The Trouble with Botswana: A Poet speaks (Part 2)
Correspondent | Friday July 22, 2016 12:53
The other problem is many people feel Botswana has surrendered its sovereignty over far too many things-culture, politics, the environment, education and business life, all these in less than 50 years after the coming of freedom.
They consider themselves a nation without a country. The surprising thing is that they don’t seem to be angry about this-they are only sad, sad and lost. Everywhere you go you’ll find them sighing: bajele naga yotlhe. Re setse re shename fela. (They’ve eaten up the whole country. We are left in sorrow and bewilderment). Goitse modimo (It’s the work of God). What keeps these desolate people together is a small village spirit. What keeps them together is a quiet but sad, small, and very fragile belief that they have a human bond with each other that has survived the test of time.
This is normally expressed in very ambiguous terms-as if the people are even afraid and suspicious of their shared historical memory. Yes, it’s amazing how the village continues to shape the lives of the people. Retiring judges, prominent politicians and business people go to live and die in the villages. If there’s a complaint to be made it must come from the village. If there’s a threat to be made to government it must come from the village. If there’s a request to be made to government it must come from the village. The government, which presides over Africa’s greatest political void, is almost always happy to ignore these things.
The Botswana manufactured for citizens at the departure of Britain is dead. Only the village survives. But even that village is becoming something of a phantom. The typical young Motswana sophisticate is very happy to belong to the global village! He has no chance in hell of ever getting a decent job. His ambition in life is to own a cell phone, and a laptop if he’s lucky. His experience of the global village is vicarious. He lives right inside his small smartphone, in his small laptop, and in his parent’s TV set. He’s a star, a celebrity. His friends act in TV commercials and soapies. The sad thing is that they ignore him but still there’s consolation in that they live too far away-Sydney, New York, London. That’s the global village for you. His God is a television evangelist. His scripture, People Magazine. The village of tribal ancestors, the village of his religious shrines, the village of bushy-bearded lush mountains and weird birds is something of an embarrassment-till the poor fellow dies and has to be buried there. Then he becomes truly a villager-for life.
Now the question is: how did we lose Botswana? How did we end up saddled with this terrifying cultural vacuum? A life of chaos and increasingly diminishing possibilities is always a dispiriting vacuum. The void of non-achievement-the forever looming possibility of living out a life predicated entirely on nothingness-on being a non-being, is something that no person ever wishes to experience. Yet, it is the daily lot of Batswana to live in this frightful world of vanishing beingness, to live in a world that daily exposes them to the terrifying spectre of non-being. It is a world of deception and tragedy that is hard to paint without canvas.
The most frightful thing about Botswana, though, is its dreadful vastness, its rugged unpleasantness. There is, of course, poetic beauty to this hideousness, but the ordinary Motswana is not a poet. It is a terrifying thing to be part of such a vast emptiness-and die possessing nothing except a small memory of having been born somewhere, of having lived somewhere, silent, uncomplaining, and suffering endless terrors and humiliations all the time. This is the lot of the ordinary Motswana.
Unlike other people I’ve met elsewhere around the world Batswana never feel a compulsion to explain themselves. They never bother to inquire into their status, in the religion of things, in the human universe. Like Naipaul’s wretched India, the largeness of the country does not reflect itself in the attitudes of the people. This largeness is instead reflected in the largeness of their hearts. The ordinary Motswana is generous to an appalling degree.
The adage that familiarity breeds contempt is something that can never really be taken seriously by a Motswana, till, that is, he finds himself in deep trouble, till the munificence of the heart betrays him. Only then does he recoil with horror: Kante gatwe go iragalang? Goitse modimo! (What’s happening to us? It’s the work of God)! This gigantic foolishness is something I’ll never understand-even though I was born here, and I still live here. The unscrupulous, enterprising politician, has, however, started weaving an appalling Shakespearean tragedy around this extraordinary habit.
