Obama vs Trump and Khama vs Nasha
Michael Dingake | Tuesday February 23, 2016 16:02
Here at home we had former Speaker Margaret Nnananyana Nasha and HE President Khama exchanging unpleasantaries.
Obama kicked off by opining that Trump will not become the next US President. Why? Because he is not serious! Trump returned the favour by saying the remark coming from a failed president was a compliment. Well, how does President Obama know Trump is not serious in what he says he will do when he becomes President of the US? How does he define seriousness? Trump is the only one who should know whether he is serious or not. Serious, implies seriousness to accomplish a mission! Trump too is subjective. Only the majority Americans and objective outside observers can say whether Obama failed as president, not Trump an American of a rival party.
From a distance I tend to agree with both of them. Trump can’t be serious as an American president who won’t tolerate other religions! Obama in my view has been unequal to some challenges under his administration. The first black American president, he let racial intolerance thrive under his watch. I have lost count of how many African-Americans were gunned down by white police officers under his administration. And how many innocent Americans were mowed down by trigger- happy gun wielders.
History will record that legal police officers took over from the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) under the 50-something president of US, Obama and hundreds Americans perished from gunshots!
In any case which US president was ever serious when it came to human relations with the notable exception of Abe Lincoln who fought a just war against the American South to abolish slavery? American policymaking has to my memory been anti-people inside America and outside America. Inside America the unbroken policy has either been anti-black Americans and through the laissez faire economic theory anti-proletarian and pro-capitalist, exploitative of the workers. As far as relations with the outside world were concerned, we recollect America at one stage toyed with policy of isolation from the rest of the world, but quickly realised such policy was nuts. Then followed the schizophrenia, the mania that US could dominate the world through ‘cold’ or ‘hot’ wars. US did win the cold handsomely when the Teflon Ronald Reagan commanded Gorbachev to bring down the Berlin wall, which he obediently did, in 1990.
Since the fall of the Berlin wall, US policymakers, Republicans and Democrats, have attempted to brow-beat the world through armed interventions and violence through surrogates funded and directed by the delinquent and ubiquitous CIA. US violence came unstuck in Vietnam when the bully thought she could destroy little Asian Vietnam by weapons of mass destruction, including napalm bombs. US with-drew from Vietnam with tails between their legs, but without having learnt anything about the futility of using violence against sovereign peoples. GW Bush invasion of Iraq under the pretext of ‘war on terror’ and in the process lying that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction was the limit of US folly that violence and indiscriminate killing of people was sane policy. It was the craziest fallacy any human or state could harbour. Violence begets violence. He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword! Through NATO the American bully is trying to intimidate Putin’s Russia. It’s mission impossible. Will the American policymakers ever learn, that subterfuge and violence, is not the solution to world problems? Assuming Trump isn’t serious according to lame duck President Obama, none of the candidates will be serious including Bernie Sanders who makes more sense than all of them. In fact as I see it, should the final draw be Trump versus Sanders, my last thebe will be on Trump! In the final analysis Obama may find Trump was more serious than he.
War between Nasha and Khama needs not have been. Khama started it. If he has been reported correctly by the media, he had no business to insinuate that Nasha is a position-monger.
Who isn’t? Who has the right to monopoly of positions? For now we ignore the fulmination of who may be more educated than the other.
It’s diversionary and must wait another occasion! My contention is that we all like positions. A position is recognition! Nasha and Khama have been rivals for positions not as recently as the publication of Madam Speaker Sir, or the fiasco of parliamentary Speaker election last year; the rivalry between the two can be traced to the BDP caucus when former President Festus Mogae nominated Lieutenant General Ian Khama his successor under the automatic succession clause of the constitution. We learn Margaret Nasha declared her interest. Had I been in that caucus I’d have seconded her for two reasons: In terms of the tradition Ian Khama as Bangwato chief wasn’t entitled to be in politics without abdicating his tribal seat. For him to be Vice President and Bangwato tribal leader was wrong and inviting challenge.
More importantly, Nasha, a member of the oppressed sex, was right to demand equality of sexes in terms of the constitution. One hopes this could be a source of enduring inspiration to Batswana who treasure democracy , particularly women, who under Khama’s administration have been relegated to the un-adorned stage of service providers and out of the decision-making bracket.