Insight
A gangster state
Published
5 years agoon
By
The PostIt is not by choice that one engages in the act of criticism, the very act of pinpointing what is wrong and what is right with any entity is the basic necessity of existence; for then we can know how to deal with it if we know where its strengths and weaknesses are. In the state where the need to criticise is shut out, inefficiency begins and autocracy finds its roots, leading in essence to the promulgation of the more undesirable behaviours in the human psyche.
These behaviours are often naturally contrary to the more necessary laws governing harmonious human existence under the guardianship of the courts and the constitutional rights bodies and organisational structures. When the legal laws are silenced for the sake of satisfying the exclusive interests of a given individual, group or, social sector, there is bound to be acts of chaos expressed in rebellion to the imbalance between what is right and what is wished.
The latter (the wish) is not often right and should therefore not be imposed on other individuals by the sole individual who carries the wish to see society or the environment in the manner that he or she so wishes it to be. In brief, it is not up to a minority to determine how the majority should interact.
There should be thorough consultation with the majority before any decisions to act in a given manner are given legal root. This is the basis of the system of governance we term as democracy. Where true democracy is, the government does not just impose blanket decisions on the majority without prior consultation with the affected, concerned and relevant parties or sectors. Problems begin to rear their head where the government begins to impose laws and rules without the actual consultation with the affected parties.
This is because of the fact that there is logically no complaint that can be made without there being some type of triggering behaviour or instance. The government therefore, should always look at the root of things without first imposing and then only consulting or establishing commissions when the problem has mushroomed out of control. We have a claim to being a democratic state, but the reality of the matter is that the last democratic government ended with Leabua Jonathan.
What we have had to deal with since the passing of his regime is a series of wishful governments that actually never delivered on the promises they made in the lobbying speeches. It has been wish after wish and no real change except for the few that are part of the minority in the leadership positions.
The type of leader that one finds in this country is of the sort that deems their wish the most accurate description of what is plaguing the country. It is the wrong type of leadership, for it is by its very nature based on presupposition and imposition. The right type of leader will consult with the masses before installing laws or reaching conclusions. He or she is there by virtue of their vote, and this naturally means that he or she cannot just impose conclusions on them; doing so is in all frankness stabbing them in the back, lording over them as a tutor would over his or her protégés.
We have come to a point in the history of our kingdom where the leadership seems to behave as a ram bent on tupping with the nation as if the nation is a herd of ewes in season. It is not a secret that some of the laws installed are in all essences draconian. From the wool and mohair saga to the currently trending debacle between teachers and the Ministry of Education, there is clear evidence that there is no element of discussion between the concerned parties.
What we have to deal with on a daily basis are episodes of obstinate denial at the reality of the circumstances and the possible negative repercussions these episodes of blunt pride shall have on the future of the country. We are living in a country that is raising a generation that will grow up believing that it is right to disagree.
In a scenario where a child is forced to sit at home because the government ministry and the educational labour organisations cannot reach a point of consensus on issues pertinent to administration of proper education, such a child is bound to grow up thinking that it is right to agree to disagree no matter the universal consequences such a disagreement may pose to the future and the general welfare of society in the present moment.
We have come to a point where the public have become the pawn in the war between the education sector and the government elite. It helps no one to mince words or to kowtow given parties for the sake of a fake peace. We as parents and nation have to reach a point where salient decisions to question deeds must be taken. Silence means consent, and the silence of the nation on the struggle between the teachers and the government in actual fact condones dictatorship in what is presumed a democracy or has officially been declared to be a system of governance hinged on the tenets and statutes of democracy.
The tendency to bargain even over serious issues as a habit has destroyed the true face of reality. The marketplace habit or practice should not have been allowed to leave the marketplace into the house of parliament and legislature.
From the perspective of someone that has to deal with the marketplace tendencies of the nation even where the situation is precarious, the result that has been encountered where such bargaining over serious issues has always turned out to be unsavoury for the bargain pusher. The habit to look for cheaper ways to do things either wastes time or leads to more cost because the reality is that what is cheap automatically leads to poor results.
High quality comes at a great cost because the maker thereof is granted the serenity to work without the worry of eking supplementary means to live whilst they pursue the task at hand. The culture in this state is that one should be content with what they get, and this is a pipedream and a vague wish. One needs to get enough to see them through the month without worries, and there is a primal need to invest enough in an endeavour to ensure that it attains desirable results.
Putting in little to get more has high improbability, for some tasks actually demand that enough time and money are invested to ensure that they succeed. The education of a young mind is a tough pursuit for the teacher, and in a state where such salient aspects of the pursuit such as study aids are lacking, it is often the poor teacher that has to fork money out of their wallet to ensure that his or her keeps are properly educated.
This means that depriving such a teacher of the basic right to reasonable pay has a direct impact on the pupils. Underpaid, the teacher has to worry how he or she will meet their basic needs and this means that the teacher thus spends more time worrying than teaching. It is unfortunate that the cry of the teacher has at this point in time reached a point where it is considered nonsensical by the relevant authorities that should address the needs appropriately instead of engaging in bargaining sessions and threatening non-payment with the teachers.
