Colour Bar by Susan Williams

Author:Susan Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2007-05-12T04:00:00+00:00

17

Six thousand miles away from home

As W. A. W. Clark had suspected, Tshekedi had been very annoyed by Seretse’s separate speech of farewell to the Bangwato, after their joint statement. Shortly after his nephew’s departure, he told Baring that he had now shifted away from Seretse and was opposed to the idea of him ever being Kgosi.1 Six thousand miles away from home, Seretse had heard reports of his uncle’s changed attitude and, in October 1950, he wrote to him from London, emphasizing the need for them to work together:

even though we have given away our fatherland through our dispute we are nevertheless ready to forget the things which have caused misunderstandings between us so that we can redeem our land from the control of the Europeans so that it may return to the Bamangwato.

Government officials were eager to see conflict between them, he argued, ‘so that they could say that when we were together we would continually be at loggerheads’. He urged Tshekedi not to play into their hands. ‘I refuse,’ he said, ‘to quarrel with you further.’2

But Tshekedi ignored the warning in his nephew’s letter. He felt isolated in Rametsana and was keenly aware of the hostility towards him from so many of the Bangwato, which had led to skirmishes in several villages. The final straw was the burning down of his house at the Kgotla in Serowe, in the middle of the night of 17 October 1950. Arson was suspected, though not proved, and Tshekedi was bitterly hurt that no one had even tried to put out the fire.3 His entire library was destroyed, as were irreplaceable family memorabilia, including the Bible which Queen Victoria had presented to Khama III.4

On 12 November, Tshekedi publicly ruptured his reconciliation with Seretse. He published the ‘Aide-Memoire’ that he and Seretse had signed, claiming that this document proved that Seretse had agreed to renounce his own, and his children’s, claim to the chieftainship. But now, he complained, Seretse was trying to return to Bechuanaland as Chief. Tshekedi added that he had taken this step after several conferences with the British High Commissioner, Sir Evelyn Baring. He told the press that he could see no end to the dynastic feud.5 This choice of words – ‘dynastic feud’ – was resonant of the White Paper and gave a sense of inevitable and ceaseless quarrelling between the two men. It was exactly what Baring and Liesching wanted. Just two weeks before, Liesching had told Baring of his worry that Tshekedi might be ‘tempted into a combination with Seretse that would be fatal to our plans’.6

Seretse was appalled. He explained to reporters that he had never signed an agreement renouncing his claim to the chieftaincy – that the ‘Aide-Memoire’ was merely intended to set out ‘certain lines along which we might work’. This included the possibility of them both renouncing their claims, but only after discussing the matter in London and as a basis for discussion at the Kgotla. There could be no question of taking such a momentous decision without the involvement of the Bangwato people as a whole.

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