I WOKE UP AT 2:30 AM, TROUBLED, AND HAD TO WRITE THIS… IN DEFENSE OF MEDIA

If state media, who are supposed to be public media, play their proper role of informing the nation objectively- with balance and fair play- there would be no need for recent commentators to be concerned about the prominence of allegedly unfair private media reports.

The state media have the widest circulation and broadest reach that cover virtually the entire country. It is a bizarre development that there should be rising anti-private media activists who complain of private media unfairness without addressing the credibility complexion and fair play of the largest information source in the country, the state media.

Audiences and readers resort to alternative sources of information when the establishment or main media channels such as state media, fail to provide information that reflects opinions of all the constituent groups and players in society. Bias breeds distrust and loss of clientele.

It is presumed that the latest complaints about private media reports are an indication that there is a move towards refurbishment of the editorial responsibilities of the state media to ensure that the public receives balanced reports and objective reflections of the expressions arising from public debate.

If, however, it is maintained that the sole responsibility of state media is to report some viewpoints to the exclusion of other properly constituted views, it should not be surprising that more and more people will continue listening to and reading private media reports, no matter how incorrect these may be. Notably, unlike state media, private media operate on poorly trained and weak facility status and should be thus expected to have grave shortcomings. That is all the more reason why the state media should play the objective role of a balanced policy reflection of opinions and observations by all key players in our society.

State media have previously discharged balanced, objective and credible services to the public through publication and broadcast of fairly constituted articles and programmes. This was done without departing from the state media role of promoting state policy and development priorities. This attitude of fair play should be reverted to by state media.

We have expressed before that single stream communication affects media credibility and naturally redirects audiences and readers to alternative sources of information, no matter how poorly presented the latter may be. A two way flow of information gives credence to media and captures audiences with enhanced credibility ratings, audience loyalty and reduced diversion of the public towards unfair sources of information. That is why in other countries where, democracy did not thrive, as it does in Botswana, all the cornucopia of state-owned propaganda media establishments to influence public opinion failed abysmally.

Audiences are a natural, scientific and unpretentious virtual entity. Their natural instincts and inclinations are to receive and process only balanced, two-way flow of processes of information. If state media package information in this manner, the public will rarely be distracted towards other sources of the same type of information. No matter how huge and articulate the sermons are against private media, public reception and reaction to information will always be in the framework of their make-up as people. Unless we provide balance, we can only increase dissent- that is a proven communications fact.

Meanwhile, the trials and tribulations of the private media should continue to be seen as a phenomenon that is consistent with the trials and tribulations of our growing democracy; and we can help productively by enhancing good quality information packages by state media rather than lambasting buddying media houses in their nascent stages.

Let us return to the times when there was little to no private media and reflect on how state media filled the vacuum to present balanced information packages that elevated Botswana’s democracy ratings even during the worst of times. State media of the time were the key instrument of freedom of expression, and they did so without abdicating the responsibility of promoting government policies and development priorities.

It worked in the past, because it was credible; it will work now, if it is credible. You cannot talk people who hear and read out of what they perceive to be their good feed. There can be no competition between private media and state media, so, if the approach is right, the public will be informed responsibly at all times. Then we won’t have to worry about any segments of a perceived biased private press.

We part with a fundamental question:

Why are people listening to and reading biased reports in the private media when state of the art state media houses cover the entire reach of the country?

Andrew Sesinyi Speaks...

NO WATER WITH WATER EVERY WHERE

It is a fact that Africans, Botswana nationals included, are at the bottom of the food chain. It is also true that Africans are the most needy, dependent and perpetual scroungers always looking for handouts. And this is being written even now, with conviction, by an African who is nonetheless, proud to be black and in Africa.

The plight of Africans lies in their sycophancy, and yes, laziness of body, mind and thought. They worship dictators, plunderers and are tolerant of disorder, lawlessness, corruption and incompetence. It is not an African culture- it is a product of inferiority complex and acceptance of status quo no matter how abysmal standards may be. Africans would rather run to other countries than work to change their own circumstances.

Pic: the author and his nephew, Shimane Mokgautsi

It is this truth that shall set us free. We have to introspect and dislike what we find in there, inside us, in our minds, thoughts, deeds and lands.