Beyond his personal experiences, the ordinary Motswana does not care at all what happens to his country. He has no sense of tragedy. That huge yawning inferno, the Kalahari Desert, with its minerals, gases, fossils, and the richest and most remarkable fauna and flora in Africa, means absolutely nothing to him. If he earns a decent salary he’d rather fly down south to Cape Town, go ya go ja le makgoa (to go and eat with white people). Never mind that nobody gives a damn about the poor fellow in Cape Town. He may even be thrown out of one or two restaurants. That doesn’t matter. He’s at least awakened the world to the reality that he has money; he’s civilised-o tlhabologile. Never mind his only house maybe repossessed by the bank a few weeks after this ground-breaking trip. It’s the most incomprehensible thing in the world.
The vast plains of the country, the thousands of streams, brooks and rivers that criss-cross the whole country-these things mean nothing at all to him. I’ve met hundreds of Batswana who call themselves patriots. Do you know what they mean by that? They mean that they support the ruling party. It’s the most incredible thing in the world. How love for a political institution, an institution with clearly vested, narrow interests-most of them perilous to the very existence of the nation-has become a substitute for love of the country is something that not many people find worrying at all. Lefatshe ke la ga Khama (the country belongs to Khama). Khama is the liberator, and his son currently occupies the seat of honour as President. And, of course, he’s already mortgaged the whole country to foreigners. Why not? He’s a free hand to do so. Batswana are happy to live without a country.
And their children, the future generations? Bana ba rona ke makgoa, ba rutegile (our children are white people, they are educated)! It’s the most amazing thing-a tragedy of mammoth proportions, and Batswana treat it like a sporting game. Ian Khama loves this silliness. So now he puts all the money into all sorts of sporting games. The result? A country that once exported beef to world markets now exports footballers, exclusively to South Africa. The food import bill for South Africa’s products-mostly beef, drinks, fruits and vegetables-will be double the national budget in two years if the current economic trend continues unchecked, and out in the villages all Batswana play football.
The greatest tragedy in Botswana, I think, is that we all think we know ourselves well. It is this illusion of self-knowledge that is killing us. Batswana are always talking about one thing: culture, ngwao. Never mind where you are in the country, some poor fellow is bound to engage you into a little discourse about this sociological thing; ngwao. It is the justification of all things, good and bad. It is the Alpha and the Omega of all human existence. Ask the enthusiastic chap what he’s really talking about and he’ll immediately become evasive, start giggling and turning to academic references. This obsession is a most curious thing; it’s like the Oriental obsession with religion. But it is more disturbing primarily because it is simply a metaphor of living. Deep down the Motswana is painfully conscious that he no longer has a culture, that he lives in a vacuum-he knows he has no ambition and no truly concrete and vibrant human life can ever arise from the subterranean dungeon of his existential maw. He lives by mimicking things, by counting coins and watching the ponderous march of time and history.
He’s self-alienated, indifferent, self-wounding and horribly suspicious of the interests of the world. He fears life’s demands on him. He hates substance and meanings. These things are not part of his culture-if his culture can be defined at all. I think we lost the game of life the moment we stopped looking at culture as an intellectual resource, the moment we started looking at culture as a magical and mythical thing that though living outside ourselves, still mysteriously give direction and meaning to our lives.
The other mental obsession is money, madi, chelete. Batswana love money, but they don’t want to create wealth. They prefer to get it from other people; preferably white people, and Indians-and that irritating, all-pervasive, all-encompassing and ill-constituted wretch, the enigmatic thing they call goromente (government). They fervently believe possession of money sets a man apart from others. They know that without money a man cannot get into the world of things, into the world of events, into the world of chance happenings and thrills. But they don’t want to work hard for it-ga ke bereke jaka lekgoba, ga ke setsenwa (I cannot work like a slave, I’m not crazy). Without a salary every Motswana feels completely crippled. The terrible thing is that although we have an uncommonly big government for such a small population, it is also a moribund institution. Our government has been on its last legs for a good 50 years. In fact, it stopped thriving right at birth. Development is also a diminishing process. We live in a country where everything is waning, failing and dilapidated. For 50 years, government has been working hard, trying to clothe this pestilential mess Batswana call lefatshe la segompieno, la semanjemanje-the modern world, with the threadbare garment of a foreign civilisation it does not understand at all.
