Insight

The failure of the State

Published

3 years ago

November 24, 2020

There is a literary aspect and perspective to every field of study in the world, thus the reason why every research paper has a specific chapter, “Review of Relevant Literature” that covers all the salient material written with regard to the subject under study. We hardly question what the idea of a state means because we are more interested in being patriotic citizens. We know that we have ‘our land’ or ‘the land of our forefathers’ but we do not know how it is run.

The iron curtain set by modern political governance has ensured that the only role the citizens ever get to play in the organ of governance called state rule is that of the rallying voter that gets to meet their leadership only at the lobbies and not anymore thereafter. This means that one has to question what the idea and the ideal of state rule means at certain points in time. The aim is to understand what nationhood really means, for a nation draws its essence from the state. Without the state, the idea of law and order does not exist, and without these two, all else collapses into chaos.

This raises the question: What is a state? The state is defined by the Britannica Encyclopaedia as the political organisation of society, or the body politic, or, more narrowly, the institutions of ‘government’. The state is a form of human association distinguished from other social groups by its purpose, the establishment of ‘order and security’; its methods, the laws and their enforcement; its territory, the area of jurisdiction or geographic boundaries; and finally by its sovereignty.

The state consists, most broadly, of the agreement of the individuals on the means whereby disputes are settled in the form of laws. The question of what a state is one to which the answers are many but one of the most precise is provided by George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegels who defines the state as the entity formed when men act as moral agents, when conflict ceases, and their aims as citizens coincide, that is to say, they work towards a singular goal instead of being divided into varied polarised groups that end up having different interests that may at the end of the day lead to chaos.

By subordinating himself to the state, the individual is able to realise a synthesis between the values of family and the needs of economic life. To Hegel, the state is the culmination of moral action, where freedom of choice leads to the unity of the rational will, and all parts of society are nourished within the health of the whole of society which is in current terms termed as the ‘welfare’ of the people.

Historical definition of what a state is by Plato and Aristotle speaks of, “the polis, or city-state, as an ideal form of association, in which the whole community’s religious, cultural, political, and economic needs could be satisfied.” This city-state is an entity that is characterised primarily by its self-sufficiency, and was seen by Aristotle as the means of developing morality in the human character. The Greek idea of what a state is corresponds accurately to the modern concept of the nation, that is, a population of a fixed area that shares a common language, culture, and history.

This outlook is however not written in stone, as there are new realities such as migration across state lines that lead to the formation of new communities within the one state. The state as an organ in this instance has to find the balance, that is, establish one common thread of order that balances the differences between the older citizens and the newer citizens. This new phenomenon is unfolding with each passing day, but the reality is that the new has to follow the old to avoid instances of chaos where the new order is seen to be antagonising the old order.

The issue of what the state is gets to be defined by the politicians in their lobbying speeches, but it often loses meaning and leads to dissatisfaction on the part of the ruled once the lobbying politician assumes office and becomes a member of the ruling class. The lead causes include partisanship, nepotism, corruption, and failure by the politician to understand one’s role as soon as they assume the office of government. This is clearer in the case of the state where political affiliation is misinterpreted into polarisation as is the case with Lesotho at this point in time. State and the government are there to serve the common interests of all the citizens, not just the needs of the party followers.

A state is deemed a failure once it begins to be one-sided in the serving of the needs and the demands of the citizenry.
Since the end of the Cold War, the international community has become increasingly preoccupied with the phenomenon usually named “state failure”, because state failure causes a wide range of humanitarian, legal, and security problems. Recent examples of failed states are familiar to all of us, from the total collapse of state institutions in Somalia and the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia to the varied crises in Rwanda, Haiti, Liberia, Congo, Sierra Leone, and Afghanistan.

Robert I. Rotberg addresses the issue of state failure in plain terms, defining it in the words:
Nation states fail when they are consumed by internal violence and cease delivering positive political goods to their inhabitants. Their governments lose credibility, and the continuing nature of the particular nation state itself becomes questionable and illegitimate in the hearts and minds of its citizens.

