Distinguished Programme Director;
Your Majesty King Letsie III;
Your Majesty Queen ‘Masenate Mohato Seeiso and respected Members of the rest of the Royal Family;
The Rt Hon Prime Minister Mr Ntsokoane Matekane and Rt Hon Deputy Prime Minister, Ms Nthomeng Justina Majara;
Members of the Council of State and Ministers of the Government of the Kingdom of Lesotho;
Your Lordship Chief Justice Sakoane Peter Sakoane and Members of the Judiciary,
Former Prime Ministers of the Kingdom of Lesotho;
Speaker of the National Assembly, President of the Senate and Honourable Members of Parliament;
Respected Principal Chiefs of the Kingdom;
Your Excellencies Ambassadors, High Commissioners and other Members of the Diplomatic Corps;
Esteemed guests and participants at this Lecture;
Friends, ladies and gentlemen:
I would like to believe that most of us present here today will recall that in 1984 His Majesty, King Moshoeshoe II was requested to address the Centenary Celebrations of the adoption of Roman Dutch Law by Lesotho.
He first responded, I believe to the Chief Justice saying that he trembled when he received the invitation to address the Centenary meeting because he was afraid of embarrassing the gathering, the hosts and himself because he was aware that he did not have the necessary expertise to satisfy the legal eagles who would have convened for the Celebrations.
However, he was reassured when he was told that his task was merely to welcome the guests and then open the gathering in any manner and words of his choice and then disappear, hopefully without too much loss of dignity.
Fortunately, this response left His Majesty, as he said, reassured and relieved.
A few months ago, His Majesty King Letsie III invited me to deliver this Lecture. This was before I knew of what I have just told you of His Majesty King Moshoeshoe II’s response to the invitation to address the Centenary Celebration of the adoption of Roman Dutch Law.
If I had known this, I too would have responded to His Majesty King Letsie III by saying that I had trembled when I received his invitation because I believed that it would be highly presumptuous and even arrogant for a South African to come to Lesotho to talk to the Basotho about a person as highly distinguished as King Moshoeshoe II.
Hopefully, His Majesty would then have responded to me by saying that having paid a short tribute to the late King, I would be at liberty to speak in any manner and words of my choice, praying that at the end I would leave this hall without too much loss of dignity.
Unfortunately for me, ignorance meant that I did not have the privilege to follow the excellent example set by His Majesty King Moshoeshoe II.
I nevertheless hope that you will pardon me for speaking in a manner and words of my choice, as King Moshoeshoe II was advised.
Let me start by going back just over 140 years in 1883.
That year a Xhosa poet, Jonas Ntsiko, who called himself uHadi Waseluhlangeni – the Harp of the Nation, published a poem in isiXhosa which said:
Vukani bantwana
Bentab’ eBosiko,
Seyikhal’ ingcuka
Ingcuk’ emhlophe,
Ibawel’ amathambo
Mathambo kaMshweshwe
Mshweshwe onobuthongo
Phezul’ entabeni.
Siyarhol’ isisu
Ngamathamb’ enkosi,
Ubomv’ umlomo
Kuxhaph’ uSandile…
Yaginy’ okaMpande
Ozitho zigoso;
Yamkhuph’ esahleli:…
Vukani Zimbila
Zentab’ eBosiko.
I am led to believe that this is the correct rendition of this poem in seSotho.
Tsohang bana ba Thaba Bosiu
Phiri e ya lla
Phiri e tshweu
E lapetse masapo
Masapo a Morena Moshoeshoe
Moshoeshoe ya ithobaletseng
Ka hodim’a Thaba
Mala a ya korotla
A thabetse masapo a Morena
Molomo u rotha madi
Ho tswa harola Sandile….
E koentse Mpande
Ya di horo
E mo theola teroneng ya hae pele ho nako……
Tsohang lona dipela
Tsa Thaba Bosiu.
I have no doubt that all of us present here today are very familiar with the truly remarkable story of that eminent African leader of the 19th century, and all time, His Majesty King Moshoeshoe I.
That story includes the historically important proclamation by the British in 1868 of the Protectorate of Basutoland at the request of King Moshoeshoe.
There is no doubt that King Moshoeshoe was perfectly conscious of the fact that the British were colonisers in the same way as the Boers. After all, the Basotho, under his leadership, had fought the British, arms in hand, exactly to avoid being colonised by these.
