Botswana Independence

Botswana Independence: Prior to independence in 1966, Botswana was neglected to a degree unusual even in colonial Africa. The Act of Union of 1909 said that the three High Commission Territories (Basutoland, Bechuanaland, and Swaziland) would eventually be incorporated into the Union of South Africa. Britain, therefore, did very little for Bechuanaland, and South Africa did nothing because Bechuanaland was considered British.

Britain did, however, refuse to allow incorporation, despite considerable pressure from the government of South Africa. Botswana therefore inherited almost nothing in 1966 and was then one of the poorest countries in the world. Until just before independence, the country had no capital city, having been governed from Mafeking in South Africa; there were just a few kilometers of tarred road; and in 1965, only 27 students had graduated from five years of secondary education.

The country was entirely surrounded until 1980 by hostile, white-ruled states, apart from a theoretical pinpoint boundary with Zambia that was not acknowledged by the governments of Rhodesia or South Africa. The new government was dependent on British aid for half of the recurrent budget. On the other hand, ethnically and linguistically the population was relatively homogeneous, and the first president, Seretse Khama, was well-educated, having studied at Oxford and in London.

A tradition of pragmatic diplomacy, to which the country owed its existence, was carried forward after independence into both foreign and economic policy. The discovery of mineral deposits (copper and nickel at Selebi-Phikwe and diamonds at Orapa) made rapid economic growth possible. In addition, beef exports gained access to Europe at prices above those from other parts of the world, Botswana’s sources of aid were diversified, and renegotiation of the Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) increased Botswana’s customs revenue.

The copper and nickel mine was never profitable, but the government’s share of large diamond profits from the three mines eventually developed generated a surplus on the recurrent budget in 1973 and on the development budget in 1984. By the 1990s, Botswana was the world’s largest producer by value of gem diamonds. Financial surpluses continued in most years thereafter. As a consequence, the government accumulated balances equivalent to two years’ spending and foreign exchange reserves equivalent to three years’ imports.

Botswana avoided the problems of other mineral boom economies. Government expenditure took account of the scarcity of skilled manpower and the government’s own capacity to manage public spending. The result was not only rapid economic growth (Botswana’s economy was bound to grow rapidly) but also rapid growth of employment and considerable diversification of the economy. Employment growth did stop in the first half of the 1990s but resumed thereafter.

From the time of independence, the Botswana government handled relations with its white-ruled neighbors in a pragmatic way. Permission was sought and granted from the United Nations for Botswana not to apply sanctions to Rhodesia, although despite this, there were security problems until the Rhodesian war for independence ended in 1980. Botswana offered sanctuary to refugees but did not allow military training or military bases to be established.

Again, this was not sufficient to prevent a number of military raids across the border from South Africa during the 1980s. Trade, however, was not seriously affected. Botswana has been a multiparty democracy throughout the post-independence period, with elections every five years. For many years, the ruling Botswana Democratic Party held all but 3 or 4 seats out of approximately 30 in the country’s parliament. The opposition achieved majorities in the main town councils and came to hold most of the urban parliamentary seats, winning 14 out of 40 seats in the enlarged parliament in the 1994 election.

As the country had moved from being 4 percent to 50 percent urban, it would appear that the opposition might have done even better and for the future to be on its side. However, it split badly between 1994 and 1999, when the election was contested by some 14 parties. Although there was no change of ruling party arising from elections, there have to date been three peaceful changes of president.

Sir Seretse Khama was succeeded on his death in 1980 by his vice president, Sir Ketumile Masire, who chose to retire in 1998. He was succeeded by the then vice president, Festus Mogae; Mogae’s vice president is Ian Khama, who was formerly head of the Botswana Defense Force (BDF) and is the eldest son of Seretse Khama.

Botswana played a leading part in the creation of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). In the 1990s, SADC members were divided on a number of political issues, and attempts to establish a SADC free trade area were subject to delays. Nevertheless, the SADC continued to be active in settling regional political issues, in which Botswana played a part, for example, contributing to troops brought into Lesotho by the SADC in 1998.

The BDF also contributed to peacekeeping forces elsewhere in Africa. Most of Botswana’s other international trading agreements were in a state of uncertainty in the late 1990s. The SACU was in the process of renegotiation; South Africa had agreed to free trade with the European Union, which would result in reductions in customs union revenue and in the level of protection of SACU producers; the Lomé agreement was due for renegotiation and was not expected to continue substantially unchanged as previously; and a further global round of World Trade Organization negotiations was imminent.