This is due to the fact that nation-states are established to provide a decentralised method of delivering political goods to the public made up of persons living within designated borders or country parameters. Having inherited, assumed, or replaced the monarchs of yore, modern states answer the concerns and demands of their citizenries and not only their political adherents and affiliates. The ideal of the state is there to serve as a tool that buffers and mediates between the challenges of the immediate and international arena for the benefit of the citizens.

This pattern is closely adhered to the dynamism found in external and external economic, political, and social realities. States succeed or fail across all or some of these dimensions, that is, a well-functioning state is able to address the economic, political and social realities of its citizens without bias. This means that effective state rule means that those in government (not ‘in power’ as has become the normal speak in the fracas of modern political state rule) address the needs of the people, the most important among these being the provision of human security.

A state is not a state if it cannot guarantee tangible or intangible security for its citizens.
These forms of security encompass expectations and preconceived obligations by the citizens that inform the local political culture. The case of the promises made by the lobbying politician to the party followers does not just end with pre-election campaigns.

It actually carries further to the point where the lobbying politician assumes the office of government, because the people actually vote in good faith with the hope that the political leader will carry their hopes into the Promised Land envisioned in the campaign speeches.

The promises of the political leader and the expectations of the voting citizen together give content to the social contract between the ruler and the ruled that forms the gist of the relationship between the current regime in government and the citizens. This relationship is what determines and informs the interactions between the government and the citizens, that is, whether they are on a peaceful and moral basis or whether they are on a violent and subhuman (immoral or unreasonable basis).

The maintenance of this relationship is what keeps the state true to its form and it leads to other undesirable forms if it is abandoned. Dictatorships, autocracies, and other conservative forms of governance are born out of self-interest, that is, they depart from the original definition of the state that posits ‘welfare for all’ policies to the debased mentalities that serve the interests of a minute minority to the detriment of the larger part of the population.

It is in this instance where one finds the minute disintegrating further to the point where state failure is plain for all to see: where individualism becomes a new accepted normal and the public’s tangible and intangible safety and security concerns are not addressed by the government.
Where the state fails to address the needs of the masses, individuals will often go out and try to get what the state cannot provide alone. This is seen almost exclusively in special or particular circumstances where individuals attempt to secure themselves economically, politically and socially.

The common characteristics of this behaviour are clearly evident with the emergence of groups of individuals that band together to organise and purchase goods or services that ‘maximise their sense of security’.
This phenomenon is essentially the sign of the beginning of the idea of class that is sectarian in nature, leading to a ‘we and them’ type of attitude. The development of sects and conservative mindsets traditionally seems to hold the notion of self-sufficiency for the adherents; however, this notion of security is temporary.

The conservative sects are usually under constant threat as other groups within the larger mass also begin to form into other groups and usually, this leads to increased levels of polarisation.
The pattern these increasing divisions follow is similar to a community living in a single room that never stops dividing it until there is no room to move for either the owner or anyone living in such a room. The reality, however, is that individuals and groups cannot easily or effectively substitute their private security for the full spectrum of public security which is the more effective way of ensuring welfare for all. What begins to form are mentalities and deeds of buccaneering pirates that see other groups as their quarry and not as fellow citizens.

Robert I. Rotberg states that, “The state’s prime function is to provide that political good of security—to prevent cross-border invasions and infiltrations, and any loss of territory; to eliminate domestic threats to or attacks upon the national order and social structure; to prevent crime and any related dangers to domestic human security; and to enable citizens to resolve their disputes within the state and with their fellow inhabitants without recourse to arms or other forms of physical coercion.”

We have begun to see an increase in incidents of violence as individuals or groups of individuals begin to scramble for safety in the midst of one of the worst economic depressions in history caused by the Coronavirus pandemic. With jobs on the line and some out of work, incidents of crime and domestic violence are on the increase. There is a sense of suppressed apprehension and anxiety that is increasing with the realities of increased poverty and unemployment the pandemic came with.

The state should be providing a sense of social and economic security on the political front, but what one sees unfolding is contrary to this noble notion of peace and security needed to guide the nation through this hard period. It does not make sense therefore when the security sector is ordered by the government to violently quash a protest by the youth that have become anxious in the light of the realities of increasing poverty and unemployment levels in the state.

