The painting of granaries and a historically voiceless Gaborone
Sandy Grant | Wednesday August 24, 2016 15:07
To my knowledge, Molepolole has six, Francistown two, Serowe eight, Mahalapye perhaps 12, Kanye 12, Mochudi two, the old Tlokweng kgotla one, Ramotswa three, Shoshong one, and Bobonong maybe two.
I would very much welcome information about others that may be dotted around the country. But now all of a sudden there is lift off. Mochudi has painted its granaries, as has Kanye.
It cannot be too long before all 50 or so of these very dramatic structures have been brought out of the shadows and used to give a new vibrancy to familiar landscapes. Of course, it has to be the sudden availability of BOTS50 paint which explains why this burst of creativity is now taking place.
What will be of great interest now is the subject matter that each community chooses to depict on these dramatic new canvasses. Kanye may suggest that it will be the various dikgosi who people wish to be remembered.
This would come as no particular surprise. But the preference for local personalities and topics could mean that the more notable national achievements of the last 50 years, say the introduction of the pula, remain undepicted.
In theory, the three non-tribal settlements, Gaborone, Francistown and Lobatse with their granaries might be candidates to fill that gap but Gaborone has already opted for anodyne, pastoral subject matter and Lobatse, more is the shame, demolished its granaries.
And that leaves Francistown to go it alone - unless, of course, Gaborone, being the National Museum, has a re-think and a re-paint. But should it be this museum or the City Council which takes this kind of decision?
The question has particular relevance in terms of the recent visits of the new British High Commissioner to Serowe, Molepolole and Kanye with each place putting its best foot forward.
How might Gaborone choose to depict itself were she to make a formal visit there? With its choice of imagery on the Bonnington granaries the National Museum denied the City Council the opportunity to portray something of its own history.
How then might the City Council present its history and achievements to a visiting dignitary?
It would certainly be of enormous interest were a guide at the three Dikgosi monument able to explain how the visit of those three led to the creation of the Gaborone freehold block and thereby, directly to the establishment of the new capital.
Were they to try and do so, they would probably get into a terrible muddle – something which is currently avoided because the National Museum’s job is to tell a national not local, story.
BOTS50, paint and those granaries means that many communities are now able to depict something of their respective histories. Gaborone however is left bereft and shut out. Currently it has no means of matching those communities. Because it has been unable to project its own history, it continues to be a capital city without a distinctive past and without pronounced achievement to its credit. This surely is one of the stranger anomalies of the last 50 years.