Is this the city of dreams?
When the city’s administrators reckoned that perhaps Gaborone could be a serious contender for hosting African conferences, as well as being a tourist destination and a place with things to see, they were onto something.
They then must have concluded that to achieve that goal the city would require many things including multiple traffic lanes and public artworks. So they started getting them. Now Gaborone has several traffic intersections, fewer traffic circles, widened roads and underpasses. And to break the monotony and coldness of heavy concrete and ubiquitous tarmac, they must have reasoned that they needed to add some greenery and artful metal work at several places throughout the city. These artworks appear handmade. They are not kitschy. A good number of them have an overlap of both playfulness and perception. And with their posture and stare, some of the artworks have a subtle irreverence too. If they were alive, it is easy to imagine that they would periodically wink at those who take time to look at them in admiration!
As Botswana’s capital, Gaborone cannot avoid playing practical and symbolic roles as the seat of our national politics. It can’t avoid being the place where experimentation first happens and where follies and frictions show in acute forms. It also cannot avoid being the bulwark of any perceived narrow mindedness. And over the years, and for many people, it has generated a combination of excitement, bewilderment, scorn and envy. While it is laudable, the current sprucing of the city must be a work in progress since many forms of visual art are still missing from public display. The works of sculpture, painting, photography and film are yet to be publicly displayed.
But, for outsiders looking in, indeed, the visitors and tourists to the city, the available public artworks ought to give them a bombastic vision of what the city has to offer. When words and other media cannot meet the challenge of explaining life, by acting as a potent metaphor for life in the city, Gaborone’s visual art should be worthy of that task. Living in any city is like survival in theater work. It often requires a great deal of change in plans, movement, relationships, etc. It can be redemptive and catastrophic. And it is a constant reconciliation of what is demanded of one’s personal life with what is possible. Adaptability thus remains the lifeblood of all city life.
In virtually every country, the rules for which place qualifies to be a city are typically unknown or at best opaque. (In Botswana, they are opaque!) But universally, it is often accepted that to be a city, a place must have a record of effective local government, a sizable population-often dense and cosmopolitan-and some transportation system. The place should also have compelling architecture, amazing art, cultural activities, religious significance, and connectedness within itself and with places surrounding it. In ancient Greek civilisation, a city must have the agora, in English a place of assembly, coupled with an outdoor lifestyle. In July 1986, on the cusp of celebrating the country’s 20th anniversary of independence, and before any other place here, Gaborone was declared a city by President Masire. That declaration signified for Botswana, a coming of age and a coming to terms about itself.
To be a city of dreams, Gaborone must inspire optimism to those who call it home and those who wish to call it that. This should be so even if it is completely baseless to do so. As a city of dreams, it should also be hospitable to the hopes and ambitions of those who visit it so much that it becomes almost automatic for them to choose it over other places as their new home. Additionally, to be a city of dreams, Gaborone must be willing to receive others just as they are and then allow them to change at the pace of their own expectations and at the pace of capitalism, the only ideology that claims social mobility for its adherents concomitant with all these, must be the firm belief of its residents that those who prefer to live anywhere else in Botswana -when there is Gaborone-must really be joking!
If living in Gaborone was a comedy about life in a city of dreams, it could emphatically be a show about wannabes acting as characters drowning in dreams deferred. It could also be a comedy show about the smugness of those who, by the skin of their teeth, have made it there. In both these comedy shows, what would be consistently missed would be the delicious paradox, that despite everything, it is still good enough to be yourself in Gaborone! If it were a movie about Gaborone being a city of dreams, it could be about the life experience of an overshadowed woman who ultimately amounted to something.
This woman would have had the gumption to leave her home village for the city with nothing except a can-do attitude. Once in the city, she would fail numerous times. At the point of giving up, she would have realised that, unlike others, she had a unique trait. She had an intangible photogenicity. Because of that, she would start taking selfies of herself and have them displayed strategically. But for the selfies, she would be acknowledged as a show stopper, then command a following of multitudes, and in short order become an influencer and a celebrity. Fortune would naturally follow her. Hers would initially have been an improbable quest. Equally, hers would eventually be an improbable success.
In the end, Gaborone may be a city of dreams because first and properly, it is a big place counteracting small mindedness and pettiness. It may be a city of dreams because it can be depicted in a comedy as humor that revolves around likable characters who are forced to endure the insecurity of living in a place rife with examples of trying but often failing.
It may be a city of dreams because it could be a movie about how some people who do not follow the conventional path are sometimes able to succeed. It may be a city of dreams because to you as its resident, it encapsulates themes to live for, or against. It may be a city of dreams because you as its resident are not out to make a point about anything, but you just want to get through the regular stuff of life. Whatever it is, make it your city!