Is anybody listening?

AS I SEE IT
MICHAEL DINGAKE | Tuesday November 4, 2008 00:00

 

Senator McCain and his campaign team are doing all they can to prove the aphorism: 'show me your friends and I'll tell you who you are.' Fire and brimstone pastor, Wright who can hardly distinguish between religious piety and political party is paraded as Obama's political mentor; acquaintanceship with former terrorist Bill Ayers, a rehabilitated university professor makes him Obama's terrorist cellmate because he served with him in some community structure; Obama and not immigration office is responsible for his auntie living illegally in America! Don't sneer! It's cheap, American gobble-de-kook political scene.

Turn to Zimbabwe our good neighbour and ask our good friend, Robert 'Zimbabwe-will-never-be-colonised-again' Gabriel Mugabe and ask him, 'Uncle Bob, who may be orchestrating the violence we see on TV screens in your SADC-forsaken country?' And you will have an unequivocal answer: 'MDC!'

Or carry your survey into our 'Proudly South African' neighbour and ask Julius Malema, President of the ultra-militant ANCYL, 'Comrade Julius, who in your opinion qualifies to lead the elections campaign next year on behalf of the ANC Tripartite Alliance?' And you have the answer, 'Thabo Mbeki!' The same Julius Malema who vowed to hound Thabo Mbeki out of the presidency, and eventually did!

It is the law of the incumbents to ridicule the efforts of their rivals. In Botswana, the curious disparagement of the opposition used to be: 'The opposition have never ruled before and therefore cannot be entrusted with political power.' While it was a fact, you wondered whether the ruling party had been in power before 1966! But the ultimate in the ruling party disparaging remarks against the opposition was that the opposition had no 'alternative' policy positions to Domkrag's.

This was uttered despite the fact that the opposition had persistently and most lucidly advocated for divergent policies in all sectors: education with production, irrigated agriculture, food self-sufficiency, import substitution in some sectors, beneficiation of raw materials, equality between ethnic groups, electrification of the rural areas, independent democratic institutions, decentralisation of local government, equipping the police services to be able to cope with the spiralling crime in the country, recruiting womenfolk into the BDF and many others.

Some of the opposition policies, previously scoffed at, have in theory, since been adopted, and some are at the implementation stage without acknowledging their original authorship. In the period the opposition agitated for these alternatives and the ruling party officials were playing deaf, you wondered whether they were playing deaf or genuinely deaf mutes. I am reminded of these dramatic episodes by what I was reading a little while back in Monitor of October 6, 2008 about veldt fires devastating our countryside

In the edition of Monitor referred to, there were three articles on the current wild fires which has gone beyond our previous experience. One article reported on the fires at the Tsodilo Hills National Heritage, the second reported on threats posed by wild fires from our neighbours: Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe; the third was the editorial which called on government to plan in advance, to preempt similar experience in the future. The questions that came to mind on reading the editorial in particular, was, 'Will this editorial be read by the right government officials to take action or just to think of the suggestions which were basic and doable: training anti-fire personnel and building firebreaks through the length and breadth of our vast country? Has the President outgrown his antipathy to newspaper-reading, because if he has, being a man of action he is, he will not wait on bureaucratic procedures to act. Though not one imbued with love for administration by 'decree' I would certainly let this one pass. The ultimate question really is, is anybody listening?'

I know the government suspects, the press, is unpatriotic, to be treated as such even when it means well and preaches national salvation. The attitude is foolhardy and inadvertently may lead us into Zanufication which we have so far treated as distasteful and repugnant to the public good. Our national press, if we be honest, is more constructive than we may want to admit even when perceived to be disrespectful and belittling like when the former President was portrayed as shrinking besides the ramrod stature of his then VP. If we looked at the role played by the press in exposing administration deficiencies and corruption, helping government to streamline its governance processes to make the country to be perceived as the least corrupt country in Africa, then we have something real tangible to celebrate as a big achievement via the free press. Batswana owe a huge debt to the national press.

I am disappointed with those Batswana who refuse to engage in fire-extinguishing exercises when called upon. When natural disasters strike at the core of our very existence, land, all Batswana ought to stand up to be counted with minimal persuasion. In the same way, one expects every Motswana man, woman and child to stand up and defend the nation from external aggression, one expects patriotism to surge forward in defence of the integrity of the soil that makes our life and survival possible. Lefatshe le rekwa ka tlhogo ya motho/The price of land is calculated in terms of human life! I once heard TK argue Batswana do themselves a disservice if they use money as a common standard of gauging their worth for contributing to the public good.

We do well to appreciate that by right we own the land and everything in it: the forests, rivers, wildlife, minerals beneath the soil, the soil itself with potential to raise food and build shelter. Land is our property and we are duty-bound to look after it and bequeath it to posterity intact. We cut our nose to spite our face, if we refuse to lend a hand because of some grievance with the government of the day. Is anybody listening?