You see, Ntuane had a point in defending himself when he told us how people in the opposition should not oppose everything just because they were in the opposition. He still makes sense when he defends himself on the decision to wine and dine with the BDP on their 50th Anniversary celebrations. However, you and I know it is sheer recklessness on his part to pretend he doesn’t know that like many things around here, politics is a very personal business. There are many people out there saying Ntuane can’t come to the opposition yesterday and act like he is a Messiah who has come to save opposition politics, what is he going on about? I think they have a point. There are many people in opposition politics who have dedicated many years of their lives opposing the ruling party, not always for frivolous reasons, but because as people who think of themselves as representatives of ordinary people, they made the conclusion that little was being done in the best interest of poor people who we know live on grass and could use a break, intelligent and well thought out policies permitting.
While I agree with Ntuane that people should generally calm down, the passion in political activism is not always aimless and insincere. It is a product of certain values that people hold dear in their hearts, which when scoffed can be a source of great pain and resentment which in the case of our politics is what some people are given to dismissing as just opposing. It is extremely deceitful for anyone to stand there and tell us that the ruling party doesn’t deserve some of the wrath it gets from opposition parties if you consider some of its phenomenal failures and controversies over the years. There are people in opposition politics pissed off at the ruling party for whom charges of “looting”, “corruption” and “careless squandering of the country’s resources” are not casual academic talking points, but firmly held convictions that stir a Pompey of emotions and revulsion. This is just like how black people in countries with a (recent) history of racial oppression feel for instance. Take South Africa; white people can’t say anything anymore over there; out of generalized anger, some passionate blacks shoot down everything whites say and tell them what hopeless racist they are. Who is to say the anger of blacks there is not justified after the hell they went through during apartheid? There may have never been apartheid here, but there are periods of perceived struggles that caused people in opposition quarters some kind of grief good enough to become part of their political culture.
The problem with what Ntuane is doing in trying to usher in a new era of opposition politics is that he creates the impression that the opposition politics of this country have always been and are always about aimlessly opposing the ruling party without offering useful alternative ideas. This is insincere. Those of you who were around when they used to broadcast the views of members of parliament on the radio will remember hearing many an opposition MP lacing their responses with phrases like while I agree that the government did the right thing in doing this, I think they should have done more by doing this or that…If Ntuane and other people in the new party missed these things, it is perhaps that they are old fanatics of the ruling party who didn’t use to pay enough attention to the inputs of opposition MPs, perhaps because of that old stereotype held in the ruling party that people in the opposition always talk nonsense.
Contrary to what Ntuane wants, opposition politics here are in part based on the genuine dislike of the ruling party, and those of us who have been in this country long enough know he is not telling the truth when he suggests politics were less loathsome back in the day than it is today. This is the general problem with Ntuane and what he is trying to do. Like all educated people, he has created an imaginary reality in which he was able to refer to a made up past in politics, suggesting that Botswana politics were necessarily cordial and gentlemanly. As I write this, my memory coughs out names like Maitshwarelo Dabutha, Paul Rantao, Joseph Kavindama and Vain Mamela among others; Does he want to tell us that politics were rosy back then and these people sat in tables, drank beer and helped each other remove stuff off each other’s teeth after many a great meal with the likes of Mompati Merafhe and Margret Nasha without incident?
The idea that Batswana are the most peaceable and nicest people in the world is misleading; the only advantage that we have here is our cowardice. Yep, we are hopeless cowards. We’d have killed each other a long time ago if it wasn’t for our fear for things; fear here I don’t mean any natural predisposition to obeying the law and being orderly, but a certain distress borne of the trepidation of suffering the consequences of being in some trouble. The other reason we have not killed each other is that we have a paralyzing fear for death. We have enough hatred in this country that we should have killed each other a long time ago; our only inconvenience is our fear of death. People in other countries have died and killed each other for causes. The best place to get evidence of how bad Batswana can be is back at the village, where every family has an enemy neighbour family with which all kinds of horrible things have happened; witchcraft, children being directed not to play with neighbour kids and so on.
So, for Ntuane to pretend that he doesn’t know how people in the opposition ended up this passionate about things to the extent of failing to find themselves wining and dining with political rivals is to act unnecessarily sophisticated. Instead of justifying spending a lot of time with people in the ruling party, Ntuane should spend more time with the former leader of opposition Rre Moupo, learning the art of opposition politics!
