Alice Mogwe – My journey to Justice
I would like to base my reflections about Justice, on the five personal lessons which have shaped my understanding of what Justice means to me, today. However, before that, I would like to pay homage to two of our Archbishops who have been my life guides on this topic of justice (though I doubt that they were aware of it!!) – Archbishop Emeritus Khotso Makhulu and the late Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. Two lessons I have learnt from them are:
• The importance of quiet, reflective time as the source for guidance in standing up for what is right, even in the face of overwhelming opposition.[1]
• Ubuntu (Botho) refers to ‘’how we need each other. God, quite deliberately, has made us beings that are incomplete without the other. No one is self-sufficient’’.[2]
Lesson Number 1
Several years ago, a friend told me a story. I was in the last few years of my secondary education in Botswana and he was determined to make me ‘’think’’. This story is about what he referred to as ‘’dumb kid’’ and ‘’clever adult’’. The Kid and the Adult were walking down the road and they came across an elephant sitting on a mouse. The Adult continues walking and the Kid stops the Adult. The Kid asks the Adult, ‘’Why are you not helping the mouse? The elephant is sitting on the mouse’’. The Adult says ‘’I am apolitical so I am not going to do anything’’. The Kid responds by saying ‘’But surely, by not doing anything, you are helping the elephant to sit on the mouse?’’.
This lesson taught was also referred to by our late Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu when he said:
‘’If you are neutral in situation of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality’’
So, Lesson Number 1: You have to take action to ensure justice for the poor, for the oppressed and the marginalised. There is no room for one to be apolitical.
Lesson Number 2
Some years later, in 1980, I found myself in my first year of study, at the University of Cape Town, in apartheid South Africa.[3] I enrolled to study law, because I strongly believed (at the time), that the only and best way to ensure that the poor, the oppressed and the marginalised, could be protected, was through the use of law, legal representation and the courts. I ended up being involved in the university Legal Clinic through which, we, the students, supported by practicing lawyers, provided free legal advice to the poor. I summarised my belief at the time, in the simple equation of Law = Justice. I believed in the objectivity of law. I believed in its intrinsic fairness. I believed in ‘Lady Justice’ – blindfolded and holding her scales and sword. This is why I chose to read law at the University of Cape Town, in apartheid South Africa.
However, I had not counted on what I was to learn … that access to the courts depended on whether you could afford a lawyer … that access to justice depended on whether the judiciary acted in accordance with the prescribed rules of fairness and objectivity … that judges and magistrates are human too (with human foibles and prejudices and personal views which often colour their worldview) … that impartiality of the courts depended on whether the doctrine of the separation of powers truly exists, ensuring that the courts did in fact operate separately from the rest of government and were not subject to the influence of the executive … that the wholesale adoption of institutions and concepts from our colonial past have at times led to a misfit with the lived realities of our actual contexts …
So, Lesson Number 2: Law can protect human rights but is not always enabled to do so.
These two lessons placed me on my current path. I recognised that all are born equal in dignity but due to the circumstances of birth one can be born into institutionalised inequalities and into a suffering due to societal injustices.
My relationship to law
The first decision I made, was to never actually practice law in the courts, but to use law outside the courtrooms, to enable access to information and to mediation for those who could not even ‘’get their foot into the courtroom’’ due to their socio-economic exclusion. In other words, due to the lack of access to social justice.
So, all this led me to ask myself:
- what does justice mean to me?
- how best is it attainable?
- what is my role in contributing to giving meaning to my own life and the lives of others?
Question 1: What does justice mean to me?
Lesson Number 3
I eventually completed my studies at both the University of Cape Town and the University of Kent and had returned home, to contribute towards the development of my country, Botswana. In 1991, the-then Botswana Christian Council,[4] under the guidance of our Archbishop Emeritus Khotso Makhulu, requested me to visit the eastern part of our country. There had been a number of reports received from clergy based there, about ‘’human rights violations’’ amongst the Basarwa/San – the indigenous peoples of Botswana. However, nobody knew exactly what these ‘’human rights violations’’ were, so I was sent there to conduct research. For the first time in my life, I experienced what it was like to rely on others to guide me through a very different culture, and through very different socio-economic conditions in my own country. It was a truly humbling experience. I came face-to-face with extreme poverty, as well as their experiences of extreme prejudice, discrimination, unemployment and forced labour. Up until then, I had imagined that the Church could be a paragon of all virtues, here in the world because it was not ‘of the world’’…. but in seeking endorsement for my Report,[5] I witnessed Archbishop Khotso having to convince his fellow Council members, his fellow priests, that it was important to adopt the Report and to take action on the suffering documented therein!