Humanity, the basis for reason, which is also the basis in the formation of what is termed the state, should come to the fore at this point in time. Bullets, batons and knuckledusters will further polarise an already divided nation. The political leadership should understand that the realities down here can only be dealt with effectively if the individual in office at the house on top of the Maseru hill empathetically understands the realities of the society in the valley.

We should at all costs avoid reaching a point where we speak of each other as ‘we and them’, with the ruling class forgetting that they got into the ‘stilted’ (because they can fall anytime) positions that they got elected into by the ruled who cast the ballot. The reality is that there has been an extended iron curtain between the ruling class and the ruled in this country. It will eventually lead to the failure of this state if it is not torn down at this point in time.

If you believe it not, just ask yourself these questions: how many political parties do we have? What does it mean in terms of the unity of the state? How can we reverse the current scenario where division is a chasm deep and ravine wide? Be frank in your answers to self…or else deal with the reality of this Lesotho being treated as a perpetual beggar and weakling by a South Africa Basotho sweated and toiled and bled for in the years of the long Apartheid night.

Tšepiso S. Mothibi

Insight

An open letter to President Hichilema

Published

1 day ago

April 17, 2024

The Post

Your Excellency,

I am certain that you are wondering where and/or how I have the temerity to write to you directly, but a recent post you put on WhatsApp piqued my interest; your meeting with His Excellency the Prime Minister of Lesotho, and his delegation. The delegation came to introduce to you and your good office the candidate of the Government of Lesotho, for the post of Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Joshua Setipa.

Let me set off by stating that I have a friendship with Setipa, for over 50 years, so I may not be the best person to give an objective appraisal or opinion of him; this I will leave to the government.

Further to that, as a citizen of Lesotho, I may embellish the information that I would provide on Lesotho, thus I will as far as possible keep to information that is contained in books. This is not a research report, but more a simplified literature review of what I have read. I shall not quote them, or reference them, thus allowing others the space to research this matter further.

First, let me state my surprise at the alignment of time that I see; Commonwealth Day in 2024 is on the 11th March, the day we celebrate a life well lived, that of Morena Moshoeshoe.

Further to that, this year also starts the 200th anniversary of the move by Morena Moshoeshoe and his followers from Menkhoaneng to Thaba Bosiu. They arrived at Thaba Bosiu in winter, circa 1824.

Next year, 2025 will also be the 100th anniversary of the ‘plenary’ that saw the birth of this Commonwealth of Nations. A handover from the bi-centenary, to the centenary celebrations.

We are all aware that the Commonwealth was started at the Imperial Conference of 1926, but it had what I call a plenary in 1925; this happened in Maseru, Basutoland. It was held at the ‘secretariat’ building on Kingsway. The building was used as the Prime Ministers’ office after independence, more recently, and to date as the Ministry of Defence.

When King George came to visit Lesotho in 1948, to thank the country and her citizens for their participation in the Second World War, High street as it was then known, had its name changed to Kingsway.

At this plenary Britain called the ANZaC states, Australia, New Zeeland and Canada, together with South Africa. It had been only 13 years (1912) since the Basotho monarch had been asked to attend the formation of the South African National Native Conference (SANNC), whose aim was to preserve African land. The SANNC was the forerunner to the African National Congress (ANC).

With the formation of the Union of South Africa, the union wanted to engulf Bechuanaland (Botswana) Swaziland (eSwatini) and Basutoland (Lesotho). This had been unsuccessful.

Next they came up with the Native Land Act of 1913, to remove African land rights. So, the conference that brought about the birth of the SANNC was a pre-emptive response to this act; an attempt to keep African land rights and traditions intact.

I would like to point out that the founding document of the Imperial Conference that brought about the Commonwealth states that all member states are autonomous and not subordinate to another.

At the time of the plenary, Basutoland was subordinate to Britain. But in a masterstoke became what I believe to be one of the founders of the Commonwealth.

Despite her subordination, Basutoland had placed so strong an objection to the presence of a representative South Africa in Basutoland, that South Africa’s invitation had to be withdrawn, and South Africa did not attend. This was the first ‘anti-apartheid’ shot, made in the world; what is more important is that it was made by an African country.

No matter how one looks at it, she may not have been a ‘founding member state’, but Basutoland was part of the founding fabric of the Commonwealth.

