Old UB logo embodies our parents� spirit of Ipelegeng

Dumi Mmualefe | Monday June 23, 2014 11:44

I was a little boy, but these words resound like I heard them yesterday. It is not just the words that seem so alive, the very voice of monnamogolo Rre Molefhe sounds so clear it shocks me!

This poem was played over and over again on Radio Botswana (RB) as Botswana University Campus Appeal (BUCA) committee appealed to our parents in the spirit of real Ipelegeng to roll up the sleeves and build us, their children a future that would never had been had they not espoused, breathed and lived the spirit of Ipelegeng!

Indeed where there is no vision, people perish and BUCA became a national vision. We had been comfortable and too trusting and forgot that motho ga se naga- you can never say you know him/her.

As a nation we were given bitter medicine. While it was hurtful to be betrayed then, especially by our own blood relatives, Basotho, in retrospect we can but thank God for Prime Minister Leabua Jonathan’s stumbling blocks that he put before our parents. Inspired by the never-die spirit, they saw stepping stones!

What a better way to sleeve-up after a heart-renting betrayal! The country reverberated in poetry! The clarion call from Gaborone was not that of despair but of hope, it was faith in action summoning the little David in them to face a Goliath who seemed invincible.

Like David who smiled at the size of Goliath as it provided and easy target, instead of fear of the unknown, in kicked faith of the assured! The nation looked back as a way of focusing into the future.

Batswana, and I am proud to say my parents, our parents chose to live up to the blessed challenge of being parents. These people had a different kind of economy, not certainly money economy but mainly cattle economy.

They had nothing compared to what we have today. These were poor people who did not even fully appreciate the value of western education. It was believed then that children should not acquire too much education as their brains would rot! 

I am still at a loss as to where this theory came from and I am persuaded it was foreign and was meant to keep us academically average.

I am reminded of the ways of God who does not require of us what we cannot become. When God sent Moses to emancipate Israel, Moses was consumed by self-doubt: “Who am I to go to the king and lead my people?” God responded, “I will be with you.” This becomes our identity; “I will be with you” when we are in doubt.

In God’s presence and through God’s grace Moses was to later do what was initially thought to be impossible. But before that, he had another confidence knock, he did not think himself believable to which God asked, “what is in your hand?”

To Moses he had just a mere walking stick! He saw a valueless thing that anybody could have, something he could throw away and pick up anywhere.

 But to God who uses the ordinary for extraordinary work, Moses had in his hand what he needed for the challenges ahead.

Our parents had mere goats, sheep and cattle; they had chicken and eggs not in thousands and millions. These were not in farms and ranches but in cattle posts and homestead backyards. 

Our parents did not have millions of Rands but what they had in hand, they used to help us cross the red sea of illiteracy!

With God on their side they envisioned an educated nation, though they had by-and-large no experience of that taste of education, they traversed the wilderness of poverty in order for us to claim the Promised Land.

As Israel crossed the Jordan River, twelve men representing each tribe of Judah were instructed to each carry each a large rock from where the priest was standing and “set up those rocks as a monument.”

Monuments are protected for generations hence Joshua reasoned: “Someday your children will ask, ’why are these rocks here?’ Then you can tell them… These rocks will always remind our people of what happened here today” (Joshua 3:1-8).

The old UB logo is a monument, it carries the story, the pain, determination, vision and hope of our parents. I was working for the UB when the new logo was introduced. Most of us were in a state of disbelief since a logo change alone can never amount to rebranding.

Besides, the colours and the whole presentation betrayed those of a university across the border and a commercial bank this side.

The original UB logo in its simplicity represents the spirit of our parents. It represents their simplicity, their dreams for their children’s future. They were not abstract thinkers and could not be represented by an abstract logo.

I remember being asked by an old professor, Prof. Masango of the University of Pretoria a simple question; “what kind of a university throws away its history?” It was my university and I was not proud of myself! My question has been: What kind of children bury their parent’s legacy?

 I remember after Prof. Thabo Fako was appointed Vice Chancellor, as we congratulated him during one of our then customary lunches at the then Notwane club eatery I said to him jokingly, but serious at the same time, “the best thing you can do for me when you get there is to change this new logo our students calls ‘ya motokwane’ and reinstate the original.”

I am under no illusion that this contributed to the change but I am happy the honour of our parents has been restored! To God be the glory!