Thupa gae bolae, e bolaya peba

After thrashing an offending child, a Motswana elder would soothe the weeper with these words: “ Thupa gae bolae, e bolaya peba (a little spanking can kill only a rat.”At the kgotla a recalcitrant young man is made to bend over and lashed on bare buttocks.

The elders would then say “Ya mosimane ke e nkgwe (a boy deserves a canning”.

They did not discriminate who should get larruping or not.

Editor's Comment
The State apparatus must be sanitised

When the State cannot rely on its own machinery to pursue suspected wrongdoing, repairing that machinery must become a national priority.The establishment of a Special Investigations and Asset Recovery Task Force may help government respond to the immediate challenge. However, Botswana cannot afford to leave the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) and the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) struggling whilst building...

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