That was my Lesson Number 3 … sometimes the Church struggles to not become part ‘’of the world’’ and to not be subject to political niceties and political correctness. Speaking as is said ‘’Truth to Power’’ is an important role for the Church in all of our communities.
In answer to my first question: To me, justice means, speaking up and taking action to enable others to live their lives in and with dignity.
Question 2: How best is it attainable?
Lesson Number 4
My journey with the indigenous peoples, which began in 1990, has continued to date. It has included accompaniment in their court battles to assert and protect their access to their traditional lands and their right to hunt and gather, inside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. It has included using the law to prevent the execution of two indigenous men, who had been charged with and found guilty of murder. It has included, most recently, challenging the authorities to compensate for elephant damage to a borehole. Other challenges include do-gooders who often struggle to recognise that true empowerment of others should not lead to their disempowerment and de-contextualisation to ensure that they ‘’fit into’’ a normative understanding of development. Different tools can be used to attain social justice for the enabling of a lived human dignity – an enabling of the living of a dignified life.
The court case[6] of Roy Sesana and Others, led to a restored faith in the law. A restored faith that the Government would comply with the law and allow the communities back onto their traditional lands. However, what followed put paid to such hopes. Using a strict, narrow interpretation of the law, the Government argued that the court decision only applied to those who had been party to the court case. They were happy to exclude children (of applicants) born outside the CKGR as a result of the effective forced relocation exercise. The legal victory proved to be a hollow victory, as years later, the disruption to community life still finds expression in the continued fracturing of community and ignoring of the socio-cultural contexts of the indigenous Basarwa/San peoples.
The current court battle to enable the burial of the body of the late CKGR resident, Gaoberekwe Pitseng, inside the CKGR is an example of this. He left the CKGR to seek medical attention, but had made it clear that should he die, he should be buried amongst his ancestors, inside the CKGR. His body has been in the mortuary since 24 December 2021, while the government’s refusal to respect his culture is challenged by his family, through the courts – at great financial cost.
That was my Lesson Number 4. We often fail to see institutionalized subjugation of fellow citizens through the use of laws aimed not at the protection of human dignity, but at ensuring that the Rule of Law is applied, for its own sake, as Rule by Law.
In answer to my second question: Justice is broader than that prescribed by law, to enable the respect for the dignity of all. As an African, I see justice as speaking more broadly to ensuring harmony within community (kutlwano[7]) through ensuring that past wrongs, regardless of how long ago they occurred, are firstly acknowledged and secondly, addressed in order to ensure peace.[8] As an African, I saw no contradiction between the indignities experienced by the colonised during formal colonialism and the indignities of the recent ‘’COVID vaccine apartheid’’ practices towards the global south, by those who continue to dominate the global world order today.
The Church has to acknowledge and take action to address the wrongs of the past, committed in its name and address the manifestation of those wrongs in contemporary society. These include the historic twin evils of colonialism and racism. These are structural. These are attitudes. These are practices. Educating ourselves, raising our own awareness, critically analyzing our own policies and programmes, as well as of our governments – all aimed at restoring that ‘’harmony in community’’ which should be based on genuine fellowship and protection of the human dignity of all.[9]
Question 3: What is my role in contributing to giving meaning to my own life and the lives of others?
Lesson Number 5
There are several emerging challenges, globally. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed pre-existing socio-economic and political inequalities. Since 2020, the world has shifted to ’survival’ mode. ‘Survival of the fittest’ appears to have become the explanation of and justification for decisions taken by our world leaders. Those with more, could do more, took more for themselves and continue to do so. Conversely, those with less were able to do less and continue to do so. The limitations of the consumptive development model are manifesting in our climate crisis, food crisis, wars, occupation, subjugation, migration, racism, colonialism, negative use of technology with social injustices through unjustifiable social media communications; and skewed global development patterns.
That was my Lesson Number 5. Action starts with the self!
In answer to my third question: I do feel overwhelmed by it all, at times. How can I, in my little corner actually make a difference? Being an active citizen and trying to make a positive difference wherever I am. As our late Archbishop Tutu said:
Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world’’
In addition to ‘’doing good’’, the Church has a critical role to play in ’calling out’ and naming the ‘evils’ for what they are, as well as reflecting on which kind of justice it wishes to promote.[10] This includes being internally reflective too, about our personal practices.