It was a stroke of genius that, to borrow a saying, King Moshoeshoe snatched victory from the jaws of defeat by persuading the British to proclaim Moshoeshoe’s Kingdom a Protectorate of the British Crown, thus saving it from becoming a Boer colony.
The poem by Jonas Ntsiko, ‘Vukani bantwana Bentab’ eBosiko’, ‘Tsohang bana ba Thaba Bosiu’, published 13 years after King Moshoeshoe passed away, draws our attention what was a critically important understanding among the indigenous peoples of Southern Africa at the time when they were resisting colonisation during the 19th century.
The guerrilla wars fought in many African and other countries during the 20th century to defeat imperialism, colonialism and apartheid introduced into the global vocabulary the concept of ‘a liberated area’. These areas would provide a base for the continuation of the guerrilla struggle for liberation.
What the poet, the ‘Harp of the Nation’ was saying was that Lesotho, or Basutoland as it was called then, was to the struggling peoples of Southern Africa a liberated area. It was a base for the continuation of the struggles to defeat the process of colonisation throughout this region.
And so when the poet said ‘Tsohang bana ba Thaba Bosiu’, this was not an imposition on the people of Lesotho but an affirmation of a role which King Moshoeshoe himself understood and accepted that the Protectorate could not be an end in itself, but a liberated area further to advance the struggle for the total liberation of both Lesotho and all its neighbourhood.
It was because the indigenous people in our region knew that this was part of the very being of the Basotho as a people that Jonas Ntsiko could even write – ‘Tsohang lona dipela Tsa Thaba Bosiu’.
The colonialists also knew this and never forgave King Moshoeshoe for it. That is why, thirteen years after the King had passed away, the poet could write –
Phiri e ya lla
Phiri e tshweu
E lapetse masapo
Masapo a Morena Moshoeshoe
Moshoeshoe ya ithobaletseng
Ka hodim’a Thaba
Mala a ya korotla
A thabetse masapo a Morena
The wolf is on the prowl
The white wolf
Hungry for the bones
The bones of Moshoeshoe
Moshoeshoe who sleeps on the mountain.
The stomach is excited
By the bones of the king,
On 22 March 1912, just over two months after the establishment of the African National Congress at a Conference in Bloemfontein, the newspaper established by the first President of the ANC, Rev John Langalibalele Dube, ‘Ilanga Lase Natal’, published an article by Pixley ka Isaka Seme, one of the prime movers of the ANC.
Your Majesty and dear friends, I beg your indulgence to permit me to read quite a substantial part of this article because of its importance.
Pixley Seme wrote:
“The highest officer among the Executive commoners (of the ANC) is the Reverend John L Dube who is styled President. Even he however is not the supreme head of the Congress as has been supposed. He is, under the constitution, the chief Executive of the Executive Commons and chairman of the same. We have seen however that the nobles are there to guide and control him as well as the commons. The highest position in the Congress therefore is that of the leader of the nobles. This great person is LETSIE II the Paramount Chief of Basutholand. This position was clearly understood and accepted by the delegates and the whole Congress at Bloemfontein. It was the unanimity of this sentiment and devotion which made election not necessary. This was the position which Chief Maama as the Representative of Letsie II occupied throughout the Congress without any question. Chief Maama finally controlled not only the Acting President but the whole Congress. This is sufficient proof of the fact that Letsie II whom he represented is the real head of the South African Native National Congress by the unanimous consent of the whole Congress and of the noble Chiefs who rendered notable assistance. Thus, it is quite true that Letsie II, is now not the Paramount Chief of Basutholand only but is through this Congress a National prince over all the natives of South Africa who came under this Congress. I have written this in order to dissipate all doubt.”
I believe that this is sufficient to show that this great grandson of Moshoeshoe I, Letsie II, had not forgotten or departed from the legacy of the Basotho royal family, initiated by King Moshoeshoe I, towards its own and the commitment of the people as a whole to serve as a liberated area in the continuing struggle for the liberation of the African peoples.
This was exactly why His Majesty King Letsie II played such a prominent role in the establishment of the African National Congress, then representing Africans from as far away as the present-day Zambia.
