Insight
Kudos to the radioman
Published
6 years agoon
By
The PostWinnie is gone, and if one is to view the condolences flowing in on the live news spreads on the telly, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was indeed a great figure: she lives on in our minds and eyes of the soul. I am sad that she is gone, that old girl was beautiful, and she could talk sense in times when the best kind of talk was fear and segregation.
She stood by her man’s credo even after he was marooned on Robben Island with the rest of the others whose pattern of thought was bold enough to question the credibility of racial segregation as a means to govern a land of such cultural diversity that was made common in the city centres where most went a carpet-bagging.
When the cities sprung from deep within the belly of the earth where the yellow metal the colour of Amen Ra’s sun, they were built with the sweat, the blood, and the tears of the black masses from the homelands. These figures were only rewarded with being second-class citizens in the land of their forefathers; Winnie Mandela openly spoke against this maltreatment on the basis of race, class, and gender until her passing.
Nomzamo captured Nelson Mandela’s attention, and the question one can pose is: What kind of man wouldn’t be struck by lightning as The Godfather’s Michael Corleone is after seeing Apollonia if they came across Nomzamo? Winnie is gone, and the best we can do is reminisce in these days of the wait for the world to change; if it ever will.
We have the benefit of living in the era of multiple mediums of communication and can therefore not afford to use ignorance as a defence. In the world of mass media, there are papers (printed and electronic) to read on the current state of affairs in any part of the world one has an interest. There is the television with its countless news channels transmitting visual images of the going on in the world.
Television has turned out to be the most sought-after mode of accessing the current events unfolding in the world. This 1926 Scottish (John Logie Baird) invention has captured the attention of the world, from news to talk-shows, soapies to reality-shows, and cartoons for the young ones who have somehow managed to capture the remote control in many a house one comes across on the daily journeys.
The internet is somehow still in the catching up stages in this country, its use as a tool of knowledge acquisition being largely limited to social-media websites and not that much in the way of invention, innovation, and research.
This means that the internet is used largely as a tool of gossip and not a medium across which vital information can be passed and accessed. The satellites are kept busy in their orbits in outer space, transmitting pictures and sounds we use as information. One voice has however stayed constant, the voice of all the ages of man’s history; the voice of the radio man.
One cannot escape the feeling of nostalgia that comes with the memory of the radio series of the past decades, the talk sessions between the broadcaster (DJ) and some celebrity of the moment, the electrical soccer matches between Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs one could hear the impeccable Thabo Kofa share with the townships, suburbs, and villages of southern Africa.
Out of all these, the most prominent in my mind are the music programmes that lit up the sky in the mind of the village boy who could be in America in a flash from the lyrics of the Commodores singing Night Shift in the middle of the night.
My uncle never switched the radio off, and I picked up the habit and never let go; I am hooked on the voice of the radioman lulling me to sleep and guiding me across the vast scintillating landscapes of dreamland where one can be what the voices on the radio are telling them that they can be.
It is the thrill of the moment to hear the latest news on the radio, it is piety expressed and broadcast to the world to hear the sermons of the preachers of the moment. In Short-wave, Medium-wave, Frequency Modulation and other new-age frequencies, the voice of the man talking to the world from the confines of the studio plays on in one’s mind.
What the figure talking on radio does is to ignite the imagination of the listener, describing in clear words the events going on, the changes occurring as the world turns, the core discussions on the state of the affairs of the different communities the station reaches, the current news of the moment, in short, what radio does is to become the voice of the voiceless, a storyteller who speaks incessantly for all of the 24 hours of the day with no silent gaps in between; the story on the radio is the story of the world metamorphosing into the history of the human race.
There are different stations on different frequencies and all of them pass the message on to the world without repose. Without fear or favour of the current occurrence, the radioman transmits news to the audience of listeners waiting on the world to change in the hardest of times.
What Guglielmo Marconi and company must have realised was that the story the letter told oftentimes came too late, that there was a need to relay message on as the event in perspective was unfolding.
Without radio, the world would still be walking in the snail-pace movements of the past eras in history where the postman on a horse was the only means through which individuals and communities could keep in touch with each other.
Radio bridged that gap and has now reached the stage where even the concerns of the simple people are broadcast in the moment that they occur.
The argument is that radio is oftentimes used as the tool of propaganda, and one can agree if they are to observe radio from within the borders of a polarised state. However, one can also argue that the same kind of propaganda one hears on radio is actually the different levels of thought of the nation. Turning the dial across the different radio stations with their different news policies can actually open one’s eyes to the different viewpoints from varying sides of society.
