News of plans to publish a dictionary of past and present African biography immediately invites questions about who from this country should be included? Personally, I can't resist challenges of this kind; but where should one start in selecting individuals who really ought to be included in any side representing this country? How about Khama III in goal, with Sir Ketumile Masire and Sechele I as defenders. Then the three mid-fielders - Festus Mogae, Seretse and Peter Fawcus. And the strike forwards being Tshekedi, Alfred Merriweather, Ken Koma, Sebele I and Bathoen I. But clearly there is a need for a second, and even a third team which could perhaps comprise Isaac Schapera in goal (on transfer from the U.K.), the defenders, Moleleki Mokama and Ian Khama, the mid-fielders, Bathoen II, Quill Hermans, and Z K Matthews (borrowed late in his career from South Africa), and the five strike forwards being Patrick van Rensburg, Linchwe II, David Magang, Baledzi Gaolathe, and Dan Kwelagobe. On the reserve bench could be E Legwaila, Jimmy Haskins, Tom Tlou, Phil Steenkamp, Rev. Derek Jones, Alec Campbell, Russell England, M L A Kgasa, Dipsy Selolwane, Werner Groth, and Glody Dube.
The coaches, all female, could be Ruth Khama, Gaositwe Chiepe, Athaliah Molokomme, Victoria Namane, Linnah Mohohlo, Joy Phumaphi, Unity Dow, Bessie Head and Amantle Montsho. But these selections are tricky, aren't they? And hopefully controversial. Who should be promoted from the second team to the first? Who should be dropped from both? Or promoted from the bench? But there are other questions.
Surely Ratsie and Bessie Head cannot be the sole representatives of the whole gamut of culture embracing, literature, music, art of all kinds, language, law, architecture and building, craft and medicine? But who would you include? Whose art has permanence?
And lasting quality? Or who has done more to promote art than David Slater? Has the country yet produced a major architect or town planner? Or even an orator? Who has been the master of Setswana with an electrifying command of vocabulary and idiom? Who has pushed human rights further forward than Alice Mogwe and John Hardbattle?
The more the questions, the more it seems desirable that the country should have numerous reserves. Who, other than Van Rensburg, has been more responsible for developing the commercial press than Bill Jones? Who has been a longer lasting newspaper columnist than Rampholo Molefe? Who, other than Dan Kwelagobe has more sustained the BDP than Kebatlamang Morake? Who transformed the country by finding diamonds? - an impossible question which, I am told is so controversial and fraught that it can never been satisfactorily answered.
But Gavin Lamont has to be one of the candidates. Whose initiatives have transformed agriculture, horticulture and forestry? He may not have achieved those ends but for dynamism and an unrelenting commitment to bring about change there could hardly be a more impressive, qualifying candidate than Gus Nielsen. In law, whose sun, apart from that of Moleleki Mokama and Unity Dow, has shone the brightest? Whose causes were brilliantly won against the odds? But for legal longevity, there can only be Richard Lyons.
For the accumulation of assets during the 40 year substitution of wealth for poverty, there must be many contenders. I am occasionally told that Derek Brink is listed by the Guinness Book of Records as one of the largest land owners in the world but there will be others who have been the leading pioneers in commerce, in the hospitality business, apart from the Magang family, even perhaps in manufacturing.
Or in the now side lined question of race relations who could have been a major contributor? Who has contributed most to democracy, to the special needs of youth, to the combating of crime and HIV/AIDS, to prison reform, to the reform of local government and the system of taxation, to water conservation, or gender issues. It's fun, isn't it, but serious fun. And difficult!
leitlho_grant@it.bw
