Wame Molefhe profiles Botswana, where prosperity has morphed into corruption and inequality. But will the country’s future see it regain the sparkle its diamonds offer to the rich?
‘A nation without a culture is a lost nation.’ This misquote has been attributed to
the first president of Botswana and perhaps stems from a yearning for a past era when ‘because it is our culture’ was the predictable response to questions as to why things were done in a particular way. What Seretse Khama actually said, in 1970, was ‘a nation without a past is a lost nation, and a people without a past is a people without a soul’.
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