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Time has proved that the pessimists left out of account two vital factors: the steadiness and determination of the people of Botswana; and the leadership of Seretse Khama and the Botswana Democratic Party.
Seretse was ‘a true non-racialist’, he added, who was completely honest and who ‘brings honour to our continent’.34
Seretse was also the main architect of what became the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) and Botswana was soon trusted throughout independent Africa. Nelson Mandela thought it was remarkable that in Botswana, ‘men who had no previous experience whatsoever in government as it functions today should be able to run modern states with such success’.35 After the liberation of South Africa from apartheid, at a rally in Gaborone, Mandela observed that, ‘Botswana has a proud history as a successful democratic country and as a model of economic success. Democratic South Africa is eager for close relations with Botswana. We have a lot to learn from you.’36
As First Lady, Ruth was able to push ahead her plans for voluntary organizations. She was elected Founding President of the Botswana Red Cross Society and was instrumental in the establishment of many Red Cross centres; she was also a Founder and first President of the Botswana Council of Women, and the Child to Child Foundation. Wherever she went, she was greeted with love and called ‘Mma Rona’ – ‘Our Mother’. But her first loyalty was always to Seretse. ‘The honest love they found in England,’ observed a visiting American journalist, ‘is still there, and has been deepened by Botswana’s distance and silence.’ When Seretse was tardy in arriving for dinner one night, he hurried to Ruth’s side: ‘“I am so sorry,”, he said, like any late husband. Ruth smiled, gave him a wifely kiss, and said: “Never mind. I suppose it’s got to happen in your business.”’ Their relationship, added the journalist, was easy and relaxed, and State House was very much a home.37 Every evening, the family came together in the family room for a drink before dinner. Seretse never lost his unconditional kindness towards everyone. One day, Government staff suggested that he get rid of a retainer who waited at table, on the grounds that he was not very good at his job.38 But Seretse kept the retainer on, because he knew that he was doing his best.
The Botswana Democratic Party was returned to power in 1969 with an increased majority; then the party was re-elected in the 1974 elections and again in 1979. This meant that Seretse was under constant pressure as leader of the nation. Ruth did everything she possibly could to support him in his gruelling schedule, though she never interfered in his work. Her support became increasingly essential as his health deteriorated. She carefully monitored his diet and his daily routine, in a determined effort to maximize his strength.39
But eventually, even Ruth could no longer keep Seretse alive. He became so ill that Ruth rushed him to London for specialist care, where he was diagnosed as suffering from the advanced stages of cancer of the abdomen. They were told that he would never recover. He and Ruth flew home so that he could take his last breath in Gaborone. There he died two weeks later at 4.45 in the morning of 13 July 1980. He was only 59 and had been president of Botswana for fourteen years.
The nation was numb with sorrow. A month of official mourning was declared, during which time flags flew at half-mast. Government held no official functions and the public were requested to keep private functions to small personal gatherings. Ketumile Masire, who succeeded as president, appealed to the people to face their loss with the dignity and calm that had been shown by their great President and to offer thanks: ‘May God keep Sir Seretse Khama and we give thanks for the years we have been allowed to have him as our President.’ Messages of condolence poured in from foreign Heads of State. ‘To me, personally,’ wrote President Kaunda of Zambia, ‘Sir Seretse’s death will mean the loss of a brother, wise counsellor and advisor. His steadying hand will be missed by all his brothers among the leaders of the Frontline States.’ He was the kind of man, he added, who the strife-torn region of southern Africa could ill afford to lose.40
One of his many achievements in the region was a leading role in negotiations to bring about the Independence of Zimbabwe under majority rule, which he witnessed just three months before he died. He also experienced another great joy before his death: in 1979, he saw the installation of his son, Seretse Khama Ian, who had trained at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in Britain, as Kgosi of the Bangwato people – Kgosi Khama IV.
The Memorial Service for Sir Seretse Khama was attended by 20,000 people and by many Heads of State, including Samora Machel of Mozambique, King Moshoeshoe II of Lesotho, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Dr Kaunda of Zambia, and the Reverend Canaan Banana of Zimbabwe. On the day after the service, Seretse was taken to the Khama burial ground in Serowe, at the top of the hill by the Kgotla, to be buried alongside the graves of the Great Khama III, his father Sekgoma II, and his uncle Tshekedi. All the way from the airstrip to the Kgotla, people lined the road, weeping, beside themselves with sorrow. The village was thronged by mourners and about twenty people fainted; women of all ages collapsed with grief and the atmosphere was melancholy. When the public were invited to see and pay their last respects to the late President, there was a stampede, causing some fractured limbs, because some people were afraid they would not get a chance to see him; as a result, the public were allowed to visit his coffin until six o’clock the following morning.41
Seretse’s death was announced by the BBC World Service, at the top of its news bulletin. Sir John Redcliffe-Maud, who had been the British High Commissioner of South Africa at the time of Independence, sadly lamented the loss in an obituary for The Times:
However dangerous the prospect, either for his country or his own health, his courage, integrity and tolerance were as steadfast as his sense of humour – but it was Ruth who kept him alive and happy. Africa owes both of them a great debt of gratitude.42
Lady Khama was shattered.43 She was now 56 and some people outside Botswana thought she would return to Britain. But the idea never crossed her mind:
I am completely happy here. I travel to Britain and Switzerland as part of my charity work for the Red Cross, but I have no desire to go anywhere else… My home is here. I have lived here for more than half my life. My children are here. When I came to this country I became a Motswana.44
She lived alone on her farm in Ruretse, enjoying her children and grandchildren. She also continued to work hard for the Botswana Red Cross Society, regularly attending the General Assembly at the international headquarters of the Red Cross in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1982, Lady Khama became president of SOS Children’s Villages, which was a project close to her heart. As Botswana started to suffer from the ravages of HIV/AIDS, making a growing number of children into orphans, she frequently visited the children at the SOS Children’s Village in Tlokweng and did what she could to make them feel loved and cared for. She died twenty-two years after the loss of Seretse, at the age of 78, on 23 May 2002, on a night that saw the first rain in three months – even though it seldom rains in May. Her funeral in Serowe was attended by more than 10,000 mourners and she was buried in the hilltop cemetery reserved for the Khama family, next to her beloved husband.