One just has to imagine the anger of the South Africans and their government: Dr. D. F. Malan, the first Nationalist Prime Minister of South Africa, was a minister responsible for housing at that time.

Had Basutoland’s lead been followed, spatial apartheid might never have happened. The Commonwealth would take till the 1960’s, and the formal legalisation/legislation of apartheid to remove South Africa from within her fold. A matter that Basutoland saw as far back as the 1920’s.

As shown, at the conceptualisation of the Commonwealth Lesotho was not just there, but an active and formidable participant; though one has to look further to see her relationship with Great Britain/the United Kingdom.

Basutoland/Lesotho’s history is strange, to say the least. The first Europeans to arrive here in 1833, were French Missionaries. At this time Europe was embroiled in wars, which inevitably included the French and English.

But it is these same priests, most notably Casalis, who helped steer the country to Britain, and British protection. Casalis acted almost as a foreign secretary/minister of foreign affairs at that time.

The first treaty between Basutoland and England was the Napier Treaty of 1843, though it took till 1866 to solidify this treaty into a protected land.

The history of the cavalry in Lesotho, the only African cavalry south of the Sahara, is quite long. It starts in about 1825, when F. D. Ellenberger in his book ‘History of the Basutho’, states that Morena Moletsane had come across gun powder quite by mistake.

They had been raiding a missionary’s home and came across a strange powder, which they found useless, so they threw it into a fire, which ‘exploded’. Thus, to his people called European style housing, ‘Ntlo-ea-thunya’, a house that shoots. But after having his people ravaged/savaged by Mzilikazi, he sent his best warriors to work on Boer farms, and with their remuneration purchase arms and horses.

We are often told of a ‘battle of/at Berea’. My answer is that it was not a battle but a cattle raid. Its importance is not just in the battle, but in democracy. The British called Morena Moshoeshoe ‘paramount chief’, a first amongst the others. The time before Berea shows something slightly different.

As Casalis writes in ‘My life in Basutoland’, the British had demanded 10,000 head of cattle, for stock theft. A great ‘pitso’ was called and all eligible men, those who owned land, were called.

At the end of the pitso, after many votes, the citizens refused to give their cattle to pay the demand of the British. The significance herein is that there was a plebiscite, a vote. Morena Moshoeshoe lost the backing of the people and thus the vote; the British then attacked to ‘collect’ the cattle themselves.

Both Morena Moshoeshoe and Morena Moletsane were heavily involved in the ‘battle’ which was won by the strength of the Basutho cavalry. Looking forward to the gun wars, it was most fortuitous that Morena Moshoeshoe’s ally, Morena Moletsane would outlive him, till the end of the gun wars.

After annexation in 1866, in the mid 1870’s the British, citing distance and as such expense, ceded Basutoland to the Cape, which was what the Basotho had been fighting against for a long time; they wanted direct British rule. They wanted to be ruled by Mofumahali Queen Victoria.

The first, and most critical mistake that the Cape made was, not so much in attacking Morena Moorosi, accusing his son of cattle theft, but in beheading him.

So, when some years later they wanted to disarm the Basutho, and they found those of the south of Basutoland who knew of the beheading, reluctant to go with the plan. The Cape decided to go ahead with disarmament forcefully and met equal if not greater force.

The Basutho were better armed, more knowledgeable on the terrain and better supplied. Helped by his father’s long-standing ally, Morena Moletsane, Morena Lerotholi was able to field a well-armed strong cavalry, which inflict great pain to the Cape.

This led to the Cape defeat. Together with the number of other wars that the Cape was fighting, there was fight fatigue among her people.

So bad was it, that they did not come and collect their fallen troops; in Mafeteng there is a cemetery called ‘mabitla-a-makhooa’, or graves of the white men. The SA Military History Society has a ‘roll of honour’ for some of the dead, as not all were buried in Basutoland.

There are two significant outcomes of the war. In his book ‘The Mabille’s of Basutoland’, Edwin W. Smith states that there was a fact-finding mission to Basutoland by members of the Cape parliament, including Rhodes. Their conclusion was that the Basutho should be handed back to Britain for direct rule; which was the original wish of the Basutho.

