THE WISDOM OF SERETSE KHAMA AT HOME AND ABROAD
As we celebrate our nation’s 100th Anniversary of his birth, here are some of the words of wisdom from our first President, Sir Seretse Khama.
At his inaugural sitting on the Joint Advisory Council in April 1958, Seretse Khama affirmed his national vision when he rose to speak against those advocating that the then Bechuanaland Protectorate establish ties with the white settler dominated Central African Federation:
“I think it is time that we ourselves in Bechuanaland, who neither belong to the Union of South Africa nor the Federation, or any other part as far as I can see, except Great Britain, should try to formulate a policy of our own which is probably unique to us. And that is a policy, perhaps; of even teaching those countries who profess to be more advanced than ourselves, that in as far as administration and race relationships [are concerned] they have more to learn from us than we from them. I must say, quite frankly that I have been rather disturbed.... to find that on the whole there is a tendency to look always over our shoulders. Perhaps I am wrong, if so I stand corrected. We want to see what is happening elsewhere instead of getting on with what we know is peculiar to us and to the country itself. We should get on and have no fear that we may incur someone’s displeasure, as long as what we do is internationally accepted... And if we are right I am afraid emotion must come into this; we should not bother very much with what anyone might say...we have ample opportunity in this country to teach people how human beings can live together.”
On the challenges facing Botswana at independence in 1966 –
“The basic physical and social infrastructure was sadly deficient, if not almost totally lacking. Roads and telecommunications, water and power supplies were totally inadequate to provide a base for industrial development. Most important of all the colonial government had failed to recognise the need to educate and train our people so that they could run their own country. Not one single secondary school was completed by the colonial Government during the seventy years of British rule…because of past neglect the administrative machine we inherited at independence was defective and ill-equipped to meet the challenge of development. Above all it was largely staffed by expatriates from Britain and South Africa. Now, while many of these men were able and dedicated and ready to identify with our aspirations, others were sceptical of our chances and less than enthusiastic in their support of our policies. Finally, because of the low level of education in Botswana, the nature of traditional society, the scattered population and the relative isolation of Botswana from the rest of Africa, there was a low level of political consciousness among our people- if by political consciousness one means the understanding and determination to express political and social ideas through modern political institutions.”
On past feelings about race, while in Malawi, July 1967 -
“I think that the trouble we now face in the world is caused mainly by the refusal to try and see another man’s point of view, to try and persuade by example - and the refusal to meet a rather passionate desire to impose your own will upon others, either by force or other means. Therefore that is why I myself have never been bitter, although at a certain stage I lived in exile, away from my country, in the United Kingdom for some time. I know it seems rather curious and funny that I should say that the biggest favour that Britain has ever done for me was to send me in exile. I had, while I was in the part of the world from which I come - and I had been to neighbouring territories - adopted certain attitudes towards a certain race. I disliked them intensely because I thought that they disliked me. I suppose some of them did. It was my late uncle [Tshekedi Khama] whom I told that I had just no trust at all for any white man. He said, ‘Well, that is more reason why you should go to the United Kingdom to continue your studies.”’
“We were taught, sometimes in a very positive way, to despise ourselves and our ways of life. We were made to believe that we had no past to speak of, no history to boast of. The past, so far as we were concerned, was just a blank and nothing more... It should now be our intention to try to retrieve what we can of our past. We should write our own history books, to prove that we did have a past, and that it was a past that was just as worth writing and learning about as any other. We must do this for the simple reason that a nation without a past is a lost nation, and a people without a past are a people without a soul.”
Speaking at Dag Hammarskjold Centre in Sweden, November 1970:
“We in Botswana have chosen to develop our own guiding principles and describe them in terms readily comprehensible to our people. And these principles, rooted in our culture and traditions are now being tested in practice… Although we have chosen to develop our own ideology, our nationalism and our non-alignment will not be permitted to degenerate into narrow chauvinism and isolation. Rather we seek to identify ourselves with what is positive and humane in all national ideologies. We recognise certain fundamental values and hold them to be universal”
“Kagisano should not merely be a slogan for our party, but an ideal for our nation. What are the roots of Kagisano? …It has always been our custom that members of a family should help each other face and overcome the problems of life. The well known proverb kgetse ya tsie e kgonwa ka go tshwaraganelwa accurately sums up our approach to national policy and to life in general. What we are trying to do in the new Botswana is in fact nothing new. We are simply applying a wellestablished value, applied in the family, the ward and the tribe to the wider concept of nationhood.”
Speaking to South African Journalists, August 1974:
“The present white minority governments will sooner or later have to give way to more democratic forms of government. The only question is how the transformation will come about. I would like to see the transformation brought about by peaceful means; but it will depend on the attitudes of the Governments concerned. These Governments will determine whether the white ruled states of southern Africa will achieve true democracy and equality by peaceful means or through bitter warfare. I am, as I pointed out in my recent speech, still hopeful that the worst can still be avoided. But I am afraid that time is running out fast.”
Seretse’s often misquoted observation on the importance of knowing one’s own history delivered at the May 1970 UBLS graduation -
At the Great Hall of the People, Beijing, China, July 1976:
“Apartheid and racism are so repugnant to us that we would still protest in no uncertain terms even if these twin enemies of human decency were practised by any other country in the world. Our desire for peace, our respect for human freedom and dignity and our very concept of human equality commit us inexorably to the struggle for the restoration of basic human rights and fundamental freedoms in Southern Africa.”
Speaking at the 11th Annual Conference of the BDP at Francistown, April 1972, on the importance of Kagisanyo:
As Chairperson opening the first meeting of the then Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) in Arusha, Tanzania, July 1979:
“We need to gain mastery of our own destiny in this turbulent region of our continent and we can only succeed within the framework of a united Southern African community. I am not calling for the dismantlement of our independent states, I am calling for cooperation and unity of purpose so that we can together plan for our future and the future of our children...the full exploitation of our natural resources and the development of our productive sectors are constrained by small markets in our economies, but taken as a whole, Southern Africa forms a sizable market. Economic regional cooperation would of necessity lead to co-ordinated production expansion which would in turn encourage the expansion of markets for intra-southern Africa trade. South Africa in particular would be too happy to continue to exploit us individually in the hope that we would in time be lured by their economic power to join the so-called constellation of Southern African states in which we would be bundled together with the so-called independent Bantustans and the UDI regimes in Zimbabwe and Namibia. These manoeuvres must be frustrated!”