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SPEED WRITING Call for Satire: deadline March 15th! Let your talent speak for many. We urge you to write a satirical poem—poke fun at the leader of your choice to flaunt your freedom of speech and your own government’s respect for that human right! This isn’t about politics. It is about supporting the rights of all to write what they want - despite politics. On February 4th the satirist Hédi Ouled Baballah was arrested—behind bars, Baballah can’t continue to speak his mind. Please use your talent and add your voice to protest this infringement on the human right of free speech. More information can be found at www. protestpoems. org (don’t feel sorry for colleagues abroad. do something) All poems will be considered for inclusion in Babel Fruit.

Ed: The deadline has been moved back to the 18th of March. Please participate.
(Rethabile)

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Malcolm X
Malcolm Little
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Black History Month

Press Release: Statement by IMF Executive Directors at the Conclusion of their Visit to the Kingdom of Lesotho:

Statement by IMF Executive Directors at the Conclusion of their Visit to the Kingdom of Lesotho Press Release No. 08/27 February 20, 2008

A mission of Executive Directors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) comprising Messrs. Age Bakker, Peter Gakunu, Huayong Ge, Aleksei V. Mozhin, and Ms. Miranda Xafa issued the following statement today in Maseru at the conclusion of a visit to Lesotho:

“We are grateful for the opportunity to visit Lesotho and we thank His Majesty the King Letsie III, The Right Honorable Prime Minister Mosisili, Deputy Prime Minister Lesao Lehohla, Minister Thahane, Governor Senaoana and other honorable members of the Government and Senior officials of the Kingdom of Lesotho for their very warm hospitality. Our visit has provided us with a rare opportunity to learn more about Lesotho from our interactions with the authorities, the public and private sectors, and Lesotho’s development partners. We discussed economic developments and the challenges Lesotho faces in its efforts to achieve high and sustainable growth necessary for a meaningful reduction in poverty. This will contribute significantly to our understanding in the IMF Executive Board, in assessing and discussing the development challenges of the country and the IMF’s policy advice.

“In our meetings with His Majesty the King and the Right Honorable Prime Minister we congratulated them for their commitment to economic development and poverty reduction. We had productive discussions on Lesotho’s economic prospects and development challenges.

“We commend Lesotho’s authorities for their prudent macroeconomic management which has contributed to ensuring economic stability has translated into robust growth, strong fiscal and external positions, single digit inflation, and substantial reduction in debt level. We praise their efforts to promote economic growth through favorable improvements in the investment climate. We agreed with the authorities that achieving the sustainable, broad based economic growth necessary for the improvement of the living conditions of the majority of the Basotho people, remains a challenge. Private sector development is key for achieving growth and reducing poverty.

“We acknowledge that numerous challenges remain on the long road toward effective poverty reduction and sustainable economic growth. The overdependence on Southern African Customs Union (SACU) revenues (over 60 percent) and a global reduction in tariffs as a result of trade liberalization entail risks of revenue slowdown over time. Since the fall of the multifiber agreement, difficulties have piled up, prompting the need to refocus the textile sector and more generally diversify the sources of growth and exports. The need for further financial sector development was discussed, with a view to provide sound outlets for domestic savings and greater funds for domestic investment. The provision of well-supervised financial services and the raising of financial literacy was seen as essential to maintaining financial stability. We agreed with the authorities that productivity-enhancing infrastructure, job creation, fighting HIV/AIDS, and poverty reduction remain top priorities. We believe that with the continuation of prudent policies and the support of development partners, these challenges are not insurmountable.

“We reaffirm the IMF’s commitment to continuing the excellent relationship with the Lesotho authorities.”

The Atlanticist : Africa needs tough love, not more aid poured down a rat hole:

There is not a single state on the African continent that would not today be better off administered under a colonial regime, as Hong Kong was by Britain. If the West genuinely cared about Africa and wanted to make a difference rather than more charity, it would send soldiers to overthrow corrupt and despotic regimes, and constitutional law experts and administrators to architect and operate governing legal and economic systems there patterned after our own.

Like it did in Iraq? I kind of followed this line of thought, clipping my mouth shut with clothes pegs at places, so I wouldn’t yell out obscenities in front of my children. And I went through without a single f-word. I think the writer does identify the problem most of the time:

The African continent is a patchwork quilt of artificially drawn and imposed borders, established, for the most part, by European colonial powers.

Apart from the wars being fought now in Africa, the ones that the colonial west interrupted (while the west itself was free to fight its own murderous wars and get them over with — effectively establishing its borders without African or other outside interference) — but I was saying, apart from these wars, frontiers on the African continent were established entirely by the colonial master and mistress. It is inaccurate therefore to say for the most part. Nevertheless, the writer identifies there a seed for conflict.

Monetary aid is poison. It does not encourage more responsible government. […] A deluge of aid will not fix what ails Africa.

Of course it doesn’t, and it won’t. Whoever said it did or will? But, again, the writer has identified part of the problem. Here’s the thing, as an African, I want the west out, not in, for several reasons. The writer mentions the first one. The second one is unfair trade practices from which Africa is getting thinner and its western trade partners fatter. The third one is that the west messed Africa up once, it’s time it stopped. Got on the bus home. Knowing that “legal and economic systems […] patterned after our own,” as the writer so shamelessly puts it, seem to the west to be the best because ours were uprooted and incapacitated by the same west.

Lack of access to Western markets for products in which African producers enjoy comparative advantage such as sugar, cotton and textiles is a huge problem. Western import restrictions and tariffs stymie wealth creation in Africa.

There again, the writer concurs with me. It is of course a huge problem. And the solution?  “American and European markets should be unilaterally opened to Africa goods, with protective regimes for Western producers being discarded.” Why not stop there, and also provide logical solutions for the other problems so nicely identified? Why talk of colonial regimes administered by America and Britain? We’re quite tired, as a people, of fighting the west off. We want to be left alone.

That’s all we’ve ever wanted, really, even as the west scrambled for chunks of our land. But guess what… instead of getting out, the west is getting in deeper: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7026197.stm I think somebody took your advice. The shame of it is that it’s a waste of money, and we’ll just have to fight and kick the west out again, albeit with an even more messed up continent.

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World Development Movement comment on Bali roadmap:

The EU [says] it will increase taxes on imports from African, Caribbean and Pacific countries on 1 January 2008 if agreements are not signed. At the same time, the EU has suggested that the existence (or not) of an Economic Partnership Agreement will influence EU decisions on which countries receive most aid.

This is an attempt by the EU to get even more market share from Africa and the Caribbean, at give-away tax rates, or as the author of the article puts it, “free trade agreements.”  This reminds me of a blog post in which I was trying to tell JK, a commenter, that the West is not about to leave Africa alone.

I hate being right like this, but there you have it JK. When Africa is reluctant to enter into “trade” with the West, there’s quite a bit of arm-twisting used: “The EU has suggested that the existence (or not) of an Economic Partnership Agreement will influence EU decisions on which countries receive most aid.”

clipped from methodius.blogspot.com In an ominous development, the USA has started establishing military bases in Africa. Why should they want to do that? Are they wanting to start wars here, as they have done in Europe and Asia?

‘President George W. Bush strongly urged lawmakers Wednesday to reject a resolution that describes the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians early in the last century as genocide - a highly sensitive issue at a time of rising U.S.-Turkish tension over northern Iraq.

“We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915,” Bush said in a brief statement. “But this resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings and its passage would do great harm to relations with a key ally in NATO, and to the war on terror.”’
[more…]

UPDATE:
The bill passed anyway. Aznavour will be happy.

the run
from qoaling to grootvlei

by lantern light we snuffed out
when sound leapt at us
(or seemed to leap
as it does when the wind heaves forth)
we left, travelling the terrain wintered with contempt,
ears tuned for the sound of foot, boot, the snap
of dog on our tail.

beasts are oblivious to this, to
things that knot us, questing always for acceptance
surviving the dark.

I believe in the only spirit, the faces
of people who’ve walked this way.

as for us, we
held our lantern and crossed the river into azania,
knowing the order of the cycle:
winter turns to spring,
dead leaves make russet apple cheeks,
kernels keep internal life.
© Rethabile Masilo

“President Bush, in a confrontation with Congress, on Wednesday vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have dramatically expanded children’s health insurance.”
[Read more…]

after lunch on saturdays
father would carry into the study
a stack of politics, and in wood
scent he’d sit and read till sleep
claimed him, or supper,
or that sparkle of sun sent
in rear windows,
blinding him out
to the awning of trees where
we hooked a hammock
and heaved him into the sisal
net, left him there resting
like a foetus. bringing him
maotoana* tea one day, there lay
on its back on the black earth
beneath him a note-book; row on
row of scribble glared at me,
some sort of theory on
the likelihood of a glad and
bounteous kingdom.
© Rethabile Masilo

* Rooibos tea in Sesotho

‘September 16, 2007 6:00 AM

The Lesotho Promise

MASERU, Lesotho — A 494-carat diamond, believed to be the 18th largest in the world, has been found at a mine in Lesotho, a government official said. The stone was a white diamond of exceptional quality, said Natural Resources Minister Monyane Moleleki. It has been sent to Antwerp, Belgium, for auction.

The diamond was found at the Lets’eng Diamond Mine, situated high in Lesotho’s mountains. The Lesotho Promise, a 603-carat stone, was uncovered last year at the same mine and sold for $12.3 million. A 215-carat flawless diamond found in January 2007 brought $8.3 million.

The largest diamond ever found, the Cullinan, was the size of a bowling ball at 3,106 carats in the rough. That finished stone is set in Britain’s Imperial Sceptre as part of the Crown Jewels. Lesotho is a mountainous country in southern Africa ravaged by high unemployment, poverty and AIDS.’
[source]

Is it just me, or the first line of this article and the last one do not go together? We know that “Letseng, in the high plateau of the Maluti Mountains, was owned by De Beers between 1977 and 1982 and closed after a tax dispute with the Lesotho government. JCI reopened it in 2004 [source].” Gem Diamonds took over in July 2006.

Here’s a question: what, or how much, does the Mosotho in the street gain from the discovery of the 18th largest diamond in the world? How much does the average Mosotho gain from the discovery of the 15th largest diamond in the world, when that diamond is found in that Mosotho’s land? Remember that “the Letseng mine is 70 percent owned by Gem Diamond Mining Company of Africa Ltd and 30 percent by the Lesotho government [source].”

NB: More to come on this subject…

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.
~Desmond Mpilo Tutu

Zoe, my brother, says “On this day, the 4th of September, in 1981, our home was attacked in the middle of the night by armed soldiers. The target was our father, Benjamin Masilonyane Masilo, who escaped the shooting by the skin of his teeth. It is truly a miracle that he survived the attack. Motlatsi however, his three-year old grandson and our nephew, was not so lucky. He died, presumably in his sleep because he was still in his position on the bed, when the bullets ripped his stomach open.

Lest we forget, and so that such things may not continue to happen to other people, we need to tell this story and those of others similar to ours, over and over and over again.” I say amen to that. I’d hate for what happened to us to happen to someone else. That’s because I know first hand the horror of it, and how much it can destroy a life, lives, not of the killed only, but of the survivors as well. Lest we forget, our job, all of us, is to prevent this sort of thing from ever happening again. We must remind our leaders day and night, and we must be prepared to affront them with guts and integrity.

I refuse to wish anyone a happy 4th of September…

Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation, so let’s not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards from man-made sources.
~Ronald Reagan

tlhokomeliso
‘if needs be, it is an ideal
for which I am prepared to die.’
~ntate mandela

before the naming rites,
even before we were free to be free
from terror in our ranks,
before prison or death
became our constitutional rights,
a cry echoed among the elements
to shake the tenements
inside heaven and inside hell;
flesh came into my shell,
resided in me, heavy and light
according to the moment—
like a rumour, God and politics
entered me and sat on my heart;
so I must ask you to destroy me
because there’s a part of me that
still belongs to the sun, and will
not acquiesce; for the benefit of
your crew, destroy, before it’s too
late, the blood in me that is hers
and will not succumb — slay
this whole idea of a Motuba who
rides a sun-ray to illume our day.
© Rethabile Masilo

A free and independent media is essential to democracy. It is a fact. Harness the media, and you kill the whole idea of democracy (or you try). Especially in a country that has few outlets for public expression, like our beloved Lesotho. The government of Lesotho has just decided to withdraw its advertising relation with the newspaper The Public Eye, and some people are rightly wanting to know why.

The government of Lesotho is just about the only advertiser with The Public Eye and this action perhaps seeks to effectively shut down the paper through strangulation, but if the action does not seek to do so, the end result will still be death by strangulation. That immediately deprives the country of free and independent speech, it deprives some Basotho of their livelihood in a country that has a 45% unemployment rate (2002 figures), and it plunges Lesotho back into the abyss it is still struggling to get out of (where criticising the government resulted in a sure backlash).