In Botswana everything is artificial. Government is artificial. Culture is artificial. People are artificial. Artifice has become a way of life in this country. Duty and honour are irrelevant things. Anyone who sticks their head out, fights for something righteous, say justice or freedom from uncalled for public constraint, is immediately accused of arrogance, o rata dilo. Heroism is the preserve of the rich and powerful. A poor fellow standing up for his small patch of cabbage is conceited, haughty and must be put down. A student standing for his rights is disrespectful and supercilious. A rich person must always exhibit a marked anxiety of privilege even though everybody knows he’s feigning this, playing a simple social game. A beautiful and intelligent woman must always be self-effacing if she is to escape the charges of snootiness and snobbishness. Nobody can really be themselves in this society. I tried to find equivalent meanings for the word “identity” in a couple of local languages. I couldn’t come up with any. Of course, absolute synonymy is a difficult thing, especially when you are translating words from one linguistic register to another, but I think you get the drift of what I’m saying.
Far too many things are suppressed in Botswana; far too many things are ignored. The terrible thing is that nobody seems to care. The few who voice dissent are silenced through myriad ways of exclusion and moral censure all of which flourish under the tyrannical rubric of culture-an animal that nobody knows, a monstrosity that nobody can tame, and a ghostly demon that nobody can ever appease. The conception of culture as a spiritual force, as a moral embodiment of being, the idea, ideal and reality of culture as an ontological spring for the nourishment and revitalisation of the human spirit and soul, is something completely alien to the public mind.
The idea, ideal, and reality of culture as a philosophical and religious foundation of beingness, of humanity, is something completely lost to the present generation. We have got to stop thinking of culture as merely a song or an artefact. But I don’t think the ordinary Motswana will agree with me. Culture is just a song, or a nice relic of the past lying on the ground. It’s a battle no one can ever win.
I have already talked about the emptiness of our otherwise beautiful and vast landscape. When you get time drive from Ramokgwebana to Maun, from Gaborone to Gantsi, detour into the great hinterland of the rugged, dusty, cold and wintry Kgalagadi. Tour our national parks through Kasane, Chobe, all the way to Maun. Visit all the contiguous areas, including the great Central Kalahari Game Reserve, and adjacent places. Travel alone camping at roadsides. It’s safe enough unless you are unfortunate to encounter those dreadful lords of desert flies; wildlife officers-cum-soldiers-cum-police officers-cum-politicians. If there’s anything that perfectly equals the drabness of the human mind in Botswana, it’s the perplexing vacancy of the landscape.
This blankness is stupefying in both its indifferent expressionlessness and ambiguous inanities. To begin with Botswana is a land without water, a terrifying reminder of the terrible dearth of energy in both the national soul and spirit of the nation. We’re talking almost absolute dryland here. The white heat of the sun can be murderous. The dry winds are chillingly cold in the mornings and stultifying suffocating throughout the day. Here, I suspect lie the roots of surrender and negation in the public psyche. But that is mere conjecture.
The land is empty, and by that I don’t mean absence of legal title, and largely flat in most parts. There can be nothing more symbolic of Botswana’s mythopoeic character than the great Kgalagadi Desert. Study its violent dust bowls carefully. Watch its episodic-and often violent, thunderstorms. Follow its blindingly exasperating mirages under the heat of murderous temperatures in the afternoons. Mediate upon its punishing, unchanging and unchangeable rhythmic routine. In its silent brooding omnipresence, that desert is the most frightful thing in this country. It is also the most exhilaratingly beautiful part of our landscape. As I have said to so many people before, it is a land made for poets and philosophers. This is the more reason why I’m so loathe to see mining companies there. In their own countries, these ruinous behemoths would never deface and defile such a marvellous natural treasure.