My 5 Lessons in summary:
This includes naming ‘corruption’, wherever it occurs. Naming the ‘’dehumanisation of fellow human beings’ through commodification, as was done through the recent UK-Rwanda agreement about refugees. Naming the ‘modern slavery’ of those trafficked and working in our countries, including in Europe. Naming our role in the global and national value chain of ‘exploitation of workers’’ through our personal consumptive practices. Naming our role in the dehumanising of fellow human beings, including on the basis of their age; colour; race; sexual orientation, gender identity and expression and sex characteristics; geographic places of origin; indigeneity; ability or disability; level of education; or economic situation. Naming those who govern through abusing the power given to them by the people.
- The Church and Christians cannot be apolitical in the face of injustice.[1] Work together with coalitions and social movements[2] to challenge the various forms of injustice.
- Social Justice cannot be achieved by law alone.
- The Church and Christians have no choice but to ‘’speak truth to power’’.
- The Church has a responsibility to ensure that all are able to live their lives in and with dignity
- Church action must start with the self – within the Church and within individual Christians.
[1] Working for social justice is, daily, learning to work on one’s faith-in-action-in-the world through love, mutual affection, godliness, endurance, self-control, knowledge and goodness. 2 Peter Chapter 1.
[2] Black Lives Matter; environmental human rights defenders, etc.
[1] Archbishop Makhulu has been Patron of DITSHWANELO – The Botswana Centre for Human Rights since 1993. He introduced and guided me in engagement with the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) in the late 1980s and in my human rights work for the protection of the rights of the indigenous peoples in Botswana, the Basarwa/San peoples, which began in the 1990s.
[2] https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/make-right/2015/05/29/can-america-heal-after-ferguson-we-asked-desmond-tutu-and-his-daughter. Accessed 30 July 2022.
[3] For the first time, I encountered institutionalised, structural racism.
[4] Botswana Council of Churches
[5] Mogwe, Alice (1992). Who was (T)Here First? Botswana Christian Council.
[6] In January 2002, the Government of Botswana terminated water, food and health services to the Basarwa/San living in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). The service cuts were followed by effective forced relocations to adjacent areas. Access to the reserve was restricted for those who relocated, resulting in some of them no longer being able to enter the land they had occupied or to pursue their hunter-gatherer lifestyle. They were also denied the right to hunt using the official Special Game Licence (SGL). A number of those affected brought a case against the Government in the High Court. The court found that the termination of services by the Government was neither unlawful nor unconstitutional because there had been ‘’adequate consultation’’ and that the Government was not obliged to provide such services to them inside the CKGR. The court also found that they had been in possession of the land which they lawfully occupied in their settlements in the CKGR, and that they had been deprived of such possession by the Government forcibly or wrongly and without their consent. The Court held that refusal to allow the Applicants entry into the CKGR without a permit was both unlawful and unconstitutional because it violated their right of freedom of movement guaranteed by Section 14(1) of the Constitution. The Court held that the Government’s refusal to issue the SGL was unlawful. https://leap.unep.org/countries/bw/national-case-law/roy-sesana-v-attorney-general-republic-botswana. Sesana and Others v Attorney General (52/2022) [2006] BWHC 1 (13 December 2006). https://www.saflii.org/bw/cases/BWHC/2006/1.html Accessed 16 July 2022.
[7] Setswana for ‘’mutual understanding’’.
[8] Molao ga o bole – literal translation from Setswana is: a wrong does not go bad, or there is no prescription period for an offence. Ramose, Mogobe (2001). An African Perspective on Justice and Race. 3 Polylog Forum for Intercultural Philosophy.
[9] The Continuing Indaba Process (which was ably facilitated by Reverend Canon Dr Phil Groves)enables the building of a healing and healed community through active, mutual respectful listening with a focus on the connection which binds us all – that of being human deserving of dignity. https://www.anglicancommunion.org/mission/reconciliation/continuing-indaba.aspx. Accessed 18 July 2022. It is rooted in the recognition of botho/Ubuntu that ‘’my humanity is inextricably linked to yours’’.
[10] Distributive (‘who gets what’), Procedural (determining how fairly people are treated), Retributive (punishment for wrong-doing) and Restorative (restoring relationships to ‘’rightness’’). https:// www.beyondintractability.org/essay/types_of_justice#:~:text=This%20article%20points%20out%20that,All%20four%20of%20these%20are. Accessed 17 July 2022; and Social Justice (fairness based on every human being deserving the full spectrum of political, economic and social rights and opportunities). https://www.worldvision.ca/youth/blog/social-justice-guide?Page=1#What%20is%20social%20justice?. Accessed 17 July 2022.
[11] Working for social justice is, daily, learning to work on one’s faith-in-action-in-the world through love, mutual affection, godliness, endurance, self-control, knowledge and goodness. 2 Peter Chapter 1.
[12] Black Lives Matter; environmental human rights defenders, etc.