In an Address on 16 December 1971, to mark the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the real Umkhonto we Sizwe, then President of the ANC, the late Oliver Tambo, said:
“Let us arm ourselves with the willpower and fearlessness of Shaka: the endurance and vision of Moshoeshoe: the courage and resourcefulness of Sekhukhuni; the tenacity and valour of Hintsa; the military initiative and guerrilla tactics of Maqoma, the farsightedness and dedication of S.P. Makgatho, Sol Plaatjies, Langalibalele Dube, Isaka ka Seme. W.B. Rubusana, Meshach Pelem, Alfred Mangena, Paramount Chief Letsie II of Lesotho and all founding-fathers of the African National Congress. Let the dream of Moshoeshoe who cherished a great alliance of African people to resist their separate conquest come true in our lifetime. Let us fight for Freedom. The white enemy in South Africa can and must be defeated.”
Fortunately, when President Tambo said these words, His Majesty King Moshoeshoe II was back in Lesotho having been sent into a short exile by Chief Leabua Jonathan who, as we know, carried out a coup d’etat in 1970 to stop the Basotho Congress Party from exercising power having win that year’s General Election.
I am mentioning this because for us in South Africa one of the outstanding things about Chief Jonathan’s reign was the brave stand he took to allow ANC freedom fighters who had fled to Lesotho to operate from Lesotho against the apartheid regime.
I have no doubt that it was on this issue, among others, of the stance towards apartheid South Africa, that Leabua Jonathan had quarrelled with King Moshoeshoe II whom he drove into exile accusing him of interfering in politics.
When the apartheid regime declared war against the Leabua Jonathan government and imposed some sanctions against Lesotho, it offered to return to a situation of peaceful coexistence if the Government of Lesotho agreed to hand over to the apartheid regime the ANC cadres in Lesotho in exchange for members of the Lesotho Liberation Army the Pretoria regime would hand over to the Lesotho government.
It was very principled of the Jonathan government that it refused to accept this offer, arguing that it was not willing to engage in a “political business transaction with human beings”.
This position was exactly consistent with what King Moshoeshoe II had said to Chief Leabua Jonathan when the latter had accused him of political interference, that it was imperative to respect the tradition initiated by King Moshoeshoe I that Lesotho must always discharge its responsibility to the peoples of Southern Africa as a liberated area.
When Maj Gen Justin Metsing Lekhanya overthrew the Jonathan government in January 1986 he had already had discussions with the apartheid regime and obviously agreed to reverse the positions taken by King Moshoeshoe II and Chief Leabua Jonatahan concerning the struggle against the apartheid regime by meeting the demand of the Pretoria regime to expel the ANC and other South African cadres from Lesotho.
It was inevitable that in this regard, the new military leader of Lesotho, Gen Lekhanya would run into a head-on collision with His Majesty King Moshoeshoe II, whom indeed, he forced into exile for the second time, including for his refusal to endorse some of the decisions taken by the military junta.
In this regard, we will all recall that in his April 1990 ‘Statement to the Basotho People’, King Moshoeshoe II said:
“The conflicts which arose, on one hand, between some members of the Military Council and, on the other, myself and others in both Councils, centred around three major policy issues.”
He explained that one of these was “the role of Lesotho in the anti-apartheid campaign and our commitment to the Liberation Movement in South Africa…”
He went on to say that:
“Many of us saw this policy of subservience to South Africa as directly contrary to Lesotho’s moral commitment to support the Liberation Movement…Indeed, I saw and continue to see, the liberation struggle as our own struggle – Lesotho’s struggle for the liberation of our region from external domination and dependence…”
In another August 1990 document entitled ‘Power (its uses and abuses), Democracy and Development’, His Majesty also wrote:
“Indeed, it was my insistence that the issues of people participation and corruption should be addressed, as well as my criticism of foreign policy orientation, vis-à-vis the liberation struggle in South and Southern Africa that were the causes of both my conflict with the (Lekhanya) Military Council and my enforced exile.”
In 1987, King Moshoeshoe presented a major Address at the New York Council on Foreign Relations on the situation on Southern Africa and US policy towards this region.
Among other things he said:
“Since 1984 (in South Africa) there has begun a new period of intensified politization of the black majority opposition in the African townships…The subsequent emergence of recent political groupings, such as the UDF, the National Forum, and the Congress of South African Trade Unions, unites black opposition in a new way – in support of the total liberation movement, and the principles of the Freedom Charter.”