Public Eye, an independent newspaper with the largest distribution and widest readership in the country, has recently lost its single biggest advertising client. That client is the Lesotho government, which provides 80% of Public Eye’s revenue.

Lesotho is so dependent on SA for commerce that there are few local businesses capable or desirous of taking out advertising space in a national publication. Public Eye thus has little prospect of attracting other business to offset its recent loss. It faces a significant reduction of operations and the people of Lesotho, in consequence, will have diminished access to independent news.
[source]

The newspaper has the largest readership in the country, so the motive does not lie there. According to the All Africa article quoted here, the government is reluctant “to support its recent decision;” it further says that if the motive, undisclosed, is to stifle the newspaper into silence or submission, then the action is illegal.

The Lesotho constitution, Chapter II-14, guarantees free speech when it states that “Every person shall be entitled to, and (except with his own consent) shall not be hindered in his enjoyment of, freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions without interference, freedom to receive ideas and information without interference, freedom to communicate ideas and information without interference (whether the communication be to the public generally or to any person or class of persons) and freedom from interference with his correspondence [source]”

In 2001 the Botswana High Court ruled that its government’s decision to cut advertising from two publications (that were critical of said government) was a violation of those publications’ right to free speech. It stands to reason. A government that cannot stand criticism, on the other hand, must toil to make sure there is no cause for it. Non-criticism by the populace and the media cannot be imposed… it is earned. Let it be so!

“Protesters blockaded the main road in the capital with stones and burning tyres
July 08, 2007, 08:00

Lesotho police say Maseru is calm after last night’s unrest. Protesters blockaded the main road in the capital with stones and burning tyres after soldiers re-arrested alleged mutinous security force members who had been released by the high court.

Pheello Mphana, a Lesotho police spokesperson, says while police were preparing to release the five men, soldiers surrounded the police station and demanded that the suspects be detained.

The men were handed over to police by the army last week after they were suspected of involvement in a series of attacks on ministers. Mphana says the protesters dispersed peacefully.”
[source]

My link in Lesotho says, “Hooray!!! Judge ‘Maseforo Mahase of the Lesotho High Court has ordered that Makotoko Lerotholi (a former soldier), the first man to be abducted by the masked men, be released to his family immediately.

Last evening Advocate Haae Phoofolo, a human rights lawyer based in Maseru, lodged an application before the High Court for an order demanding the immediate release of Lerotholi, pointing out that he was unlawfully arrested and has not been charged since. This came after the army had attempted to dump Lerotholi and Motlomelo, another abductee, into the hands of the police. The police agreed to take Motlomelo in (I’m not clear on the grounds yet), but refused to take Lerotholi into their custody citing the horrible condition of his health and self as their reason.

The respondents in the application were as follows: the Army Commander, the Minister of Defence (who happens to be the Prime Minister), the Commissioner of Police, the Superintendent at the Makoanyane Army Hospital and the Attorney General.

Visibly shaken and unstable, Lerotholi arrived at the High Court at around 21:00 hours led by members of the Lesotho Defence Force. He, through his lawyer, recited his story since the abduction at the entrance to Lakeside Hotel on the 22 of June 2007. He was taken by about ten heavily armed men, blindfolded and driven somewhere into the mountains. Along the way he was repeatedly gunbutted and kicked.

His abductors demanded that he tell the whereabouts of the armoury where the guns taken from ministers’ bodyguards was. His torture was systematically directed to the kidneys and genitals, and this has rendered his urinary system malfunctional.

The judge ordered that he be released immediately to his family and after condemning the whole saga, prayed to God that she never in her whole life presides over a similar case. We are continuously encouraged by such judgements and look at them as a good sign of sanity amidst the madness we live in.

The questions remain: why did the army deny any knowledge of the whereabouts of these men? Why did the government spokesman, Minister of Information and Broadcasting, deny any knowledge by the government of the whereabouts and condition of these men? If any wrong was done, why were the men not arrested by the police and charged, instead of being abducted by the army and tortured? Why? Why? Why?”

Monyane Moleleki

Thabo Thantsi, the abductee who was hospitalised at Makoanyane Army Hospital, has escaped and resurfaced somewhere in South Africa. He came on air on Harvest FM’s “Rise and Shine” morning show and gave a thorough detail of his ordeal at the hands of the army. He is a former soldier himself.

The details of his ordeal are gory and I shudder at the mere recollection. He says he was in the hands of the army and he has divulged the names of the officers who were interrogating him, demanding that he produce the guns taken from ministers’ bodyguards recently. He says another question was why he had resigned from the army (in 2003) and why he is now a bodyguard to Motsoahae Thabane, the ABC leader.

He has named the Minister of Natural Resources, Monyane Moleleki, as the mastermind behind these abductions. According to Thabo, his feet were chained and padlocked, his hands cuffed behind and to the chain around his feet. When his folks came to see him he was uncuffed and unchained and asked not to reveal his condition to them. He further reveals that many of the abducted men, some still actively employed in the army, are at the army hospital in varying conditions of torture.

From what he says he heard while his abductors were talking, the Minister has already paid up and the elite group has two weeks to finish off all members of the ABC who are perceived to be active and dangerous.

I tried to find the name Thabo Thantsi on the Internet, and actually found two links, his voter details (if it’s the same Thabo Thantsi): here, and mention of him in the Lesotho Forum: here. I looked up the minister allegedly involved, and found a Wikipedia mention, an article about the 2006 attack on him, a speech in Iran Daily (scroll down a bit), and a short interview.

News from Lesotho is disturbing. Democracy and the rule of law are advancing backwards. Recently, a curfew was put up, after attacks were carried out on prominent politicians’ homes. That rings a bell. If you can link to this, or reproduce it on your blog, I would be most grateful. Or tell a friend over coffee. Or just read it and sympathise with us in spirit (or whatever deed). I know I sound desperate — I am. This needs to be talked about and shared. I have just received news from home that:

Thabo Thakalekoala of Seapoint in Maseru, a vocal and prominent freelancing investigative journalist, was arrested on Friday morning (22 June 2007) and charged with high treason. He is appearing in court today (25 June 2007) to be formally charged.

On the day of his arrest he had just read a letter over the air on his popular morning programme “Rise and Shine” on Harvest FM. The letter was supposedly given to him by a group of army men and requested to read it on his show. The soldiers vehemently denounced the rule of one Mosikili in Lesotho who they say is a foreigner and therefore is not elligible to hold such office. This comes after it was discovered that the PM holds a South African identity document (a fact he has publicly admitted), no wonder the rampant looting of state coffers by way of the 84% salary increments and the M4000.00 Kompressors and the M2000.00 Camrys.

We look back in sadness at the deaths of Mahlomola Motuba and Mike Pitso, two journalists who were killed for their brave and fearless reporting of unfairness and prejudice in the past regimes. We have been taken back decades in our learning curve, and are now starting from scratch to plant the seed of unity and true freedom. We take courage from the fact, however, that history has not been kind to dictators who parade themselves as democrats. ‘Nete ke tutulu ha e patehe, or “Truth is ‘unhideable’.” We call on the international media to take note of this heinous act by the Lesotho Government to gag transparency and free access to information, especially as state media is totally not accessible to anyone else but the ruling party.

Re sa lebeletse. Khotso.

Background information:
www.protectionline.org

UPDATE (26 June):
News from The People’s Choice FM: Written by Falla
People`s Choice FM Management, Mr. Motlatsi Majara & Mrs Kholu Qhobela paid a visit to the detained Media Insitute of Southern Africa regional Chairperson and Harvest FM freelancer, Mr. Thabo Thakalekoala yesterday.

The Main aim for the visit was to give support and courage to him as a brother, colleague and journalist at this trying time that he is going through.
Mr. Thakalekoala who is charged with high treason is in police custody and is expected to appear before Magistrate Court today, and on the hand the Regional Director of Media Institute is expected to be in the country today.

He is in the mean time refusing to eat anything (hunger strike), insisting on his liberty and justice.

Submitted by ‘Marafaele Mohloboli

---

Links:

• http://khotla.blogspot.com
• http://lesothoforum

I was fifteen, but I remember the events of 16 June 1976 like it was last week. Black kids rose against the Apartheid state in South Africa, and refused Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in schools. They stamped their collective foot and said “No!” And their cry shook the world. Police opened fire and the first kid to go down was Hector Pieterson. I know you’ve seen the now famous picture of his limp body in the hands of Mbuyisa Makhubo, his sister running alongside them.

“I saw that he was bad, but I thought that he was just wounded, you know,” remembers Hector’s sister, Antoinette Sithole. [source]

There were to be many victims that day. Hector’s photo was plastered on the conscience of the world (though few did anything about it), but there weren’t enough photographers to shoot take pictures of the other victims. Hastings Ndlovu was another such victim, and it is said he may have even died before Hector. Here’s the story of his death.

Klein was dumbstruck as to how a school child, in the middle of the morning, was being admitted to Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital with gunshot wounds, and questions raced through his mind.

“Children with bullet wounds?” he wondered. “But how? And by whom? A robbery? By school kids? In the middle of the day? Where would the guns come from? Black South Africans are prohibited from owning guns.”

The answer came: “They were shot by the police.”

Klein says a quick survey in the casualty ward revealed that all except one child were shot above the waist: in other words, the police had shot to kill. Then his old high school friend and a neurosurgeon, Dr Risik Gopal, arrived and checked Hastings’ condition.

Gopal confirmed what Klein had suspected: no one could survive such an injury. And indeed, a “short time later, Hastings was dead”, having been in a coma from the moment he was shot, Klein says.

Klein worked in Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital for several years, and had been warned that it would be a “baptism in blood” - particularly on Friday nights. But after years of handling “grisly injuries” from assaults using a range of weapons, he thought “nothing could penetrate the emotional barriers I had learned to erect”.

Not that day.

The sight of “uniformed children riddled with bullets”, accompanied by their “terminal breaths”, left Klein feeling helpless and hopeless, and he could only watch in despair as life ebbed from the “fragile frame” of Ndlovu.

The white hospital administrator walked into the ward and Klein told him to expect trouble that night in Soweto. The administrator replied: “Oh, no, by tonight everything will have blown over.”

Klein, a coloured doctor who under apartheid ethos had no authority to shout at a white person, couldn’t contain himself. He yelled: “In Soweto, you do not shoot children and get away with it. There is going to be shit!” He walked away with tears in his eyes.

Klein had to break the news of Ndlovu’s death to the boy’s friends and relatives, a difficult task not made easier by repeating the news to other relatives of dead children. “I remember the looks of disbelief, the anguish, the tears. And I remember my own grief welling up afresh each time I delivered the grim news.”

Gopal, now the chief neurosurgeon at the hospital, said they stood at the window and watched police shooting children. Some of the staff members saw their own children being brought in with gunshot wounds. “There was a lot of emotion on the day. It was just chaos,” he says.

By late afternoon the government had prohibited blacks from assembling in groups larger than three. Workers, when they disembarked from trains and taxis, got together before walking home, wondering what was happening, unaware of the ruling.

Police opened fire on them, expecting them to know about the prohibition, and they arrived at hospital asking innocently why the police were shooting at them.

Others arrived at hospital with strange wounds, says Klein: small entrance holes in their upper bodies, with larger exit wounds lower down. One man said: “We were sitting in our kitchen, having dinner, when bullets came in through the roof and hit us.” Police were firing from helicopters overhead. [source]

The purpose of this post is of course to remember these children’s sacrifice. I remember the personal friends I made after refugees started flowing into Lesotho from all over South Africa. I remember how we would gather round and sing freedom songs in the evenings, how knowing them made us better politicians at that young age (I was fifteen). I remember how we’d listen to Radio Freedom being broadcast from Tanzania by the African National Congress. I remember how the sound sucked because the Apartheid government was doing its best to kill the signal.

I remember.

The other purpose of this post is to warn us about being inactive in the face of grave injustices. After 1976 and what it brought to South Africa, you’d think the world would do something. You’d be wrong. You think the world might do something for Darfur today? Wrong again. Mention a calamity in the world and ask yourself if the world might intervene, and you’d be wrong to think it might. But America did intervene in Iraq (not in Darfur). Find the error. Did America intervene in South Africa with

1. the mere existence of Apartheid
2. laws such as The Immorality Act of 1950, which stated that no one could make love to anyone outside of his or her race
3. Nelson Mandela and many other leaders in prison
4. the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960
5. the Soweto uprisings of 1976
6. the fact that more than 3 million blacks were forcibly removed from their homes and resettled in black ‘homelands‘.
7. the gruesome killing of Steve Biko in 1977
8. the killing of Ruth First, wife of Joe Slovo, by means of a parcel bomb
9. and many other injustices carried out against a whole people because of the activity of melanocytes in their skin

So, how did the world react? How did the big Occidental powers react? This is part of what happened: “[Chester] Crocker attracted the attention of the Reagan transition team with an article he wrote in the winter 1980/81 edition of the Foreign Affairs journal. In the article, Crocker was highly critical of the outgoing Carter administration for its apparent hostility to the white minority government in South Africa, by acquiescing in the United Nations Security Council’s imposition of a mandatory arms embargo (UNSCR 418/77) and the UN’s demand for the end of South Africa’s illegal occupation of Namibia (UNSCR 435/78). [source]” That’s what happened. The Reagan administration went on to apply and implement its policy of Constructive Engagement.

