The only good Bushman Good, Kenneth
Public archaeology,
20/1/1/, Letnik:
3, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The glaring contrast between the furore over the repatriation of the unknown El Negro and the continuing neglect and subordination of some 100,000 of his San and other Remote descendants is ...considered. Botswana's Foreign Minister shows respect for EI Negro, but Botswana's treatment of the San today is the worst in the region. Relocation of 'unwanted' San , carried out using highly authoritarian methods, continues to occur, and the San population remains in general without secure land rights. The grounds given by the Botswana government for relocations have included maintaining the 'pristine environment of game reserves', but the possibility of extensive diamond mining within the Central Kalahari Game Reserve seems also relevant. The relocations and the lack of rights have recently prompted protests and expressions of concern about the future of Botswana's San population from powerful human rights groups. It is in the context of those protests that the ceremonies surrounding the reburial of El Negro, promoted by the authorities, are to be understood.
Independent Botswana has developed on three main pillars: rapid and sustained economic growth (over the decade to 1992, for example, at 8.4 per cent a year, third-highest among all developing ...countries, and far in excess of any other in Africa); multi-party or liberal democracy; and an efficient central state, the main features of which have been identified and praised by observers. With growth, an accompanying build-up of a relatively strong governmental system took place, with activities especially focused on finance and planning. The civil service was maintained at a high level, according to Ravi Gulhati, by avoiding rapid localisation, by providing high compensation for officials, and by keeping well-defined lines of authority and accountability. Able people were placed in key positions and kept there for extended periods. The political elite fairly consistently sought expert advice from leading bureaucrats, and the two groups have displayed a closeness and mutuality of interest built upon their common involvement in cattle and commerce, and the not uncommon tendency for cabinet ministers to arise from the ranks of the senior bureaucracy.
Botswana has achieved rapid growth with stability since independence in 1966, largely through the supportive interrelations between an open market economy and a system of élite democracy, ...successfully blending ‘traditional’ and modern elements, and offering a range of fairly free and meaningful political choices. But growth, and the policies of a selectively interventionist state, have produced increasingly deep inequalities of property and incomes, posing problems for the stability of the political economy in future.
Botswana has long been viewed as a 'shining light' of democracy in southern Africa. But, as a predominant party system, where extensive powers are concentrated in the hands of a presidency that is ...not directly elected by the people, and a record of official discouragement of free expression by the press exists, the polity is characterized by elitism, centralized political power and weak executive accountability. In some democratic aspects Namibia and South Africa appear to have overtaken Botswana in recent years, notwithstanding the latter's impressive economic growth. Civil society is weak. The citizens have yet to express dissatisfaction with their passive and restricted form of democracy and to demand an end to the inequalities on which the elitism and non-participation rest. Thus the durability of Botswana's elite democracy, stabilized as it is by the presence of electoral competition between unevenly matched parties, seems guaranteed for the foreseeable future.
Botswana ranks very high in sub-Saharan Africa in income per capita, and in such indicators of human development as public expenditure on health and education. Nevertheless, inequalities of wealth ...and income are particularly severe, in both international and domestic comparisons. Although wealth and poverty are mediated and expressed in complex ways, the disparities between the very rich and the very poor are established, structured, and growing.
While public attention has focused on the stature of
Nelson Mandela, there has been at a deeper level in South Africa since
1990 a steep decline in state capacity, and a marked deterioration in
...democratic practice. The participatory democracy which had so characterised
the decade of the 1980s was brought to a sharp end after the return of
the
nationalist leaders, and the workings of even a liberal, representative
democracy have also suffered under the rise since 1994 of a
predominant party system and élitism. The latter features are present
too in Namibia, with similar consequences. Democracy which is
understood merely as electoralism, as Botswana earlier had shown, has
few defences against predominance. The voters' brief electoral act
is
wide open to manipulation and containment. Power is shared by élites,
while popular participation is rendered moribund, and concern for
justice and equality ceases.
Despite a competitive party system and regular free-and-fair elections, Botswana's polity has been characterised for almost 30 years by considerable authoritarianism focused on the extensive powers ...of the Presidency and based upon a hierarchical and highly inequitable society.1 But pressures have recently arisen within the country for more openness, participation, and equality, and their growing effects were clearly evident in the October 1994 elections and in the widespread disturbances soon after.
With most of its eggs in the diamond basket, diversification is vital for Botswana. Globalization, as the re‐location of production processes, is a potential answer to the problem, at the cost of the ...exploitation of workers in new, low‐grade manufacturing activities and their non‐unionization. At the Selebi‐Phikwe Regional Development Project jobs were made and lost, and skills creation and capital investment were low, because of the state's incapacity to control the disorderly capitalism attracted there. In contrast, car assembly in Gaborone in the 1990s represented the productive and developmental face of globalization. Significant diversification quickly resulted. But governmental capacity to control and manipulate the process was again inadequate, especially in its underestimation of South Africa's determined opposition. The Hyundai and Volvo corporations re‐located out of Botswana as smoothly as they had arrived, leaving little more than a hole in the ground.
