Seretse Khama

Sir Seretse Goitsebeng Maphiri Khama, GCB, KBE (1 July 1921 – 13 July 1980) was a Motswana  politician who served as the first President of Botswana, a post he held from 1966 to his death in 1980. Born into an influential royal family of what was then the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, he was educated abroad in the neighbouring country of South Africa and then in the United Kingdom While in Britain, he married an Englishwoman named Ruth Williams, a decision opposed by the white-minority government of South Africa and which led to a controversy resulting in the British government making him stay in England in exile so as to not sour U.K.–South African relations. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Seretse_Khama&action=edit Quotes Those of you who are farmers however, and those who might have some occupation which demands skills, are urged to interest their children in such occupations, train them to appreciate the dignity of labour, and divorce them from the wrong conception that white-collared, salary-earning occupations are a symbol of status, lest we develop into a nation of clerks and book-keepers.https://dailynews.gov.bw/news-detail/50106 Nationalism must not be allowed to degenerate into chauvinism. There are no grounds for the belief that contact with ideas and individuals from other countries and cultures will lead our children ‘to become black white men who despise everything that is Tswana.https://dailynews.gov.bw/news-detail/50106 We do not wish to place any artificial obstacles in the way of the initiative and energy of our people. But equally we must avoid divisions based on occupation or inequality of wealth.https://dailynews.gov.bw/news-detail/50106 Unity in Botswana, will not be achieved by legislation, but by consultation and consensus. Our national unity will be stronger if it remains based, as it is now, on diversity, mutual tolerance and consent.https://dailynews.gov.bw/news-detail/50106 Democracy, like a little plant, does not grow or develop on its own. It must be nursed and nurtured if it is to grow and flourish. It must be believed in and practiced if it is to be appreciated. And it must be fought for and defended if it is to survive.https://dailynews.gov.bw/news-detail/50106 It is not enough to vote every four years and leave everything to politicians and civil servants in between . . . It is essential that the people, including the workers, should at all times be able and ready, not only to put their views to government but to make an active and constructive contribution to building our nation.https://dailynews.gov.bw/news-detail/50106 Human dignity, like justice and freedom, is the common heritage of all men. It is indivisible. If these universal truths had been accepted by those who have set themselves the cause of denigration the world would have been saved from the racial animosities and degradations which now threaten the very survival of mankind.https://dailynews.gov.bw/news-detail/50106 And yet history has shown that women are as capable of dynamic leadership as men are.https://dailynews.gov.bw/news-detail/50106 While one appreciates the important role which beef production has played in the overall economy of our country, it would be tragic, nevertheless, if we were to continue to overlook the fact that the preservation of our pride as a nation will, in the final analysis, depend on our ability to feed ourselves. https://dailynews.gov.bw/news-detail/50106 It should now be our intention to try to retrieve what we can of our past. We should write our own history books to prove that we did have a past and that it was a past that was just as worth writing and learning about as any other. We must do this for the simple reason that a nation without a past is a lost nation and a people without a past is a people without a soul. https://dailynews.gov.bw/news-detail/50106 Botswana is a poor country and at present is unable to stand on its own feet and develop its recourses without assistance from its friends.https://www.thoughtco.com/seretse-khama-quotes-43580 We are convinced that there is justification for all the races that have been brought together in this part of Africa, by the circumstances of history, to live together in peace and harmony, for they have no other home but Southern Africa. Here we will have to learn how to share aspirations and hopes as one people, united by a common belief in the unity of the human race. Here rests our past, our present, and, most importantly of all, our future.https://www.thoughtco.com/seretse-khama-quotes-43580 Democracy, like a little plant, does not grow or develop on its own. If must be nursed and nurtured if it is to grow and flourish. It must be believed in and practiced if it is to be appreciated. And it must be fought for and defended if it is to survive.https://www.thoughtco.com/seretse-khama-quotes-43580 The world is my church. To do good my religion.https://www.thoughtco.com/seretse-khama-quotes-43580 References Category:Presidents