Let us remember this day with a particular thought for those who died; let us remember it also with a particular thought at preventing it from happening in the future now. So, whatchu gon’ do?

Nkosi, sikelel’i Afrika

“Mankind protects and feeds the panda, but exposes and starves Darfur.”
~~ Rethabile Masilo.

I said that here.

Mosotho horseman

Lesotho’s national anthem’s first verse says Lesotho, fatše la bo-ntatà rona, or Lesotho, land of our fathers. The music was composed by Ferdinand-Samuel Laur (1791-1854) and the lyrics were written by François Coillard (1834-1904), two Frenchmen. The freshly independent Lesotho adopted the tune as its national anthem in 1967, a year after gaining independence from Britain. You can listen to the anthem on the government website.

The two French fellows who penned it did a pretty good job. I quite like the way it sounds. The mothers, though–there are no mothers? We’ll let that slide. Sometime in the future, though, we’re gonna have to tinker with that line so as to include our mothers, who actually do the donkey’s work but always get the lesser of everything. The issue is the same in almost every document written before, and even during, the twentieth century, partly because the majority of human beings believe God is a man.

Is Lesotho the land of our fathers? We know that our fore-parents came from up north somewhere. My very own ancestors, Bakhatla or Bakgatla, came from Botswana. I’ve always heard talk of Ntsoana-Tsatsi, a place where the Basotho supposedly came from.

“Ntsoana-Tsatsi” sounds like “From the Sun”, so it could mean the East or the North-East. When I was in Nairobi, Kenya, I met a guy from Zambia: Mukelabai XXXXXXX. What was funny was the fact that he would stare at my brothers and me when we spoke. We became friends and stayed in contact for many years after that, for Mukelabai was a Lozi and could understand almost everything we were saying.

The Balozi from Zambia, it turns out, decided to go down South, and eventually formed a big chunk of what is today the Basotho nation. At least that’s what one school of thought says. Mukelabai sings the Lesotho national anthem like it was the Zambian national anthem. Why? Because of François Coillard. The anthem author had adventures all over southern Africa, especially in Barotseland, and must have written the tune in Silozi / Sesotho. The group that stayed around Zambia still sings it, as well as the one that trekked south! So who are we? Do we own this land enough to call it Fatše la bo-ntatà rona?

What about the bushmen (Baroa in Sesotho, Basarwa in Setswana) we found there? Isn’t it the land of their fathers more than it is the land of ours? I think we ended up blending with Baroa, which would give all of us together some right to the land and justify some of that first verse, Lesotho, fatše la bo-ntat’a rona. Apparently

one important site of early settlement was Nts’oana-Tsatsi near present-day Vrede in the northern Free State. Archaeological investigations have revealed that this area was settled as early as 1350, probably by the Bafokeng clan. These were the pioneers of the Sotho groups who settled much of the Free State and Lesotho. They lived closely with the Baroa as well as with the ancestors of the Baphuthi, who were the first Iron Age peoples to settle by the Caledon River Valley. The northern half of the Free State is the true heartland of Sotho settlement. Lesotho, as we know it today, was the southern frontier of this civilization although the upper portion of the Caledon River Valley was very rich and fertile

The above excerpt also identifies Ntsoana-Tsatsi, which is where my mum had always taught me was the origin of the Basotho people. A myth by many standards. But judging by the age of the Basotho nation, I guess we do come from the North-East or the East somehow, and I guess we do have legitimate claim to this land and can go ahead and call it Lefatše la bo-ntat’a rona. The next verse is Har’a mafatše le letle ke lona, or Among worlds it is the most beautiful.

What does one say about one’s country but that it is the most gorgeous of all? I certainly am not going to say that it is the ugliest. Yet, looking at that second verse of the national anthem’s first stanza:

Lesotho, fatše la bo ntat’a rona
Hara mafatše le letle ke lona

I have often wondered what we mean to say. You and I have already agreed that yes, we can lay claim to the land and call it Land of our fathers, the first verse. Which gives us the right to make another claim: Among worlds it is the most beautiful, the second verse. We’re lying through our teeth. We’re lying to ourselves and we’re lying to the world, because we do not believe what we’re singing. How do I know? If we believed what we were singing and really thought our country was the most beautiful in the world, then

We’d do a lot towards keeping it that way.We would be selfless, and go out of our way to help unfortunate Basotho. We would plant trees all over the place, instead of uprooting them. We would not have burned down Maseru, the capital city, because we’d lost an election. We would not be running away and draining Lesotho of its grey-matter. We would not suffer from IPS, Inverted Pyramid Syndrome, but back and support everything local. We would not have killed other Basotho for political gain. We would not throw paper and other rubbish in the street but in the rubbish bin.

That’s how I know. And I hereby ask you, when you hear yourself chanting that second verse of the first stanza, to wonder what it is you are doing for Lesotho that gives you a right to proclaim its beauty before the world. As much as we have agreed that we can safely say the land is ours, I disagree as to its purpoted absolute beauty. Beauty, like love, must be maintained through deliberate action.

“I’m washing my car because I want it to look beautiful.” When you’re done washing it, then you drive it to town to boast, because at that instant you do believe it is beautiful, because you’ve done something to gain the right to believe that it is beautiful. Why should it be different when it concerns a country? You shine your shoes regularly, you whiten your “liteki” (sneakers) and iron your shirt to a crease. When you go out at night wearing those clothes you feel handsome, you feel that you can conquer love, you try to conquer love. Why should it be different when it concerns a country?

We’re lying to ourselves and to the world. One of our common goals must be to ensure that Lesotho remains or becomes the most beautiful we can make it. Beauty rarely comes with the package. How? Look at the list above and start making that 2nd verse of the 1st stanza true.

Lesotho, fatše la bo-ntat’a rona,
Har’a mafatše le letle ke lona,
Ke moo re hlahileng.

Verse 3 is pretty straightforward. We’ve already talked about verse 1, Lesotho, fatše la bo-ntat’a rona, and verse 2, Har’a mafatše le letle ke lona. This is therefore verse 3, Ke moo re hlahileng, or It is the place of our birth.

Why shouldn’t it be? I was personally born there, at Scott Hospital in Morija. My parents were born there, in the Quthing district on the southern tip. It is, it seems, the place of our birth. But we are supposed to have come from up north or north-east, if you recall. Ntsoana-Tsatsi, to be exact, and we found Baroa (Bushmen) inhabiting the area that is present-day Lesotho. In Sesotho, “boroa” means south, so that Afrika-Boroa is South Africa. Baroa means People of the South. They were there when we arrived! We were going down south and they were there people of the south.

We were born there but of course one of the prior generations must have got “naturalised.” Oh, it happens all the time. New-comers integrate their new societies frequently, and usually even become more nationalist than the folks that were already there. When the new-comers butcher the already established people, though, and grab their land, naturalisation it is not. New-comers to the American continent hacked and decimated the people they found there. I am told we lived and inter-married with the Bushmen so that we became one: Basotho. Ke moo re hlahileng.

Lesotho, fatše la bo-ntat’a rona,
Har’a mafatše le letle ke lona,
Ke moo re hlahileng,
Ke moo re holileng.

Verse 4 is in a way a continuation of verse 3. Ke moo re holileng, or It is where we grew up. I personally grew up and became a responsible and conscious human being outside Lesotho. But I don’t suppose that’s what the lyrics relate to, since they are more figurative than Cartesian. I believe that a non-negligible minority of Basotho teenagers either left of their own desire or were driven out¹. Either way they, just like me, grew up outside Lesotho. So what does the verse mean, then?

As far as I’m concerned, it is true that the most visible part of my growing up happened in exile, which means my voice deepened, I grew a beard, I almost doubled the size of my shoes, I got sloshed for the first time, and I became a hopeless fan of woman. But almost every seed was planted, and the seed-bed itself remained, in Lesotho. That’s where I first met hope, felt the joy of belonging, faced desperation, knew fear, and touched compassion.

Perhaps things like these happen in other places, too. But my own seed-bed was no doubt Lesotho, so in essence that’s where I grew up².

Mum and I were driving north up Kingsway, toward home, having packed the Datsun pickup van with stock for the family shop. I glanced at the clock. Maseru was unusually deserted for six p.m. Perhaps there was a curfew that we hadn’t heard about. Or perhaps it was due to the unfriendly looking clouds, stationed across the skyline as far as I could see.

–*It’s going to rain…,* I must have thought aloud.
–*What?*
–*Ah, it looks like it’s going to rain,* I said.
–*Don’t worry. We’ll have finished unloading with the first drops.*
–*I sure hope so.*

We drove past the bakery on the left and the new shopping centre on the right. There was hardly anybody even there! We zoomed past the hardware store where a woman was sitting in front on the pavement with small mounds of potatoes for sale, and headed for Mafafa and the Cathedral roundabout. And Mum jumped on the brakes and brought the rickety Datsun to a noisy stop, and me out of my dreamy stupor. She was looking at me, or rather through me at something I could not comprehend. It was my turn to say what. So I did.

–*What?*

She stopped looking at whatever it was in me or behind me, dipped her hand into her purse and gave me a zoka, a five-cent coin.

–*Get me some potatoes with this.*
For some reason I just took the money and got the potatoes, two mounds, without bringing it to her attention that we had several sacks of the stuff in the van. I did ask her a day or two later, because I was genuinely intrigued. And her answer placed me a step further on my way to becoming a responsible and conscious adult, without actually growing an inch³.

So, yes, in my case, and I suspect in many other cases, I did grow up in Lesotho, although I physically grew up elsewhere. And I suspect this of any place that has such a mixture of seed-bed and seed.

¹ There is no more driving out of Basotho. That nasty bit of our history petered out with the first democratically elected government.
² I’m not suggesting any correlation between this verse and how Basotho children are brought up or grow up. I just happen to believe that I actually grew up in Lesotho, although puberty came afterwards.
³ It is a true story, if you were wondering.

Lesotho, fatše la bo-ntat’a rona,
Har’a mafatše le letle ke lona,
Ke moo re hlahileng,
Ke moo re holileng,
Rea le rata.

Verse 5, Rea le rata, is not yet true. It translates into We love her, or She is dear to us.

1. Lesotho, land of our fathers,
2. Among worlds you are the most beautiful,
3. In you we were born,
4. In you we grew up,
5. You are dear to us.

Anything or anyone that man loves becomes an object of obsession. A car, a pair of shoes, a lover, the self. The latter are pampered and taken care of in unimaginable ways, but Lesotho isn’t on that list and Lesotho isn’t pampered in any way by any man, woman, girl or boy that I know. If you pamper Lesotho the way you pamper things you love, let me know. I’ll pin a medal of honour on your chest.

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Entirely within the letter of the law, Lesotho’s dominant parties have managed to massively manipulate almost a quarter of the seats in last weekend’s national election. Neither donors nor media seem interested in covering the irregularities. But the trouble is plain in the published numbers for all to see.

When Motorola joined (RED), they sought to work with companies in Africa and found Morija Printing Works in Lesotho to make the beautiful red packaging for their (RED) cell phones. After a visit to the Morija print shop two weeks ago, Motorola sent us some of these amazing photos of people at work and play, and also some candids of the print shop workers and their family members. You’ll also get to see some of the absolutely breathtaking landscape in Lesotho in these photos.

On Sunday elections were held in Lesotho. The small southern African “kingdom in the sky” was the continent’s first country to use a mixed-member proportional (MMP) system, in 2002. Sunday’s election was Lesotho’s second under MMP, and as I am not aware of any other African countries having opted for MMP (as opposed to MMM/parallel, which is used by several countries*), it must have been only the second African MMP election.

Lesotho politics is fraught with fallacies. There are even suggestions that the tiny mountain kingdom should be incorporated into South Africa before its tool late. In fact the only hope for the poor country is its big neighbour where there are more than 50 000 Basotho employed in the gold mines. Lately, its educated citizens are leaving in droves for greener pastures in the SA provinces. Is Lesotho becoming the next Zimbabwe? Is prime minister Mosisili taking after pres Mugabe?

The ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) is headed for a landslide majority as vote counts wind up after weekend parliamentary elections in the southern African country. With results returned in 75 of the 80 constituencies, the LCD party of Pakalitha Mosisili, Lesotho’s prime minister, had won 53 seats. The All Basotho Convention (ABC) of Tom Thabane was in second place with 17 seats. An alliance of smaller parties had won one constituency.