Sir Seretse Khama has been internationally acknowledged as an outstanding statesman and one of the great successes of twentieth-century African politics. Whenever Nelson Mandela has saluted the heroes and giants of Africa, who ensured its liberation from the inhumanity of apartheid – such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Patrice Lumumba of Zaire, Amilcar Cabral of Guinea Bissau, Eduardo Mondlane and Samora Machel of Mozambique, W. E. B. Du Bois and Martin Luther King of the United States, Marcus Garvey of Jamaica, and Albert Luthuli and Oliver Tambo of South Africa – he has always included Seretse Khama of Botswana.45 In 2000, he described him as ‘that great son of Africa’:
One of the great African patriots from this region, a man renowned for the manner in which he put the dignity and well-being of his people above all other considerations. The legacy of Sir Seretse Khama lives on in his country th
at continues to be a shining beacon of light and inspiration to the rest of us in Southern Africa.
‘As we stand at the beginning of a new millennium,’ continued Mandela, ‘sincerely hoping that this will be the century of Africa and the developing world, the need to remain true to that legacy of Seretse Khama is as urgent as at any other time.’46
‘I think we were lucky,’ observed Sir Ketumile Masire, who followed Sir Seretse Khama as President, ‘in that the combination of traditional respect for Seretse and his personality really made him the ideal person to have started this country on the course in which it is going.’ His marriage to Ruth, and all that went with it, added Sir Ketumile, ‘made Seretse the Mandela of Botswana’. He had been close to both men, he added, ‘and it is remarkable how they were able to put the past behind them and act in exactly the opposite way in which a human being would usually act’.47
Seretse simply did not have the capacity to hate. Even though Tshekedi had been so cruel to him, he forgave him totally. He never said anything against the people who had mistreated him and he never allowed cruel words from anyone else about them.48 He could have been soured by his years of persecution by the British Government – but he was not. ‘I, myself,’ he said in 1967 on a visit to Malawi, ‘have never been very bitter at all, although at a certain stage I lived in exile, away from my country, in the United Kingdom for quite some time.’ He went on:
Bitterness does not pay. Certain things have happened to all of us in the past and it is for us to forget those and to look to the future. It is not for our own benefit, but it is for the benefit of our children and children’s children that we ourselves should put this world right.49
1. Seretse Khama aged four, in Scottish Highland dress, at the installation of his uncle Tshekedi as Regent of the Bangwato, 1925. He is with Semane, Tshekedi’s mother.
2. Law students in London, late 1940s: Seretse (right) with Charles Njonjo from Kenya, his old friend from their days at Fort Hare University, South Africa.
3. Tshekedi Khama leaving the offices of the British High Commissioner in Pretoria, 1949.
4. Seretse Khama in contemplative mood, Serowe 1950.
5. Ruth Khama in Serowe with her kittens, Pride and Prejudice, 1950.
6. Seretse and Ruth sharing a meal with Seretse’s friend Kgosi Mokgosi of the Balete. Above the fireplace are Seretse’s law books; the kittens play on the antelope skin rug.
7. Seretse and his lawyer Percy Fraenkel at a kgotla to discuss his summons to London, February 1950. ‘Elders urged Seretse to turn down the invitation… If he did decide to go he should leave Ruth behind.’
8. ‘We have come to tell you we are happy our Mother has stayed with us’ – Bangwato women bring gifts of food and water to Ruth, who is six months pregnant, after Seretse’s departure.
9. Gathered round the radio while Seretse is in London. News of his exile was immediately broadcast to Africa over the BBC.
10. A rally in Trafalgar Square, March 1950, organized by the Seretse Khama Fighting Committee to protest at Seretse’s banishment, which was seen to highlight the evil of the colour bar in Britain and her colonies.
11. Daniel Malan, Prime Minister of South Africa and architect of apartheid, at tea with his family in Pretoria, 1950. He called on the British Government to exile Seretse and his white wife.
