A new beginning

*NDABA GAOLATHE | Tuesday April 27, 2010 00:00

 

Still, our nation's teachings oblige me to honour this meeting, explain positions and to accord you the audience and courteousness. I do so willingly, delightedly and faithfully, appreciating that some of you are my parents, some are friends and others are fellow citizens who partake in the delicate stakes of building our nation's future.   It is not your approval I seek though.  It means infinitely more to me to receive the approval of your children, your grand-children and your great grand-children than to win your honour.  I live everyday of my life hoping and praying I will not turn out to be a disappointment to them.

Ideals, thenWe grew up proud citizens, believing that in our nation, every child can harbour dreams about themselves and for their nation; believing that every child and adult deserves to reach as high as their imagination and diligence can thrust them;

We believed that we could all express our hopes, fears, dreams, cynicisms and criticisms about our country and our system freely but fairly, without the fear that someone will victimize us or our friends or our families for our deeply held views and beliefs;

We lived in a state whose security forces were trusted, whole-heartedly, to protect citizens against criminals, against rogue states or elements in our society that perpetrate injustice;

We were united in our appreciation of what was possible, in our compassion for those who needed our love most, in our common initiatives to prosper materially and find spiritual fulfilment as a people;

Ideals, nowYes our nation has progressed in many ways, over the years.  You know the successes.  Significantly, we are proud at the legions of educated and skilled citizens our system has churned.  Our generation is inheriting a foundation from which it is possible to design a remarkable economic and political model society.

We are aware, through the passage of recent years, how complacency crept into our system and threatened the pillars of our foundation - Complacency, laxity, merry-go-lucky and sometimes sheer indiscipline others might say.

Many credit the new political leadership for a strong response to our system's complacency - perhaps deserved credit.  Sadly, the new crackdown on this complacency came at a prohibitive price. We don't know anymore if our young believe that they can live their dreams.

We are not certain anymore if we can express ourselves freely, frankly and fairly - and still be adored and cherished by our leaders.We don't know anymore if we wholeheartedly believe that every single man enlisted in our security forces will give themselves to protect innocent citizens against criminals or unjust elements in our society.

We don't know if we are united anymore in our appreciation of what is possible, in our compassion for those who need us, in our generousity of heart towards one another.

A nation with dying dreams, restrained ideas, cold hospitality, brewing suspiscions against its own, is a nation in danger of losing its spectacular future.  I attribute this condition in which the country finds itself to a lack of leadership.  Our nation deserves a more responsible cadre of leaders.

Recent eventsIt is true that the banishment or expulsion of several of my contemporaries from the Party has been a major blight in the life of our Party.  I think you do remember the case of Mr Morwaeng, Mr Motswaledi, Mr Pilane, Mr Ntuane, Mr Mmolotsi and others.

However, these events alone are not, on their own, cause for alarm.  After all, in certain circumstances, people do get suspended, demoted and sometimes expelled.  In fact, we were taught by our elders that at times it will be necessary to act harshly against incompetence, irresponsibility, corruption and neglect in our midst.

What is of grave cause for alarm, in these instances, is that these unfortunate decisions and acts of aggression are symptomatic of a new permeating and underlying culture of doing things in our system. 

A culture of intolerance - intolerance of dissent, of diversity and of new ideas. A culture in decision-making where decisions are inspired by rumours and rumour-mongering.

A culture in which bright, competent, effective, independent-minded, fair and professional servants in our public service and the military are weaned out of the system under subtle disguises and camouflage, in the form of early retirement policy, investigations, ill-health and alleged incompetence to pave way for supposedly more suitable candidates compatible with the larger aspirations of the new ensuing culture.A culture of suspicion, suspicion against those who seem to exert a sense of independence.

A culture of 'rule by fear'.A culture of rule and divide, pitting friends against friends, daughters against mothers, sons against fathers, wives against husbands, soldiers against fellow soldiers, town-dwellers against rural-dwellers.

A culture of the fountain, flowing with an uncoordinated slew of directives and policies processed and approved by an invisible hand.

A culture in which our value system is turned on its head:  integrity is the new 'dissident', frank and honest is the new 'rebel', professional is new 'uncooperative', experienced is the new 'old', disciplined is the new 'inflexible', independent is the new 'indiscipline', free-thinking is the new 'blasphemous', courage is the new 'arrogance', democratic is the new 'indecisive'.

The new 'loyal' is the old compliant, the new 'discipline' is the old unquestioning.These new and ensuing cultures - I call them the black tide - are not who we are as a nation.  They are not who we are as a Party.  It is our duty to push back this black tide.  And we will push it back.

DutyThe stakes are high.I have seen in the eyes of the young, a sense that part of their dream and hope for the future has been stolen away by the black tide.I look in the deep-fitted eyes of our elders and I see a deep but unspoken sense of loss, a sense that something has been squandered, not knowing what and when. I see these things and they cause me to awaken, as every child of the soil should.  We cannot sit and hope everything will fall in its place on its own.  We cannot sit and hope it is someone else's job to step forward.  It is our calling; it is our responsibility to be true to our convictions.  All children who were taught well will know when the time for duty comes.   What we will not do is to spend years and years bickering with our leaders. 

'We think the people of Botswana expect more from us than cries of indignation and attack. The times are too grave, and the challenge too urgent, and the stakes too high to permit the customary passions of the political debate. We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through the darkness to a safe and sane future. If we open a quarrel between the present and past, we shall be in danger of losing the future'.

