Gobe Matenge's social engineering through Botswana's 10th Independence anniversary celebrations in 1976

Some of the embarrassing behavioural attitudes Batswana were accused of included fighting over food in public places, disrespecting the national anthem, and being discourteous in providing service particularly telephone operators. Matenge’s social engineering was also meant to be a long term change in attitudes of the citizenry. After the country celebrated its 30th anniversary of Independence in 1996, a presidential task force was set up to devise  a long term vision for the country.

The result was a document known as ‘Vision 2016’ which envisaged Botswana to be a prosperous country by 2016 when the country celebrates its 50th anniversary of Independence which was attained in 1966. Vision 2016 also raises similar concerns of Batswana not being patriotic and lacking pride in national symbols amongst other issues. Ironically, while in 1976 undesirable attitudes of the country’s overwhelmingly rural populace was blamed on lack of contact with the ‘outside world’ or foreign cultures, by the turn of the new millennium globalisation or ‘too much’ international influence was now blamed for people’s negative attitudes.