He went on to say:
“The (US government) policy of ‘constructive engagement’ has secured little in the way of any change. It has, however, lost the United States valuable time needed to exercise her undoubted capacity to influence the South African Government to come to the negotiating table.”
Without doubt, this major 1987 statement by His Majesty King Moshoeshoe II at the New York Council on Foreign Relations spoke exactly to the point made by Oliver Tambo when he said in 1971:
“Let the dream of Moshoeshoe who cherished a great alliance of African people to resist their separate conquest come true in our lifetime.”
It was exactly to contribute to this outcome that King Moshoeshoe II, loyal to the tradition initiated by his forebear, delivered his Address at the New York CFR.
It is said that during his 1988 presidential campaign, the late President of the United States, George H.W. Bush said – “I don’t do the vision thing!” – to highlight the importance of pragmatic action and downplay the importance of developing a long-term vision.
The story I have been trying to tell as part of my tribute to His Majesty King Moshoeshoe II is exactly the opposite of what President Bush Sr said. In the practice, following on the footsteps of his direct ancestors, starting with King Moshoeshoe I, King Moshoeshoe II respected the observation in the Biblical book of Proverbs – ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish.’
When Constantine Bereng Seeiso became Paramount Chief of Basutoland in 1960 he acceded to a high political position during a year in which many African countries gained their independence, following on the independence of Sudan in 1956 and Ghana in 1957.
It would not be difficult to imagine the dreams and hopes, the optimistic and inspiring vision the African peoples had as control of their countries came back into African hands.
For instance, in his Independence Day Speech, on 6 March 1957, Kwame Nkrumah proudly and correctly proclaimed:
”We have awakened. We will not sleep anymore. Today, from now on, there is a new African in the world.”
Three years later, when Ghana became a Republic in July 1960, Nkrumah said:
“Today, we have entered upon a new life and a new revolution: the national revolution for economic and social reconstruction, and the national effort to build Ghana into a beautiful and prosperous nation…
“By economic and social reconstruction, we mean the development of our potential wealth and the cultivation of our social relations in such a way as to eradicate the causes of poverty and squalor, degradation and unemployment, depression and want; so as to raise the living standards of our people, ensuring economic and social security for everyone from birth to death.”
For its part, the 1963 OAU Charter said that among the purposes of the organisation were:
“(a) to promote the unity and solidarity of the African States; and,
“(b) to coordinate and intensify their cooperation and efforts to achieve a better life for the peoples of Africa…”
Sometime after this, the Organisation of African Unity, the OAU, adopted the ‘Lagos Plan of Action: 1980-2000’. In its very Preamble, the Plan said:
“The effect of unfulfilled promises of global development strategies has been more sharply felt in Africa than in the other continents of the world. Indeed, rather than result in an improvement in the economic situation of the continent, successive strategies have made it stagnate and become more susceptible than other regions to the economic and social crises suffered by the industrialised countries. Thus, Africa is unable to point to any significant growth rate, or satisfactory index of general well-being, in the past 20 years. Faced with this situation and determined to undertake measures for the basic restructuring of the economic base of our continent, we resolved to adopt a far-reaching regional approach based primarily on collective self-reliance.”
And yet despite the adoption of the Lagos Plan and 30 years after the adoption of this Charter, in 1993, the 29th Ordinary Session of the OAU Heads of State and Government adopted a Declaration which said, among others:
“We…continue to be faced by the daunting dual challenge of economic development and democratic transformation…The socio-economic situation in our Continent remains…in a precarious state. Factors including the poverty, the deterioration of the terms of trade, plummeting prices of the commodities we produce, the excruciating external indebtedness and the resultant reverse flow of resources have combined to undermine the ability of our countries to provide for the basic needs of our people. In some cases, this situation has been further compounded by external political factors.”
Of great interest and importance in this context are related words which His Majesty King Moshoeshoe II put to paper at about the same time, in a serious analytical document which he entitled “A Call for a Second Liberation”.
The serious problems on our Continent identified by the 29th OAU Summit Meeting persist to this day. There are many others which we must mention, such as continuing violent conflicts, such as in Sudan, Somalia and the Sahel, fragile democracies, global marginalisation of Africa and a weak Continental organisation, the AU.
