* That the organisation must be registered in accordance with the Trade Union law of the country.  That will suggest a redefinition of the term 'musician' to mean he or she who makes his primary means of livelihood from making music, or a sector of the music industry that enables making of music. 

That excludes dancers and music fanatics who have been running the Botswana Musicians Union over the past years.  They must join music clubs where they can listen to records and bring their influence to bear on consumer organisations that  buy music.

* Secondly, this means submission to the broader national workers movement and the international working class movement. 

Workers in music, or the arts in general, have to believe that they are in brotherhood - or if you like, sisterhood - with the journalists, music teachers, music distributors, makers of musical instruments, workers in IT that deal with music, employees in the firms of the music promoters, recording engineers, lighting specialists, piano tuners and their brother who tune the steel drums, setinkane and other 'exotic' instruments.

*The musicians must pay money  - however little - that demonstrates commitment to the cause of furthering improvement in the livelihood of the arts community.
The journalists allowed spokespeople to come from elsewhere and create press councils, broadcasting boards, telecommunications  authorities and ministerial consultative bodies, where the actual practitioners were not adequately represented.

Now the journalists and publishers - the people who will be directly affected in their work by the Media Practitioners Act - will be the ones to suffer, whilst their spokespersons, all of whom harbour good intentions, even if they know nothing about journalism, continue to earn their salaries with out much pain.

There have been some changes in the leadership of the musicians union, so called even if it is registered as an association.It is expected that the new leadership will bring maturity, philosophical guidance and a roadmap for fixing all the things that have been lacking at the organisation.

The fact of the matter is that the 'knowledge-based' society in which the country is now immersed, requires leadership of people who are themselves knowledgeable in the field of artistic enterprise.  If they are not, they must create avenues by which those who follow will be appropriately skilled to carry out their responsibilities in leadership. There has been talk about the establishment of an arts council.

I suspect that once more, the ministry responsible for the arts will pull out of their own bag, a person or group, that will be declared as the leadership of the council once it becomes politically appropriate to do so.

There are also others who stand to benefit financially from the establishment of an arts council that will pay first allegiance to the ministry, before taking care of the interests of the artists.

It is important that the musicians, in cooperation with artists under the banner of an arts federation, to have a fighting vehicle that will enable the practitioners to impose their will upon any decision that is made in relation to the way in which they make their livelihood.
It has been suggested in previous columns here that a proper process of electioneering should be established at BOMU.

There should in the first place be a visible electoral officer who will conduct the elections away from the influence of the sitting executive.
Secondly, the tradition of the political parties should be broken so that a legitimate process of campaigning is launched, allowing all candidates a chance to announce themselves and their programme.

Finally, all paid up members should be afforded the opportunity to vote.  Boardroom decisions are not the way to practice democracy.