Sekelemani's Xenophobic Utterances Are Unfortunate

| Monday August 9, 2010 00:00

During a Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) political rally addressed by the President Ian Khama and other party members in Tsamaya village recently, the minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Phandu Sekelemani, made some disturbing statements that amount to inciting tribalism in this peaceful nation.

Sekelemani said at the rally, in reference to Member of Parliament (MP), Samson Guma Moyo, who recently decamped from the BDP to join the Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD), that if he (Moyo) is tired of this country, he must board a train and go back to Zimbabwe.  Such unfortunate utterances cannot be left to go unchallenged lest they are swallowed hook, line and sinker by the uninformed.

It needs to be noted that xenophobic and indeed tribalism zealotry have one tragic element - which is the absence of a universal ethic that regards all persons as equally worth in the eyes of God.

Different tribes, which the same can be said for nations, can and usually do co-exist peacefully, but as we have seen in Rwanda and a dozen other African states, tribal hostility lies just beneath the surface and can be ignited by careless utterances such as the ones made by Skelemani.

That was careless and quite insensitive; coming from a man I held in high esteem, someone who stood tall against Mugabe when everybody dared differ with him. It is indeed greatly regrettable. I don't want to hide my disappointment.  In fact, I felt very much embarrassed by what he said.

Leaders must make it a habit that they pause and think about the possible ramifications of what they are about to say before it goes into the public domain.

They should desist from playing to the gallery even on sensitive issues such as xenophobia and tribalism.  It should not appear as if they speak first and think later. No! That is dangerous as by virtue of their positions in society, they can actively influence the ordinary fellows to sing along. This is not the first time a BDP senior official has made disturbing insinuations.

 Last year immediately after the general elections, the BDP Executive Secretary, Dr Batlang Comma Serema made baseless statements to the effect that Botswana Congress Party (BCP) won the constituencies of Ngami, Chobe and Okavango because it used tribalism in its campaign.

This is worrisome and it leaves one wondering if it is the BDP policy to discriminate other Batswana on tribal lines. Recently, we had Bakalanga ba ka Nswazwi who resettled in Botswana after spending some years in Jecheni, Zimbabwe.

Have we truly accepted these people as one of us, who have rights to freely voice any descent against the government when they feel some things are not going right.

Or they will also be asked to walk back to where they came from?

What kind of democracy is this, which applies double standards to its own people, categorising and discriminating them along tribal lines?

Batswana should shun those who peddle hatred through xenophobic or tribal-coated statements. They are an embodiment of the ugly side of society.

In a time when even the president has found nothing wrong to loosely use the word 'war' in some of his addresses, we get worried when such insinuations appear to be gaining momentum at such a pace. We do not need another Rwanda in our country. We must at all times strive to reject xenophobia and tribalism by giving precedence to the concept of nationhood.

One wise man once said tribalism and corruption are worse than militancy. Tribalism is the foundation of many problems in Africa, and we do not want to fall victims of that here.

Banks NdebeleMogoditshane