It is in this context that the document written by His Majesty King Moshoeshoe II constitutes a text which should be compulsory reading for all of us as Africans.
The reason for this is that it goes beyond merely and correctly identifying the problems and challenges our Continent faces.
It goes further to analyse these problems with a view to suggesting what should be done successfully to address them. In this regard, it is driven by a moving spirit of optimism, and therefore encourages us to act, confident of our capacity to overcome our problems.
Written more than two decades ago, it remains directly relevant in terms of the situation our Continent currently faces. It is also very relevant even if it only serves to provoke the required discussion and debate among us as Africans, without which it is impossible to solve any of our problems.
In short, the document, ‘A Call for a Second Liberation’ is an excellent example of the kind of leadership which our Continent sorely needs.
Let me indicate some of what it says.
His Majesty wrote:
“The first liberation, from colonialism, has now run its course. Its outcome has left us in a state of bewilderment and despair, surrounded, as we are, some 30 years later, by unfulfilled expectations, enormous potentialities, political uncertainties and economic decline…
“We now realise that, at the time of our political independence, we greatly underestimated the depth, and the real nature of the challenge that faced us – both externally and internally. Left with weak, vulnerable, and under-developed economies, with externally derived institutions foreign to our culture – our euphoria, and our expectations of a new world economic and political order, which would put out its hand, and integrate us into its system on a more equitable basis, all seem, now, only to reflect a trusting naivete…
“As the forces of neo-colonialism used their political and economic strength – a considerable part of that strength being derived from the spoils of their colonial era – to only entrench their domination and our dependence, we became more and more aware of our lack of preparation and of our need to re-organise ourselves, in order to regain control over our own very significant resources, our sovereignty, our integrity, our culture and our African humanity…
“The old colonial institutions which we inherited remained intact and, for the large part, unchanged. The imposition, and our acceptance of external conventional development strategies – again foreign to our culture, and totally unrelated to our stage of development and to the real needs of our majorities – made the task of domination and its dependence all too easy…
“We are not denying our own shortcomings. We are only too well aware of them. They include severe leadership problems, at all levels of our societies; the increasing levels of mismanagement and corruption; the lust for personal economic gain, power and privilege that is concentrated in the hands of the few, to the disadvantages of the majority; and our failure to take full control, as yet, of our own affairs…
“We know that corruption is a major problem which must be addressed before it becomes endemic, as it already promises to do…
“We must look to ourselves, asking ourselves, if we need to be liberated from anything that may obstruct our own vision of the means whereby a second liberation in Africa can be attained. The vision of liberation from domination and dependence, implies so many essential principles. They are surely those of a truly democratic society, of a cultural revolution, of a self-reliant, caring and sharing nation and a society of nations within a commitment to African unity; while each nation pursues its own sustainable, human need oriented, self and culturally derived strategy for national, regional and continental development. We shall need a Plan of Action, geared to these principles and doubtless to others that have been omitted here…The dream of African unity, so clear at the point of independence, also stands in urgent need of revival…
“A second liberation movement, armed with an even deeper knowledge and analysis of the real nature of dependency, of the mechanisms of domination, will call into question the present order of things, which involves both the international and the national status quo.”
King Moshoeshoe II made these important observations because of the crisis which characterised the matter central to the mission of post-colonial, liberated Africa – the sustained and all-round improvement of the more than a billion Africans.
As we all know, four organisations which are very important in terms of helping to determine Africa’s future are the African Union, the African Development Bank, the UN Economic Commission for Africa and the UN Development Programme, the UNDP.
Jointly these organisations issue a very useful African Development Report every year, which helps our Continent regularly to measure whether it is moving forward or backwards with regard to the critical matter of development.
Let me now indicate some of what the ‘2024 Africa Sustainable Development Report’ of these organisations says with regard to some important areas in which His Majesty King Moshoeshoe II would have been keenly interested.