Our deep differences with our leaders do not mean we hate them, nor does it mean we are bitter.  On the contrary, we are inspired and awakened by a breeze that is sweeping its whispers in the hearts of people across this nation.  There is something life-giving that is speaking to the hearts of young men and women, old men and old women right up from lush waters of the Chobe river to the sand-dunes of Tsabong.

We believe the time is now to seek a new beginning.  Our country deserves a fresh beginning.  The greatest guarantor for a nation's spectacular success is not its constitutions or its plans.  The enduring seed for our leap into the future is the young people of this country.  It takes people and their faith in what is possible to make a prosperous and resilient nation. 

We are those people. We were taught well, and we are the generation that will repair the broken trust of our people in our system. We are the children that will bring a renewed sense of fairness in our system.  We are the ones that will revive a nation united in their appreciation of what is possible.

We will chase fear into the caves, our young will reach out boldly for their dreams and our oldies will light in their eyes again when they tell tales of how they taught their children well.We will succeed in this.

FactionsIt is generally presumed, in the BDP and media circles, that the BDP is dichotomy of two rival factions, the Barata Phathi faction and the A-team faction.  I have read with great interest and heard over the radio references to my person as a 'key member of the Barati Phathi faction'.  This is news to me, but I perfectly understand what may have precipitated this type of perception.  We live in a toxic and divisive political environment in which all those who are critical of the system are quickly labelled, and all those who agree even with those things that may be good in the current system, are branded A-team.

I understand the bitterness in the taste-buds of those in government today, some of them diligent, dedicated and genuine in what they do.  They must settle with the labelling 'bootlickers'.  I was taught never to use such a word on anyone, no matter the extent of provocation.  I reject totally the idea that those who still believe our system works do so because they are 'bootlikers'.

In 2000 or thereabout, the then Vice President and current leader, His Excellency President Khama described politicians as 'vultures' exempting in his description the then President of the Republic of Botswana.  This cannot be right.  I know many people in the BDP and in our system that are honourable.  No matter what our differences in recent times, this is not a word I was taught to use against anyone no matter how deep my differences with them.

I have never used the word 'faction' as a concept that I drive or stand for.  Yes I have used the word 'movement'.  I still use this word, and I will continue to use this word.  I have continually stated that by the word movement, I mean all fair-minded citizens, within and without the BDP. Fair-minded citizens, like me, agitate for the re-ignition of the flame of our dimmed dreams. They seek the repair of a broken trust in our system.

They yearn for a renewed sense of fairness. They are keen to revive a nation that is united in their appreciation of what is possible. It is this idea of a Movement that has landed me in trouble.  It is a crime for which I plead, guilty as charged. Apology to members of the BDP, not the leadership I have cherished being a child of the BDP.  It is here that I stood on the shoulders of great men and women, visionaries and stalwarts who breathed and lived integrity, humility, service, dedication, patience, tenacity, perseverance, open-mindedness, consultation, consideration, sound-mind, diplomacy, generosity of heart and good humour. Many members of the BDP are these people, these great men and women.  I appreciate the warmth and sense of parenthood they lavished on me and on all of my contemporaries.

On the surface, the teachings we have received from our elders expect that those who are agitating for change within the BDP should negotiate it internally, through a robust process of debate and the exercise of exquisite patience.  These teachings, at face value, dismiss completely the idea that the party's children should at any time contemplate an exodus from our once mighty party.

My contemporaries have over a period of time engaged the party leadership, previous and current, on a series of issues pertaining to our sense of purpose in uplifting the lives of our people, policy and general spiritual welfare. 

Many of you may not be aware of these engagements, exactly because we were taught to engage our leaders quietly.   We delegated assignments amongst ourselves, many of us, over many years because we were taught to believe that our country needs its children's ideas.

Indeed I have been restrained in my criticism of our party even where I felt strongly our leaders were not on the right.  I did so in the interest of party and national harmony, exercising a patient belief that we could ultimately turn the tide for the better.

In the early 2000s I had been engaged in a spirited and long-lasting engagement of Government and party leaders over the country's monetary policy, and the extent of the use of interest rates as the only instrument in the conduct of monetary policy.

I did the same over the question of diversification policy and sector strategy.  My colleagues did the same on the more political issues.  These were contentious issues.  Yet I rarely criticised our leadership publicly.  On the rare occasions on which I criticised our leadership on a public forum, they were sure to exchange notes and teach a few lessons.  In any case, no one paid heed to my criticisms then.   The circumstances in the party have changed dramatically in recent times.   What we must confront now is not the usual exchange of notes or ideas or the contest of ideas in a democratic climate. Our leaders are not designed in that mould anymore. 

What we face now is a black tide which we must push back through democratic means.

We cannot push back a black tide from within the sea.

We need to climb out of the sea and bring to bear the wisdom and will of all men and women of the land.  We need them to condense the black tide into a river of crystal sparkling waters.

It is an occasion we cannot afford to get wrong.

Our children and grandchildren are depending on our generation.

God will guide us on this journey, and will walk us along the still waters, and lift his people to the promised land.

* Gaolathe is a former member of the Botswana Democratic Party. Gaolathe resigned from the party last Friday during a disciplinary hearing session after being denied an opportunity to submit his reaction. This piece was to form part of his final submissions to the hearing.