SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE JOINT SESSION OF THE CONFERENCE OF THE UMBRELLA FOR DEMOCRATIC CHANGE HELD IN SEROWE ON 19-21 JULY 2014. DELIVERED BY DUMA GIDEON BOKO, PRESIDENT. Words fail. Words are not adequate to describe the joy that I feel as I stand before you today. I stand before you as more than just me. I stand as a protagonist in a story much bigger and more important than me. I picked up the eloquent fragments of this story from many who came before me; giants of history. I picked up this epic story from men and women who wrote their names, in flaming letters, on the doors of eternity long before some of us knew to care or count. We join together today to continue this unfolding story and pay homage to those pioneers who left us signs and pointers in the path to unity. We could call names; names like Sir Seretse Kgama, Kgosi Bathoeng Gaseitsiwe, Phillip Matante, Kgalemang Motsete, Kenneth Koma, Diratsame Mosielele, Fish Keitseng, Henderson Tlhoiwe, Motsamai Mpho and many more. It is these leaders who forged a chain through time; bearers of the flame of nation building and unity. They led and laid the foundation. We are much in their debt. We can only begin to record our gratitude to them by re-energizing our democracy and transforming Botswana into the success it deserves to be. As I cast my eyes across the breadth and dimensions of this great gathering I see inspired champions of change. This gathering marks and defines a kinship; a common orientation. Our presence here adds to the story playing out on the parchment of the unfolding future. It says that we have surmounted the distance of separation; transcended the barriers and barricades of political seclusion. We have come together to scrip a future that is spectacularly different. Just being part of this gathering arouses a sense of pride and yet of humility that will be with us always. Comrades and friends, you continue to amaze me. I marvel at how you managed to overcome the torment of so much doubt and fear to forge a common bond of outlook driven by an epic sense of where you want to take this country. There are a few pundits and observers who have remained fixed and frozen on the electoral outcomes of 2009. When the doubters argued that we came from different political cultures and ideologies and could never unite, you defied their skepticism. When others remained in the penumbral region, halfway between myth and reality, trapped in some ingrained veneration of their colours and slogans, you transcended these ineffectual boundaries and forged this unity. I admire your courage and tenacity. It is a testimony of your stunning historical prescience that a change of government is no longer just a far flung idea but a reality waiting to happen. You constructed a bridge to the future illuminated with two words: Embrace Change. These two hallowed words mark and outline what we ought to be, what we can be and what we will be as a nation. These two hallowed words are your rallying point as you lead this country forward: to reinforce courage when courage seems to falter; to restore faith when there doesn’t seem to be much cause for faith; to create hope when hope fades and becomes forlorn. I claim neither that eloquence of exposition, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to fully interpret these words and unravel their full meaning. Embrace Change. Two hallowed words. The doubters will dismiss them as but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant exhortation. I know a few cynics and hypocrites who have tried to downgrade these mighty words to the extent of ridicule. But these two hallowed words are a clarion call to animate a radical and transformative perspective. These two hallowed words are more than just rhetorical flourishes. They must shape and recast you for your future roles as the custodians of this nation’s future. These two hallowed words, to adopt as my own the wisdom of other shores, make you strong enough to know when you are weak; and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid. They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success. These two hallowed words. They mould you not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the raging storm but to have compassion on those who fail; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future yet never ignore the past; to be serious yet never to take yourself too seriously. These two hallowed words give you a temper of the will; a quality of the imagination, a vigour of the emotions; a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity. These two hallowed words! Embrace Change. From the intellectual scaffolding of these two hallowed words you have developed and crafted a compact with the people of this country. The reassuring simplicity of our Manifesto has reignited the enthusiasm of our people. Our five pillars capture something of a pervasive aspiration; a felt hope for every citizen and inhabitant of our country. The UDC manifesto has sparked and ignited interest in places and spaces that would otherwise have remained terra incognita for the vast majority of our people. It not only chronicles the accumulated calamities of BDP misrule, but offers a rich repertory of policies and programmes for the upliftment of all. We have raised the ante. We have presented a package of robust interventions to move our country from the present monocracy where policy and decision making are centralized in a corrupt, incompetent and dishonest President to a true democracy of robust institutions that foster accountability and transparency. We offer this country a leadership that is manifestly diverse in talent and learning, but united in its depth and clarity; a leadership that inspires and energizes. Our Manifesto articulates the scope and depth of the change we offer. Embrace Change, change for prosperity. This is the animating impulse of our manifesto. Each of the five pillars is a point of entry into a politics of dignity. I would like to sign off by reminding this great gathering of what I have said before. The Umbrella for Democratic Change has managed to locate itself and all of us in a potent conversation between generations. It did not emerge through some miraculous act of immaculate conception. It emerged from energetic debate, popular decision, collective sacrifice and constitutional creativity. It is a whole that is bigger and better than the sum of its constituent parts. The UDC stands as a challenge and an example for all time. I trust that these words will be an inspiration and a companion to all of us as we begin our deliberations in our different breakaway sessions before we converge again for the closing ceremony. I thank you all Comrades for the privilege of your attention as I now declare this Conference of the UDC and its foundation members officially open. VIVA UMBRELLA VIVA!!!
Posted on: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 08:47:51 +0000
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