Ghanaian contributions to Botswana's civic society development; a diaspora as an agent of change for a receiving country
Rijk van Dijk
African Studies Centre, Leiden
Very much a draft; uncorrected & unedited. Certainly not for circulation !!
2010, Diaspora Studies Conference Kopenhagen
Abstract
This paper explores how diasporas can be perceived agents of change not for the sending country, but for the receiving country by investigating the migration of Ghanaians to Botswana. While Ghana has put in place this idea of creating 'home summits'that address its diaspora in being responsible for investing in the development of the country, the earlier record of the Ghanaian diaspora to Botswana is one in which the Botswana government recruited Ghanaians purposefully to be involved in the build-up of its public service. The Ghanaians were the ones best placed to do so, they thought, and decades of recruitment of Ghanaian skilled labour followed, such that there is a real diaspora in the sense of multi-generational involvement of Ghanaians in Botswana's development. There was an initial idea behind this of the ' African Union' whereby African independent nation-states from Independence onward would involve each others skilled personnel in development. Hence there is an older record of how diasporas and development already came to inter-link within the continent, even before this nexus was transplanted beyond the continent. Yet, the question remains what kind of change it actually brought to the receiving society. This paper ventures to demonstrate that while the diaspora of Ghanaians involved professional and intellectual classes, cultural change in Botswana resulted much more from the rise of a Ghanaian entrepreneurial class. This paper explores the reasons behind this development of a particular diaspora as an agent of change emerging from a sector involved in business.
Introduction
Which type of mobility makes for a diaspora ? In studying waves of migration and mobility to and from the African continent many authors have been trying to define certain forms of movement as being of a diasporic type (see Akyeampong 2000, Bakewell 2008, Schramm 2004, 2008 ) In this typology they usually are inspired by the work of Safran (1991, 1999) and others who came up with specific definitions and characteristicsthat allow them to distinguish diaspora as “living inside (the nation-state) with a difference”.Clifford writes:
‘Diaspora is different from travel …in that it is not temporary. It involves dwelling, maintaining communities, having collective homes away from home…..Diaspora discourse articulates, or bends together, both roots and routes to construct what Gilroy describes as alternate public spheres (1987), forms of community consciousness and solidarity that maintain identifications outside the national time/space in order to live inside, with a difference’ (Clifford 1994: 308).
The critical issue about this understanding of diaspora as a specific mode of travel, mobility and settlement is that it is not only relating to an idea of ‘homeland’ and the maintenance of a living memory with regard to a belonging elsewhere, but that it is innovative and challenging as well. Diasporic communities, in this line of thinking have a capacity of producing change by being not entirely encapsulated by existing cultural, economic or political systems within a nation-state. Diasporic communities maintain, in a sense, an extraneous source of inspiration for living inside with a difference. While an important problem with this perspective is the seemingly singular relationship between diaspora and the nation-state, something Scott once called “seeing like a state” (Scott ), the interesting aspect of this thinking is the perceived inherent relationship between diaspora’s and critical innovation. Diasporic communities do not seem to be places of conservatism or inertia, but appear as contexts in which outside sourcing of ideas and innovations may produce something of a special fascination. Diaspora’s can be problematic to nation-states (in terms of integration, loyalty to the nation-state project and so forth), but in this perspective can also be viewed as a valuable source of rejuvenation for the host society.Diaspora’s may stand for a history and continuity over time and space of the introduction into the space of a nation-state of challenging ideas and innovations.
This contribution addresses this diasporic dialectic of integration versus innovation for the migration of Ghanaian skilled personnel from Ghana to Botswana (Van Dijk 2003, 2009). Perceiving of diaspora as an agent of change in this context relates also to the idea, hopes and expectations that lived on the part of the Botswana-policy-makers who from the late 1960s and early 1970s began recruiting Ghanaians to serve in the newly independent Botswana nation-state. This was cast in a perspective of high hopes of this recruitment of personnel from a country that was the first to become independent from British colonial rule and therefore seemed to have the longest practical experience in building its own, Africanized civil service. From there, a prolonged diasporic relation emerged between Ghana and Botswana, which, though small-scaled, continued to the current years of nation-state development in Botswana.
This being the case, this paper thereby also demonstrates that the notion of ‘diaspora’ does not only begin when travel and mobility leave Africa and become intercontinental. As Bakewell (2008) has argued as well, based on this definition of diaspora as living inside with a difference, diasporic movement can also be recognized as taking place within the continent. Specific conditions of continuity over time and space, as well as a cultural dialectic of challenge and innovation make possible an investigation of certain forms of mobility within the African continent as belonging to a metamorphic diaspora type. What was the challenge that the Ghanaian diaspora brought to Botswana and how did it espouse continuity over time in confrontation with the Botswana government emphasis on integration and localisation? These issues can best be addressed by taking a longitudinal perspective of the Ghanaian engagement with Botswana.
