Goodbye President Ian Khama

I remember the first time I saw President Ian Khama up close and in person. It was at Baledzi Gaolathe’s house. Rre Gaolathe was hosting a dinner party for his daughter who was going overseas for further studies. I was my mother’s date because my father couldn’t make it.
He was dressed in full ceremonial military uniform. I was like ‘Oh so this is Ian Khama?’. He looked so strong and handsome in that uniform.
You see, I grew up part of my childhood overseas and when my family and I came back to Botswana I went to private schools. So, I missed the whole hullabaloo about Ian’s bravery, his supposed one-man war against Ian Smith’s Rhodesia and being able to turn himself into a fly or a bee or whatever it was.
Fast forward over a decade from that dinner I listened as Khama gave his inaugural speech as President. He told the nation that we had nothing to fear from his presidency. He told us that he joined the army to protect democracy. As nervous as I was on that day, I was comforted by those words.
Years later into his presidency I was sitting with my mother at a restaurant having dinner. The conversation inevitably led to the state of the country and the President. I audibly noticed her voice tone down when she spoke about him. I asked her why she reduced her voice. She replied ‘Osego, kana these people have spies everywhere. You will never know who’s listening’.
My mother’s answer shook me to the core. I looked at her. A lady in her 50s whose only concern was making sure her family was thriving and her business was doing well. She wasn’t a politician, she wasn’t a terrorist. She posed no threat to the government of Botswana. But here she was in fear of who might be listening to her conversation with her son which happened to be about the President and his government.
I told my mother that she had nothing to fear. This was her country, not Ian Khama’s. She had a right to speak freely. I’m sure, though, that my mother just thought her young boy was talking legal theory. Khama had succeeded in spreading fear in this country so widely and deeply that even an ordinary middle-aged woman could not speak about him freely.
Whether by design or by mistake Khama betrayed that promise he made on his inauguration day. He did not defend democracy. He did not grow the democratic space in this country. Instead he closed it. His government thrived on fear. Fear of him, fear of the DISS, fear of losing one’s job, fear of speaking out, fear of dying.
When I took up the Motumise case my mother was so worried for me, for Kelly and our family. She was concerned about our safety. I told my mother that I had to do the case. I could not stay silent in the face of this assault on our democracy. If not me, then who? It was the way my father and her had raised me. When we won the case, she was the first person I called (after my wife, of course). I could only hope that some measure of faith had been restored in her.
For me, the Motumise case came to represent all that was wrong about Ian Khama. But it also represented all that was right about this country and its people. In all the years and in all the ways that Khama tried to dismantle our democratic pillars there were always people who were willing to fight back. From the unions to the opposition parties, from Gomolemo Motswaledi to Omphemetse Motumise, from the media to the lawyers. Too many people to name. They fought back. And they won. Botswana lives today because they fought back.
Ian Khama’s governance-by-fear lost.
He leaves Botswana today more divided than she has ever been in her history. We are a bitter, angry people. A shadow of the old Botswana we used to know. That Botswana we all remember when we were happy and hopeful, positive and peaceful. The country that soared above all others. The shining light of Africa.
Today, I remember that handsome soldier I saw all those years back at that dinner party. I wonder to myself what went wrong. So much hope, so much magic, so much power.
Goodbye President Ian Khama. It could have been so different. In the end, it wasn’t.