novelists-from-botswana

"The Olympics proved to be a huge public relations exercise. Olympics don’t sell as football. It meant taking austerity measures."

"You could pay staff for a month and go for three months without pay. I cut the entitlements of the SG. The position attracted huge benefits. I postponed plans to purchase a new Mercedes for the SG, removed the travelling from first class to business class and moved out of a mansion to an apartment whose rental was one fifth of what the mansion cost."

"You needed a different person to implement the scheme."

"The best broadcaster still alive is my neighbour Batho Molema. He has absolutely no idea how I hold him in high esteem. Molema is a successful man in his own right. He was a pioneer."

"We have for example the SABC which has less stigma than ourselves but it is government controlled. We are at a stage where we should also know that the public is fairly sophisticated and so unless we project a more transparent image of both radio and television, news that come out of these media will always be regarded as propaganda."

"When I ran the Round Table show there was no interference on my show. As the former director I never experienced any interference from anyone although I was called a puppet. Everyone called me the chief censor of news. I didn’t blame them because I was 100 percent owned by the government,"

"I am not in a hurry to publish, but I have already written some 400 pages of non fiction. It is not a kiss and tell story, but it is about my experiences in life as a journalist, as I traveled around the world. It will take time to finish it because it is research-based, which is quite demanding."

"It is about my vast experiences, my out look on African politics such as in Senegal, where I once worked. As a journalist, I would also air my views about journalism in Botswana, its growth, especially the private media. If you travel around the world you experience situations, it would be about what I was exposed to, the events I watched. The book will have a lot of issues on politics, the economy, even on cattle."

"It wasn’t that simple. But in the end, I won. It not only changed the law on citizenship, so that men and women were equal in citizenship, it actually influenced other laws."

"I think I’m a nomad at heart, I’m just always moving. I need to be challenged, intellectually challenged. My legacy is to challenge myself"

"It has turned out to be the most expensive and longest-running trial this country has ever dealt with. It has also attracted a lot of interest as well as a fair amount of bandwagon jumpers, both nationally and internationally, than perhaps any other case has ever done.'The Bushmen belong to an ethnic group 'that has been historically looked down upon,', said the judge - the names for them 'common terms of insult in the same way as nigger' and kaffir'."

"We may be changing and getting closer to your way of life, but give us a chance to decide what we want to carry with us into the future".'"

"“I’m a lawyer and I’ve been a judge, but there’s one thing that I have not done so far and that is to make laws, I would love a plan to join politics and to run for a political office as a member of parliament and therefore join the legislature.”"

"It is a people saying in essence: "Our way of life may be different, but it is worthy of respect."

"It got me thinking about the issue on a broader scale, How do you retain a cultural identity, which everyone says is a good thing, without being isolated."

"On a personal level, that was hard. It wasn't just my case, my issue, but the focus was on me personally. At the time I was young and thought everything was possible but there was a real cost both financially and emotionally. I always say at the start I was driving a BMW and by the end of the case I was in a pick-up truck. I had to take my kids out of private school and put them in public school."

"I was born into a Botswana where there was no tarmac road, no telephone, where you had to hold water on your head and firewood as well. I think I saw my first refrigerator when I was a teenager."

"Reforming the African Union, will open great opportunities in areas of trade, employment and economic growth in Africa."

"'ultimately about a people demanding dignity and respect."

"Botswana is emerging from a 'national shutdown'."

"The language of law is very masculine. The culture of law is so masculine. At one point, I started to think that it shouldn't be like this and that I have a right to be where I am."