Where Is Our Botho?

| Monday June 17, 2013 00:00

Yet when someone looks at the kind of cruelty demonstrated by various organs of state which are supposed to be the driving force for the Vision, it defies thought that we will ever achieve anything in that respect.This week this publication was shocked at the manner in which a poor family in Gamonoyane near Metsimotlhabe has been treated.While they were trying to prepare for the burial of their late son, the Semong family which recently lost a land case against one of their own, Mmadikgomo Babusi, were subjected to the most insensitive form of harassment by law enforcement officers who frequented the family home demanding that they vacate the place and even threatening the elderly father with imprisonment.

Efforts by the family to let them bury their son in a dignified way hit a snag after the tribal authorities in Molepolole reversed their earlier decision to grant the family a temporary stay and ordered them to leave by Friday, the day they were supposed to hold a night vigil.Tlhokwe Semong whose fight for the land he believed belonged to him earned him a new case of contempt of court has had to spend a chilling night in police cells.His dignity was further trampled before curious mourners when police appeared again just an hour after he buried his son but this time he was lucky as the officers only ordered him to appear at Metsimotlhabe kgotla today.

With this case and many others where helpless individuals are treated in the most inhumane manner, it defies logic that we could ever realise the compassionate nation envisaged by government.Batswana are known to be a well respecting nation and botho and setho have always been integral to our lives.But now it seems as if we are losing these values. Death is revered and it is  shocking that people in mourning can be harassed to this extent.Magosi are supposed to be the custodians of these values and if they are the same people who are violating and trampling upon them, then we have nowhere to run to.

The old man's case is not criminal  and he certainly does not deserve to be treated like a dog, but rather should have been allowed to mourn his son and bid him farewell in dignity without being harassed.Where is our botho?