Mokha o tla loantsa khethollo ‘me o tla sireletsa litokelo tsohle tsa mantlha tsa batho joalo kaha li hlaha Molaong oa Motheo oa Lesotho le mehoong ea Mokhatlo oa Machaba a Kopaneng le Kopanong ea Linaha tsa Afrika. Mokha leha ho le joalo, o tla holisa likamano tsa oona le mekhatlo e meng kea kapa kae lefatseng ha feela eba likamano tse joalo ha li hohlane kapa hona ho thulana le sepheo kapa litakatso tsa Mokha.

Five opposition parties (ABC, ACP, BNP, MFP and LWP) have agreed to form a coalition. This, it is said, will give them 30 seats and qualify them to become the official opposition. They are going to sit down and decide on who will be the leader of the coalition and by this virtue, the leader of the opposition.

An ABC song goes…“Bonang le oele lerako, bonang le oele, bonang le oele lerako, lona le re arohantseng!”

The ABC has strived to convince Basotho to shed past differences and see themselves first as Basotho. My hope is that this coalition, more than its main objective of creating a strong, healthy and effective opposition in our parliament, is the first step in that direction.

The song says, “Look, the wall is down, look, it’s down, the one separating us!” This excerpt is from my pal in Maseru. A union! United we stand, divided we fall. Simple dictum, but it’s taken a while for us to understand it. Party politics is by definition counter to national politics. The wager of party politics doesn’t care about the nation, but about his or her own welfare.

You don’t have to look far. Bob in Zimbabwe was fine as long as he was at the helm, his party the government. When his party and his own bitter welfare were threatened, for the good of the nation as a whole, well, the rest, as they say, is history. I’m happy for this rapprochement of forces in my country. It is a good thing.

My friend in Maseru informs me that, “Stay away very peaceful and extremely successful. Abundantly clear is that LCD holds the political power by virtue of winning the election through the rural vote and ABC holds the economic power by virtue of winning the lowland (economic hub) vote. Compromise?

This besides the much awaited court cases which promise to reveal hordes of irregularities with unquestionable evidence. This also besides the questionable proportion by which seats have been allocated in parliament.

Though the administration of the injection is painful (bordering on the unbearable), the medicine would seem to be beginning to take effect, and in my opinion, our future and that of our children has never looked brighter. Praise be to the Almighty!!!” What I retain from the message is the explicit political power versus economic power conundrum. What I do not want to retain is the fact that every election in Lesotho since 1970 has been rocked by violence and dissatisfaction.

Let us invest all power in the king and be done with it. Or let us turn around and actually observe and abide by the rules of democratic elections.

21 Hlakubele 1960
Tsatsing leo, batho ba batšo ba 69
ba bolailoe ka lithunya, ba 180 ba ntšoa likotsi*

If when this township
was placed under siege
you were present, you
would have seen life
lamented, batho
wailing, the quick
holding their heads in the
sky to speak incantations
to disconsolate gods,
The dead still, stacked
against the guards, body
upon body, dead
but unbowed in their
steely will that no man
can bend. Quite suddenly
a woman, pail balanced
upon her head, hurls
her soul to the sky, ad
libitum. O Sharpeville!
And her cry rises forever
high – until heaven itself
gives, and what once
was black or white becomes
nil, wherever you look.
© Rethabile Masilo

*This is Sesotho for, “That day, 69 black people were gunned down; 180 were injured.”

Discussion:

1. The Sharpeville Massacre was one of two biggest events that shaped a direction for South Africa’s black citizens. What was the other one, and on what year did it take place?
2. If you went to South Africa today, what would you expect to find in terms of rights and freedoms for the different ethnic groups there (black, white, mixed)?
3. Have you ever read a book or seen a film on South Africa? If not, try (a) The Covenant by James Michener and/or (b) Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton for books, and (c) Tsotsi and/or (d) Cry Freedom for films. There are also many documentaries and other books, including the autobiographies of (e) Nelson Mandela (Long Walk to Freedom) and (f) Frederic De Klerk (The Last Trek, A New Beginning)
4. How do say “March” the month in Sesotho?
5. Has your country distanced itself from the problem evoked by this poem?

Let’s discuss it: poefrika thingy gmail thingy com

Leaders and MPs of five opposition parties in Lesotho’s 120-member Parliament started an indefinite sit-in at the Parliament buildings on Thursday.

They have called on their supporters and the Basotho nation at large to stay away from work from Monday next week. [Source]

Déjà-vu? Smacks of something we’ve seen? The ballot, contestation, strikes, death. In Lesotho it’s like clockwork, it’s a national gift and an art handed down from generation to generation. We dare anyone to try and beat us at it. We double dare you!

Lesotho voted in February this year, in an election that almost everyone said was free, though most probably not fair. The poll is still up on the side of this blog. Perhaps I was waiting for something to happen, i don’t know, but there you are.

There are promises of police sternness toward anyone disrupting the proper functioning of government. What does that mean? The MPs who will sit-in will receive the wrath of the police? The population that is now surrounding parliament buildings will receive the wrath of the police? What does “disrupting” mean? Here’s what a friend in Maseru told by e-mail yesterday:

LCD made an alliance with NIP behind its leader’s back. NIP won 21 of 40 proportional seats (which are contested by parties and not by candidates) in parliament. The party was declared the official opposition.

Some of the LCD ministers who lost the election were allocated seats in parliament via the NIP, and returned to cabinet. What does opposition mean?

In 2005 I talked of the concept of ABC…D for Lesotho. I still do.

Lesotho’s Test: Jonathan summarises the election with his trademark perspicacity. Check him out.

Selection		Votes
Probably	24%	54
Certainly	30%	66
I doubt it	23%	50
Certainly not	23%	52
222 votes total
Poll powered by Pollhost. Poll results are subject to error. Pollhost does not pre-screen the content of polls created by Pollhost customers.

Polling stations have closed in Lesotho’s general election. The Independent Election Commission says a voter turnout of 80% can be expected. Rethabile Pholo, a spokesperson, says the voting ran smoothly during the day after some polling stations opened late. Independent election monitors earlier indicated that the poll was free and fair. [Source]

Dear Deity… now what? This country of about 2 million people, independent since 1966 from England, with a 30 to 35% rate of HIV infection, one nation with one language and one culture, with a lot of water to sell in the form of electricity or just plain water, this country with some of the biggest diamonds in the world, this country is one of the poorest countries in the world, this country that is often described as “tumultuous” when it comes to politics, has seen its sons and daughters die for it, this country called Lesotho, surrounded entirely by another country, having the highest low point of any country on the planet…

…having copious snowfall (read Lesotho snow poem) and ski resorts in Africa, having a dinosaur named after it, and therefore ample dino prints, ample cave paintings left by its first inhabitant, the Bushman, this country that has one of the highest literacy rates in Africa, as well as, arguably, one of the first novelists on the continent, as well as mountains that inspired the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, as well as the highest pub in Africa…

… and the Aloë Polyphylla, a plant found nowhere else on earth, this country is mine, and it deserves a break. For crying out loud, Lord, I said it deserves a break. There’s a lot going for us — help us capitalise on our resources and on our identity and on our culture. Amen.

Lekhotla la Basotho

 

My country, my home
(from 70 to 07)

Lesotho fatše la bo-rra, I sing you/ then and now
Each day I sing you/ from mountain to cave I truly
Sing you. Spring is dawning in the valley’s
Old venue for kingly things. Thirty-seven years my love,
Thirty-seven years, and promises-/- the gravestones of our
Heads are cool, too cool for upper rooms in top
Offices, where someone’s already polishing promises-/-

In my dream, hope like a mad river washes the low

Lands, clearing years away/ I hear mothers crying
Over fate/ their tears cleanse my feet and feed
Vrystaat, the fat serpent along Mohokare/ there are
Everywhere men on sticks in silent streets, eyes

Yearning for some sign/ there are faces, violated angels
Outlined in candour beside you, O world, O bright
Unicorn of splendour, prancing in the boorish night.
© Rethabile Masilo

Photo credit and © copyright: Yannick Girardeau

Selection   Votes is not welcome  23% 39 is welcome  34% 57 is highly desired  42% 70 166 votes total Poll powered by Pollhost. Poll results are subject to error. Pollhost does not pre-screen the content of polls created by Pollhost customers.

In October 2006, Tom Motsoahae Thabane broke off from the ruling LCD party to form the ABC party, or the All Basotho Convention Party. Why? That is the first, big question. The second one is, “Was that the best way of dealing with the answer to the first question?” Apparently so, judging by this poll (NB: it is non-scientific) and by what we hear here and there and everywhere. People want change, it seems. Third question: change from what?
What went wrong? We’re all ears.

Marty informs us that the family of Leabua Jonathan, the 1st prime minister of Lesotho, is suing the new-born political party, Basotho Development National Party (BDNP) over the use of the former Prime Minister’s image.

I rest my case. We still haven’t got any politics in Lesotho. That is unfortunate. What we’ve got, and at a very high level, is leader worship. The leader has to be idolisable, otherwise there’s no party. This should indeed be the case, but there need be something else, for Christ’s sake, some content, some material to sink our teeth into, something else besides idolatry.

Leabua Jonathan was a political public figure. Why can’t his image be used? That’s question number one. Number two, why does the new party hold on to using his image, if there’s something else to offer. I think Basotho are listening and watching, and waiting for the one who actually has something worthwhile to offer. Or at least I hope so.

Basotho Democratic National Party. This much proliferation of political parties in such a small country scares me. I’ve already pronounced my sentiments on the issue.

Lesotho politician (b. Dec. 26, 1918, Teyateyaneng, Lesotho—d. Jan. 6, 1999, Bloemfontein, S.Af.), led government opposition both from inside the young nation and, for decades, from exile; in 1993, with the nation’s first democratic elections in 23 years, he became prime minister, serving until May 1998. Mokhehle graduated (1946) with honours from Fort Hare University, Alice, S.Af., and three years later earned an M.S.
www.britannica.com

That’s what an encyclopaedia says. Accurately, too. For me, however, as a child growing up in Lesotho, Ntsu Mokhehle was hope, and his name was synonymous with freedom, liberty and political power. I got that from the way my parents talked about him. And also from the way other people talked and sang about him at those political rallies my folks took me to.

The encyclopaedia is right, he was born on 26 December. That’s why I’m writing about him today. Happy birthday, dear Eagle. Ntsu is Sesotho for Eagle. He was an educated, politically apt, conscious individual who was able to lead his country only in old age. I often wonder where Lesotho would be today if he had become Prime Minister in 1970, as he should have. I know that I wouldn’t speak French, for one. And I’d probably still be in Lesotho. Happy birthday, ntate Ntsu (picture).

Futher reading (pdf): If you wanna see a nice photo of my father, roll down to “Where were you,” and look at the picture of Ntsu Mokhehle being arrested. The guy you’re directly looking at is Benjamin Masilo, my father. This picture probably got us in hotter water than we deserved.

Tags: Mokhehle; Ntsu Mokhehle; Benjamin Masilo

Dear Steven,

You said, “We do not want to be reminded that it is we, the indigenous people, who are poor and exploited in the land of our birth. These are concepts which the Black Consciousness approach wishes to eradicate from the black man’s mind before our society is driven to chaos by irresponsible people from Coca-cola and hamburger cultural backgrounds.”

They feared you, hence they killed you. The new ideas you were working out jangled their nerves, and you became a problem without a solution, just like we all were. But they couldn’t get the whole black nation to slip on a bar of soap. No. that was reserved for top problems like you.

Why didn’t they just send you to Robben Island, like the other top problems of the day? Perhaps you could have had your own political party, perhaps you could have become president of your land one day. Or vice-president. Or foreign minister. Youth minister would have suited you so!

We miss you, man.

I remember one day thinking how things would have been, had you been around to blog. Biko’s Blog. Biko’s big, bad, black blog. A big, black-green-red weblog emblazoned against our consciousness. Whose nerves would that have jangled then? I wonder what brand of soap they conjured up in their imagination as they declared your death. Sunlight? Lifebuoy? Palmolive? What does it matter? I wonder who made the decision to seal your lips with blows, what in your thinking pushed them over the edge, how many of the top brass watched the fatal beating, what they said to their spouses when they got home (”My God, I killed a man today,” or, “Hi honey — killed another kaffir today.”). They needed your consciousness movement, Steve, in order for them to have a consciousness of their own.

Bantu Steven Biko

BTW, they released ntate Mandela and other prisoners a while ago. He became president, then stepped down to let a younger Thabo take the reins. You remember Thabo, don’t you? Well, you probably know his dad, Govan Mbeki, also on the island prison. Man, so much things to say. South Africa is a real nation, now, with tons of problems like any other real nation. There’s unemployment and joblessness and urban violence. But nobody is being beaten to death and announced accidentally dead in detention, or having committed suicide.

After you died, some looked away, as they had for the very longest time. Most of them now have their guns trained on the ANC government. Paradoxal, huh? But others asked questions: “How did Biko receive the injury that caused his death? Who inflicted it, under what circumstances? Why was he kept naked and chained? Why did the doctors who attended him fail to interpret the undisputed signs of brain injury? Why did the doctors and all the police who were with him from the time he was injured until he died, all fail to notice the wound on his forehead which is so clearly visible in photos taken after his death?”