On the other hand, all of Botswana’s neighbors were ruled by democratically elected governments, with which Botswana had normal diplomatic relations. Both the economic and the strategic position of Botswana had therefore been transformed for the better since 1966. However, the period of diamond-led growth was coming to an end, and the economy could not depend indefinitely on further rapid growth of government spending.

Future economic growth and growth of employment depended, therefore, on Botswana being able to attract foreign investment in such sectors as manufacturing, financial services, and tourism. Unusually, Botswana did not necessarily need the inflow of income but did need scarce skilled management resources and access to foreign markets.

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Tswana People

Tswana People: The Bechuanaland Protectorate, which was founded in 1885, was the forerunner of the modern-day state of Botswana. Eight major Tswana chiefdoms—the Kgatla, Kwena, Lete, Ngwaketse, Ngwato, Tshidi-Rolong, Tawana, and Tlokwa—occupied the protectorate at the time of its establishment. The European “Scramble” for Africa in the late nineteenth century must be considered in the context of the protectorate’s creation.

In this instance, Tswana land was impacted by four primary external factors at the time: Cecil Rhodes’ expansionist push, German imperialism, Boer expansionism, and British imperialism. Tswana area south of the Molopo River, which was to serve as the protectorate’s southern border, has experienced instability since the late 1870s.

In pursuit of more territory, Boer freebooters from the Transvaal took advantage of and fostered divisions among Tswana chiefs. In southern Tswana, these freebooters established two minirepublics by forming partnerships with specific chiefs. When Germany declared a protectorate over southern Namibia in 1884, the British government was concerned about the potentially dangerous possibility of German territory connecting with the Transvaal across Bechuanaland.

The British took action; they established a protectorate over Tswana land south of the Molopo in 1884 and sent a military expedition led by General Charles Warren to expel the Boer freebooters in the first part of 1885. The British expanded the protectorate in September 1885 to include a sizable region north of the Molopo, which was bordered to the east by the Limpopo River and to the west by the German protectorate.

In 1890, Britain expanded the protectorate to the northern Chobe River in accordance with an agreement with Germany. At first, the creation of the Bechuanaland Protectorate was welcomed by two Tswana leaders, Khama of the Ngwato and Gaseitsiwe of the Ngwaketse. They saw the British presence as a safeguard against external dangers from the Ndebele to the northeast and from Transvaal Boers. Mineral prospectors turned their attention to the protectorate following the 1886 gold discovery on the Rand.

Adventurers who thought the Johannesburg gold reef would extend north and west introduced the protectorate to the hunt for a “second Rand.” Several of these explorers were granted mineral, land, and trading concessions by all of the principal Tswana chiefs in the protectorate starting in 1887. These concessions mostly turned out to be worthless.

Cecil Rhodes and the British South Africa Company (BSAC) would eventually buy out certain concessionaires, while the British colonial government would finally forbid other concessions. The status and future of the protectorate became a topic of debate and contention in the late 1880s and early 1890s due to the imperial expansion and growing resource extraction in southern Africa.

Some people, including as Sir Henry Loch, the British high commissioner, and missionary John Mackenzie, wanted the protectorate to be a true British colony. (Protectorate status did not go as far as this, giving local chiefdoms a reasonable amount of independence.) The protectorate also played a significant role in Rhodes’s plans to expand.

He referred to the region as “the Suez Canal into the interior” because he considered it to be a vital conduit. The protectorate was supposed to be the entryway to the north in Rhodes’s ambitious Cape-to-Cairo plan, but it was also supposed to act as a stepping stone for Rhodes in the near future. Ngwato territory served as the starting point for the BSAC’s pioneer column, which was an expedition of European settlers who entered Mashonaland in 1890.

The business invaded Lobengula’s Ndebele kingdom three years later in a bold but dangerous move. The Ndebele’s ability to defend itself was weakened when an imperial force from the protectorate launched a supporting invasion, creating a second front. Meanwhile, in the early 1890s, there was still disagreement over the protectorate’s future status. Loch continued to push for imperial annexation. Rhodes demanded that the territory be transferred to the BSAC.

However, the Tswana leaders steadfastly rejected the company’s takeover. To protest such a takeover, three chiefs traveled to Britain in 1895: Khama, Sebele (the Kwena chief), and Bathoen (the Ngwaketse chief). In November 1895, an agreement was made whereby Khama, Sebele, and Bathoen would continue to enjoy a high degree of autonomy under imperial protection, but they would also cede to the BSAC a large portion of the protectorate’s western and northern regions as well as a narrow strip of land on their eastern border.

