Yet, in the rarefied atmosphere of a recent retreat for Botswana’s Cabinet ministers, in an unfiltered speech that was markedly long on grandiloquence and emotion, and notably short on complaisance and flattery, President Duma Boko, a human rights obsessive with a penchant for incisive views, delivered a polemic that has ignited fervent debate. Far from unplugging and unwinding, the Cabinet was in for a gruelling journey of introspection, probably much more than they had bargained for. Wielding his diction with deliberate care, every enunciated word a fine brushstroke on a razor-sharp portrait of the nation’s proclivity for violence, Boko, the man who does not shy away from defying conventional norms, flung a gauntlet at the feet of societal complacency, bluntly cutting to the essence of the subject, demanding that Botswana look beyond the blinkered lens of gender-based violence (GBV). Batswana, Boko asserted with obdurate candour, are a violent people. His unvarnished declaration was not incendiary rhetorical provocation but a clear motivation for confronting the hydra-headed nature of violence that courses through the veins of society. And indeed, we cannot afford to ignore the multiplicitous nature of violence inherent in our society. Surely, the president does not want us to lose sight of the forest for the trees. While you may ‘violently’ disagree with the President, the truth is, Boko’s exhortation to broaden the discourse on violence is not without intellectual heft. With the blunt force of a sledgehammer, in a speech that oscillated between raw frankness and stern reproach, he unequivocally declared to his audience that he is not in a “popularity contest.”
His critique ventured into contentious terrain, and it warrants serious reflection. He decried the nation’s predilection for dissecting violence selectively, focusing myopically on GBV. Violence, in its myriad manifestations, is indeed an indelible feature of Botswana’s social landscape. Beyond the harrowing scourge of the turbo-charged GBV, our nation is freighted with a whole raft of physical abuses and indignities; the normalised savage altercations between men often fuelled by over-indulging in bottom-shelf liquor, or, in the case of men struggling with deep-seated feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem, wounded pride. The classlessness sjambok, that fearsome instrument of corporal punishment that is widely faulted for its propensity to prioritise societal retribution over rehabilitation, is wielded with impunity, leaving permanent physical and emotional scars. In pre-tertiary schools, the enthusiastic use of the cane remains a grim pedagogical relic that blurs the line between discipline, exemplified in excessive pain, and outright abuse. And what can one say about murder and capital punishment that has not been said before? All these manifestations of violence are undeniable, and they warrant rigorous scrutiny. Could it be that we are actively or passively normalising violence in society? Boko’s holistic approach to violence was, a society cannot hope to heal when it triages violence selectively, allowing some deep mortal wounds to fester unchecked. However, to conflate the pervasive cycles of brutality with the epidemic of GBV is to risk obfuscating the urgency of a crisis that disproportionately devastates women and girls, eroding the very foundations of societal equity. Boko’s critique must be balanced against the imperative to address GBV as a uniquely urgent crisis. In Botswana, the rampant GBV is an epidemic that demands focused intervention. While it is incontrovertible that violence manifests in multifarious forms, not all are equally pernicious, nor do they all prey upon the most vulnerable with such systemic ruthlessness. The President’s plea to expand the lens on violence, however, well-intentioned, resonates with a familiar refrain heard in other corners of the globe. In the United States, for instance, the slogan All Lives Matter (ALM) emerged as a retort to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. On its face, the ALM sentiment appears inclusive, even magnanimous.