“And even more: why was the brain-damaged and dying man finally sent off on the long, terrible drive to Pretoria from Port Elizabeth, a big city with adequate hospitals? Why did the police give conflicting evidence, often caught out in contradictory statements or outright lies, none of which could explain the head injury? They had the time and the ability to concoct a story that would, at least superficially, account for the wound on Biko’s head. Why did they not do so? Why was an inquest held, why were details of the way he was treated permitted to be broadcast to the world. Why did the inquest find that no one was responsible for his death?”

No answers. There are never any answers to such things. Unfortunately for us, you were right when you told us that, “These guys - the day they get me - they’ll kill me, because I’ll beat up the guy or make him beat me so that I just die. If my hands are tied, I will spit in his face. I’m not going to answer questions that I don’t want to answer.”

Happy birthday, man!

Bantu Steven Biko, born on 18 December 1946 in Ginsberg, a suburb of King William’s Town.

[More]

Tags: South Africa; Steven Biko; Apartheid

Lesotho’s King Letsie III dissolved parliament on Friday to pave the way for early elections, with the vote expected before the end of February. A statement released by Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili said a date for the poll in the mountain kingdom would be set next week after a meeting of the council of state.

The council consists of the prime minister, speaker of the national assembly, two High Court judges, commanders of the Lesotho Defence Force and Lesotho mounted police services, one principal chief and two opposition party members of the national assembly.

A member of the three-man Lesotho Independent Electoral Commission, Limakatso Mokhothu, said preparations were advanced.
http://www.news24.com

A Dutch aid worker was killed in an attack by unknown gunmen at the house of Lesotho’s trade and industry minister, police said Saturday. Police spokesperson Pheelo Mphana said that the 36-year-old woman, who has not been identified pending notification of next of kin, worked for the Clinton Foundation, which runs HIV and Aids programmes in the poor mountain kingdom.

The woman, her husband and two American aid workers arrived at Minister Mpho Malie’s house in a taxi late Friday. As they got out of the car, they were attacked by heavy gunfire, Mphana said.
http://www.iol.co.za

A top minister in the Lesotho government has resigned. I can’t look into this immediately, but promise to do so as soon as I can. Here’s the announcement (Group Sotho) and a quick reflection I made concerning the resignation.

Links:

1. www.businessday.co.za
2. www.news24.com

‘Mohlabani Serobanyane: You may not pass this on but it’s good to read.

A friend asked me to pass the following article on and ask others to
pass it on so all Basotho, wherever they may be, can read it too and
make their comments on the issue:

“The Government of Lesotho, in response to a growing wave of public
outrage over the controversial sale of vehicles to Ministers and
Principal Secretaries by Imperial Fleet Services, commissioned a
high-powered delegation of six Cabinet Ministers to convene a televised
press briefing, supposedly to “set the record straight and diffuse
further misinformation” on this matter that has dominated national
discourse in recent times.

My own assessment of how the Ministers performed brings to mind a
beloved fairy tale that most children will know of The Three Little
Pigs. With all due respect, the Ministers huffed, and they puffed, and
they huffed again, and they puffed again, but they could not blow the
house down!! And indeed, they will never blow the house down because all
the huffing and puffing in the world cannot remove or erase the fact
that acquiring vehicles in this way is *fundamentally wrong. *I now wish
to present an irrefutable argument in support of this claim.

Imperial Fleet Services leases vehicles to the Government of Lesotho
(not Ministers and Principal Secretaries in their own person).
Imperial’s customer is therefore the Government of Lesotho. This is a
very important point. At the end of the lease period, Imperial Fleet
Services, being the owner of the vehicles, has the right of disposal.
One of the Ministers explained the fact that a clause was included in
the contract between Imperial Fleet Services and the Government of
Lesotho, such that at the end of the lease period, the State official to
whom the vehicle was assigned would have the right of first refusal to
buy the vehicle.

This is where the waters were muddied. The right of first refusal should
be and ought to be that of the Government of Lesotho, and *not *of
Ministers and Principal Secretaries in their own persons. *They are not
the Government of **Lesotho. *If the Government of Lesotho elects to
acquire the vehicles, it will then dispose of them through the systems
and procedures that govern the disposal of Government property.* *The
fact that the contract is framed as explained herein demonstrates a
serious weakness, which needs to be rectified as a matter of urgency.
*It is fundamentally wrong. *What is alarming, however, is that the
delegation of six Cabinet Ministers actually believes that it can sell
this misguided and crooked contract to the nation and pull it off, “to
set the record straight!!”

The price at which the Ministers and Principal Secretaries acquired the
vehicles from Imperial Fleet Services is also a matter of great concern.
One of the Ministers explained the fact that there are various methods
of depreciating assets, and that the price that Imperial Fleet Services
charged for the said vehicles was determined by the depreciation method
used by Imperial. Honourable Minister, and your esteemed colleagues,
depreciation is a *book entry *in the Income Statement of a company to
account for the erosion in value, over time and/or the useful life of an
asset.

The world over, the accepted basis on which companies and organizations
dispose of assets is *market value. *That is the only credible measure
of the fair value of an asset, and that is to say, what would the
*market *pay for the said asset. Book value, through whatever
depreciation method does not come into play at all.

The fact that Imperial Fleet Services has sold off vehicles whose market
value, at the very least, is M150,000 for *M4,000 *is alarming. The fact
that the beneficiaries of this sale are individuals who, through their
statutory positions in the Government of Lesotho, will individually and
collectively be the very people who *decide* on the contract between
Imperial Fleet Services and the Government of Lesotho, in terms of
renewal and whether or not Imperial Fleet Services should be the
supplier in the first place, is not only even more alarming, but corrupt
in the extreme. *It is fundamentally wrong.*

How will Ministers and Principal Secretaries *objectively *exercise
their statutory duties of due diligence when the issue of the renewal of
the Imperial Fleet Services contract is tabled before Cabinet. Are they
all going to recuse themselves in that all of them now have a conflict
of interest, by virtue of them having benefited so shamefully in their
own persons? In the first place, why should a contract between the
Government of Lesotho and a supplier, funded by taxpayers, be used by
Ministers and Principal Secretaries for them to acquire vehicles, in
their personal capacities, from the same supplier at give-away prices?
Once again, this is where the waters were muddied. However, once again,
what is most alarming is that the delegation of six Cabinet Ministers
actually believes that it can sell this misguided and crooked act of
sale to the nation and pull it off, “to set the record straight!!”

One of the Ministers who attended the briefing and who was very vocal in
the briefing, namely, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Honourable
Monyane Moleleki M.P, holds the dual position of being a Cabinet
Minister and the Chief Information Officer for the ruling Lesotho
Congress for Democracy (LCD). In the latter capacity, the Minister
writes a regular column in the Party newspaper, *Mololi*. It is now
common knowledge that the Honourable Minister has an uncanny habit of
shooting from the hip. Excuse the pun, Honourable Minister, I know that
your recent personal experience has added to the growing list of
unsolved crimes in Lesotho.

Minister Moleleki has used his column in the Mololi newspaper to make
some unfortunate and irresponsible statements, coming from a man of his
position, on this matter that the nation views extremely seriously. The
Minister made statements such as ” *khalapa lia buseletsana*” {*Hands
wash each other/tit for tat/I rub your back, you rub mine*} and
challenged The Honourable Kelebone Maope M.P and Honourable Ntsukunyane
Mphanya M.P to state whether ” * bona ba ne ba tla li hana likoloi ha
ba li rekisetoa ka bo-chipi*”{*would they refuse cars if they were sold
to them cheaply*}. These callous statements by the Honourable Minister
confirm and endorse the very essence of why the public has such
deep-seated anger and revulsion over this crooked scheme, namely, it
represents corrupt behavior. *This is the truth of the matter, pure and
simple.* This again is where the waters were muddied.

*It is fundamentally wrong.*

It is apparent that the Minister has a very short memory, because in a
recent column of his Party’s newspaper, he cited the fact that people
holding statutory positions needed to be accorded a certain level of
respect, by virtue of the positions they hold. What is the level then,
Honourable Minister, that we as the public should pitch our respect for
you as a Minister of State, when you make such statements?

The Honourable Government Secretary (or Government Spin-Doctor, whatever
tickles your fancy) was given a mountain to climb by hosting a program
on Radio Lesotho to explain this crooked scheme. In his desperation,
since he was clutching at straws from the word go, he said not
verbatim):- ” *Mong’a rona* {*Our owner/boss*}(whoever he or she is) *o
ile a ea ho Imperial ‘me a re ho bona, re le Muso re le fa business e
ngata benghali, lona ha ho le tje le re etsetsa’ng?”* {*went to Imperial
and said to them: the government gives you a lot of business gentlemen,
what do you in these circumstances do for us?” *}

As he frantically tried to keep his head afloat, he descended to the
lowest level of integrity by relating the story of how he noticed a
former Minister of State when the National party was in Government
walking down the street wearing shoes that had deteriorated beyond
recognition, because he/she had left Government without owning a
vehicle. *The inference from his statements is that this crooked scheme
has been implemented to ensure that the current Ministers of Government
do not find themselves in this predicament when they are no longer in
Cabinet.*

An unfortunate program indeed, and the Honourable Minister of Finance,
in a later program, tried in vain to do some damage control by citing
the driving force behind this crooked scheme as being the clause in the
contract as mentioned earlier herein. Now the Right Honourable The Prime
Minister has sent the big guns, in the form of the high-powered
delegation of six Cabinet Ministers to deliver the knockout punch. This
certainly was the intention of Minister Moleleki when he stated that
those who have misgivings about this scheme are at liberty to resort to
the Courts of Law for recourse. Do you not think, Honourable Minister,
that to do so would be ” *ho qosa thokolosi lekhotleng la moloi*”? {*To
sue a hobgoblin in a witch’s court?”*}

This country has won international acclaim for its stance on corruption,
through the infamous Highlands Water Scheme case. This crooked scheme
has, with one brutal swipe, pulverized this legacy. It is funny that
currently, an official of the National Assembly has appeared in court
with a supplier for having inflated the price of an asset that was to be
procured for the National Assembly, for which the State argues that the
official would derive material benefit.

By the same token, the delegation of six Cabinet Ministers would have us
believe that the act by a supplier of Government, of *willingly*
deflating the price of assets for sale to individuals who are materially
important in deciding on its (the supplier’s) future in Lesotho, in
order to derive the benefit of assurance of continuity of its (the
supplier’s) business operations, is *not *improper. Conversely, the
delegation of six Cabinet Ministers would have us believe that the act
by a supplier of *unwillingly*deflating the price of assets for sale to
individuals who are materially important in deciding on its (the
supplier’s) future in Lesotho, in order to guarantee its (the
supplier’s) security of tenure, is *not *improper.

If indeed the delegation of six Cabinet Ministers *actually *believed
that they would sell this soppy story to the public, and that we would
believe their story, then, with all due respect, the Honourable
Ministers, and their cohorts, individually and collectively, are as
stupid as they are nave. Perhaps unintentionally, this is the record
that they have succeeded in setting straight. If however, which is the
more plausible possibility, the Honourable Ministers, and their cohorts,
know in their own hearts and minds that this crooked act is
fundamentally wrong, and their mission with the media briefing was to
tell the nation that “come hell or high water we are not going back on
this scheme and those of you who are bitching and moaning about it can
go to the nearest hell and back again”; then, with all due respect, the
Honourable Ministers, and their cohorts, individually and collectively,
are as insensitive as they are cold-hearted. Again, this is another
record that they have succeeded in setting straight.

At the end of the day, when the dust settles and the sun sets, all the
sugar-coating, spin-doctoring and bullying in the world will not remove
or erase the fact that the acquisition of vehicles by Cabinet Ministers
and Principal Secretaries of the Government of Lesotho from Imperial
Fleet Services in the manner that has happened is *corrupt and*
*fundamentally wrong, that history will judge that it was corrupt and
fundamentally wrong and that it will remain corrupt and fundamentally
wrong for all eternity. *Just as I started by citing a fairy tale, it is
fitting at this juncture to close with a well-known nursery rhyme that
goes like this;-

“The integrity and moral fibre of Lesotho’s Government sat on a wall
*Ministers and Principal Secretaries kicked it and it had a great fall*
*All the gold and silver that money can buy*
*Could not pay penance for the integrity and moral fibre that sadly, has gone by”.*
*A Concerned Mosotho”*

Thabo Andrew Motlamelle *
P.O. Box 12112
Maseru 100
Lesotho *

Phone: (+266) 2231 3704 (home), (+266) 6306 4440 (Mobile) ‘

[source]

Lesotho to unfurl new ‘peace’ flag to mark 40 years of freedom
By Thabo Thakalekoala MASERU

The tiny southern African kingdom of Lesotho celebrates its 40th anniversary of independence from Britain on Wednesday by unveiling a new flag to replace a martial one introduced after a 1986 coup.Deputy Prime Minister Lesao Lehohla said the flag — whose unveiling will cap national celebrations — showed “a nation at peace with itself and at peace with its neighbours.” The new flag has three colours: blue for rain, white symbolising peace and green indicating prosperity. It will also sport a cone-shaped hat, worn by the country’s indigenous Basotho people. [citizen.co.za]

We have been independent for forty years, Jack. Be nice to me, today. Gimme five. High five. Send me flowers and a cheque in the mail. Embrace me when you see me in the street. Pat me on the back. Kiss me, now, and wish me — us — luck in the coming years. “The road will be muddy and rough, but we’ll get there,” I feel like saying.