As Whitehall was reluctant to take this role back, Basutoland spent a period of close to two years of self-rule. Thus it became the first African country (only?) to unshackle itself of colonial rule. And became the first African country to get the colonial rule it wanted; and re-shackled itself to Britain.

The second is how Britain agreed to go back and rule Basutoland. In his book, Rhodes Goes North, J. E. S. Green shows how the Prime Minister of the Cape went to Britain to sue for peace, and eventually agreed to give Britain 20 000 pounds per annum, of her import tax revenues to govern Basutoland.

Whilst not a founding member of the Commonwealth, Basutoland has carried her fair weight in the battle to save both the Commonwealth, and together the rest of the Commonwealth, the world at large.

Whilst SA will hype the losses during the maritime accident of the SS Mendi in the English Channel, Lesotho is less inclined to speak of the losses on the SS Erinpura. The Erinpura was sunk by German war planes in the Mediterranean Sea. Though I should say that, the prayer of the men on the Mendi would resound so well with those who lost their lives on the Erinpura.

When British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill said; never was so much owed by so many to so few, I am certain he was speaking not just of the people of the British Isles, but the broader community within the Commonwealth, that stood together at this time of international need.

But having heard Sir Winston, there is a special bond of Basutoland within, and with the Commonwealth, that I would like to highlight. Apart from the ANZaC countries and South Africa, there were no air squadrons from other Commonwealth countries that I am aware of; except for Basutoland that is.

They paid for 12 or so Spitfire aircraft that would form the 72nd Basutoland, which flew in the Battle of Britain. No moSotho actually flew (in?) them, but they had been financed by the Basotho.

For all the prowess of a moSotho man with arms, in his book ‘Basotho Soldiers in Hitler’s War’, Brian Gary not only writes about the gift of aircraft that fought in the Battle of Britain, he also shows that Basotho soldiers, who were hauling various ordinances through the Italian Alps, were allowed to carry arms.

Aircraft and carrying arms for an African in World War II; Lesotho is not just a pioneer member of the Commonwealth, but a beacon.

As Lesotho many of these pioneering attributes continued. Whist South Africa was banned from sports and entertainment, Lesotho filled the gap for her. Exiles like Hugh Masekela and Mirriam Makeba were hosted for sell out concerts in Lesotho. South African interracial sports, with matches between the likes of Orlando Pirate, Wits University, Kaiser Chiefs, to name those I remember, started in Maseru.

I have touched on politics and war, sport and entertainment; let me go to superstition. It would go against what is expected of me not to go without anything superstitious.

Britain has given the world three major sporting codes. Rugby, which is dominated by the big three of New Zeeland and South Africa. Cricket, which expands from the rugby three to include India, Pakistan, most of the Caribbean states and a few African counties.

These sports are obviously ‘Commonwealth Sports’, as they are dominated, or played predominantly by Commonwealth countries. They have also given us football. This is a truly global sport, the largest sport played across the world, on all types of surfaces, with all types of round looking objects. We can’t call all of these footballs.

The last time a Commonwealth country won the World Cup it was England in 1966; the year Lesotho gained her independence.

The next World Cup is in 2026, the millennium celebrations of the Commonwealth; who will head the Commonwealth then? Will a Commonwealth team have the necessary ‘juju’ to make it?

Your Excellency, this is but a brief note on Lesotho, and it is my way of using the words attributed to Morena Moshoeshoe, when asking for protection from Queen Victoria that say; take me, and all the lice (those that are symbiotic to me) in my blanket. I do hope that these words will be of use to you as seek consensus on Lesotho and her candidate for the post of Secretary General of the Commonwealth.

Yours truly

Khasane Ramolefe

Insight

Culture quibbles

Published

1 day ago

April 17, 2024

The Post

A few weeks ago these pages carried a substantial piece by Mokhosi Mohapi titled “A reversal of our traditions and culture”, written in the form of an open letter to the government of Lesotho. The first sentence of Mohapi’s article took me by surprise, as he stated: MPs and Senators’ primary role is to protect and preserve the traditions and culture of the Basotho people. I would have thought the primary role of MPs and Senators would be to ensure that Basotho are secure (being protected, for example, from criminals), that they have adequate access to social services such as education and healthcare, that the economy is sufficiently stable to offer citizens some chance of employment, and so on. Fat chance, you might scoff.

