Walking into a coup d'etat – internal conflict
Lesego Nswahu Nchunga | Tuesday February 15, 2022 14:19
I don’t think that even with the numerous shocking changes to our lives (enter petrol changes, electricity rates hikes and numerous losses of public funds to poorly prosecuted cases) over the last three years, a coup would be something I would ever imagine. Maybe thoughts of a vote of no confidence have crossed my mind. Perhaps along with the sobering reality that we are a people who would rather the devil we know and we really believe in religion more than real action. So even when thoughts of change have shown up in my periphery, it was always in a gentler way, and in ways of asking for permission to exist or hoping that in our existence is not offensive – it was always with hopes that someday, permission may be granted for us to sit at the table and boldly declare our positions and views. But, a coup? No!
A colleague of mine pointed out to me that there is no English word that means coup d’etat. So although we can describe it, it is a construct that is completely foreign to the Brits and most of their colonies. Of course, on the one hand, it also evidences the continued coloniality of power, and how we continue to fail to interrogate our experiences through any other lens but the one we inherited lock, stock and barrel from colonial masters; but on the other hand and perhaps at a more personal level, for Botswana, it speaks greatly to our complacency and the ways it translates into how we engage with everything, including our own leadership, and how questioning leadership is culturally unheard of, in much a similar way as to how confidence is confused for arrogance. I suppose these are the ways of coming from a small country – everybody knows each other and so respect and deference are conflated into toxic obedience, blind to the deteriorations we tumble into as each decade goes by, solely because we will not be caught dead disobeying the ones who control our fate – can look a lot like peace even when it is really just silence!
So on that fateful Monday morning, as news broke to the rest of the world that there was a coup d’état in Burkina Faso and that it was rumoured that the President had handed himself in, I sat and contemplated what that would mean. We don’t live in a vacuum. So I knew from Mali, Sudan, Ethiopia, Central African Republic, Nigeria, Malawi, Libya, Egypt, Gambia, and even our neighbouring Zimbabwe that following the announcement of the coup, the borders would be closed. I negotiated with the truth and identity that no matter how little I knew, we are, all of us, African. Many of the reports on the coup were from western media, and we were not going to be part of extending a narrative that Africa was not safe, by trying too hard to depart. But I also know, from observing from a distance that things can escalate quite fast, under the circumstances. And in this case, they did!
By the late afternoon, a young army official had taken to the screen to publicly announce that there had been a coup and that the constitution had been suspended, Parliament dissolved, and borders closed. Beside him was the new country leader who was to later make the poetic speech about how he wanted to solely be remembered as a reformer and not a revolutionary; but in those moments, all we saw was the young man telling us that we were now stuck.
Claustrophobia is a strange thing. I generally like tight spaces because they seem to contain my anxiety. I love closed doors especially when more light can come in through the open space. My reason for loving closed doors is that I believe that my thoughts are contained in such spaces. But when the door is closed and you are told that it is closed, and you realise that you have no control over opening it, well that’s a whole other thing. I felt completely claustrophobic! Compounded with other stressors, desperation and helplessness, preceded by a two-day travel schedule, and before then some long days of planning work travel, and the work of being a lawyer, it was natural that there was a meltdown.
We panicked! Naturally. We realized, for the first time that under such circumstances things change faster than a cheetah can run across the Okavango plains. we did not know how long the borders would be closed for, or when we would be able to do more than just send WhatsApp text messages.
That evening when we tried to go downstairs for dinner, we were very strongly advised that we were to stay in the hotel building because it was no longer safe. No longer safe sounded a lot like I was living in Hotel Rwanda. It didn’t help that the number of expatriates in the restaurant significantly or at least from what I could see, had increased. I peeked outside and realized the security had been reinforced and there were more people with guns. I know that some people feel safer in the presence of military or armed forces. I generally don’t. As a sub-culture, in Botswana, when children are naughty, or they misbehave, soldiers and the police force are brought up to them, to scare them. So the presence of armed men and women was a trigger I could not even describe.
When things are falling apart, I think it is easier to see the flaws, and just how deep they are. But even then, I felt like on some level, I can see how this is the only thing that made sense.
Most times, when I write about human rights or human’s rights, they feel far away-ish. They’re almost theoretical – something to aspire to. Even when designing the processes by which substantive equality is achieved, or even just trying to get out of abject poverty, it feels like it can be done through gentle negotiations of power and authority. I have never, before now, imagined myself into an aggressive ripping away of power, resulting from continuous, unforgiving, unrelenting discomfort, pain and loss! That’s what it is! Gentleness does not compensate for the massive failures of a system so broken. I know there are two sides to every story. But me, I’m never about the story of the wealthy! It’s hardly ever spirited, relatable, or poetic. There is something poetic about revolutions.