being played here.
Which, one wonders, is pull and which push? Relations between big and small will always demonstrate a degree of imbalance but where the advantage rests with this country, as apparently it does in terms of Mafikeng, it should seek an amicable trade off right now. Invest there without seeking additional advantage seems short sighted. If, for instance, there is to be no direct gain for this country from Bhamjee’s vote and certainly no World Cup match at any level, it may well be time to think again. Could Lobatse gain from Mafikeng and Mafikeng from Lobatse? Two smallish, border towns struggling for growth, if not survival. Might they be able to show how improved communication and better development strategies at their level could open up opportunities at higher levels, even World Cup levels?
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