A short history of Ghanaian recruitment.
When Botswana gained its independence from British colonial rule in 1966 it was clear from the start that the country was not only going to be poor in terms of natural resources but also in terms of its intellectual capital. With the exception of the industrial city of Francistown, the country’s tiny population had not been engaged in a massive process of urbanisation; the current capital of Gaborone, by that time, was little more than a small and insignificant village. The British Empire left the then protectorate of Bechuanalandat Independencewith just one secondary school and without any institution for higher learning. For all intents and purposes, the newly founded Botswananation-state was highly dependent on its southern powerful neighbour South Africa. An extensive pattern of labour migration to the South African mining and industrial complexes existed that provided many families in Botswana with some form of (often irregular) income. In terms of higher learning, many were reliant on the limited access to colleges and universities that Apartheid South Africa offered, being one of the reasons why later Botswana joined a union with Lesotho and Swaziland for the establishment of institutions and the exchange of staff and students, the union known as BOLESWA.
Shortly prior to the country’s independence and in the struggle towards it in terms of the different political parties that emerged in the process; the Botswana National Front (which later would become the only significant opposition party in the country) had been in contact with Ghana’s president Nkrumah. He, the president, had decided to support the BNF in its campaigning for the first independent and free elections by providing the party with a number of vehicles that were used to reach even the most remote areas of Botswana. Despite such support the BDP won the elections (much as it is related to the ethnic power balances of the main Tswana-speaking groups with in the country) and has remained in power ever since.
Yet this act of support for an intellectualist group of political opposition from Ghana is a telling example of how exactly the input from Ghana into the development of the country was being perceived. Ghana was an agent of change for Botswana from a more or less Pan-African perspective of circulating highly skilled personnel within the continent (see Koser 2003, Lake 1995, Van Dijk 2004). After Independence from Ghana not only came civil servants but also university professors and lecturers as soon as small university and technical college was opened in Gaborone in 1972. Recruitment in groups of secondary school teachers was also part of this human resource investment and relationship. Ghanaians came to serve in the court-system, were appointed even as high court judges, as attorneys and lawyers. Ghanaian doctors and nurses came to work both in the public and the private medical institutions or were allowed to begin their own clinics in areas of dental care or gynaecology for instance. Some Ghanaians took up work in the slowly emerging media-sector (written press and later the radio). And some Ghanaians contributed to the political process in the country.
This recruitment of highly skilled, qualified staff was also made possible because of increasingly appealing labour-conditions and fringe benefits. The Ghanaians benefited from such preferential arrangements as free housing, free medical care of free schooling for their children (school fees began to increase enormously with and through the expansion of the country’s economy since the late 1970s).On the other hand, from the Ghanaian perspective, labour-migration to Botswana was also becoming atrtractive because of the deep political and economic crisis that Ghana began to experience from the mid 1970s onward, causing about 15% of the total population to emigrate and look for ‘greener pastures’ elsewhere, Europe and North-America in particular (see Peil 1975, Owusu 2003, Nieswand 2008)
In a sense these benefits accrued to such a level that by the late 1990s and early 2000 dissent began to emerge among ‘local’ staff at universities, schools and hospitals about the unequal conditions of remuneration for work and services. For the same job done the difference between the remuneration of a local as compared to that of a foreigner was so substantial that complaints were aired in the Botswana parliament, complaints that came to be too loud to be ignored. Talking about this development with Ghanaian professionals in 2002-2004 taught me that many Ghanaians had intentionally not taken up Botswana citizenship so as to be able to take advantage of these fringe benefits that were available to foreign employees only. While many of these Ghanaian professionals had been staying in the country for over 25 years in the country, had raised their children in Botswana and had given their best years, they also felt that in many ways the constant, continuous temporary nature of their contacts with the government and with the institutions they had been working for, had kept them in a specific bondage; taking up citizenship would not have meant an improvement in their employment-status. The Botswana government had in fact put in place a system whereby they were to be considered being foreigners for ever, irrespective of the actual length of stay in the country.
