The symbolism of Khama in Old Naledi

| Friday October 23, 2009 00:00

OLD NALEDI: 'O ne a le ko ditakaneng kwa Ian maabane. Ba re o ne a pantsola. Hei, mothaka yo o o maswe. O hitlhetse BNF e agile mosasananyana ko ditakaneng, a tsena a e ragela kwa. (He was at Old Naledi yesterday Ian. I hear he was dancing freestyle. Hey, that man is bad news. The BNF had built a little hovel in that ghetto which he smashed to smithereens.)'  said a combi driver on Gaborone's Broadhurst Route 2 on Sunday.

In 1820, the Zulus under King Shaka sought to destroy the Ndwadwe's under King Zwide. Zwide, an ambitious king, had built a formidable force, killing and pillaging his way across the south east of now modern South Africa. Both Zwide and Shaka had ambitions to expand their borders and extend their empires. They met in what is now known as the Battle of the Mhlatuze River. In that war, it is said, the major undoing of the Ndwadwes was crossing the river towards the Zulu army, which attacked when the Ndwadwe were midstream. Shaka decimated King Zwides men and proceeded to the capital of the Ndwadwe Kingdom.

When Shaka arrived at the Ndawdwe headquarters, he found Zwide's mother, Ntombazi. He discovered the skulls of kings who had recently been defeated in the rise of the Ndwadwe empire, among them Shaka's mentor, Dingizwayo.

Shaka sat exactly where Zwide would sit and conducted a trial of Queen Mother Ntombazi. 

Last Saturday morning, with the Independent Electoral Commission barely through verifying the last of the counted constituencies, I called President Ian Khama's ardent supporter McDonald Pelotletse who immediately wanted to know where I was as Khama was about to arrive at the conquered fortress of the Bostwana National Front, Old Naledi, to address a 'massive victory rally'.

Symbolism has always been a major aspect of competition, from wars to political contests. When Khama entered Old Naledi to celebrate his victory over a veritably vanquished BNF, he was making a statement. However that celebration was meant to decimate any lingering delusion among BNF supporter over the preveious 24 hours following the party's worst performance in an election. It would take a BNF supporter steeped in hallucinations not to hear the emphatic statement Khama was making as he, draped in red, addressed thousands of cheering crowds in the ghetto as spelling the end-game for his party.

Old Naledi did not choose to be significant to the BNF; infact, it would seem history plotted to make Botswana's largest ghetto immensely symbolic to the very existence of the party. But Old Naledi was not always a BNF stronghold; the ghetto actually was BDP-dominated up to 1984.

Ian's father, Seretse Khama, who is said to have been a 'man of the people', was given to disappearing from State House only to be found walking about in Old Naledi. In the late 1970s, Khama frequented the slum in the southern fringes of Gaborone. He was often spotted there, especially on Christmas eve, handing out sweets and other scrumptious comestibles to children, in the process reaching out to their parents with his common touch

'He would come to a tent pitched in the northern part of the ghetto and we would be delighted to see Lady Khama and the twins,' Rogers Ngakane, until a few years ago a resident of Old Naledi, reminisces. Everyone would gather around Botswana's first family, the children of the ghetto - some of them strays and waifs - gawking at the twins' toys which Seretse would almost invariably give away as he and the family walked about the slimy slum. This was, without a doubt, the most cherished moment in the relationship between the people of Old Naledi and the Botswana Democratic Party.

But surviving on the fringes of Botswana's economic and social life, the people of Old Naledi were propelled in the direction of the alternative 'movement' to the mainstream political party. Disenchantment with the ruling party manifested itself in massive support for the BNF in the early 1980s and the BDP - clearly associated with accumulation and dispossession - found little support among the ghetto. Those who had been to the mines in South Africa drew parallels between their plight and the lot of indigenous South Africans under apartheid and found the BNF very attractive while its leader, Dr Kenneth Koma, was viewed as a modern day Moses. In Koma, the people of Old Naledi found one who was as much an outcast as they were. His appearance in crumbled pants and unlaced shoes and colloquial Setswana endeared him to the people of the ghetto.

'O ne o kare ke motho o ka tshela le rona,' says Maroane. 'Fa a tsena mo o ne a tsamaya ka dinao a tshwara batho ka mabogo, Mo go ba bangwe ba re ne re bona makgoa fela. Gape kana Koma, le fa a ne a rutegile go ba gaisa, o ne a se makama jaaka ba bangwe ba ne ba dira fa ba le mo Naledi.'

This was when the BDP bid farewell to Old Naledi. By the time Gaborone was divided into two constituencies and the 1984 Tshiamo ballot box saga unfolded, Koma commanded cult status here. In 1984 when Kenneth Koma finished off then Vice President Peter Mmusi following the infamous Tshiamo ballot box, Koma into the Diswinki freedom square to hold a rally. There he was mobbed and embraced, and with that the opposition announced its presence in the BDP's most hallowed territory, the capital city.

In the 1990s, BNF support swelled so much that BDP rallies there often turned violent as the people of the ghetto threatened to remove ruling party activists from their neighbourhood. The BDP only sent the most battle-hardened BDP campaigners like Daniel Kwelagobe and Ponatshego Kedikilwe, who often came attired in long robes, a handkerchief in hand, mouth to the microphone in the middle of the hostile mosh-pit of BNF 'hooligans'. Old Naledi also became central to the tussles for power within the BNF during the tumultuous '90s.

Some say Old Naledi played a major role in making the late Kenneth Koma unbending in his dealings with his critics because he knew he could always count on the support of Old Naledi. His differences with a growing majority of the party's leadership reached a climax in Palapye in 1998 when a good number of them left to form the Botswana Congress Party. However, the people of Old Naledi later dumped Koma when he dumped the BNF for the new-fangled National Democratic Front, thus severing their relationship with the political legend. But Old Naledi remained the sacred ground of BNF and very soul of the party. But in the last decade, though the BNF still won votes there, it has been with ever decreasing margins. But it was still embarrassing to the BDP that it could not defeat the BNF in Old Naledi even at the latter's weakest.

On the evening of last Friday at Mahupu Junior Secondary School in Takatokwane, a worried young woman makes a call. The BNF is not doing well in this Letlhakeng West village, a constituency the party holds. The party has already lost four of the counted wards and signs are not looking good. The woman talks to a friend in Old Naledi who is also watching the counting in Gaborone South.

'He jelwe,' she says with a nervous chuckle. 'He ntse majo majo.' She listens, her face ashen. She passes the phone to a man next to her. 'Ao, re ka jewa ra bo ra jewa le ko ditakaneng tota!' she says, shaking her head, tears welling in her eyes.

By the morning of Saturday, the BNF has lost all of the three wards in Old Naledi. It comes third after the new and rampant Botswana Congress Party. The BDP grabs everything.

In the afternoon, Khama holds a rally in the heart of the now decidedly captured former BNF fortress. In the evening, he appears on Btv parading a symbolic skull of the BNF, the way conquerors of old did.