The people must dictate the agenda

| Friday June 4, 2010 00:00

In my view if we leave issues to politicians and media houses we will not advance our democracy and good governance. Ordinary members of the public have every right to determine issues for debate and what perspectives need to be adopted. If members of the public do not take their rightful place in political debate we may end up being asked to choose between ridiculous propositions.

Imagine a situation where a gang of thieves break-up with those that depart claiming that ever since the departure of the former gang boss things have never been the same. They complain that the new gang boss does not consult widely and does not distribute the loot fairly.

The thieves who left claim that when they raised their concern that the favourites of the new gang boss can keep some of the loot, but that if they try to do the same the gang boss disciplines them.  Should you concern yourself only with the alleged shortcomings of the new gang boss?  I do not think so.  I believe one is entitled to raise the subject of the underlying objective that had brought the gang together.  Surely theft is not a proper founding for fairness, consultation and even-handed discipline.

Imagine further a situation where the children of the older gang members join the breakaway gang. They then advocate for fairness, consultation and even-handed discipline. These children have been educated at the best institutions with their tuition fees paid from the proceeds of theft.

They do not make any reference to the return of the loot to its rightful owners. They call for an end to theft, but their fathers remain members of the old gang. They do not question their fathers' continuing membership of the old gang,  but insist that the victims of crime must support their resignation from the old gang due to its leader's bias in disciplining members. Supposing one of the leading members of the old gang is held out as being a true disciple of democracy. Should a member of the public not question the morality of referring to theft and democracy in the same breath? Supposing the old gang member is asked to disclose who financed the old gang in the past and he was to claim to have no knowledge. Imagine further that the old gang member holds himself out as a strong proponent of consultation and even swears that in the past there was consultation in the gang.

Should a member of the public believe that the old gang member is telling the truth when he says he has no knowledge of past funding of the gang? Surely it does not make sense for someone to claim that there was consultation in the past, but at the same time claim ignorance of crucial information.  Imagine a situation where members of the public who are victims of crime are told to make a choice between the two gangs. Should members of the public not reject this offer and argue that they have no interest in being asked to make such a choice. Imagine a situation where media houses join the fray and provide a platform for such a choice being given the widest exposure possible. Would members of the public not be justified to hold that the media is acting in concert with the gangs to its disadvantage? Would members of the public who spend their hard-earned cash on the product of media houses not be justified to complain that they are not being given value for money?

I have observed that what I set out above is not really different from what our media houses are allowing to happen in our politics. Our media houses have given exposure to clearly inferior political discourse. They have also allowed hypocrisy to be a key feature of our politics. A politician can hold fundamentally contradictory positions in regards to democracy and good governance and still be held out by our media houses as a paragon of democratic virtue. A politician can hold a very senior position in a political party, claim that in the past there was wide consultation within the party and yet claim without any sense of shame that he was not aware of where his party got its funds.

I really got to understand what school was about when I turned 15. For more than 10 years this country followed a two years Junior Certificate programme that churned out 15-year-olds. Our government rejected our children at a very critical stage in their development. Some of the people who were in the leadership of the ruling party when it meted out this disservice to our people are still at the centre of power. They will, however, not take any blame for this betrayal of our people because the media houses hold them out as true proponents of consultation. Our people objected to this treatment to our people, but the party in which we are told there was consultation turned a deaf ear on our people.     

For ages our people voiced their concern about their lack of meaningful participation in the economy of this country. Some of the people who have always been at the centre of power when these calls were made are still very much in the thick of things. But they are untainted by the failure of the party that they lead to accommodate our people in the mainstream economy. They are afterall proponents of democracy. It seems to me that in the eyes of our media houses a person need only claim to be a proponent of democracy and their role in the marginalisation of our people is irrelevant.

For ages our people have complained about lack of allocation of plots by the Land Boards. Some of the people who have been a permanent feature of the BDP leadership as it failed to deal with our peoples' hunger for land are still in the thick of things, but when it comes to taking blame they cannot in the eyes of our media houses and the breakaway party be touched, because they are proponents of democracy. Imagine a situation where a thousand Bakwena were to converge in one place. Supposing one of them was to stand up and pronounce that he was a Mokwena and that his totem was a crocodile. Should the media houses spill rivers of ink reporting that somebody had stood up and proclaimed that he was a Mokwena? What is newsworthy about this? What value does it add to Bakwena that one of them stood up and proclaimed before other Bakwena that he was a Mokwena?

In my view this is what is happening in our debate about democracy. I am not aware of any Motswana who does not support democracy. What is newsworthy about a Motswana standing up in front of other Batswana and proclaiming that he is a proponent of democracy? What value does such a proclamation add to our national discourse on democracy? I believe our media houses owe our people a duty to stop the circus that is going on.The labelling of someone a dictator cannot be used as a foil to disguise the circus that is taking place. 

We cannot advance our democracy by allowing politicians to ask us to choose between who is a proponent of democracy and who is not in a country where everyone believes in democracy. We should rather be given substantive attributes of democracy to serve as a basis for choosing between the various political leaders. There is no basis for holding out someone who is against declaration of assets as a proponent of democracy.

There is no basis for holding someone who is against a freedom of information law as a proponent of democracy. There is no basis for holding that someone who has been at the centre of every government that has refused to make a law for declaration of assets by politicians and that has refused to make a law for freedom of information is a proponent of democracy.One might even wonder whether such a leader who relies on denial of information has the best interests of our people at heart. Why is it so important to keep people ignorant in an alleged democracy? In my view a leader who has always been at the center of such governments cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called a proponent of democracy. Botswana is pursuing two attributes of democracy and good governance simultaneously. They are inseparable. We cannot have old school politicians tell us that these two attributes can be separated.

If we do not reject what we are being fed by the media houses and old school politicians we will not advance our democracy and good governance. We cannot have self-proclaimed proponents of democracy who are opposed to the attribute of good governance to dominate our politics.  It is time they went to pasture. They are not particularly relevant to our current politics. They are a drawback to the old politics of slogans and no substance.Such politics have retarded our development. 

How does referring to a constitutional structure of a political party as a kangaroo court advance our discourse on democracy and good governance? Why is this deemed to be newsworthy? If a new party also has a disciplinary body why should the media not report that the new party also has its own kangaroo court? In my view our media houses must take the general public into their confidence and explain their conduct with particular reference to their professed role as watchdogs.

Lediretse Molake