Among others, the Report says:
“2024 marks a significant point for the global 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development and the Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want…However, progress towards achieving the two Agendas in Africa has slowed and even reversed in certain areas over the past few years, primarily due to the cumulative effects of the (global) ‘polycrisis’…
“The COVID-19 pandemic affected economies across the world and in Africa, many of which are still recovering from its effects…African countries encountered an estimated 6 percent decline in per capita GDP…, and an additional 55 million people were pushed into poverty in 2020 alone. It further caused job losses and reduced income and limited the ability of households to manage risks…”
Among others, the Report specifically discusses Sustainable Development Goal 1, which is to End poverty in all its forms everywhere. It says:
“SDG 1 centralizes social protection systems and resilience-building to climate-related events and shocks as keys to combating poverty. It pushes for equal rights to economic resources and access to basic services for all people, while recognizing the need for developing sound pro-poor policies and mobilizing resources to implement programmes to end all forms of poverty…
“COVID-19…slowed, disrupted or temporarily reversed progress across the (SDG) targets. In Africa, it caused an economic contraction of 3.2 percent and pushed an additional 55 million into poverty in 2020. It further caused job losses, reduced income and limited households’ ability to manage risks…
“Recovery from the pandemic has been uneven and incomplete. Its effects linger and continue to be aggravated by ongoing global crises, which are inhibiting economic growth in Africa. This includes an increase in fiscal deficit and debt distress. Africa’s fiscal deficit increased from 4.8 percent of GDP in 2021 to 5.2 percent of GDP in 2022, while 22 countries were already in debt distress or at a high risk of external debt distress in 2022…As at 2023, three countries had defaulted on their debt repayment…These fiscal pressures have limited public expenditure on key development outcomes…
“In 2022, Africa accounted for more than half (54.8 percent) of people living in poverty worldwide… Following the outbreak of COVID-19 an estimated 55 million people were pushed into poverty in just one year…Again, 23 of the 28 countries with extreme poverty rates of above 30 percent are in Africa…Seventy percent (7 out of 10) of the world’s extreme poor children are concentrated in Africa, making extreme child poverty increasingly an African phenomenon…
“For Africa, less than 6 percent of the 32 measurable SDG targets are on track to be achieved by 2030.”
I would like to believe that all of us will have noticed that the ‘2024 African Sustainable Development Report’ communicates the message that the challenges on our Continent which moved King Moshoeshoe II to write the seminal document we have quoted – ‘A Call For A Second Liberation’ – remain to this day.
Like others of our leaders throughout Africa, His Majesty King Moshoeshoe II was deeply committed to helping ensure that post-colonial Lesotho and Africa should indeed focus successfully on the principle which informed the Lagos Plan of Action, that “We commit ourselves, individually and collectively, on behalf of our governments and peoples, to promote the economic and social development and integration of our economies with a view to achieving an increasing measure of self-sufficiency and self-sustainment.”
I strongly believe that the fact of the message communicated by the ‘2024 African Sustainable Development Report’ means that we should try to understand what King Moshoeshoe II said about what had to be done successfully to achieve the development goals set out in the Lagos Plan of Action and other documents of the OAU.
And indeed, over many years, His Majesty paid the closest attention to the challenge of development. Among others, this necessitated an understanding of what should be understood by the very concept of development.
In an Address on ‘Social Policy, Development Issues and the Elimination of Poverty’ in 1989, His Majesty criticised an approach to development which argued that development would trickle down to the people provided that proper attention was paid to such matters as increasing the Gross Domestic Product and Per Capita Income.
His assessment of this approach was that:
“That narrow emphasis has led to a situation whereby only a very thin layer of (the) populations has prospered, while the vast majorities have continued to sink further and further into the backwaters of under-development…
“(One result of this is that) developing nations, (like Lesotho), came to reflect the current international unjust world economic order – with its vast and increasing gaps between rich and poor nations, and between citizens of the same nation – in spite of its serious implications for world peace and economic stability.”
His Majesty argued that all of us in the developing world must answer the questions – “Development for what? and for whom?”
In this context he then quoted the development economist, Dudley Seers, “who said in 1979”:
“The questions to ask about a nation’s development, are as follows – what has happened to poverty? What has happened to unemployment? What has been happening to inequality? If all three of these have decreased from high levels, then, there has been a measurement of development. But if one or more of these central problems of under-development have been getting worse – especially if all three have – then it would be very strange indeed to call the result ‘development’, even if per capita incomes had doubled.”
