Kanye�s great opportunity
Sandy Grant | Wednesday July 5, 2017 17:30
Identifying something appropriate which can be named after Sir Ketumile cannot be much of a problem. For a start there are the three new bridges – Kazungula, Mohembo and Platjan – which could be named after him unless other candidates have already been inked in.
There is also the Trans Kgalagadi Highway unless that is already named. In addition to naming something appropriate after him, I have previously suggested that Kanye now has an amazing opportunity to create a Masire Gallery of archival photos together with supporting texts. It is well worth repeating that the lifetime of the ex-President covered the entire span of this country’s modern history – beginning with the establishment of the Democratic Party and the 32 years when he was either Vice President or President. And thereafter his very different role in public life culminating in his recent warning about persisting with the EVM machine in the teeth of widespread public unease.
A Masire Gallery would therefore be both a record of the man and his extraordinary career but also of this country since 1961. Gaborone to date has shown not the slightest interest in establishing a Seretse/Boipuso Gallery which has left a yawning gap which Kanye is now well positioned to fill.
Bluntly, it is breathtaking that between them, the government and Gaborone as the capital City, have proved to be completely indifferent about this particular need bearing in mind the much touted tourism- both foreign and domestic- and the need to inform the younger generation of the country’s remarkable achievements since 1966. It is also mindboggling that P150 million or so – the actual amount will never be known – was spent on the 50th anniversary without creating even the semblance of anything of permanent value! Quite simply, the opportunity was blown either because those in charge were unaware that this opportunity even existed, or because they rated it as a zero priority.
For reasons which have long puzzled me, Kanye has long failed to exploit its extraordinary appeal. It has failed to attract the interest of foreign activators as occurred in Serowe and Mochudi. It has had no van Rensburg to help mobilise it and no Bessie Head, Naomi Mitchison or McCall Smith to immortalise it in print. Lastly, however let me make one last recollection of the ex-President as a farmer about which little was said during his two-day funeral. Undoubtedly, because he was so chuffed about it, Hubo Going told me several times how in Kanye in the old days he had a master farmer called Masire. This man had achieved a bumper crop and Hubo recounted how he had got in contact with Kimberley, I suspect, asking for assistance in getting this very fine crop marketed. The implications, I believed, were that very few people ever achieved such a crop and that as a result, the means of marketing it were very limited.