The incompetent governments that we have are our own creation and they are sustained by us. We only become visible protestors when we are engaging in staged violent activities that promote the entrenchment of dictatorships. We are worshippers of idols largely in the form of the dictators we call our leaders. We contaminate our cultures with idolatry titles of greatness that we bestow on incompetent leaders. That is why we are at the bottom of the food chain, the least developed mentally, socially, economically and scientifically. We have fertile lands but infertile minds. How else can we explain such abject poverty, such hunger, such scarcity of food in lands where almost any plant can grow…where wild fruits and other edible plants are in abundance but quickly decimated to make space for absentee landlords and prestigious projects of the political elite?

Our governments do not deserve titles of governance. They blame nature for their people’s poverty; they blame other races for the lack of abundance among their people; they even blame God for their abysmal performance as leaders. It rains in Africa, and it rains a lot. As it rains cats and dogs, the leaders sit in their mansions wining and dining whilst limitless water resources flow, flood and drift towards the seas and oceans, unharvested.

Pic: Gathering rain clouds captured by author's iPhone

Semi-arid countries such as Botswana are a self-contradiction of development because while their few dams hold waters that are subject to loss through evaporation, little effort is made to harvest rain waters through reservoirs and other means. Rain pours on roof tops and flows out into floods without being captured into containers for leaner years. The Botswana infrastructure is not linked to the country’s needs; the infrastructure is not linked to harvesting of natural resources such as rainfall; it is not designed to preserve and conserve. Such lack of thought and foresight is contrasted against government handouts and wails about how the country is prone to rainless drought periods.

Botswana, as one of the benchmarks of failure by Africa to feed its people, has its population fed on empty rhetoric about how governance is striving to improve food production. Yet successive government administrations have abandoned the past colonial innovations of catching rain water in household reservoirs, which used to be the norm.  One would think that if Africans were evolving normally, like people of other continents, contemporary leaders would not only be improving on the excellence of their predecessors but adopting heightened approaches to saving water, or as one prefers to say, harvesting the rain water.

Pic: Sunset over author's modest farm captured via iPhone

Another glaring anomaly, which exists mainly because of poor innovative approaches by governments in Africa- Botswana included- is the neglect of underground water resources. Understandably, underground water must be exploited with conservation regulation because it does have a bearing on present and future tenures of flora and fauna; but if properly tapped on, there would be abundant water resources to water crops, livestock and humans- leading to greater strides in attaining the objectives of food sufficiency. Most households could be run on underground water resources; most farms would prosper from underground water resources; most water restrictions inhibiting food production would be lessened if proper methods were applied to the exploitation of underground water resources.

Studies have been conducted but implementation failed on the subject matter of exploiting Botswana’s underground water resources. By 2017, there ought to have been proper regulation, appropriate licensing and comprehensive infrastructure throughout Botswana facilitating the better use of this precious underground natural resource. Botswana is crippled by periodic drought through bad choice of governance. It is not just a question of constructing more dams (with their high evaporation rate) but a balance of exploitation of both seasonal rainfall and underground water resources. There is a poverty of rationale to explain why after over 50 years, Botswana should still be importing virtually all its food from the colonial streams of supply. There is insufficient justification for the current levels of poverty caused mainly by a lack of food. It is actually a huge embarrassment that food hampers should be the norm in poverty alleviation instead of empowerment of citizenry to produce food, even if it were at subsistence level.

Pic: a mesmerizing cloud formation close to sunset captured by iPhone

Leaders and other officials travel extensively, at the expense of the taxpayer, to developed countries and more innovative benchmark areas such as Libya, Israel, Emirates and other drought prone examples, but they all return to write reports, and file them away without action or follow up. This is the legacy of self –defeat in Africa, to which even Botswana clings as if there is still need to invent the wheel.

Today’s generation owes it to itself, its forefathers and posterity, to adopt a zero tolerance approach to incompetence, corruption, apathy and official neglect of basic development imperatives that can put their country on a good footing and make them proud.

Botswana has taken the lead before, and it still can do so again, and more!