It has been forty years of petty thuggery and thievery for the most part, and killings and nepotic rule by some. But there have been flashes of real nationhood, and that is where we need to throw our weight and build from. We’ve caught and denounced big-company bribery, and we’ve had free and fair elections a few times in a row. In this regard Lesotho is a trend-setter.

But there have been many more low moments, such as the recent automobile fleet scandal, whereby ministers and other high-placed civil servants could buy government cars for less than nothing. That was wrong and was addressed by this blogger and others. Government officials should not be rewarded for serving the nation — especially when those officials are elected members of government.

It has been forty years of misery for many Basotho. We basically failed to heed the warnings coming from farther north, as Africa became independent. The words we used then were boipuso (independence), self-rule, self-determination, tokoloho (freedom, and my kid sister’s name).

But as soon as we became independent, we replicated the same, stupid mistakes, inevitably falling into the trap face-first. Funny, when one looks at it, though. Lesotho is homogenous. It is a one-people/one-language nation. But we had to fish for things to differ about.

It has been forty years of digging in the dirt to survive. Basotho men have traditionally worked in South Africa’s mines, living there for long spells without their families and sending money home. The effect of this was at least three-fold: men had no education, the HIV virus prospered, family life was broken, and the country’s economic woes worsened.

The mine-working men, of course, bought flesh and contracted AIDS, then went home and spread it around. Their spouses back home would sometimes sell flesh in order to make ends meet, and they, too, would contract the virus. Then South Africa decided to send migrant workers home. We suddenly had a terrible influx of hordes and hordes of uneducated men looking for and not finding work. Crime soared, and domestic violence shot through the roof. Then China entered the textile industry, effectively shutting out Lesotho’s own textile industry due to cheap labour. And that’s when the drought arrived.

We’ve gone through a lot, and we’re surviving. But that’s no excuse for shoddy governing. Lesotho has about twenty political parties. Looking at those twenty or so parties in Lesotho, one wonders whether we, as politicians, will ever learn. The lesson is that we need to live for the betterment of the nation and not for the betterment of self (and of a few cronies and family members). There is no justification that I see for that many parties, other than the desire for each leader of those parties to be at the helm, pull the strings, be the head honcho. I dare you to find me twenty different political points of view to justify the myriad of parties.

I’ve lived more than half of those years abroad. A painful experience, as any Mosotho living abroad will concur. I never wanted to leave my country and make my life elsewhere, I was forced to do so. Like many of my country-people who are away from home, I wanted to be successful at home, for home, through home.

During these forty years there have been killings and other thug republic tactics. I think we must hold reconciliation meetings in the fashion of South Africa’s own. I recently saw Bishop Tutu mediating between a former IRA combattant and family-members whose relatives the combattant had killed. Why not in Lesotho. The pain and bitterness won’t go away by themselves. As my mum would probably have said, Re iphapantse joalo ka beng ba lifariki (we’re looking the other way as if nothing had happened).

It has been forty years of squandered resources. Ask me, and I’ll tell you that for a country of 1.8 million people, Skiing, Diamonds and Water are enough to keep everybody happy and sated. I haven’t even mentioned other tourist related sources of income. If 1.8 million people can’t be kept happy and sated with these three resources, then we need to look upwards in the hierarchy and see where things aren’t happening right, and make them happen right.

The people do not need to reward elected government officials. Their job is to serve the people and go home at night. No applause, and certainly no bonuses of any kind. Otherwise, quit the public service and start your own company. Idland says this better than I do. Bookmark his blog.

It has been forty years of dashed hopes for many, and success for some. We want food and jobs, peace, and a little bit of land to live on and cultivate. Is that so much to ask? This request, in fact, is embodied in Lesotho’s motto, (Peace, Rain, Prosperity) Khotso, Pula, Nala. We are looking forward to nothing less, and not much more.

SELECTION		VOTES
Just fine	32%	7
Not so fine	50%	11
Worsening	9%	2
Just plain bad	9%	2
22 votes total
Poll powered by Pollhost. Poll results are subject to error. Pollhost does not pre-screen the content of polls created by Pollhost customers.

 

---

First of all, let me remind you to vote in our present poll about official languages in Lesotho.

The poll that is mentioned here is not scientific, and 22 votes is hardly enough to base an opinion on. But 22 people did vote, and this poll shows what they think, unrepresentative as it may be. Our national morale has just taken a hard knock, following the Mercedes Benz/Toyota Camry scandal that Idland and others exposed to the world. 

If you have more than a fleeting interest (pun intended) in Lesotho politics, read a post in our discussion group. It seems that a good part of Basotho feel that the recent scandal is a shame and a scam. Without the benefit of having listened to the government’s "explanation," I feel the same. It’s a shame because Lesotho was doing so well that people were referring to our government as the example, and as a trigger to the demise of corruption on the continent. It’s a scam because those who benefitted from the cruelly cheap, cheap sale of national patrimony thought they could get away with it. And it’s indecent because, one,  not every civil servant could purchase the cars, and two, we’re at war with the AIDS virus.

Has the government of Lesotho taken a leave of absence? Are our leaders out of their minds? Instead of acquiring a Toyota Camry, how about doing something for joblessness, for AIDS patients? What if the fleet of cars was sold at normal prices and the funds collected were used to build a hospital in a mountain village? What if… In a poor country, the possibilities are endless.

It is all the more weird when one goes back into recent Lesotho history. Ruthless dictator (Leabua Jonathan). Military coup d’état. Elections. Present government’s victory. Hope for Basotho, especially for the present writer. Illegitimate opposition uprising following elections. Quelling of uprising by SADC. And the next step is… government corruption?

Whites who never benefitted from Apartheid. Via Fodder. This appeared in my older blog which is dying. The comment section on this post from Fodder is particularly gripping.

It is not surprising to find [corruption] pervading almost every element of Government in a country like this one. [Source]

"This one" is Lesotho. Elsewhere in Wakanaka’s informative post is a link to a "proper democracy," that democracy being Canada. I love Canada, and I love maple syrup. And I love Wakanaka’s post about corruption in Lesotho. But I still wonder just what the phrase a country like this one means. Does it mean small? Poor? Black-ruled? Something else?

Small can’t be it, because one of the most above-board places on the planet is Belgium, the same size as Lesotho. Belgium boasts a surface area of 30,528 sq km, and Lesotho of 30,350 sq km. Besides, "au Canada, des politiciens et des hauts fonctionnaires associés à l’administration du Parti libéral du Gouvernement du Canada sont impliqués dans un scandale de plusieurs centaines de millions de fausses factures de programmes de commandites gouvernementales. L’argent était utilisé pour la ré-élection des candidats du Parti libéral [Source]." Canada boasts a whopping 9,984,670 sq km, or 329 times the size of Lesotho. So size has nothing to do with a country having corruption scandals.

Lesotho is poor. Understandably, poverty could be an incentive, driving those in power toward doubtful practises. You’re poor, and there’s all this money going through your hands, and your son wants those Nikes, and you want a better school for your son. But quite frankly, poverty is rarely the reason why people rot. Dick Cheney isn’t poor, yet the man is as rotten and scandal-ridden as they come. And he’s rotten on a higher scale, since what he’s involved in concerns unspeakable amounts of money, as well as people’s lives. So poverty has nothing to do with a country having corruption scandals.

As a matter of fact, both Canada and the United States are big and rich, yet that hasn’t stopped them entertaining corruption-related scandals. The Wikipedia article on scandals in the United States is an impressive list, indeed. It begins in the 1700s and runs all the way up to today. Here’s the list from 2000 on:

 

• Linda Chavez, nomination as Secretary of Labor derailed by past employment of illegal alien (2001)
• Enron collapse (2002) leading to investigation of Kenneth Lay, a top political ally and financial donor to the election campaign of President George W. Bush; Lay, who had been named as a leading candidate for Secretary of the Treasury, eventually indicted (2004). Attempts to link individual politicians with the Enron malfeasance have not been particularly successful, perhaps partly due to the fact that so many politicians of both major parties received campaign contributions (including 158 Republicans and 100 Democrats in Congress (as of 2001) [1]).
• Jim Traficant (D-OH) financial corruption conviction and expulsion from House (2002)
• Robert Torricelli (D-NJ) bribery scandal (2002)
• Trent Lott (R-MS) resigned as Senate majority leader amid racial controversy
• Bill Frist (R-TN), becomes Senate majority leader and is alleged to have been deeply involved in campaign finance improprieties. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating insider-trading issues in connection with Frist’s July 2005 sale of Hospital Corporation of America shares immediately before the stock’s value fell precipitously.
• Yellowcake forgery. Evidence alleged to be forged was presented in the case for 2003 invasion of Iraq (2003); related Valerie Plame affair (2004), eventually implicating Vice Presidential Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby (indicted 2005 for perjury)
• Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal (2004-2005)
• Tom DeLay (R-TX), reprimanded twice by House Ethics Committee and aides indicted (2004-2005); eventually DeLay himself was indicted (October 2005)
• Bernard Kerik, nomination as Secretary of Homeland Security derailed by past employment of illegal alien as nanny, and amid allegations of various other ethical improprieties (2004)
• Former Clinton administration National Security Advisor Sandy Berger pleads guilty (2005) to unlawfully removing classified documents from the National Archives in October 2003
• Bush administration payment of columnists including Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher and Michael McManus (2004-2005)
• Downing Street Memo minutes of U.K. government secret meeting (dated 23 July 2002, leaked 2005) include summary of MI6 Director Sir Richard Dearlove’s report that "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy."
• Duke Cunningham (R-CA) resigned from the House of Representatives and pleaded guilty on November 28, 2005 to charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud and wire fraud, and tax evasion for underreporting his income in 2004. Prosecutors said Cunningham admitted to receiving at least $2.4 million in bribes.
• Jack Abramoff, Republican lobbyist and key figure in Tom DeLay scandal, is indicted on wire fraud charges (August 2005). Representative Robert Ney (R-OH) is named as "Representative No. 1" in the indictment of Abramoff associate Michael Scanlon. Other members of Congress associated with Abramoff include Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA), Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ), Rep. Don Young (R-AK), James Clyburn (D-SC), and Bennie Thompson (D-MS).
• Abramoff-Reed Indian Gambling Scandal A separate grand jury investigation involving Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist
• William Jefferson (D-LA) under investigation for bribery after the FBI seized $90,000 of a $100,000 bribery payment from Jefferson’s home freezer (August 2005)

So what does that mean? It certainly doesn’t mean that Lesotho ministers are right for buying "vehicles used by Government as soon as they are three years old, for the ‘residual value’ of those vehicles. [Source]" The action is despicable, and needs to be exposed for what it is. It is in stark contrast to the country’s so-called clean hands operation, and veers dangerously toward what has come to pass and continues to take place in other African countries: seeking power in order to line one’s own pockets (we have just seen that it doesn’t only happen in Africa. But it is Africa that concerns me here).

What it means is that I don’t understand the phrase a country like this one as it is used in the quoted context at the beginning of this post. And what about black-rule? I fail to imagine that it could be what the writer of one of my favourite blogs means. I just stall. Besides, we all know that colour has very little to do with anything, that people have a brain that functions in a certain way that is not influenced by the amount of melanocytes in their skin. What’s more, Cheney may be a ruler, but he isn’t black. So the colour of the ruler has nothing to do with a country having corruption scandals. And we’re back to square one.

It is indeed a sad thing for Lesotho, which had us all thinking it had come a long way. That prospect certainly had me going, and I was indeed rooting for the LCD. My country was a selfless democracy that cared about the interests of its populace. And suddenly it wasn’t. That’s a hard one to swallow. The Public Eye has been interviewing people in relation with the scam. One Ms Qabang says, "The vehicles should have been sold at market value and the money raised used to assist disadvantaged groups like orphans and HIV/Aids patients. Alternatively, if the government really thought the vehicles should be sold, they should have opened the offer to all civil servants. [Source]" Sounds like a better solution to me.

Africa is economically poor. Some Afri-philes and some Africans sometimes blame colonialism as part of the reason why the continent is economically poor. Afri-phobes insist that after half a century of freedom from colonialism, that particular excuse is no longer valid, and that we need to look elsewhere. Some people suggest that Africa is poor because Africans are inferior to other races. This latter group goes further and cites inventors and skyscrapers: “Africa had none before the white man showed up,” they say. If you mention black inventors, as I once did, you are quickly told that most of them were of mixed ancestry, “so we know where the entrepreneurial spirit came from, don’t we?” So why is Africa, a rich continent, poor?

