Motswaledi�s oratory skill was a threat to dictatorship
Richard Moleofe | Friday August 29, 2014 14:46
The announcement alone was sufficient to trigger the violence that followed King’s death. These floodgates of violent action of retribution for the blood of this leader would require the efforts of the US Army before they could be put to a halt. But the damage was already done.
It is common sense that the oratory skills of King made him who he was and that helped to shape the course of the struggle for racial equality. King’s oratory skills provided fuel to the black people’s struggle for equality and without him on the team that sought to change America, the results would have been different. It should be brought to the attention of the reader that King was not primarily responsible for the creation of NAACP, the black organisation that was the driving force behind the efforts to achieve equality for all in America. His oratory skills brought him to the fore because the movement needed a person of his calibre to raise the impetus and momentum that was needed to rally all black people in that country to support the action. When this happened, the government paid even more attention because his oratory skill and charisma were a destabilising factor to the current political status of America then.
Oratory is a God given skill that not all of us are born with. When identified, it can be beefed up with appropriate training in the field of public speaking. Oratory will always remain a pipedream for many in the political scene. The importance of this skill is that it catapults one to greater heights of prominence and the multitudes just get to love whatever may be pronounced by the lips of the orator. Yes! Lips play a critical role here if you didn’t know.
It seems oratory can more often than not determine the future of the skilled individual. It is always easy to identify this skill at the stage when one leaves primary school and in the developed world that’s the time they begin to horn the skills of the indentified individual. This means that one could become a politician when they had initially intended to pursue a different career. I am personally bestowed with a good voice and during my military training in the days of my youth; a certain Warrant Officer “Dix” Ditsele had always threatened me with a posting to Ceremonial and Guard Duties because of my good parade voice. This is a unit that is primarily responsible for guarding the president and providing parades for the visiting VIPs. A lot of shouting is required here. I think it is my short height that saved me from this possible posting, a role I was not so eager to fulfil unless under orders. However, the unit is currently under one of my squadboys’ command, Colonel Matshwane who is two inches shorter than me and it seems the parameters have been changed.
If Motswaledi did not have the skills I have described above, he would have not even entertained the thought of acquiring a sabbatical leave from his employer at the University of Botswana. But let me tell you one thing; oratory can in most cases put you in harm’s way. It did with King. Something we are all aware of because of the publicity of his assassination in the 60s but he was not the only one.
The former British Prime Minister Mc Milan told the world that Africa was experiencing winds of change in the same decade. That is the decade when Africa lost one of her greatest sons in Patrice Lumumba, the first elected Prime Minister of the Congo. Lumumba rattled things when he gave his first speech on Independence Day. He had invested hours preparing the inaugural speech with his team of advisors.
This elaborate speech that would outline the blue print of the development of the Congo would never see the light of day. As has been the practice all across Africa, the colonial masters always had to be present at the event of independence ceremony to officially handover the baton. King Leopold III of Belgium was present at this event to handover the Belgian Congo as he called it. He made a provocative speech that enraged many citizens of the Congo including Lumumba. He seized the moment and like a wounded lion he launched on the King who in turn was so dismayed by the actions of this bold African. Lumumba put aside the written speech and decided to speak his mind.
This is the speech that cost Lumumba his life. The Congolese orator was assassinated in cold blood on 17 January, 1961 and the rest of the world watched and did nothing. At the time of his death, the Congo was awash with several troop battalions who had come in as UN peacekeepers. Instead of keeping peace, they destroyed peace as they assisted Colonel Mobuto Se Seseko and a bunch of his rouge soldiers to slaughter Lumumba. Ever since, the Congo has never known peace. This is because the blood of Patrice Lumumba still cries from the soil beneath.
Two weeks ago I made inferences that Motswaledi’s ability to organise as a political leader and now his oratory skills were a serious threat to the current business establishment in the country. If Motswaledi was allowed to live, he would be instrumental in playing the midwifery role in bring change of government. The motor industry is the single most threatened business establishment should we experience this change. This is so because if we achieve a change of government, the scales are going to tilt in a different direction and this is an industry that is worth billions of pula. Political change is not just about administrative change but rather it has so much bearing in the manner in which business is conducted. In the case of King in America, the changes he was advocating for were not good for business as he shook the old business establishment that benefited enormously from cheap black labour. In the Congo, there was a lot at stake. The mineral wealth there was highly envied by the West and they wanted to do all in their powers to make sure that it does not fall into African hands lest the communists take over the country. Ludo De Witte, a Belgian author calls Lumumba’s death; “the most important assassination of the 20th century” and does so for a variety of reasons which I turn to agree with in totality.
According to this author, the US sponsored the plot to assassinate Patrice Lumumba because of the natural wealth bestowed on this nation. At the time mineral wealth was at stake in the Congo then and even now. The enormous wealth of uranium in the Congo had been used to build the two bombs that were dropped on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki with long lasting devastating effects. And the Americans did not want the Soviets to lay their hands on this pricy mineral. To this day, assassinations still occur around the two spheres of power and business and it seems we are not immune from this form of old evil.
*Richard Moleofe is a Retired Military Officer