A Botswana chief of a different gender

By Sharon LaFraniere The New York Times
Saturday, December 11, 2004

RAMOTSWA, Botswana:   Mosadi Seboko's first name is not really a name. Rather, it is a reflection of her father's shock when he saw first saw her. Translated from Setswana, the local language here, it means simply "woman."

Her father was chief of the Baletes, one of the eight major tribes of Botswana, who settled in this region just south of the nation's capital, Gaborone, more than a century ago. In the Balete royal family, it is a given that the chief's first-born child will be a boy so that he can inherit the throne.

"My dad said, 'Well, it's a woman. What can I do? It's my child,"' Seboko said.
Woman Seboko is now 54, and lo and behold, she is the leader of the Baletes herself and the first female paramount chief ever in Botswana.

She did it 15 months ago by challenging and overcoming her own family's efforts to keep the chiefdom a patriarchy.

"She had uncles who could definitely ascend to the throne," said Loabile Mokosi, a cousin on her late father's side. "But the question became: What stops her?"

Very little, it seems. In a society where women are expected to bow without question to husbands' sexual demands, even if they are unfaithful, where wife beating is all too common and where women who marry under customary law are considered minors, her victory does not just stand out. It proclaims that centuries-old Botswana tradition is doing the bowing now, to irresistible change.

A plump woman with a decisive manner and a taste for matching two-piece embroidered outfits, Seboko seems very comfortable in her new role. But her path to one of Botswana's most important traditional posts was anything but easy.

After her father died in 1966, Seboko's uncle became chief. Her only brother succeeded him in 1996. When he died in 2001, her father's relatives put forward a male cousin of Seboko as his successor, saying that according to custom, only males could rule.

Seboko, backed by her mother and seven sisters, insisted to the tribal elders that the touchstone was not custom, but the 40-year-old constitution of Botswana, with its guarantee of freedom from discrimination.

Botswana's budding women's rights leaders urged her forward, saying that women must grasp power, not wait for it to be handed to them.

Not that change has come overnight. Seboko's 33,000 subjects here in Botswana's arid southeast corner clearly were a bit perplexed by the prospect of a female ruler.
At her coronation, they showered her with gifts befitting a chief: a new silver pickup truck, a computer, a printer.

And also: a washing machine and a vacuum cleaner.

Since then, however, she has endeared herself to much of the tribe by balancing calls for change with respect for tradition.

Some men - and some women - suggest quietly that she is too outspoken in defense of women's rights. But more say she has proven herself with her straightforward manner, accessibility and focus on the problems of Ramotswa's youth.

"She is doing very well," said Nfana Botlhole, a 38-year-old unemployed man who came to a recent tribal meeting in a laborer's blue work pants. "Her brother wasn't around very much. Now since she came in, you can see what is going on. The youth have easy access to her and they listen to her."

Seboko has sometimes turned upside-down the notion of what a traditional leader thinks. It is hard to imagine a male chief talking, as Seboko does in interviews, about abuse against women. Her own husband beat her. "So I divorced in 1978," she said. "I can't stand violence. I didn't want to be abused." Or about sexual rights: "I believe women have the power. It is very easy for us to say no to sex."

But on other issues, her positions are as rooted in tradition as any male chief's. She supports caning as a form of punishment in the kgotla, the red brick and tile open-air shelter that serves as the meeting place for the tribe of 33,000.

She doesn't approve of jeans-clad women in the kgotla. Or condoms in the schools. Nor does she see the need for persons infected with HIV to declare their status publicly.

Cynics might say that Seboko is chief now only because Botswana's chiefs no longer have any real power. Over time, elected officials have usurped much of their role. But in many communities, including Ramotswa, chiefs remain highly respected figures.

"I love her," said Mogogi Batsalelwang, a cook for the Botswana defense force, as she left the kgotla Saturday.

Mosadi Seboko was born June 7, 1950, the first of nine children. Like most children then, she was given an English name, "Muriel," along with her Setswana name. She was still a teenager when her father died. Her mother, she said, had no job training. So as soon as she finished high school, Seboko looked for work.

She went on to become a department manager for Barclay's Bank and the mother of four girls, divorcing after six years of marriage. When she made her bid for the throne, she was working as a floor manager for an office supply firm. Now she lives with her mother, who complains that she lets the villagers bother her at home.

As chief, earning roughly $2,000 a month, Seboko is a mix of community conscience, family counselor, dispute mediator, crime prevention officer and judge.

She presides over civil cases involving amounts under $1,000 or 70 sheep or goats and criminal cases where penalty is less than three years in prison or a fine. In certain cases, she can order six strokes of the cane - a power she said she uses "all the time."

Her manner is businesslike and friendly, except when it comes to the touchy subject of how her family fought over her ascension. Wary of offending her uncles afresh, she firmly cut off that line of inquiry in an interview.


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