Colonialism, and slavery before it, served at least to put the brakes on local civilisations, so that the ways Africans were doing things before became obsolete and backward and therefore undesirable. That supposes that like children, Africans had to re-learn how to live, at the mercy of the coloniser. Take the case of language, for example: what the funk am I doing, writing in English and not in Sesotho, my mother tongue? A mother-tongue English speaker of course has a head-start on me, or at least on previous generations of Africans. Colonialism arrested our development in other ways, and one of the most devastating was the carving up of Africa. That act alone effectively destroyed natural nations and saw the birth of artificial countries. As I type this, war is raging on the continent, war that is a direct result of how the white man pulled out a knife carved Africa up.

Pitching the Luya and the Kikuyu and the Masaï and other tribes against each other could only end up in ethnic cleansing and tribalism, and the non-respect of government by people to whose tribe the authorities do not belong. The same thing happened in Yugoslavia and other parts of the world. See, I have to say that to keep Afri-phobes from saying that’s how Africans are. Africa was meant to contain many more countries than it actually does, perhaps fifty more than the present fifty-two.

That, apart from eliminating the threat of tribalism, would also mean that African governments would be better able to build infrastructure, an especially expensive feat today when one considers the endless, hostile territory between towns in many countries. The hostility is from the land but also from rebel groups taking pot-shots at you.

Another result of colonialism is that African countries still trade with their colonial masters (at a loss) instead of with each other. “African countries are grappling to undo a legacy dominated by trade with their former colonial rulers rather than with each other. Senegal’s biggest trading partner is France, while Gambia trades extensively with the UK. Although Senegal surrounds Gambia, trade between the two neighbours is minimal. The continent’s railways and roads often lead towards the ports rather than link countries across regions. To fly from one African country to another, it is often easier to pass through Europe. [www.un.org]”

Africa is rich, rich in natural resources, a fact that can be another reason why it’s poor. For one, think of the Liberian diamond quagmire. There are diamonds, but no industrial infrastructure to channel them through, and no real incentive to do so. The best way then is to tote a gun and keep the diamonds for oneself. That breeds war, and the rest is history. There are no real leaders. Two, if its rich, technologically more advanced populations are more prone to moving in and pillaging, which is what the scramble for Africa was all about.

Many of the reasons that insure Africa stays poor can be scrapped. One of those is the unfairness of the West when doing business with Africa. Economics experts can usually explain this better, but from what I understand, the West slaps high tariffs on African goods so that they’re less competitive. Can’t sell your goods? Why don’t you borrow? Can’t pay back that loan you took out? Why don’t you borrow some more so that you can at least pay off the interest on the loan?

Africa is waking up, however, and I hope it does so in my lifetime. The present state of affairs has lasted long enough. It is time to swing things around. I urge you to visit Timbuktu Chronicles if you want to see just how Africa is waking up. As far as I’m concerned, the continent had to go through a period of realising its own worth, in order to be able to produce goods and do business in its own image and right, as only it knows how. First, Africa must

• Elect real leaders, or fall back to our pre-colonial system of government
• Get rich Occidental countries to start playing fair economic games
• Forget that… trade with your neighbour on the continent and cut each other some slack as far as trade tariffs are concerned
• Produce things that the world needs
• Stop fighting, full-stop. A country at war cannot build infrastructure, and it uses its resources instead on arming itself.
• Go all out to promote family planning values and the donning of the humble condom
• Realise that “efforts to alleviate poverty in Africa will fail unless urgent action is taken to halt climate change. [http://news.bbc.co.uk]”
• Bang on the heads of embezzlers and other corrupt officials; make authorities accountable
• Bend over backwards to make African brains want to stay in Africa
• Educate women and integrate them into the professionally active population.

What is the use of emancipating one person to subjugate another? There isn’t any. What is the use of emancipating one person, period? It is the ideal. Is such an ideal attainable? I don’t know. It seems to me that in many parts of the world the status quo is best represented by a see-sawing movement, and the latest example is perhaps South Africa.

Black people were legally excluded from the riches of that country, until 1994. Does freedom for them presuppose exclusion of white people? I think it would be a grave mistake to think so, and an even graver one to apply such thoughts. If affirmative action serves to impoverish one section of the population, then it must be looked at again and modified. Its aims need to be an improvement of conditions for previously “defavourised” people, not a worsening of conditions for previously “favourised” people. Willie Spies says that

government and young people should talk to each other, so that all young people in South Africa had reason to celebrate [Youth Day]. He said many young Afrikaners were excluded from university by quotas. When they do find a place they have to attend classes in English. On leaving they struggle to find work due to affirmative action, and when they want to start their own business they can not do so due to black economic empowerment requirements. [www.int.iol.co.za]

Those conditions sound a lot like what used to happen to black people and other “minorities” in South Africa, and which led to the Soweto uprising of 16 June 1976, exactly thirty years ago today. South Africa is on the right road and should bend over backwards to satisfy all sections of its rainbow population. A hard task indeed, but then South Africa has overcome steeper adversity before, and could write a book on how not to sombre into bloodshed following centuries of oppressive bloodshed.

Interesting opinions:
— http://mithrandr.moria.org
— http://fodder.blogs.com
— http://commentary.co.za
— http://sotho.blogsome.com
— http://aconstrainedvision.blogspot.com

Jeneane Sessum (thanks Mike) talks about the present immigration chaos in America. Let me assure Jeneane that America isn’t the only country going after immigrants. France is, too. They have even made a law for it, referred to in the street as l’immigration jetable, or disposable immigration, and “l’immigration choisie” in the halls of power. Use them, abuse them, but at election time tell ‘em to go back “home” since they are occupying jobs that real nationals could be holding.

Jeneane’s post asks a basic question: Did the Red Indian require the arriving European masses to assimilate or integrate or learn the language of the Cherokee? She says

your ancestors weren’t the first ones here and no one saw their asses assimilating to the customs and language of the Cherokee; and number two, a very large and distinct portion of America’s ancestry is made up of people who were bought, chained, flogged, and shipped here, where they were sold, chained, and put to work to build this-land-is-your-land without pay in slavery. Assimilate THAT.

In France, the new bill tabled by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy went through parliament easily. Piece o’ cake. The new law comes at a time when France is examining itself for different uncool phenomena, like discrimination at the workplace. The law stipulates that,

:: Only the qualified get “skills and talents” residency permit,
:: Foreigners only allowed in to work, not live off benefits,
:: Foreign spouses to wait longer for residence cards,
:: Migrants must agree to learn French,
:: Migrants must sign ‘contract’ respecting French way of life,
:: Scraps law on workers getting citizenship after 10 years,
http://news.bbc.co.uk

So I feel like saying Madeleine Albright, Isaac Asimov, Charles Atlas, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Alexander Graham Bell, Irving Berlin, Andrew Carnegie, Charlie Chaplin, Claudette Colbert, Albert Einstein, Gloria Estefan, Patrick Ewing, Michael J. Fox, Greta Garbo, Andy Garcia, Marcus Garvey, Bob Hope, Al Jolson, Henry Kissinger, Ivan Lendl, Martina Navratilova, Mike Nichols, Hakeem Olajuwon, I.M. Pei, Sydney Poitier, John Secada, Levi Strauss, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elizabeth Taylor, Eddie Van Halen, Elie Wiesel, for America, and Guillaume Appollinaire, Charles Aznavour, Josephine Baker, Michel Berger, Patrick Bruel, Manu Chao, Georges Charpak, Michel Coluccci, Le Corbusier (Charles Edouard Jeanneret), Dalida (Yolande Christina Gigliotti), Joe Dassin, Marcel Desailly (Odonkey Abbey), Serge Gainsbourg, Jean-Jacques Goldman, Johnny Halliday, Marie-Antoinette, Rethabile Masilo (yes, me), Tony Parker, Mary Pierce, Nicolas Sarkozy, Tintin, Sylvie Vartan, Patrick Vieira, Zinedine Zidane (زين الدين زيدان or our very own Zizou who is a kind and talented fellow who promotes racial and religious tolerance) for France. Voila.

Bashing is the practice of attacking someone or something  physically or verbally. French bashing, gay bashing, celebrity bashing, male or female bashing, Christian bashing, atheist bashing and any-thing-you-want bashing are some form of attack, usually verbal. Is it free speech? Where do we draw the line between (1.) attacking a group of people verbally and (2.) exercising the right to free speech? Is telling nigger jokes bashing or free speech?

In my case, I draw the line just before belittling, denigrating or insulting what others are, what they think, or what they believe. In relation with a contoversial subject, I’ll gladly say what school of thought I subscribe to; I’ll even say why I may think it wrong for someone to be, think or believe something. And that is my difference between free speech and bashing. Wikipaedia defines freedom of speech as being

the liberty to freely say what one pleases, as well as the related liberty to hear what others have stated. Recently, it has been commonly understood as encompassing all types of expression, including the freedom to create and distribute movies, pictures, songs, dances, and all other forms of expressive communication. [http://en.wikipedia.org]

As I see it, that definition is incomplete and should include the part about consulting one’s conscience on whatever it is you’re free-speaking about. I guess I’ll have to go back and edit the part in myself. No matter how stupid, wrong or dirty you think a group or a thing is, you are not free to insult the group or the thing, whereas the group or the thing are free not to be insulted. Your freedom has limits, and the limits of your freedom should be established by your conscience and by general common sense, a rather subjective endeavour, I must concede. It wouldn’t be wise to bring the law-makers in on this one, as they may end up making laws that may end up reducing our freedom of speech.

It is not right for the government to censor speech because it is offensive -
it is not the government’s place to take a certain stance on offensiveness or
morals, even if it is a stance shared by 99.9% of a country’s citizens.

[…]

Maybe freedom is more important than my comfort or my sensibilities. Maybe true
freedom sometimes means that you have to let other people say what they want to
say, even if it hurts you. [www.moralfiber.blogspot.com]

Let us look at what James of Moral Fiber says in the quote above. I think that a government censoring speech is dangerous, full stop. Whether that speech is offensive or not depends on a lot of things that in turn depend on the ear of the listener, and that is what makes censoring both dangerous and difficult. But there are times, when slurs like, "a good nigger is a dead nigger" make me wonder. James suggests that freedom is perhaps more important than the listener’s comfort or sensibilities. Yes, it is, and no, it isn’t. It is so because free speech must by all means be protected. It is not so because speech, whose degree of freedom we’re debating, is directed at someone or at a group, and either one has rights of their own. True freedom may indeed be having to "let other people say what they want to say, even if it hurts you," but woven into taking "a certain stance on offensiveness or morals."

It is wonderful and good to be able to criticise a government.
It shows maturity and democracy on the part of such a government, although the ability to be criticised in itself does not guarantee maturity and democracy. There are other factors that, lumped all together, make for a mature, democratic, legitimate, progressive, people’s government. Where was blogging when we needed it? In the 1976 disturbances in South Africa, wouldn’t it have been great to have bloggers telling the world what was really happening?

Imagine Steve Biko blogging.
Would we have been indifferent? Judging by the number of people who frequent popular blogs, I doubt it. More of us would have listened more intently. And perhaps more of us would have done something. I also wonder what the reaction of apartheid South Africa would have been. One of the advantages of blogging in such a climate is, of course, that traces can be wiped and blurred, to make it difficult to be caught. And the mobile phone can be carried anywhere by anybody. The people at Liliesleaf Farm could have received a call on someone’s mobile phone with the simple and urgent message, “Get out. Now!” And what would have taken place then, with Nelson Mandela’s comrades “free” to roam and plan? Would there have been a Soweto 1976?

With communication technology so ubiquitous, is it getting harder for governments to become, or to remain, rotten?
In 1998 there were riots in Lesotho, following that year’s May vote. The commotion quickly reached the ears of the world, and especially of SADC. South African and Botswana troops rolled into Lesotho and quelled what was in fact an attempt at overthrowing the government. But in 1970, when the election was annulled and the incumbent Prime-Minister, Basotho national party leader, staged a coup d’état, Basotho were alone to face the consequences. Nobody heard, and if they did, they pretended not to. Following is a table of what African countries and the world failed to hear in January 1970.

January 1970 National Assembly Election
Voter Turnout: 81.9%
—————————————-
Party: Basotho Congress Party (BCP)
% of Votes: 49.85%
N° of Seats (60): 36

Party: Basotho National Party (BNP)
% of Votes: 42.20%
N° of Seats (60): 23

Party: Marematlou Freedom Party (MFP)
% of Votes: 7.30%
N° of Seats (60): 01 [Source]

Leaders of the party that had 50% of the vote and a majority 36 seats were sent to prison.
Besides ratting on unfair players, technology also facilitates democracy in many other ways. The very fact that democracy need be highly interactive between governor and governed, implies that technology will encourage rather than inhibit democracy. We’re all afraid of what we don’t know (of the dark), but technology is there to lay things bare and demonstrate the workings of government, and educate the masses. “Democracy cannot survive without an unswerving commitment to education“. And what’s more, technology may be leading us away from being represented in government toward representing ourselves directly. Nelson Mandela says that technology democracy is when you “reach out to people themselves, involve them, engage them, and listen to what they say” [Source].