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A RETURN TO THE LAND

….what government needs to do for people to produce food

To prove that government is not paying lip service to poverty eradication, and that indeed, these noble objectives are designed less for populist politics but genuine desire to attain self-sufficiency in food production, development policies and programmes must be networked. Batswana are traditionally and culturally, subsistence farmers and have livelihoods that are intrinsically linked to the tilling of the soil and the growing of crops. The Pula slogan of ubiquitous blessings, embracing peace wishes, rain, abundance, money, conflict resolution and so on, are about growth and making a living out of the soil.

Botswana, the semi-arid southern African country, has a citizenry that can hold perennial and animated conversations on rain and rain-fed crop farming, livestock and drinking water. The passion for rain has not been exhausted by mutating social characteristics of new generations and urban development. To the common Motswana (Botswana citizen) all roads must lead to the farming areas, where every season, it is the responsible attribute to plough and plant, so that in the later months towards winter, the nation harvests and feasts on its produce.

Thousands of Batswana have lost money trying to invest in borehole drilling, crop and stock farming largely because water is the quintessence of their passion for development- farming. When harvest comes and the rainfall season reaches the dry plains of this peaceful land, all major forms of food production related activities ground to a halt. Even though the winter seasons are not so severe as to prevent farming and lucrative growth of crops, without rain (which generally comes only in the last two months and first two months of each year), there can be no farming. Few have yielding boreholes.

Despite this potential might of the people to produce food for themselves, and in spite of pronouncements of development programmes intended to encourage food production, the government has not networked such programmes to the passions of the people. Huge amounts of taxpayers resources are channeled towards projects that have little sustenance impact on the farming habits and patterns of this proud nation.

One of the glaring tragedies of the inconsistencies of development programmes, is the lack of infrastructure activities related to farming communities; government policy basically prohibits extension of electricity power supply to farms; there is no government scheme that assists in the drilling of boreholes despite evidence of sufficient underground waters to water vast areas of land; despite a huge food import bill the government faces each year, little is done to harvest the crops of subsistence farmers whom in most cases even lack the capacity to harvest all that they have planted. Unprocessed food goes to waste. This is the food that could be feeding the poor instead of handouts of food hampers given through government purchases from the few rich farmers or imported food stuff.

This population of just over two million people in a land surface the size of the territory of France can attain windfall harvests every year or even throughout the year if:

-          Government extended resources such as electricity supply to farmers in order to encourage residence in the farms and various farming activities that are enhanced by the use of electricity driven equipment;

-          Storage facilities reminiscent of the colonial era and the pre-colonial tribal era where subsistence farmers were assisted to harvest and store food for leaner years. In today’s advanced governance and affordability, government could purchase the harvest directly from subsistence farmers. This is the food for the hampers later- not imported food or food bought for the further enrichment of the rich.

-          Where possible, domestic water supply provided by water utilities should be extended to farming communities to encourage residence, which in turn encourages ploughing (farming). Increased rural or farm residential activity would create employment, provide permanent and regular sources of food, reduce urban congestion with its burdens on the infrastructure- not to mention societal ills such as crime.

-          Campaigns of ‘a return to the land’ nature should be launched in order to encourage the above.

-          The expensive and least productive part-time farming (more of a hobby currently) would lessen and greater farming activities would thrive.

This is my contribution to food production; I am in it. I am in the position to know the pain and the joy.

Andrew Sesinyi

Bullies Do Cry Too

….When last were you bullied? Bullying is not just physical; there can be emotional bullying, verbal bullying, psychological bullying, and social bullying. The “bully” in this poem is in the category of all of the aforesaid….the remedy given is ‘makgonatsotlhe’- 'one-size-fits all'.

[Poem written in 2010]

[Picture by the author]

The unruly bully raced brazenly into my world

Hitherto my esteem was strong in deed and in word

But his onerous feature defaced the wholesome picture

His pulls and pushes equalled wreck and ruin to my fixture

I dreaded streets that I once treaded steadily and gaily

I hid where I was needed and emotionally bled daily

I socially shrunk and sank deeply into the abyss of fear

I relied on lies and tied myself to bonds I couldn’t tear

When the unruly bully showed up or spoke up I dried up

Even his absence smelled strongly and my reticence piled up

Soon I realised I had idealised a dwarf in the body of a giant

To cast off the spellbinding power the bully had to be gaunt

I delved deeper into my innermost and dug out my self esteem

Entranced with adrenaline I restructured my mind to self-redeem

I droned myself into trusting my capacity to reverse my status

To retrieve self-esteem and restore my dignity to previous quotas

Admitting that bullies bully because they are betrayed by base qualities

I found in me limitless reserves of resolution and resources of abilities

When next the bully dared me to stare I stared into the feeble face

And pronounced to his eyes that my fear had dissipated without trace

The bully to my shock buried his face in his huge hands and cried

My empathy could not have been at naught even if I had tried

I discerned the fragility that betrayed me to be the façade of his power

That strength of character can match the solidity of the tallest tower.

