Norwegian anthropologist Ønurlf Gulbrandsen started his research in Botswana in 1975, and this fascinating book is a result of his labours in this African society since that period. His treatise transcends the portrayal of Botswana as ‘the African Miracle’ that has characterised much of the political and economic literature. He traces the formation of the Tswana states from the late eighteenth century in the precolonial period. He then goes on to explain how the Tswana under their chiefs were able to consolidate their positions during the British colonial period, in the process marginalizing, sometimes quite brutally, various subject groups under their rule. Central to this consolidation was the kgotla forum, the heart of the Tswana political system.
Gulbrandsen provides a wide view of the postcolonial Tswana-dominated state that has been able to ensure wealth accumulation in the form of cattle keeping and provide social amenities to the population with revenue from diamond mining. He argues that this wealth, however, has been used by a minority political and civil service elite to empower themselves at the expense of the significant majority of the population that wallows in poverty and survives on state welfare. He points out that the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), in power since independence in 1966, has used the traditional kgotla forum as a medium for consultation with the population throughout the country on various government programmes. Whereas the BDP government ministers and parliamentarians have used the kgotla to political advantage, opposition parties are denied access to this important platform on the grounds that it is an apolitical cultural forum.
It is also demonstrated that while the opposition political elite has traditionally espoused a pro-poor, socialist rhetoric, it too has benefitted from government empowerment schemes for wealth accumulation and has collaborated with BDP rivals in commercial projects in a ‘Grand Coalition’ of sorts.
Gulbrandsen explains the role of the Chief as motswadintle or provider of good life/things for his people, which includes kagiso (peace) through the kgotla. He also argues that the postcolonial state has portrayed itself as motswadintle in a similar fashion, particularly during what Guldrandsen calls the formative and consolidation period between 1966 and 1990. Interestingly, while the postcolonial state embraced aspects of traditional Tswana governance to introduce and consolidate Western democracy, it nevertheless marginalised the chiefs by making them toothless civil servants. The notion of kagisano (peaceful co-existence) is quite central to the postcolonial state's nation-building philosophy expressed in terms of ‘Democracy, Development, Self-reliance and Unity’.
By going beyond the formative and consolidation periods, Gulbrandsen is able to demonstrate developments that led to long suffering and marginalised sections of the society asserting themselves against numerous unfavourable aspects of the postcolonial government. Among these are mobilisation by ethnic ‘minorities’ for constitutional and linguistic recognition at the same level as their Tswana-speaking compatriots; uprising by the masses against ritual murder allegedly perpetrated by the political elite for their economic prosperity; first major split of the BDP in 2010; the historic 2011 civil servants strike in pursuit of wage increase; and, young Kgosi Kgafela II's (of the Bakgatla-ba-Kgafela) attempts to empower the traditional leadership through his unprecedented challenge of the country's republican constitution in the courts. At the heart of the people's dissatisfaction with the government were issues of widespread unemployment, prevalent poverty, perceived new state autocracy, rising elite corruption, and greed. Interestingly, Gulbransen observes that during the 2011 civil servants strike, which was supported by opposition parties, there was talk of the country experiencing an ‘Arab Spring’ similar to that occurring in North African and Middle Eastern states around the same time (p. 308).
One wishes that Gulbrandsen had noted that perceptions and allegations of ritual murder by the political elite have declined substantially in recent times, to be replaced by belief in the prosperity gospel coming from West Africa. It has become common for leading Botswana politicians from both the ruling and opposition parties (as well as senior civil servants, businesspeople, and ordinary people) to consult Pentecostal Church ‘prophets’.
The book has numerous typographical errors (largely Setswana words) that should be eliminated from future editions. Otherwise, this is an enjoyable read and a great contribution to the growing corpus of literature on the political economy of Botswana seen from an anthropological perspective.