It is no use to think that only one side stands in the right all the time, what the radio personality does is to play the role of the middle-man (intercessor) between differing sides to establish a point of common understanding salient to the finding of solutions to common and serious social and government problems.
Ostracising one side of radio and piling praises on another is simply hypocritical; for the truth of the matter is that all should listen if the basic aim of their listening is to gain clear understanding into issues discussed or are prevalent.
This is one of the reasons why a character like I am believes in turning the dial across the different radio stations to understand clearly what it is that is of concern to the society we live in.
Oftentimes, we carry the kinds of one-sided opinions we do because we have not heard what other individuals see, and their opinions on radio actually enlighten us with regard to what the gist of the matter under discussion may be.
I spoke of a voice in the wilderness, and I wrote Astray based on the concept of what radio does in the spreading of the news to the world. The basic truth about radio is that it does not, as is the common argument in present-day Lesotho, incite thoughts of sedition or acts of treason in the citizens that get to listen to some of the programmes on various radio stations.
What radio does is to address the concerns of such citizens as may be heard on the programmes that serve as platforms of expression for the different sides of society in a democratic state. Assuming that the voices on the radio criticising one side of government do so simply because they want to see its fall is reminiscent to thinking that one is always right, which cannot always be the case in such a huge social entity as the state.
The song Iron Sharpening Iron by the reggae band Culture speaks of the necessity for two differing sides to sometimes disagree so that problematic issues can be fleshed out in full. In the era when we had only the national radio-station as the primary broadcaster, only pro-government opinions were heard, only the ruling class had a voice.
Without opposition, an idea or policy may at the end of the day turn out to be biased in its implementation or expression; thus the need for different voices that include the voices of the plebeian masses as it was in the original open parliaments of Classical Greece where modern democracy was founded.
Pioneers of independent radio like Ratabane Ramainoane of Mo-Afrika Fm, PC FM, Harvest FM, and others came along with a platform on which the common man could address his or her concerns on the state of affairs unfolding in the kingdom.
Such figures should be honoured for daring to open the ground for the suggestions of the ordinary citizen to be used in effecting change in the different communities that are resident in the craggy mountain kingdom of Lesotho.
I find it deplorable that one shall express their annoyance at some of the opinions expressed on such open platforms as independent radio stations.
This is in simplest terms nonsensical because what it means is that one believes that only the opinions of the individual, their group, party, or organisation are right (which is not in reality the case with fallible human character, for God is the only one that is absolute in terms of righteousness).
There is therefore the need for one as a speaker or listener to open their mind to the fact that they may be wrong in the execution of certain issues that necessitates correction by other compatriots to reach a point of stability in terms of social relations.
This stability is what ensures the advent of progress, the progress we need in a democratic society. We cannot therefore afford to shut out voices as is done in autocracies of the world where dictators rule.
A self-righteous attitude is often one of the symptoms of megalomania, and the radioman stands to correct the emergence of such tendencies in the leader-class of society.
North and western African societies have griots who come as poets that can either praise the ruler if he or she is righteous in their rule, or, the griot can come as the messenger that bears the opinions of the society on injustices they believe are being meted on them by the ruling class.
Griots are honoured for their role as the vessels of the concerns of the masses; the radioman should thus be honoured too for his role as an open stream of enlightenment on the full breadth of what is unfolding in society.
Without information, man is ignorant, and ignorance begets the wrong decisions. We are subconsciously guided by what we hear, and it is what we hear that leads us to points of harmony as a human community; if only we listen for the sake of understanding and not answering.
Those mavericks of the air often afford us the opportunity to throw in our penny when it comes to the discussion of issues that really affect us as a society by offering their slots on air as platforms for the unravelling of issues that may often look complex when viewed from one side.
In those early years of my life, the voice on the radio gave me the art of storytelling, taught me of good music, gave me news on current events, preached sermons on the good word, gave me the chance to wish loved ones well, and acknowledged me for my loyalty to the voices on the various radio stations.
With radio, one is never the outsider but is a part of a large audience made up of different individuals with varying characters and personalities who all come to listen to the programme and give their wishes and their opinions for the sake of maintaining the interconnectedness of human society.
The kudu horn (lenaka, shofar) was blown before church bells came a tolling to call the pious and the pagan to church, to union, to council, and to court.
Radio serves as the kudu horn to keep us constantly aware of the world we all are living in and we therefore should be grateful that there are still present that are fanning the fire of community as found on radio. There is nothing much we can do except to thank the voice on radio.
Kudos to the radioman/ girl/ boy/ woman whose voice keeps us connected . . .
By Tsepiso S 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
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