The consequence of this was that even over a length of 25 years the Ghanaians had never felt secure; their contracts could be terminated at any moment, at any time they could be forced to leave the country, hence they were held captive in a situation of permanent strangerhood. As I have demonstrated elsewhere (Van Dijk 2003, 2007, 2009) much of this feeling of permanent strangerhood was on the one hand fed by governmental policies of ‘localisation’; meaning a policy of transferring into the hands of local Batswana[1] citizens jobs formerly held by foreigners (initially British (colonial) personnel, later other African nationals). The policy of localisation was increasingly becoming tougher in the 1990s, leading to governmental decisions to mark entire sectors of the economy and the labour market as being reserved for locals only (secretarial work, semi-skilled labour in tailoring, building/construction work, administrative functions, technical professions and so forth). In other sectors the need to have local ‘understudies’ (locals being able to take over as soon as the foreigner would leave a specific job) was put in place, much controlled by inspectors of the Ministry of Labour.
On the other hand the notions of strangerhood were in a sense also cultivated by the Ghanaians themselves. Little inter-marriage with ‘locals’ took place, Ghanaians also usually complaining about the fact that they found it hard to establish friendships with locals. And there was certainly a sense of looking down upon local society, local cultural traditions, the local food and what was being perceived as local xenophobia.
Amidst all of this other processes of recruiting among Ghanaians emerged. First of all, many of the dependents of the migrant community (the wives of the recruited men in particular), while not being permitted to start a job within formal employment in government sectors and the like, began moving into the country’s expanding market as private entrepreneurs. All along the private sector had been less the object of ‘localisation’ policies by the government (and much harder to control) while Botswana had also been experiencing a spectacular economic boom since the mid-1970s. Showing one of the highest economic growth-rates in the world for years thanks to a prospering diamond-industry and the exporting of Botswana-beef to the European market, the country had been developing in one of Africa’s unique middle-income earning societies (see Jefferis , Good ). A new and affluent middle-class had been forming, something that had not existed prior to Independence. Though wealth became unequally shared by the masses in Botswana (in fact the country demonstrating one of the highest disparities in income-levels the continent has (Good ), the middle-classes that emerged were capable of engaging in new consumptive styles, much marked by conspicuous consumption of imported luxury items (cars, furniture, clothing). This now became a focus for Ghanaian business. As I have explained elsewhere one of the domains of business that Ghanaian entrepreneurs, women in particular, introduced and expanded was hairdressing and styling (clothes, cosmetics, beauty-salons) (Van Dijk 2003, 2009). This proved another success-formula. A large number of salons and boutiques were opened in places such as Gaborone and Francistown, but also in smaller towns such as Molepolole. While this ‘sector’ became a success Ghanaians also tried a variety of other ‘niches’in which Ghanaian expertise as well as contacts with Ghana were of importance, such as trading in cars and spare-parts, car-mechanics & repair, electrical engineering, and interestingly private schooling and vocational training.
Recruitment of younger personnel from Ghana was often highly sought after for these businesses. In the hair-dressing sector for instance, it was clear that specific expertise in ‘doing hair’could hardly be found on the local Botswana market. And importantly, the skills of perfection, the quality of the work and the knowledge of latest fashions was not available locally either. These skills and competences could only be found in Ghana; hence many owners of salons were going on regular trips to Ghana to search for and recruit personnel for their Botswana-shops on this basis. In other words, a second form of recruitment in Ghana took place from Botswana, aiming at semi-skilled but nonetheless highly competent labour. In Ghana, Botswana was appealing because of the strength of its currency, its middle-income level of payment, its relative peace and the chances of making a good fortune within a reasonably short span of time. The hope and expectations also being that after having worked in Botswana for this length of time a successful return to Ghana would be possible again.
A third form of recruitment that began taking place, though less successfully, was the recruitment of ‘second generation’ Ghanaians who had been living with their parents in Botswana for a length of years, who had been raised and who had been schooling in the country, and were hoping to find employment there. In many talks with this younger generation it was however very clear that their relation with the Botswana society was more than ambiguous. Though in many cases being able to speak Setswana fluently, many felt being strangers in a society that often knew much better than Ghana. They too complained bitterly about their inability to establish lasting friendships with the ‘locals’, their being called names in school (makwerekwere) is the pejorative term in the vernacular) and their difficulty in finding jobs. Many who could afford or who had the appropriate training were spending time and money to look for opportunities of employment or further training elsewhere, outside Botswana, preferably in any other English-speaking country (my Ghanaian assistant, a university undergraduate, also left for Perth, Australia, for instance).The difficulties they faced with their position on the labour-market was striking, given the fact that many had been receiving college or university training since their well-placed parents had had no difficulty in sponsoring their education. Yet, they felt discriminated against and felt that the ‘localisation’-policy affected them as well. Their Ghanaian parents also felt, and often made it clear to their youngsters, that their future would not be in Botswana any longer. Though trying hard to build a position for themselves, their families and the Ghanaian community at large the diaspora of skilled personnel from Ghana to Botswana may not be long-lived; i.e. may in the end not be producing a longer history.