Mongwe le mongwe o ja fa a berekang teng!

Keletso Thobega | Wednesday June 25, 2014 16:56

But let’s admit it, many people are corrupt in their own ways, from the maid who steals food or spends her time watching television instead of cleaning, the receptionist who spends hours on end chatting to friends about the weekend shenanigans, the driver who uses the company car to do personal errands, government officials who need a bribe to get anything done to the big boss who dips from the coffers, gives tenders to relatives or buddies, to politicians who do nothing but waste taxpayers’ money and walk scotch free from allegations of corruption.

In Botswana, issue of nepotism, tribalism, brown envelope dealing, sexual favours and bribery are the more rampant than we care to admit. The irony is that Batswana always cry foul over corruption, forgetting that the top brass are not an entity from Mars. They are people who were socialized in our communities, so chances are they picked up these habits. It’s like when a child grows up opening the fridge and taking whatever he finds which he wants, but when he’s older, you suddenly reprimand him or her for her for that habit.

Although we are a nation that professes to hold high values and principles, in practice, we know that’s not true. I am often struck by the low values that some Batswana hold, and that’s not like me joking around or entertaining you with jabs in satirical articles. In the instances I’m using, it’s real life; cheating, lying, stealing is part of the myriad of our corporate, social and political mirage. The culture is embedded in our social landscape. How did we become so dysfunctional and value less? It’s now a crass case of, each man for himself, God for us all.

 I have a seated suspicion that there’s an ism of reality in our existence, what with sayings that phokoje go tshela o dithetsana. One might rightfully perceive this to mean that one has to be industrious, resourceful and hard working to get ahead but you don’t always do things by the book.

A few weeks ago, I was chatting to an acquaintance who wants to leave the field of formal employment to pursue business. Content with his networks, financial sources and knowledge, he asserted that he was ready to take the plunge. This is someone who has always come across as disciplined and unassuming, the kind of person who dutifully pays their bills on time, goes to church every Sunday, never gets drunk and religiously goes to gym, you know those goody good kind of folk… I pointed out that business isn’t the easiest field; that he sometimes had to go against the grain or forfeit his values. He responded that he knew that and was prepared to make any necessary sacrifices, after all that’s why he had developed a strong spirituality. If his conscience was clear and he could sleep better at night, why sweat the big stuff?

Contrary to common perception, being a human being is difficult. At times we are faced with hard decisions. We weigh what to do; the love for comfort and being content with little, the pleasure of flesh or material opulence or denying over indulgence, to put ourselves in other people’s shoes in all we do or deploy little empathy, to maintain a sense of morality or live with few rules, to try and do good all the time or be realistic. To always do things by the book or sometimes “help yourself” praying that you are never discovered.

In the bigger sphere, corruption is self-defeating because to a large extent it limits growth and development. We should avert from a culture of credit and fairness, no matter how difficult and do away with primitive ideas of how one should do. Greed and “hustle” may have its rewards, but it’s unfulfilling in the long term. If we wholly accept that ‘mongwe le mongwe o ja fa a berekang teng’are we saying its OK to erode our positive principles and exist as if we are in a jungle, where at the end of the day it’s a case of survival of the fittest?