'Bushmen and Diamonds. (Un)civil Society in Botswana' by Kenneth Good
Botswana's democracy is often considered to be a comparatively advanced and positive example of an African state in terms of political culture and the notion of "good governance". Focussing on the particular situation of the Bushmen/San as a marginalized minority denied citizens' rights, this paper challenges the assumption that the country's current political and socio-economic system is, in fact, exemplary. The author has on previous occasions presented and published related analyses within the research network on "Liberation and Democracy in Southern Africa" (LiDeSA), which is currently coordinated through the Nordic Africa Institute. This publication is another result of the collaboration within this project.
Kenneth Good:
Bushmen and Diamonds. (Un)civil Society in Botswana
ISBN 91-7106-502-2, 40 pp, 100 SEK (10 Euro)
Published by The Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden, Nov 2003
Keywords: Botswana, Politics, Democracy Diamonds, San, Human rights
Botswana's democracy is often considered to be a comparatively advanced and positive example of an African state in terms of political culture and the notion of "good governance". Focussing on the particular situation of the Bushmen/San as a marginalized minority denied citizens' rights, this paper challenges the assumption that the country's current political and socio-economic system is, in fact, exemplary.
Bushmen are the indigenous people region, and one of the largest ethnic minorities in the country. They are, nevertheless, the poorest of the poor in Botswana, the only citizens without secure land rights, experiencing injustice and discrimination on a routinised basis. Since 1997, and with particular speed through 2002, Bushmen (or San or Basarwa, they are a people without a self-given name) have been removed from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) in Botswana where their ancestors have lived for a millennium or more. Simultaneously with these coerced removals, diamond-mining exploration leases have rapidly spread across the CKGR. Diamonds have already been found at Gope inside the CKGR, and mining will follow dependant on the world market.
History indicates that coerced re-location occurs in colonial and quasi-colonial situations, to those who have few or no human rights. Enforced removals and routinised injustice are thus testaments to the frailities of democracy in Botswana - a society, which has a political system, which is no imagined shining light in Africa, but represents an authoritarian and elitist model of a barely functioning electoralism. Civil society is small and weak, and in a dependant relationship with the government. When an outside advocacy group does speak out, as Survival International has done with its campaign on diamonds of despair, the government reacts with shock and horror. The society is without a struggle culture, and suffers from the battered wife syndrome. Unless a group agitates strongly about a problem it will not become an issue for debate in society. Bushmen and democracy are thus closely inter-linked in Botswana, and improvements for the one require developments in the other, and vice versa.
The author has on previous occasions presented and published related analyses within the research network on "Liberation and Democracy in Southern Africa" (LiDeSA), which is currently coordinated through the Nordic Africa Institute. This publication is another result of the collaboration within this project.
Kenneth Good is Professor in the Department of Political and Administrative Studies at the University of Botswana in Gaborone. His interests focus on the state in relation to development and class formation, democratisation and corruption/mismanagement. He has published widely in scholarly journals and books.
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