By Andrew Sesinyi.

YOU CANNOT FIGHT MEDIA AND WIN- IT’S LIKE FIGHTING GHOSTS

….the journalist in me speaks

I repeat: No political leader can fight media and win!

It has never happened and never will.

One of the most visible signs of leadership failure is manifested when a leader attempts to divert public opinion from poor performance by waging a campaign of haunting the press, hounding journalists, intimidating individual media practitioners and creating a pervasive atmosphere of fear of persecution among media houses.

Confident leaders are tolerant performers who uphold the popular saying:

“Your value does not decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth”.

In the world today, we are increasingly seeing leaders who decimate their political fortunes and mutilate their otherwise admirable persona by resorting to intolerant over-reactions to media reports. At times, a non-story builds into an inexplicable national whoop-de-do because a government whoops up the hullabaloo by taking drastic measures in an effort to punish. What happens is that such non-stories which would have earned the dismissal and contempt of the public become immensely topical with everyone wondering why there was such a brouhaha.

The public, when not interfered with, when left to the wonderful chemistry of freedom of expression and an atmosphere of tolerance, become ruthless judges and critics of media; not to mention the public’s consumer capacity to spontaneously isolate or banish an offending/disrespectful journalist from their repertoire. Media houses live in perpetual fear of triggering this public spontaneity to punish them, but when governments come in, the offending articles and the journalists behind them enjoy public empathy. The best advice to government is: as much as possible, please try not attempt to manage press freedom and media practice. When the public observes some semblance of management of news and media reports intended for the general public, the public’s natural gate-keeping capacity is turned into either full scale hostility to leadership or derision and distrust.

Media cannot hold leadership in disrespect or derision and still win consensual public approval. Unfortunately, politicians tend to treat the public as a homogeneous entity. The public is called public because of its generality, its communal essence, its free-to-all accessibility and its diverse constitution. When leadership attempts to interfere with media on behalf of the public, more often than not a government stirs hostility and mistrust. The public is best left to debate the merits and demerits of a non-criminal story line from a moral perspective, and in its spontaneity the public has been known to deliver a hard verdict of ‘guilty’ on offending journalists. Under such circumstances, the media, who are business entities lose the clientele amazingly fast and with dire effects on circulation, listenership and of course, revenue.

BUT that works out neatly only when there is no undue interference by the Goliath hand of governance.

To diminish the sting of criticism by media, a wronged but strategic government will, in the main:

-         -  issue a statement of fact to correct the errors in an article

-          - maintain utterances of its firm stand and commitment to freedom of expression and

-         - express the inalienable rights of individuals and organisation therein mentioned, to seek recourse to the courts for justice on grounds of slander and or libel.

That automatically depicts a government as much of a victim of the discomforts of democracy and freedom of expression, as everyone else; it depicts a government’s reluctance to use too much might to spite an instrument of freedom of expression; it draws public sympathy and empathy- in the process, a government wins over the respect and trust of the public.

If, however, a government has delusions of grandeur and wants to depict itself as Goliath, it will resort to a war path immediately. The consequences are generally disappointing to the general public because hard-handedness can never be an admirable trait in a leadership cadre that is already armed to the teeth by a plethora of laws guaranteed in the constitution.

Powers that are lawfully afforded governments exist to guard against abuse and offence but need not be used to the utmost all the time.

The most powerful instrument in defusing a public spat with media is to use media to discredit the medium that appears in the wrong. The platitude of making a mountain out of a molehill is as astute today as when it was first coined centuries ago.

Governments must walk tall mainly to be seen delivering services, than issuing retribution!

That’s the case for media and freedom of expression.