If it was a requirement of life, and a test of character, that every Motswana should travel across the Kgalagadi Desert once in a life time, we’d be one of the greatest people in the world. Oh, that desert can test your endurance, and it can humble you. I crossed the desert when I was still a young lad, doing my doctorate. I don’t know which of the two cost me more mental strain. I do believe, however, the desert did manage to bring me to the sad reality that I was not man enough to scorn adversity. It is a lesson that I treasure.
The striking thing about the Kgalagadi, however, is something more than its truculent raggedness and unmanning rudeness. There’s a beautiful mystery about that desert. It is a mysterious beauty that one often gleans in mainstream society as well. The greatest error a man can do is to judge the beauty of the country by concentrating attention on its political landscape only, deriding the political abscesses and appraising spontaneous but rare spectres of political radiance.
The thing to do is simple: study the marvels of the land and the spirit and character of its people as well. Political inflammations do matter, at least so far as they reflect calibrations of happiness and security in the land. But the people are the true soul of a nation. They matter more than its political carbuncles and blisters. The beauty of the land is often more a reflection of the temperament of its people than anything else. That’s how I look at the world. Whenever I travel in Botswana I always try to look at things from this angle.
The pustules and sores of public life I quietly read from the safety of my home. My mother always said the pimples and spots of an animal are a poor indicator of the true magnificence and majesty of its heart. So are the furundeses and suppurates of a nation. In time all these things heal. No, my friend, to truly understand the beauty and greatness of a nation go to its heart and soul; and these reside in the bosoms of its people, and only symbolically in the land. But there are times when the land reveals more things about its people than meets the eye.
To the ordinary person things like the beauty and greatness of a nation are almost always mystical. But to the artist they are true enough. The ordinary person can feel, and does feel, the mystical vibrations of these things; make no mistakes about that. But, by and large, these things remain mere images of the ungraspable phantom of life. The artist, however, sees them. He can even transfer these images to his canvas. So I think I know what I’m talking about.
People have curious ways of extending the ways and reflections of their reality into their world. This explains why even small societies, like our own, can be so bewilderingly diverse-in colour, speech, habits and all sorts of images. Photography usually captures this reality very well. But so does simple human activity; fashion, advertisement, catalogues, artworks, music, dancing, drama, and, of course, extravagant human folly-war and terror. I find it quiet revealing to look at Botswana through all these things. The land, however, can be exasperatingly mute. Try going out at night. What do you see? The trees, shady and beautiful during the day, look like blocks of darkness. They refuse to see you, to speak to you. Let rain fail to come for a year.
What do you see? The land immediately acquires a careless look. It’s as if it’s dead. It looks sullen, like a bad-tempered whore. What happens when the lights go out? The night becomes ill-humoured. Even the moon sulks. The ordinary person pays no attention to these frightful tempers and silences of the land. But they are frightening enough once you take the trouble to notice things, to write about them, to preserve them in film. Let it rain and the Kalahari Desert becomes a paradise of sorts for a while, carrying the extravagant fragrance of India-provocatively rich and sensual natural odours and flowers everywhere. The rains disappear for a couple of months, and heat and dust descend upon you; unhappily ferocious and murderous like the ashes from that destroyed city, Gomorrah!
Yes, Botswana is a beauty. But it can be frightening as well. The artist marvels at all these things, and the politician considers them opportunities for assuaging financial greed and feeding the impulses of personal gain. Is it any wonder we are now banishing the arts from our school curricula and university campuses? Do we really know what we are doing? Remember what happened to Greece after assassinating Socrates and persecuting his pupil, Plato.
*Teedzani Thapelo is a Botswana novelist, historian, poet, essayist, biographer, writer of short stories, travelogue and author