It vexes understanding how one can live lavishly on a government stipend and then turn around and start thinking that professionals that have to this point buoyed the country’s conscience through education do not deserve a raise. It is a fact that the kingdom could not be where it is without education, many an individual have ended up experts and intellectuals because the teacher bothered to impart their gathered knowledge to the pupils in a classroom under a tree.
It is a fact of the matter that the experts that are consulted when it comes to the research of development strategies are the products of the same teacher that is now in plain terms being harassed for fighting for the basic right to be afforded an environment commensurate to the daily demands of the profession.
The non-education of the children whilst the teachers engage in strikes are just sheer emotional blackmail, the truth of the matter is that we should begin to question why the government is not budging in the face of a crisis whose repercussions will be felt from this point on to oblivion. The reality of the matter is that the current crop of students that are not getting their education as they rightly should will actually become the contributors to the regression of the state.
If the Lesotho we know and her educational institutions were once the beacon of hope for many across the Southern part of Africa and the entire continent, it means that we should begin to question why the educational system has degraded to the point where it is at as we speak. It is a fact that our universities are churning out mediocre graduates that in reality do not do much to pull the country out of the mire of poverty and unemployment it has had to deal with for a long while now.
This means that the first point of departure is fixing the education system, but before we do that, we must ensure that the drivers of the system are satisfied enough to perform efficiently in the impartation of their knowledge to their pupils. Education is determined by the teacher not the government. The latter is only there to ensure that the system is well-furnished to ensure education’s success. It is therefore illogical that the government deems itself conversant with the inner ramifications of proper education.
The first crop of African leaders were fortunately products of colonial education focused on uplifting the African mind. A group of teachers, preachers and non-believers, they however held on to the ideal that the continent would truly uplift itself if the children were educated well enough to be meaningful contributors to the progress of the land of Africa. The type of leadership we see at this point runs contrary to the ideals that made Leloaleng, Fokothi, Morija, NUL and other institutions of education beacons of hope for the entire continent in the early days of independence.
It is draconian to think that one can determine the salary scale of one without first consulting with them. It is outright unfair to live on a generous stipend or per diem and then to go and believe that others should live on a pittance. It is no different from the native that thought they were better than the others just because they could eat the scraps off the colonial master’s table and the others could not. At its most basic, I find the teacher-government debacle a colonial affair, with the government adopting an imperialist stance that the native teacher does not deserve to live comfortably enough to teach the children without personal worries hampering the process of imparting knowledge to the young minds.
The teacher taught the minister to the point where he could be a veritable contributor in the running of the affairs of the state. It does not make sense therefore that the same minister now seems condescending when it comes to addressing the basic needs of the teacher. It means that the minister holds the warped notion that the new generation is not deserving of the same quality of education that he or she got in the days when they were in class. It is only in the present times that we have seen a struggle between teachers and the government last this long; it was often resolved amicably in the past.
The brash manner in which the authorities are now acting makes one feel that we have perhaps come to a point in time where the country is in essence a gangster state. The government is playing the role of the don in a Mario Puzzo novel. Whoever disagrees with the capo tutti di capi is bound to meet the harshest punishment. Any sensible man or woman would first question themselves what the repercussions of not paying another their salary are.
Most teachers have their own children or dependents that rely on them for their monthly upkeep and sustenance.
Depriving them of their salary therefore naturally means that such an act bears a ripple effect that affects a larger circle of persons that the authorities choose to ignore in the quest to prove who the most powerful dog in the fight is. Humility begets harmony, but the manner that the teacher-government saga is panning out shows no signs of humility from the more powerful body (the government). Resolute as a gangster don, the ministry is ignoring realities at the expense of the education of the future generation. They may win the battle for now, but they will surely lose the war as they go on to be seen as the most autocratic regime in the history of Lesotho. It is a lesson in uncordial relationships we as a nation do not want to attend.
Ts’episo Mothibi
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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
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.
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
Police hunt former minister
Lifofane in dreamland
Magistrate saves WILSA boss
Mphaka barred from ABC deputy’s race
Revenue collection up by 12.5%
An open letter to President Hichilema
ABC must allow free, fair contest
Culture quibbles
Ex-BAP members fight
AD duo defects to RFP
Seema wins top award
Linare players set for windfall
Dead on arrival
Doctor tampers with corpse
Villagers whipped as police seize guns
Weekly Police Report
Reforms: time to change hearts and minds
Professionalising education
The middle class have failed us
No peace plan, no economic recovery
Academic leadership, curriculum and pedagogy
Coalition politics are bad for development
We have lost our moral indignation
Mokeki’s road to stardom
DCEO raids PS’
Literature and reality
The ABC blew its chance
Bringing the spark back to schools
I made Matekane rich: Moleleki
Musician dumps ABC
Bofuma, boimana li nts’a bana likolong
BNP infighting
Mahao o seboko ka ho phahama hoa litheko
Contract Farming Launch
7,5 Million Dollars For Needy Children
Ba ahileng lipuleng ba falle ha nakoana
Ba ahileng lipuleng ba falle ha nakoana
Weekly Police Report
Mahao o re masholu a e ts’oareloe
‘Our Members Voted RFP’ Says Metsing
SENATE OPENS
Matekane’s 100 Days Plan
High Profile Cases in Limbo
130 Law Students Graduate From NUL
Metsing and Mochoboroane Case Postponed
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