The eastern strip was turned over with the stated intention of building a railroad. The transfer was actually made to give Rhodes a platform from which to launch an invasion of the Transvaal. Leander Starr Jameson launched his shameful expedition into Kruger’s Transvaal republic from his stronghold at Pitsane in the protectorate within two months of the transfer, only to be humiliated by the Boers on January 2, 1896.

Ironically, the Jameson Raid saved northern Tswana from the same fate that had befallen the Shona and Ndebele, but it also destroyed Rhodes’ political career. In order to prevent the Tswana from being absorbed into a Rhodesian-style colony of white settlers, the British government abandoned plans to give the company a sizable portion of the protectorate following the raid. In the final fifteen years of the nineteenth century, colonialism had almost no positive effects on northern Tswana.

The eight Tswana chiefdoms inside the protectorate were intended to maintain their autonomy by virtue of their protectorate status. However, in reality, the protectorate’s tiny British government was always meddling in the internal affairs of the chiefdoms. Sir Sidney Shippard, who led that government from 1885 until 1895, was an authoritarian who demanded that the chiefs “obey the Government in all things lawful.”

Therefore, the British government reduced the authority of Tswana courts, interfered in dynastic conflicts, and overruled chiefs’ rights to sell concessions to prospectors and other businesspeople. The imperial government levied a 10-shilling “hut tax” on all homesteads in the protectorate in 1899 and arbitrarily divided the eight chiefdoms into reserves. Reducing colonial spending in the protectorate was another priority for the administration.

As a result, there was no funding allocated for development or welfare throughout these years. Health and education were not considered to be the province of the state. The local carrying trade was weakened as a result of the BSAC’s supervision of the railway’s development from Vryburg to Bulawayo between 1896 and 1897.

The final four years of the century were especially challenging for the people of the protectorate: the 1890s rinderpest epidemic destroyed around 90% of the cattle herds, followed by three years of drought and locust invasions. The protectorate was basically regarded as an imperial appendage from 1885 until 1899.

It was seen as a vital conduit for northern imperial development. It served as a springboard for bold, expansionist colonial endeavors. With the exception of annoying meddling in their domestic issues and disregard for their economic interests, imperial “protection” did little to benefit northern Tswana.

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Islam in Africa

Islam in Africa exists in multiple variations, spanning both the northern and southern regions of the Sahara. Across the continent, Africans have historically been part of Sufi brotherhoods. Additionally, many ethnic groups, especially in West and East Africa, converted to Islam collectively before and during the colonial period, making religious identity closely tied to ethnicity.

Some of these communities are also part of Sufi brotherhoods, which can further reflect an ethnic component. However, orthodox interpretations of Islam—predominantly Sunni—are largely upheld by religious elites, known as the ‘ulama, who often perceive Sufi followers as practicing a diluted or impure version of Islam. The varied expressions of Islam in Africa highlight the existence of multiple interpretations of Muslim identity.

Outside the Arab nations in the north, Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa falls into distinct categories shaped by social, cultural, and historical factors. The first category includes the dominance of Islam in the emirates of northern Nigeria, the lamidates of northern Cameroon, and the shaykhdoms of northern Chad, where religious and political authority is concentrated in a few individuals, leading to a class structure based on religious hierarchy.

The second category consists of regions where Sufi brotherhoods hold significant influence, mainly in West and East Africa, particularly in Senegal, the Gambia, Niger, Mali, Guinea, Kenya, and Tanzania. The third category comprises countries where Muslims are fragmented by ethnic and regional differences, leading to their marginalization in national politics. This is the case in several Sub-Saharan nations, such as Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Côte d’Ivoire.

In contrast, Sudan presents a different scenario, where the Muslim rulers of the National Islamic Front have used Islam as a tool for conquest and Arabization against southern Sudanese groups like the Dinka and the Nuer. These groups have waged prolonged resistance against the northern Sudanese Muslim-led government, which has received support from Iran in its effort to establish an Islamic state across the nation.

Although Sudanese authorities claim that Shari’a law would not be enforced in non-Muslim regions, their policies suggest an agenda of forced conversion and cultural assimilation, resembling a form of ethnic cleansing. The distinct cultural and religious identities of southern Sudanese communities make such efforts a direct threat to their traditions and survival.

The Sudanese government’s drive to Islamize the country is one of several indications of the growing influence of what is often labeled as “fundamentalist” Islam or, more accurately, Islamism. In recent years, Islamism has played a significant political and religious role in North African Arab nations such as Algeria and Egypt, with a lesser but notable presence in Tunisia and Morocco.