But then I realised that Mohapi had a more specific contention in mind, as he stated: The Laws of Lerotholi were set to protect social order, traditions and culture of Basotho. Mohapi’s immediate concern is with the 2024 Estates and Inheritance Bill, which proposes radical changes to the existing order of things. (See the article in last week’s thepost, “MPs bulldoze through Inheritance Bill”, which gives a good idea of the background).

I’m aware that this Bill has provoked considerable controversy, and that is not my topic in this article. Nor do I wish to contest what Mohapi was saying in his piece — this is by no means a case of Dunton v Mohapi. But I did take note of the way the phrase “traditions and culture” kept resounding in Mohapi’s article, rather like a cracked bell, and what I want to do is open up those terms for examination.

Please bear with me as I slip aside for a moment with a little academic stuff. Back in 2006 I published an article titled “Problematizing Keywords: Culture, tradition and modernity.” For those of my readers with a scholarly bent and who might want to hunt it down, this was published in a journal called Boleswa Occasional Papers in Theology and Religion 2:3 (2006), pages 5-11. There I made a number of points I want to bring up in what follows.

The first fallacy I tackled in that article was the tradition/modernity binary — the notion that in Africa there was tradition and then, wham!, the white man arrived and there was modernity. Are we seriously to believe there were no great cities in Africa before the white man landed, that the peoples of a whole continent lived entirely in villages? Nigeria tells a different story.

Are we to believe there were no great libraries? Mali and Ethiopia tell a different tale. No writing systems? No medicine? I’m not saying that if I’m in pain I don’t prefer a dose of oramorph to an infusion made from some leaves picked off the slopes of Thaba Bosiu, but the point remains: the tradition/modernity binary is crude and crass and it’s demeaning about Africa.

We cannot get very far with simplistic ideas about where we are coming from and where we are at. And yet of course we do come from a past. I’ll quote — or, rather, paraphrase from memory, as I don’t have the work to hand — an observation made by T.S Eliot in his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent”: We know so much more than those who came before us. But they are a large part of what we know.

But of those who came before who is it, exactly, that we know? When Mohapi repeatedly uses the phrase “the traditions and culture of the Basotho people” I take it he is thinking of the Basotho as constituted under Moshoeshoe I and the descendants of those generations.

For how much do we know about the “traditions and culture” of the various Sotho-speaking groups let’s say two hundred years before Moshoeshoe gathered them together to form the modern Lesotho state? Isn’t it likely there were significant differences between the “traditions and culture” of these groups, differences that were later rationalised or homogenised?

Two points here. First, we mustn’t forget what an extraordinary innovator Moshoeshoe was —and I guess that might be said also of Lerotholi, whose laws are the chief focus of Mohapi’s article. Second, culture is not static, it is not immutable. It evolves all the time.

For example, for how long has it been the case that adherence to the Christian faith could be said to be part of the culture of Basotho? (Or, for how long has football been part of the culture of the English? We are credited with the invention of football, but that doesn’t mean it’s been part of who we are since time immemorial).

That brings me to my next point, or a string of points, moving from England back to Lesotho. When I was a schoolboy I bought myself a copy of the book Components of the National Culture (1968) by the great British Marxist Perry Anderson. One of my schoolmasters — one of the few who didn’t like me — caught me with it and said “just the sort of book I’d expect a troublemaker like you to be reading. Just don’t show it to anyone else!”

The significant term in Anderson’s title is “components.” Culture is put together — it is an assemblage — and its components may have different sources.
That leads me on to the invention of tradition, and an example for Basotho.

I guess all my readers know Qiloane, the sandstone pillar at Thaba Bosiu the distinctive peak of which is said to be the inspiration for the shape of the traditional Basotho straw hat. Well, that notion is dubious to say the least; there were hats of the same shape from elsewhere in the region long before the Basotho got hold of the design.

Does this really matter? Well, no, because even if a tradition is invented, it still has the persuasiveness of a tradition. It’s just that knowing this might dissuade us from making big claims about the unchangeable nature and sanctity of tradition.

