What A Man! What A Man! What A Mighty Good Man!
Duma Boko | Monday August 11, 2014 11:14
WHAT A MAN! WHAT A MAN! WHAT A MIGHTY GOOD MAN!
He sang this song. He always led with it. He sang it from the front lines of political engagement. He sang it to ignite lightning storms of political inspiration. He sang this song to lay down a moral context for his activism and leadership.
He interpreted and translated the muffled despairs of a whole nation into a message of hope. He appropriated the all too familiar lyrics of this song to communicate a yearning; a prayer. His pleas and conjurations were for the God up aloft to heal the blind; those trapped and enmeshed in sycophancy.
His plea was for God to tear down the consolidated walls of denial that still imprison many of our leaders; leaders who cursed and persecuted him for daring to speak the truth to them and their power. Leaders whose consciences are so elastic they will kill their souls to save their bodies. Leaders who will tell a lie with the aplomb of someone asserting the most unequivocal truth. Leaders whose hands are dripping with the blood and dirt of their own people. He sang this song to minister to these leaders and their flock of imitators. I admire his daring grace.
WHAT A MAN! WHAT A MAN! WHAT A MIGHTY GOOD MAN!
The news of the passing of Comrade Gomolemo Motswaledi left me in spasms of shock. His death has sent ripples of agony across the entire nation. It remains an imponderable horror. As this news sank in I remembered that several weeks ago I had gone public about a hit list that I had been told of. I recalled that his name came immediately after mine on that list. I could not help but ask myself whether this death was merely a tragic blunder of blind fate or an orchestrated enterprise of elimination. It left me reeling in convulsive fits of agony.
This death has left a gaping wound in the Umbrella for Democratic Change. It robbed us of this country’s finest and noblest son. I imagined his last moments as he met his end. I imagined that if he had any moment to say anything at all he must have said it in song; his signature song. I imagined that he must have departed, in his boundless grace, still pleading the cause of his detractors to the heavens, and asking for them to be gifted the enlightenment they so desperately need.
WHAT A MAN! WHAT A MAN! WHAT A MIGHTY GOOD MAN!
My mind raced back to a conversation we had just recently in which he reminded me of where him and I had first encountered each other. He reminded me that we had been on opposing sides in a debating contest at Swaneng, his school, when I represented Madiba Secondary School. We had marveled at the wonder and magic that had now brought us together as brothers in arms in the quest for genuine democracy for our country. I can still feel the potent resonances of his laughter as he related that story. He was imbued with virtues and qualities that completed me and compensated for any flaws and frailties on my part. He was a great friend; a Comrade.
WHAT A MAN! WHAT A MAN! WHAT A MIGHTY GOOD MAN!
He needs no eulogy from me or from any other person. He has written his own story and painted his legacy on the canvass of immortality. It is a story of patience under adversity; courage under fire; fortitude when the barbed arrows of malice were being shot at him from all directions; triumph over all challenges and modesty in victory. His entire life was an enduring lesson for all of us; a lesson in humility. We in the UDC are filled with a species of admiration for him that we will never succeed to put into words. It is fitting therefore, to adopt as my own these words and say of him,
“He belongs to history as furnishing one of the greatest examples of successful patriotism. He belongs to posterity as the instructor of future generations in the principles of liberty and freedom. He belongs to the present, to us, by his virtues and his achievements. I have witnessed that enduring fortitude, that patriotic self-abnegation, and that invincible determination which have carved his statue in the hearts of his people.”
WHAT A MAN! WHAT A MAN! WHAT A MIGHTY GOOD MAN!
To the powers that be I will do no more than repeat the words of that brave labour activist, August Spies,
“If you think that by killing us you can stamp this movement, if this is your opinion, then kill us.
Here you will tread upon a spark, but there, behind you, and everywhere flames blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out.”
To all the men and women of God, in their various denominations and Ministries, this country desperately needs your prayers and your intercession. This country needs deliverance so it can be safe for democracy. The country needs cleansing so its institutions can remember how to serve all the people equally. This country yearns for a purgation and purification so it can become a robust and genuine democracy.
To the people of this country, this year presents you with a special opportunity to realize Gomolemo Motswaledi’s vision and script a fresh narrative for Botswana. It will take more than just testimonials of effusive sympathy. It will take intentional leaps of faith, it will take action. Go to the polls and deliver change. Do it for him.
To all our young people who were denied permission to undertake a silent procession in honour of their leader and mentor I have a simple message. Whatever machinations of repression they may fashion and deploy, the revolution will hatch, underground, beneath plains of concrete where no bird sings.
I commit this great warrior, this avatar, to God Almighty.
So long Comrade. So long my brother. So long my trusted friend.