However, its impact in most of Sub-Saharan Africa remains limited, except for Nigeria. In Nigeria, tensions between Christians and Muslims have led to serious conflicts, accompanied by the rise of Islamist factions. These groups have frequently targeted Sufi Muslims, whom they view as followers of an impure version of Islam that needs purification.

Broadly speaking, two primary types of Islamist movements exist in Sub-Saharan Africa. The first consists of reformist groups, often influenced by Islamic orthodoxy as promoted by Iran or Saudi Arabia, attracting educated individuals who seek a purified Islamic society.

The second type of Islamist movement, particularly visible in Nigeria, has emerged as a reaction to the ongoing Christian-Muslim divide in the country. This form of Islamism is less about theological purity and more about asserting Muslim political and social rights in opposition to Christian dominance.

Nevertheless, Islamism has had a relatively limited effect across most of Sub-Saharan Africa compared to North Africa. Many African Muslims either follow Sufi traditions or belong to small, localized Muslim communities where traditional Islamic practices prevail.

In North Africa, Islamism manifests in diverse forms. Some groups engage in armed struggle to overthrow governments, as seen in Algeria and Egypt, while others pursue gradual political change through democratic processes, as in Morocco and Tunisia.

Additionally, certain Islamist factions seek to advance their goals through a combination of extraparliamentary activism, social outreach, and lobbying, as observed in Algeria and Egypt. Despite tactical differences, North African Islamist groups generally share two core beliefs: the inseparability of politics and religion and the necessity of implementing Shari’a law for all Muslims, either voluntarily or through coercion.

These groups attract followers from various professional backgrounds, including teachers, university students, graduates (particularly in science and technology), military personnel, police officers, and shopkeepers. While many recruits live in cities, they often have rural origins. Though Islamist rhetoric is framed in theological terms, many followers are primarily driven by social and economic grievances that stem from political dissatisfaction.

Thus, beyond its religious framework, Islamism in North Africa is fueled by political and socioeconomic struggles against ruling elites, who often monopolize political and economic power.

Islamist parties have contested elections in several African nations since the 1980s and 1990s, including Egypt, Algeria, Kenya, Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia. Some of these parties have achieved electoral success, with Islamists gaining legislative seats in various countries.

These successes have had two primary effects: maintaining pressure on ruling elites to grant more concessions while reinforcing public support for Islamist movements. Victory in elections also helps sustain existing followers’ commitment and attracts new supporters to the Islamist cause.

Islam has also served as a unifying force for certain minority ethnic groups in several African countries. During the 1960s and 1970s, some governments sought to suppress Muslim political concerns by exacerbating religious and ethnic divisions.

However, by the 1980s, increasing economic hardships, political repression, and international democratic movements contributed to the rise of popular Islamic groups that challenged both religious authorities and secular governments. In Burkina Faso, Kenya, and Tanzania, Islamic movements played a key role in opposing one-party rule when these political systems were already facing internal and external pressures.

In Burkina Faso, where Muslims make up around 30% of the population, the catalyst for Muslim opposition was the revolutionary government of Captain Thomas Sankara, who seized power in 1983. His administration’s efforts to diminish Islam’s social and political status spurred resistance from the Muslim community.

In Kenya, where approximately 10% of the population is Muslim—mainly in the coastal, northeastern, and eastern provinces—Islamic activism was fueled by perceived economic and political marginalization. Certain ethnic groups, such as the Luhya, Kamba, and Kalenjin, were seen as disproportionately benefiting from the Kenya African National Union (KANU) government.

The legalization of political activity in 1991 paved the way for the emergence of Islamic political movements with strong ethnic affiliations. However, religious parties were barred from registering for the 1992 elections, preventing the newly formed Islamic Party of Kenya, led by Khalid Salim Ahmed Balala, from participating.

In Tanzania, about one-third of the mainland population is Muslim, dispersed among various ethnic groups, with the highest concentrations along the coast. In Zanzibar, where nearly 97% of the population follows Islam, political opposition based on religious identity emerged within the broader context of the country’s transition from a one-party system to political pluralism.

Like in Kenya, Tanzania’s Muslim population often argued that they faced economic disadvantages. Historically, however, Muslim-Christian relations in Tanzania remained relatively peaceful, partly because Muslims held significant political positions under the leadership of Julius Nyerere, and his policies fostered social cohesion. Nevertheless, economic and political shifts in the country have since contributed to greater tensions between religious communities.

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