His Majesty added that “economic growth (must be) understood as an instrument of human development which, firstly, sets out to meet the basic human needs of all (the) people, and then moves on to our quality of life – moving from a decided and acceptable programme of national austerity, to national prosperity, via a more self-reliant, human needs oriented, national philosophy of development.”
The meeting will recall that earlier I quoted what the ‘2024 African Sustainable Development Report’ says, which, when it says that “For Africa, less than 6 percent of the 32 measurable SDG targets are on track to be achieved by 2030”, it means that four years from now, our Continent will not have met the targets mentioned by Dudley Seers.
This does not mean that our countries and Continent have not had the necessary development programmes, such as Agenda 2063.
However, the actuality we face is a very disturbing reality concerning the quality of life of the overwhelming majority of the more than a billion Africans, and our escape from poverty and under-development.
Necessarily, this situation demands that we must, as Africans, ask ourselves some important and honest questions. These must include such queries as:
• have we paid the necessary attention to the alert sounded by His Majesty King Moshoeshoe II when he warned against reliance on trickle-down socio-economic development;
• what have we done to follow his advice concerning a self-reliant, human-needs-oriented development programme; and,
• do we, as individual African countries, have the necessary national philosophies of development, as King Moshoeshoe II advised?
Because of his sustained focus on the matter of the urgent need to elevate the quality of life of the ordinary people, the majorities he spoke about, King Moshoeshoe II spoke out about the various elements required for the success of our development efforts.
One of these is the need for effective quality political leadership which enjoys legitimacy in the eyes of the people, which must focus on helping to remove all domestic and international obstacles to development, strive for progress through self-reliance and be capable of activating and empowering the masses of the people to participate in the development process.
Another is the involvement of the masses of the people as a conscious and informed force for development, without whom no development is possible.
In this context, he also emphasised the need to ensure the involvement of women, again as a force for development.
Further to highlight the need genuinely to respect the people, His Majesty said: “Plan with the people, not for the people; and we must act with the people, not for them.”
He was also convinced that education must play an important role in terms of empowering as many people as possible by giving them the necessary artisanal and other skills for them to contribute to the development process. Institutions such as the National University of Lesotho must ensure that they have the ability and capability to reflect the needs and the objectives of the society they exist to serve. They must also conduct relevant research into the nature of the problems the development programme would face.
Further, His Majesty was of the view that what is required is “the kind of education that creates not only academic skills, but which also creates awareness of what is needed to transform the nation socially and economically for the good of all the people.”
Because the majority of the people on the Continent are still rural, it is imperative that any development strategy pays the necessary attention to rural development and the agrarian revolution.
It is important that the State must play its developmental role. In that context, it is absolutely important to ensure that “civil servants, public offices, local leaders, and anyone exercising authority, are all subject to review procedures regarding their performances.”
It is vital that the development strategy must respect national cultures and traditions. In this context His Majesty made the following interesting observation:
“We now realise that the dichotomies between the traditional and the modern, represent, not real, but false choices for the Developed world. It is instead the blending of the traditional and the cultural with the needs of modernisation, that will be more likely to succeed, than the wholesale replacement of the traditional by the modern. And so we must look for our own version of democracy for people’s participation – taking into account our own culture, our own history, our own time-honoured institutions, and see them not as an obstruction, but as the living base from which modernisation and change can and must take place.”
In addition, he also observed that “education and the media, together, must encourage local artists, local musicians, local creative writers – because a cultural renewal is one of the strongest hopes for the liberation of the mind.”
His Majesty was also of the view that African economic integration must underpin the national development strategies, accompanied by a shared Pan African philosophical development perspective and strategy, informed by the objective of African unity, given that African unity is a precondition for regaining African independence to control Africa’s destiny.
I have just mentioned eight factors which King Moshoeshoe II considered to be of importance with regard to implementing a successful development strategy. Clearly, he was correct in this assessment.
It would therefore be useful to look at African continental experience with regard to these factors in the necessary effort to understand the causes behind the relatively bleak picture about African development contained in the ‘2024 African Sustainable Development Report’.
Unfortunately, it will not be possible to do this in the context of this Lecture.
However, suffice it to say, purely as an example, that it would be entirely justified to discuss the important matter raised by King Moshoeshoe II of the need for quality leadership in order to have successful development programmes.