Father discovered in the tone of one
Of them that they controlled the out-of-doors,
And meant to enter before night was done,

The boys snug in their hut, unaware
Of the din outside; a faceless fear crept
Around our circle. Come on out! How dare

He stay in and not do as told. Come
Out before we send in bullets to settle our scores!
Realisation struck as their aim hit home.

Talk ended. No more words. No murmur.
No breathing from where the baby had slept,
But chaos, eating at the heart, and murder

Left in our lives for us to vanquish.
Years on, the memory has not diminished.

© Rethabile Masilo (in Canopic Jar)

This morning, like on most days, I took the tube to go to work. I entered a wagon and saw a true spectacle. A black lady was standing in the middle, talking to the seated travellers, or rather scolding them.

“Wake up, people! You must get involved otherwise the world is going to pot, starting with poor countries. We live in the same world, yet we don’t share it’s resources equally. African school children sit on the floor and scribble on that same floor. Richer countries have cheated poorer countries of their right to the planet’s resources. Wake up and do something today. Don’t look to politicians, they are crooks. Come together in God and do something, I beg of you. Thank you.”

And she got out when the underground stopped. The whole speech, which was already on when I boarded, was a clear message from a person who has been deeply hurt, or a person who sees the world is heading for disaster, unless we “do something” now. It was a powerful moment for me. The rest of the passengers dug deeper into their newspapers or books. Many kept their headphones on.

The Lesotho Parliament has launched its site, and I’m all excited because it is an important step toward educating citizens about the workings of government, which in turn is important because democracies must remain transparent. The launching of a parliament site does in no way mean that a state is democratic, don’t get me wrong. My point is that it is normal for such a state to bare its cog-wheels and the machinery of its activities to the people who voted it into power in the first place. Their FAQ says

What is Parliament? Parliament is a law-making institution composed of the King, the Senate and the National Assembly. People sometimes refer to parliament buildings as “Parliament”.

What is a Bill? A Bill is a written proposal for a law that is being discussed by either the National Assembly or the Senate.

What is Royal Assent? A Royal Assent is a written approval by the King for a Bill to be law. When the King gives this approval, the Bill becomes an Act of Parliament and a law for Kingdom of Lesotho.

What is an Act of Parliament? An Act of Parliament is a law that has been passed by an elected Parliament. Each Act of Parliament is published by the Government Printer in a gazette that can be purchased by the public.

How are laws made by Parliament? A law begins its journey as a written proposal in the National Assembly. This proposal is called a Bill. When it is approved by the National Assembly it is forwarded to the Senate for further discussion. When agreement is reached by the two Houses, the Bill is signed by the King and becomes law.

What happens when the Senate and the National Assembly do not agree over a Bill? The views of the National Assembly prevail.

Can the King refuse to give the Royal Assent to a Bill passed by the two Houses of Parliament? The King may not refuse to give the Royal Assent to a Bill passed by the two Houses of Parliament. When there is disagreement between the two Houses, the King will give the Royal Assent to the Bill as passed by the National Assembly.

What are Standing Orders? Standing Orders are the rules of procedure used by the Houses of Parliament. The National Assembly has its Standing Orders and the Senate also has its own Standing Orders. There is however great similarity between the Standing Orders of the two Houses.

What is the “Speech from the Throne”? The “Speech from the Throne” is the speech delivered to members of the two Houses of Parliament by the King at the beginning of a new session of Parliament. It is written for him by the Government and gives an outline of the Bills that will be presented to Parliament and the policies of Government.

What is an Order Paper? An Order Paper is the written daily agenda of the National Assembly or the Senate prepared by the Clerks of each House.

How many women members are in the National Assembly? There are sixteen elected women members of the National Assembly.

Malaysian PM to attend dialogue in Lesotho

(more…)

So, what are you doing on 27 October 2005 at 9:00 pm, South African time? Nothing? That’s good, because then you’ll be able to watch a documentary on King Moshoeshoe I, on SABC 2. The idea is to then come back and tell us how it was, what it said, and so on. What? Yes, you can blog here at Sotho. You just need to register here.

I’ve already said a word on the film-maker Max du Preez and his interest in Moshoeshoe. I will not repeat it here. Nick Graham also had a word to say on the 100 Greatest South Africans poll, as well as Laurence Caromba over at Commentary. I hope you’ll have time to read up on all these before viewing the documentary. (more…)

Were we really the first to recognise Nelson Mandela with an honorary degree? According to the article reproduced below, and others, we were. It was on 29 September 1979 at the National University of Lesotho, and Ntate Mandela was still on Robben Island.

On his behalf Alfred Nzo, the then General Secretary of the ANC, received the degree. Funny that I do not remember the event, although I was at the National University of Lesotho in 1979. Perhaps my brain has chosen to remember inside politics, which at the time were on the brink of spilling over, threatening to erupt and disrupt. The end result was the murder of some Basotho and an attack on our home. And the screwing-up of the lives of many Basotho.

It is also funny that a government that felt it could honour Ntate Mandela thus and at risk, also felt it could kill its own citizens and carry out a quasi reign of terror. The two actions do not match, when one doesn’t know that the government at the time was sucking up to North Korea and Cuba. All that was a long time ago, but one does have a hard time forgetting. Never mind that the then government of Lesotho may have been thumping its nose at the big, bad Apartheid regime and trying to get closer to the Eastern block, the move was good, and it set off a world-wide avalanche of honorary degrees for the famous prisoner. Here’s the article: (more…)

I can’t deny it – the news footage coming out of Fallujah is exciting. We’re watching history in the making, folks. The fate of Iraq will be decided in the days and weeks to come, and who knows what else with it.
[ Source… ]

One of the more common uses of the adjective exciting is “which makes one happy.” The other one is “causing reaction.” I hope Laurence meant the second meaning, because the footage coming out of Fallujah is anything but “making one happy.” The bold declaration that begins Laurence’s post is giddy and happy, though, which makes me unhappy.

I also do not think that the fate of Iraq will be decided by the ongoing battle for control of the city of Fallujah. Those who may think so have another think coming. The fate of Iraq will most probably be decided by Iraqis themselves.

Max du Preez is ticked off. A poll that was recently organised and conducted in South Africa, he says, proves nothing beyond the fact that white South Africans have phones. Mr du Preez says that "it was a good idea. It could have helped South Africans so much in their process of trying to identify with a shared past. Instead, the SABC’s programme on the hundred greatest South Africans has turned out to be a huge embarrassment for the public broadcaster.

The only thing it proves is that white South Africans have telephones. Not that it’s the SABC’s fault, really. It was the fault of the silly producers who thought one could do an experiment like that in the South Africa of 2004 by asking the public to vote. It was skewed even before the voting started: most white South Africans do have telephones, cellphones and access to the Internet; most black South Africans don’t.

I’m trying to be generous here, but really, Eugene Terre’Blanche, Steve Hofmeyr, Brenda Fassie, Hansie Cronje, DF Malan and Hendrik Verwoerd among this nation’s one hundred greatest citizens? In our entire history?" When one sees the list of those who made the cut, it is hard not to agree with the writer. Eugene? Hendrik? Mr du Preez calls them "newsmakers, not great people. And if we wanted a list of newsmakers, where are Eugene de Kock, Dirk Coetzee, Wouter Basson or Gideon Nieuwoudt? What about Andre Stander, Colin Chauke or some of the serial killers and rapists of the past few years?

These popularity contests can’t be taken seriously. On some levels, this kind of popular democracy doesn’t really work. If all South Africans were asked today whether most white farmers’ land should be taken away and given to landless blacks, my guess is two thirds would say yes.

Yet the list of Great South Africans tells us a lot about our society. Few of those who bothered to vote sat back and thought about South Africans as one nation, trying to figure out who had made a difference, a contribution over the past 400 years. Rather, people voted to get their "own" in the list.

We had better vote in our thousands for "our" leaders, otherwise we will be marginalised, they thought. This seems to be especially true of white Afrikaans-speakers. On the other hand, if it is true that mostly white people voted, then it must also follow that a lot of them voted for Thabo Mbeki, Desmond Tutu and Winnie Mandela, all among the top ten. It is depressing to see how people mostly voted in racial blocs. We are clearly a very long way away from identifying with the same heroes of our past." In the comments section of this post by Conrad Barwa on "The Head Heeb", Jonathan Edelstein, referring to results of a poll published and conducted, amongst its audience, by the London-based New Africa magazine on the 100 Greatest Africans, says that

what the New African’s editors may be overlooking is that Africans aren’t "a people," and that any given African will know much more about the precolonial and colonial history of his own people and country than that of other regions. I think Moshoeshoe I should be on the list, for instance, but how many people outside Lesotho (and maybe ZA) know of him? Post-colonial political leaders and newsmakers have much wider name recognition outside their own country and will draw more votes in this kind of poll,

which dovetails snugly with the point Mr du Preez is making: "To me, the most surprising omission from the list of 100 was King Moshoeshoe of the Basotho. I spent the past few years researching his life and philosophies for a documentary film for the University of the Free State - to be broadcast on SABC2 at the end of October - and for a popular book on South African history to be published in the same week. I know a bit about the man. I can’t imagine anyone more suitable for all South Africans to associate with and vote for. Any person who really understood Moshoeshoe’s role in history would have voted him number two on the list after Nelson Mandela. Moshoeshoe was the Mandela of the 19th century. It was Moshoeshoe who stabilised South Africa after the tremendous upheavals of the early 1800s, sometimes referred to as the Lifaqane or Mfecane.

 

It was a time of great droughts, of social instability, of conquering chiefs and encroaching colonialism. Chiefdoms and clans attacked each other from the east coast right up to the highveld, creating a domino effect and incredible human suffering. Moshoeshoe was the only leader of the time who did not partake in the violence, but took an approach of defending, making peace, rehabilitating and gathering people around him. Moshoeshoe was a revolutionary diplomat and an extraordinary innovator."

It’s hard–very hard–for me to disagree with that, and I won’t. I’ve been trying to say it long enough. My awe and respect of Moshoeshoe I, however, does not erode the same awe and respect I hold for other leaders, like Nelson Mandela, Robert Sobukwe, Beyers Naudé, Bishop Tutu and Bram Fischer. The actual list is much longer.

Moshoeshoe "was never beaten in war, not by the British, the Boers of the Free State, or by the forces of Matuwane, Mzilikazi or Sekonyela. More than anyone else at the time, he had reason to be arrogant and authoritarian. Yet he remained humble, serving his people with a sense of democracy virtually unknown in the world at the time. He embraced new ideas and technology, yet cherished his people’s culture and customs. In every way he was a man the whole of Africa could look up to - even today. He was a one-man African Renaissance. But the citizens who voted for the SABC’s programme regarded Steve Hofmeyr and Eugene Terre’Blanche as greater contributors to our nation than King Moshoeshoe.

There are other great men and women who should have been among the top 20 who never made it on to the list at all. The great Boer War general and guerrilla leader Christiaan de Wet, for instance. The Khoikhoi leader Autshomao. The extraordinary sage and philosopher Mohlomi

[Added by Rethabile Masilo: Mohlomi was Moshoeshoe’s mentor, and the shaper of the future king’s forgiving and diplomatic mind. Somebody else says: Moshoeshoe (Moshesh, Mosheshwe or Mshweshwe – pronounced MOH-SHWAYSHWAY) was a prince of the Basotho, born in 1786. As a young man, he was angry and impatient. So his father sent him to Mohlomi, a famous chief who taught him self-restraint, patience and leadership. Moshoeshoe learned the value of hard work, that the powerless merited justice, and the poor, compassion. These lessons served him well, under the most extreme circumstances a ruler could face. After a great drought brought on the mfécane or lifaquane, Moshoeshoe withdrew with his people to the fortress of Buta-Buthe. When the overwhelming Tlokoa tribesmen invaded, he withdrew with a few survivors to Thaba Bosiu or Bosigo (Mountain of the Night), from which he would never be dislodged again. His warriors captured Tlokoa cannibals who’d eaten his grandfather when he straggled during the retreat. Moshoeshoe forgave them and gave them land so they would give up cannibalism. He said he had to revere the resting place of his grandfather]. The world-renowned palaeo-anthropologist Philip Tobias. The writer JM Coetzee. Activists Bram Fischer and Helen Joseph. We missed a great opportunity here. This initiative could have meant so much to us as a nation. We will simply have to explore other ways of finding common historical figures we can all identify with. [ Source… ] NB: Nick agrees, and says so over at NjaloNjalo UPDATE (21/10/2004): South African TV show stirs up a storm