BDP�s red berets �cool� brigade
Thalefang Charles | Friday April 11, 2014 12:44
Many BDP members were seen at the party’s last weekend special congress doning the red beret with a white jack symbol. Among those sporting the famed headgear were party-hopping MPs Botsalo Ntuane of Gaborone Bonnington South and South East South’s Odirile Motlhale as well as Fidelis Molao of Tonota North. Others were, the chubby BDP Youth League president, Andy Boatile and MacDonald Peloetletse, famed for religious defence of the ruling party radio call-in programmes.
Looking at the history of the red beret, it appears in Botswana this famous headgear has surfaced from an unlikely party.
The red beret has been doned by soldiers, socialists, communists, Marxist revolutionaries, pan Africanist theorists, poets and hipsters. From Burkina Faso’s assassinated revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara to Venezuela’s late president Hugo Chavez and EFF’s Julius Malema in South Africa, the red beret has been associated with a revolution and the left-wing organisations. Another famous beret personality is an Argentine Marxist revolutionary of the Cuban Revolution Enersto Che Guevara whose picture wearing a beret is ‘a symbol of rebellion and global insignia in popular culture’.
Red beret is currently a hot property in the South African politics. Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has caused a fashion storm in the political arena with their red berets. The party introduced the revolutionary headgear stealing the thunder from the African National Congress (ANC). ANC is a revered revolutionary movement with worldwide freedom struggle credentials. It was reported that the ANC countered EFF’s popular red beret initiative by introducing their own branded red berets to ‘confuse the enemy’. ANC berets are customarily military green and black in colour.
Malema however took the opportunity to bash ANC saying they have no creativity left in them. He said, “The EFF is a trendsetter and there are still many other things political parties will copy from us because we are relevant and will be relevant until elections victory.”
In January this year Malema was quoted as saying the (RSA) 2014 elections will be “the elections of the red beret” when accusing ANC for copying their beret colour idea.
Malema was banished from the ANC in 2012 after he said ANCYL would establish a ‘Botswana command team’ to work towards uniting all opposition forces in Botswana to oppose what he had called the puppet regime led by the BDP. Interestingly, it is this BDP that has now copied from Malema and adopted the red beret that is attributed to Malema’s EFF in South Africa.
So what is the BDP rebelling against with their red berets?
Boatile, who claims the current BDP red berets are his brainchild, told Mmegi that the red berets are a strategy to “hype the BDP election fever”.
The BDPYL president added that, “We have identified that the youth love them because it is a fashionable gear and we have just done it for the election hype.”
Their trend however, he said, had nothing to do with rebellion or revolution.
He said some BDP members felt uneasy with the idea because of its association with Malema.
“Although berets have always been here in the BDP, some party members thought the youth league wanted to bring rebellious tendencies and were apprehensive that the leadership would disapprove the red berets”, he said.
The youth leader disclosed that Khama has tacitly approved the BDP red berets. Boatile said when President Khama saw him for the first time in a red beret he just laughed, teased him and called him Malema. “Khama even came to me and fitted it on my head with the famous military slide”, said Boatile. President Khama is a former army commander and used to don a beret as part of his military uniform.
When quizzed on the relevance of the red beret in a ruling party and whether he is aware of its communism connotations, Boatile said they are just like people who wear dreadlocks hairstyle but not aligned to the Rastafarian movement. “Dreadlocks used to be associated with Rastafarians but nowadays everyone wears them as a hairstyle. So to us the red beret is just a fashion gear, it does not mean we are communist or rebellious. We are democrats”, he explained.
The youth leader admitted that they are aware of its legacy in the revolutionary movements but to them it is a chic hat meant to portray BDP as a cool party especially by the revolutionary minded youth.
On Monday the House-kwasa singer Vee Mampezee who is said to have clinched a tender with the wealthy party, was captured in The Monitor newspaper dancing in a stylish look, wearing a red beret and dark sunglasses. And that is the ‘cool’ image that the BDPYL wants to present to the young voter. Unlike ‘fighters’ in the Malema’s political ‘army’, in Botswana red berets are donned by fashionistas in the Domkrag attempting to be ‘cool’.
Boatile revealed that their trial order of 2,000 red berets, going for P100 each was quickly sold out last Saturday. He further revealed that they have ordered more berets to meet the heightened demand from the democrats. “Our aim was also to raise funds with the sale of the berets and we seem to be doing very well as we are battling to meet the demand,” he added.