12. From Victoria Falls to Southampton Marine Airport: the Khama family disembark the flyingboat to start their exile, August 1950.
13. Ruth, Seretse’s sister Naledi (centre), and Seretse, with Ruth’s family. Ruth’s sister Muriel holds baby Jacqueline, her father is second from left, and her mother stands by Seretse (1950-51).
14. Seretse and Ruth with Jacqueline, nearly three, and baby Seretse Khama Ian, shortly after his birth in February 1953.
15. The Bangwato delegation to London. The six men, including Seretse’s uncle Peto Sekgoma (second from left), arrive on 9 April 1952 to plead for Seretse’s return.
16. The Council for the Defence of Seretse Khama, created 1952. Seated from left: Canon John Collins, Jennie Lee MP, Seretse Khama, Fenner Brockway, Ruth Khama, Jo Grimond MP. Standing: Reg Sorenson MP is far left, Tony Benn MP fourth from left, and George Williams (Ruth’s father) seventh; Learie Constantine is eighth from right, Dorothy Williams (Ruth’s mother) is sixth, and Muriel Williams is third.
17. Seretse talks of his hopes at a press conference, 1956 – ‘to assist my people to develop a democratic system, to raise our standard of life, and to establish a happy and healthy nationhood’. Three-yearold Ian is in the foreground.
18. A jubilant Seretse at London airport on his way back to Africa, sharing a joke with Ruth, Muriel (centre) and Clement Freud (left).
19. Seretse returns to Serowe to a rapturous welcome in October 1956, as joyful crowds surge round him crying Pula! – ‘Rain!’.
20. ‘The New Africa’. Dr Hastings Banda of Nyasaland (Malawi) is released from prison by Harold Macmillan in 1960, as British colonies throughout Africa demand their independence.
21. Campaigning in Bechuanaland, 1965. Seretse Khama’s political party won an overwhelming victory, making him President of newly independent Botswana the following year.
22. Seretse and Ruth Khama, Botswana. ‘I thank God,’ said Ruth, ‘that I picked Seretse to be my man for life.’
List of Abbreviations used in Notes
ANC
African National Congress
BCA
Balliol College Archive
BECM
British Empire and Commonwealth Museum
BLCAS
Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies
BNARS
Botswana National Archives and Records Services
BP
Bechuanaland Protectorate
CAN:CER
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (Canada)
CHUR
Churchill Archives Centre
CRO
Commonwealth Relations Office
CROUW
Central Records Office, University of the Witwatersrand
DUL
Durham University Library, Archives and Special Collections
HCO
High Commissioner’s Office
HCT
High Commission Territory
ICwS
Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Archives and Special Collections
KIII
Khama III Memorial Museum
LHASC
Labour History Archive and Study Centre, People’s History Museum
NAC
National Archives of Canada
NARA
National Archives and Records Administration of the USA RG Record Group
NASA
National Archives of South Africa
BLO High Commission to London
BVV External Affairs Department
PM Prime Minister’s Office
OIOC
Oriental and India Office Collections, British Library
RA
Royal Archives, Windsor Castle
SADCC
Southern African Development Coordination Conference
SADC
Southern African Development Community, Secretariat Library
SOAS
School of Oriental and African Studies, Archives and Manuscripts
CWM Council for World Mission
LMS London Missionary Society
MCF Movement for Colonial Freedom
SUL (UK)
Sussex University Library Special Collections
SUL (US)
Syracuse University Library, Special Collections Research Center
TNA:PRO
The National Archives of the UK: Public Record Office
CAB Cabinet Papers
CO Colonial Office
DO Dominions Office
PREM Prime Minister’s Office
WASU
West African Students Union
WCLUW
Notes
1 FROM AFRICA TO WARTORN BRITAIN
1. Margaret Bourke-White to Bill, n.d., SUL (US), MB-W, Box 25.
2. Speech by Sir Seretse Khama at State Banquet, Blantyre, first anniversary of the Republic of Malawi, 5 July 1967, BECM.
3. Sampson, Mandela, pp. 21–5; Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, p. 44.
4. Parsons, Henderson and Tlou, Seretse Khama, p. 59.
5. Mandela to Masire, n.d. [July 1980], ANC, Oliver Tambo Papers.
6. Nkomo, The Story of My Life, p. 35.
7. Parsons, Henderson and Tlou, Seretse Khama, p. 59.
8. Sampson, Mandela, pp. 34–5.
9. Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, pp. 105–6.
10. Information provided by Anna Sander, Lonsdale Curator of Archives and Manuscripts, Balliol College, Oxford.
11. Coupland to Buchanan, 25 October 1945, BNARS, S 169/15/1.
12. Keith, ‘African Students in Great Britain,’ pp. 65–6; Kirk-Greene, ‘Doubly Elite’, in Killingray (ed.), Africans in Britain, pp. 221–2.
13. Speech by Sir Seretse Khama at State Banquet, Blantyre, first anniversary of the Republic of Malawi, 5 July 1967, BECM.