IN THE STRIKE AFTERMATH: A FABLE ABOUT BOTSWANA AND THE KHAMA PRESIDENCY In the aftermath or atleast during the breather / suspension of the strike action, I thought I should share some musings on the intricasies of the relationship between the head of state and Government, President Khama and the Botswana nation which he leads. At the very beginning let me hasten to point out that the President in Botswana enjoys far reaching Executive powers perhaps even more than most of his counterparts in SADC and elsewhere in the world. He is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, Chief Diplomat, and the singular bearer and expositor of the national will. He is in a way seen as the human embodiment of the state. This list is ofcourse not exhaustive as it is accompanied by an array of other powers as provided for by the constitution of Botswana. I thought that we create such a backdrop to contextualise our analysis. Inorder for one to understand public policy, it is important to have some sort of appreciation of the leader of the state and government who usually makes the final pronouncement on policy decisions. That is why public policy has been broadly defined as what governments decide to do or not to do, meaning that non action may also be seen as a policy decision e.g if Botswana decides not to comment about the events in Libya or to take any action like severing diplomatic ties, our policy position would be one of non action perhaps maybe to observe and see how the situation develops. Well the focus of this note is an abstraction / analogy which features President Khama from around the time he ascended to the presidency in 2008, the Automatic succession controversy and the ensuing controversial policy decisions as seen in the first few months and years of his presidency. In the analogy Botswana is likened to a young bride, a cosmopolitan maiden, who is a recent graduate going through self discovery.... HE is depicted as a reluctant groom in an arranged marriage, a groom whose true academic credentials were shrouded in secrecy, even though he had been exposed to the world and amassed enough experience to be head of house. As the story goes, the marriage went on well for the first few months before traces of romantic fatalism started showing in the grooms character traits. This was prompted by the brides continued show of exuberance of youth, independent mindedness and free spiritedness. According to the fable, the groom hatched a plan to passion kill his new bride and then take his own life as he had grown to love her too much to let her go astray and get corrupted by the big nasty world... In reality, Botswana in many ways resembles that young fresh graduate bride who is just taking off and coming to terms with what her success and prospects really mean...the arranged marriage depicts automatic succession... And HE as the jealous groom diagnosed with romantic fatalism reflects the often held view that he tends to think that he has the monopoly of patriotism and ideas and that if his new bride wont buy into his worldview and principled value system hed rather take away her life and then his...the past 3 years since April 2008 are replete with examples of this; the liquor trading act, the saga leading to BMD, the many senior govt officials pushed out of the system and the handling of the recent strike and its after effects... Though the analogy may not be 100% especially where the killing of the bride is concerned I think it has some important lessons that challenge us to interrogate our relationship with our leader considering all factors of how it started, how its going and why its going that way... The bottom line is that most if not all passion killers have their hearts in the right place even when they carry out the crime. It is often the case that they truly believe that they are doing the right thing and that they are the only ones best suited to moulding their partner through all means possible, failing which they both dont deserve to live... This is just some food for thought as analogies are generally meant to depict complex ideas in a much more clearer manner...I look forward to hearing your views my friends and hopefully we can crack the code and come up with some sort of accurate picture of what is really happening in Botswana today. Such a discussion I believe is best suited centred around the person of the president who is possibly the most loved or most hated the country has seen. Written By Dr Gabriel Goitsemodimo Gosiame Malebang during the 2011 government workers strike.Until today, the status quo and its essence remain relevant and the same.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 12:40:24 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015