Is Flogging Good For Botswana?

| Monday February 15, 2010 00:00

Let me make it clear that no flogging will be administered to an innocent person unless we say our kgotlas are run by made and crazy people. To the best of my knowledge, flogging is done on a wrong doer so as to try to help him reduce his lawlessness.

We, therefore, agree that where there is no wrong doing there will be no flogging. If one does not want to be flogged, he should stop being a nuisance. Throughout the history of Batswana, BaKalanga and other related tribes flogging has always been used as a way of punishing wrong doers. The whole idea of flogging wrong doers is to reform and not to fix the culprits. This was, therefore, done within laid down regulations by specially chosen and responsible persons under the supervision of senior kgotla officials.

Nowhere in the history of this culture was there a situation where a certain youthful regiment or mophato was given a mandate to go about arresting and flogging wrong doers using unsupervised kangaroo courts. The duty of these village neighbourhood watch regiment was to arrest and drag the wrong doer to the kgotla to be tried by the kgosi and his councillors then a judgement was passed, then public flogging was administered under the supervision of the kgosi or his officials. The number of strokes were determined by the kgotla. What is happening at Mochudi where the Madibelankwe have become a law unto themselves borders on anarchy and should be checked before some one loses his life. Kgosi Kgafela II of Bakgatla is doing the right thing in trying to curb lawlessness in his area and I wish other kgosis to adopt his stance, our people have lost direction especially the youths, hence the prevalence of girlfriend murders, suicide, rape cases, theft, you name it.

There are some interesting clauses and phrases appearing in some of our newspaper stories on this subject such as: The flogging or caning of people without their consent; violation of the offenders' rights. To me these comments sound frivolous if not mischievous. What consent or right does a person who beats his mother or insults his father have? You want a person to be given the right to choose to be flogged or not but when he commits an offence no right or consent is needed - this sounds silly to me. A criminal needs not be given a consent because by committing an offence he has violated his rights - so be it.

Among the BaKalanga, the first BaKalanga kgosi was Hamu ye Nhazwa. Chiefs were named according to their deeds or actions. Hamu is a switch or Shambok and Nhazwa is a tree with very soft but durable young branches whose fibre was and still is used by women to make baskets. He favoured this tree and used it to flog wrongdoers and his kingdom was peaceful, so the practice of flogging is as old as hills among BaKalanga and Batswana. The Bible also supports flogging - see Proverbs 13 v 24 which says:

He who spares his rod hates his son but he who loves him disciplines him promptly.

Notice the use of the word promptly here because justice delayed is justice denied. Punishment should always fit the crime and that is why flogging should be done under supervision and witnesses; the exercise should be recorded and dated for reference sake.

With regards to the question of whether women should be flogged the answer is yes. It should be the offence that should determine the punishment and not one's gender. If women do not want to be flogged, they should behave. Flogging should be administered on the buttocks and not all over the body like what Madibelankwe are doing. Flogging has been found to be more effective than prison-where offenders go there to learn to perfect their bad habits.

One advantage of flogging is that it leaves no record or stigma on the person. Those who say flogging is undignified are they saying going to jail is dignified where one is finger-printed and a file is opened whose record follows you forever and ever? Whenever you apply for a job or a visa to other countries your prison record will bar you. Flogging must be maintained and a maximum of 6 canes and not 16 should be adhered to. Kgosi Kgafela II of Mochudi should control his Madibelankwe otherwise they will tarnish his good image.

Reason MaxwellMAROBELA VILLAGE