Concerning the broad collective of the current African political leadership in general, I am certain that legitimate concerns can be raised about such matters as the depth of its commitment to Pan Africanism, its commitment to remove the internal and external obstacles to development, and even its understanding of the need to mobilise the masses of the people to become a conscious and informed force for development.
The important question would then arise naturally – what should be done to address this deficiency, given the critical importance of the task to achieve the human-needs-oriented-development which His Majesty King Moshoeshoe II spoke repeatedly about.
Perhaps another gathering should be organised to carry out a more comprehensive assessment of the relationship between actual African experience in the field of development and the multi-faceted perspective advanced by King Moshoeshoe II.
Before I end, I should perhaps come closer home.
In 1976, His Majesty King Moshoeshoe II had occasion to address a meeting of South African businesspeople in Johannesburg. Among other things, he said at this meeting:
“Lesotho labour has contributed to the amassing of wealth and technology in a Developed country whilst herself, for various reasons beyond her control, has not been the subject of development to a proportionate degree, but has become poorer by virtue of its feeder relationship to a developed area…
“However, the imbalances created by development, must be the primary, over-riding, priority concern, of those who have benefitted most, because the economic wealth amassed gives them the greater power to take remedial action. This applies, not only within the context of a single country, but also in the inter-relationships between two countries, such as South Africa and Lesotho, as well as the broader canvas of the overall relationships between the developed and the under-developed world.”
His Majesty returned to this important question many years later, in 1990. In this instance, he quoted what two well-known South African intellectuals had written. These were Francis Wilson and Mamphela Ramphele who wrote in their book, ‘Uprooting Poverty – the South African Challenge’:
“Given the way the South African economy developed over the century of its industrial revolution, do the people of Lesotho…and other parts of Southern Africa, who have contributed as much as anybody to the growth of the single economy, not also have a claim on the common wealth that is generated and paid to the Inland Revenue department in Pretoria?”
I would like to believe that many among us will recall that then President Nelson Mandela paid a State Visit to the Kingdom of Lesotho in July 1995.
When he addressed the Houses of Parliament here in Maseru on that occasion he said:
“Closer cooperation between Lesotho and South Africa is a priority for our Government of National Unity…This applies to bilateral relations in the political sphere. It applies to trade and industry, job creation, economic growth, educational and cultural exchanges, agricultural cooperation, transfer of technology and stability within the region…
“The future prosperity of our region, like that of our continent, requires of us that we adopt a co-operative and integrated approach to the things that jointly affect us. The conditions for regional cooperation and integration have never been so favourable…
“South Africa is ready to play its part, as an equal partner, within this context and within a broader perspective that places emphasis on the importance of an African framework for our endeavours.
“As partners in Southern Africa we have a need, by means of joint working committees, as well as bilateral and multilateral agreements, to establish instruments based on consensus for dealing with common problems and seizing the opportunities that now exist…”
President Mandela added to these comments by saying at the State Banquet hosted by the Head of State, His Majesty King Moshoeshoe II:
“The promotion of economic development in Southern Africa is of paramount importance to South Africa. The economies of the region are so intertwined that no one country can enter a prosperous future in isolation. We need a new form of economic interaction in Southern Africa, based on principles of mutual benefit and interdependence. We need integrated strategies for balanced growth and equitable relations of trade and investment, and a joint approach to regional infrastructure.”
When President Mandela made these remarks during his State Visit, he was indicating South Africa’s own agreement with the observations made consistently by His Majesty the King over the decades about what should inform the relations between a liberated South Africa and Lesotho.
I have no doubt that our two countries have great need to engage each other to see to what extent the commitments made thirty years ago have in fact been honoured.
When His Majesty King Moshoeshoe II tragically passed away almost exactly 30 years ago, not only Lesotho but also the entirety of our Continent, Africa, lost an outstanding leader and Pan Africanist.
But Your Majesties, fellow Africans and friends, I would make bold to say though very sadly we lost the man, we should never allow that we lose his ideas.
The Africa which King Moshoeshoe II so dearly loved, continues to experience the challenges he sought to address with such great precision, passion and wisdom.
Exactly to facilitate its continuing but challenging journey towards its unity and renaissance, Africa must constantly and practically ask itself the question – what did His Majesty King Moshoeshoe II say?
Molimo o tla hlonolofatsa moea oa hae ka ho sa feleng!
Thank you for your attention.