A lot has been
written about Margaret Nasha’s memoir, Madam Speaker, Sir!: Breaking the Glass
Ceiling ;One Woman’s Struggles, but a lot of it has been written by
people who haven’t actually read the book. This becomes clear when you actually
read it, which I have now done.
I was pleased to
hear about this book since I am a big proponent of Batswana writing more
nonfiction, particularly memoir. Memoir is a great place to store the truth,
the everyday people’s truth of a country’s history, of personal moments along
the way. Mma Nasha has done just that. Her personal journey is part of the
history of this country, now. She’s done us a service by recording it.
Since it is a
memoir as opposed to an autobiography, the author has chosen significant themes
and times of her life to put emphasis on. These include among others chapters
on growing up, her time at Information and Broadcasting, her time as the High
Commissioner in the UK, her marriage, her time heading various ministries. She
has an ease with which she approaches these topics, as if she’s been writing
memoir her entire life. She introduces the chapters with an overall view of
what happened and the struggles she met along the way. And then she does as all
good memoirist do, she chooses significant episodes to pull out into details,
often with scenes and dialogue. This brings out the emotional truth of her
experience. I found it to be very adept. Many of these peeks behind the
curtains are what remain with me now that I’ve finished reading; this is how
powerful and entertaining they are.
I recently read a
biography of another prominent Motswana and I soon grew tired of the constant
promotion. Mma Nasha’s book is not one of self promotion. Yes, she’s telling a
heroic story. She is a woman who has succeeded against many odds and continues
to reach for more. It is asked over and over in this book- “What does this
woman really want?” and time and again it is answered- she wants everything
under the sun. But she also speaks of her failures and failings. If nothing
else it is an honest book and I, for one, appreciate that most of all. I was
deeply inspired by the book and that can only be achieved in a real way if you
can see this successful woman as a fallible human just like yourself. She
succeeds in that.
You can also feel
the compassion she has for others and her wry acceptance of the fallibilities
in her fellow humans. In one of the numerous peeks behind the curtains, she
writes about the preparations she and her staff had to make when she was High
Commissioner and President Masire was to be given his knighthood by the Queen.
The British, as she writes, are sticklers for protocol, everything to be
followed to the letter. She sent the various regulations to the people in
Botswana who would be travelling with the President so that they could prepare
themselves before arriving in London for the dinner. One of the stipulations
was that the men should be dressed in black suit, black bow tie, and a white
tuxedo shirt
Upon arrival, the
then Minister of Presidential Affairs, Lieutenant General Mompati Merafhe, did
not like the idea of being bossed about regarding what he should wear. They
would wear what they wanted, he insisted. But Mma Nasha knew the protocol and
if the Botswana delegation (except for President Masire, who had come prepared
as per the stipulations) arrived in the wrong attire they would be turned away
at the door, an embarrassment to the country. She had anticipated problems and
her High Commission had organised a shop to rent the proper attire to everyone
in the Botswana contingent to be paid for by the High Commission. She told Rre
Merafhe and company that they could go with her assistant to the shop and get
the right clothes or not, it was their choice. If they didn’t, she would inform
the organisers of the dinner that they would not attend. They all went to the
shop and got the correct clothes and were thankful to her and her staff at the
dinner when they realised that every single person had dressed as they were
instructed and they would have been thoroughly embarrassed had they not
listened to her.
Although the
writing is good, it is not perfect. As seems to be the usual case nowadays
nearly everywhere in the world, the editing in places needed more work. There
were some basic mistakes with dialogue tags for example. Here’s one: “Yes I do.” She replied. There were also far too many exclamation
points for my liking. Another thing I
didn’t care much for was an odd formatting standard where words meant to be
given emphasis were underlined instead of the standard of italicising or making
them bold.
But that is of
little concern really because the book is well done and a real contribution to
our literary heritage.
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