Andrew Sesinyi

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MY THOUGHTS ON COUNTRY DEVELOPMENT

…managing a family is a benchmark for running a country

Triggered by lack of resources as a key reason given for lack of project implementation, I hold the strong conviction that leadership can be rendered ineffective by its inability to recognise the benchmark proximity of managing a family unit- with that of running a country. In fact, recognition by leaders, that a family is a microcosm of a country, would assist them to avoid rigid textbook manuals of how to run a country and thus permit pragmatism, realism, innovation and astute decision making.

Family units have no option but to maintain the fold amidst acute financial and other material constraints. A family has no choice but to feed its young and helpless; a family has no option but to meet its largely unanticipated health situations of all sort; for a family, there is no option but to pay school fees, pay utility bills, meet mortgage obligations and other installments. To exist, a family unit recognises that resource constraints cannot be an option over its continued existence, development and investing in a better tomorrow. That’s the family unit: the microcosm of a country. It goes without saying, therefore, that effective leaders would benefit a lot from using family units as benchmarks for the greater development landscape of a country….and that a country is just a bloated family unit.

If countries wait to have sufficient resources to carry out development projects, invest for posterity and improve the welfare of citizenry, little to nothing can be developed. When a family unit needs transport as in the acquisition of a vehicle, it exploits existing avenues for purchasing one based on the family’s income and expenditure spread sheet. Few have purchased such critically essential transport by making full cash payment. It takes planning, managed risk and assertive decisions for the family to acquire such a necessity. Family units live in homes for which they pay for most or all their lives because there is no option to the provision of shelter. Offspring are afforded the necessary educational opportunities through payment of school fees regardless of the imbalances in the income and expenditure equation; most families have successfully managed their balance of payments and developed themselves without upsetting the equilibrium, into bankruptcy.

Governments must see themselves as heads of this magnified family unit called country. Most countries have substantial resources acquired through exploitation of natural resources, taxes and other forms of revenue generation. Almost all countries have their budgetary considerations and balance of payments schedules to which they want to accord the imperative equilibrium. It would, however, be misleading and short-sighted for any government to be intimidated by the equally imperative demands for infrastructural development, health provision to citizenry, maintenance of projects, provision of essential services and sustenance of public service structures on the basis of resource constraints. The basic tenet of running a country is to make life a priority, and the aforesaid imperatives are life giving and life sustaining. It is a perilous indiscretion and a personified example of impotent leadership for a government to give priority to accumulation of revenue rather than the balancing of the savings and needs of its people. The former is tantamount to abdication of responsibility; the latter is life; reality.

Just as much as a family would be driven to debt and abject poverty if it did not pay its helpers, postponed purchase of a house as a home or skipped mortgage payments, deferred payment of bills and schools fees etc, a government that prioritizes a bulging purse over investment in the development of a country, is postponing the inevitable that will return with crippling effect. In developing a country, like in running family, what is not done today at current cost- albeit in the midst of resource constraints- will be done tomorrow at greater cost when even the accumulated savings would basically have lost the value existing at the time of postponement. It is abdication of responsibility and even negligence on the part of governments to postpone the must-do while thinking they are accumulating savings because development priorities increase faster and disproportionately than whatever interest may accrue in savings. 

It is only an astute saving if it can be used tomorrow at tomorrow’s prices.

Deferred investment action in development, is also a dangerous enticement for maladministration, misappropriation, theft and other forms of corruption because the façade of abundance tempts illegal diversion of resources for personal development; just as a parent who made savings from non-payment of essentials would be tempted to have a false sense of abundance and most likely spend the savings on non-essentials, governments may be prone to similar creations of negative debt.

Debt is good if it is balanced with regular payments until the owed property is fully owned; it must not be feared to the extent of halting self-development. Debt must be respected and serviced proportionately; that is the view of a family unit graduate and beneficiary.

In the case of Botswana, my conclusion is that every single road or other public projects that were postponed, every single infrastructural development project that was deferred, every payment of imperative productivity payments, and all undeveloped development plans were a transfer of negative burdens and imbalances for the future generations. What was supposed to be done then will be done later, at greater cost; whatever savings were made, will later be expended at a diminished value.

This is my personal opinion...I am not sorry to have opinions.

Andrew Sesinyi

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