And the same goes for culture. I leave you with a quotation from the Ghanaian philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah (it’s from his terrific book Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers): We do not need, have never needed, a homogenous system of values, in order to have a home. Cultural purity is an oxymoron.

Chris Dunton is a former Professor of English and Dean of Humanities at the National University of Lesotho.

Insight

The Joker Returns: Conclusion

Published

1 week ago

April 9, 2024

The Post

Last week I was talking about how jokes, or humour generally, can help get one through the most desperate situations (although it’s like taking a paracetamol for a headache; a much, much stronger resort is faith). I used the example of how Polish Jews, trapped and dying in the Warsaw ghetto, used humour to get them through day by day.

A similar, though less nightmarish, situation obtains in today’s Nigeria. Conditions there are less hellish than those of the Warsaw ghetto, but still pretty awful. There are massive redundancies, so millions of people are jobless. Inflation is at about 30% and the cost of living is sky-rocketing, with the most basic foodstuffs often unavailable. There is the breakdown of basic social services.

And endemic violence, with widespread armed robbery (to travel by road from one city to another you take your life in your hands) and the frequent kidnapping for ransom of schoolchildren and teachers. In a recent issue of the Punch newspaper (Lagos) Taiwo Obindo, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Jos, writes of the effects of economic hardship and insecurity on his people’s mental health.

He concludes: “We should see the funny side of things. We can use humour to handle some things. Don’t take things to heart; laugh it off.”

Professor Obindo doesn’t, regrettably, give examples of the humour he prescribes, but I remember two from a period when things were less grim. Power-cuts happened all the time — a big problem if you’re trying to work at night and can’t afford a generator.

And so the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) was universally referred to as Never Expect Power Always. And second, for inter-city travel there was a company called Luxurious Buses. Believe me, the average Lesotho kombi is a great deal more luxurious (I can’t remember ever having to sit on the floor of one of those).

And because of the dreadful state of Nigerian roads and the frequent fatal crashes, Luxurious Buses were referred to as Luxurious Hearses.

Lesotho’s newspaper thepost, for which I slave away tirelessly, doesn’t use humour very much. But there is Muckraker. I’ve always wondered whether Muckraker is the pen-name of a single person or a group who alternate writing the column.

Whatever, I’d love to have a drink with him / her/ them and chew things over. I like the ironic pen-name of the author(s). Traditionally speaking, a muckraker is a gossip, someone who scrabbles around for titbits (usually sexual) on the personal life of a celebrity — not exactly a noble thing to do.

But thepost’s Muckraker exposes big problems, deep demerits, conducted by those who should know and do better — problems that the powerful would like to be swept under the carpet, and the intention of Muckraker’s exposure is corrective.

And I always join in the closing exasperated “Ichuuuu!” (as I do this rather loudly, my housemates probably think I’m going bonkers).

Finally I want to mention television satire. The Brits are renowned for this, an achievement dating back to the early 1960s and the weekly satirical programme “TW3” (That Was The Week That Was). More recently we have had “Mock the Week”, though, despite its popularity, the BBC has cancelled this.

The cancellation wasn’t for political reasons. For decades the UK has been encumbered with a foul Conservative government, though this year’s election may be won by Labour (not such very good news, as the Labour leadership is only pseudo-socialist). “Mock the Week” was pretty even-handed in deriding politicians; the BBC’s problem was, I imagine, with the programme’s frequent obscenity.

As an example of their political jokes, I quote a discussion on the less than inspiring leader of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer. One member of the panel said: “Labour may well have a huge lead in the polls at present, but the day before election day Starmer will destroy it by doing something like accidentally infecting David Attenborough with chicken-pox.”

And a favourite, basically non-political interchange on “Mock the Week” had to do with our former monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. Whatever one thinks about the British monarchy as an institution, the Queen was much loved, but the following interchange between two panellists (A and B) was fun:

A: Is the Queen’s nickname really Lilibet?
B: Yes, it is.
A: I thought her nickname was Her Majesty.
B: That’s her gang name.

OK, dear readers, that’s enough humour from me for a while. Next week I’m turning dead serious — and more than a little controversial — responding to a recent Insight piece by Mokhosi Mohapi titled “A reversal of our traditions and culture.” To be forewarned is to be prepared.

Chris Dunton