SELLO HATANG

On Wednesday night I had the rare honour of sitting in a hall thick with memory, meaning and moral gravity.

It was one of those nights where you instinctively sit up a little straighter, not because anyone told you to, but because history had quietly taken a seat among us.

Scattered around the room were familiar and formidable minds: Prof Bonang Mohale, ambassadors Welile Nhlapo, Dikgang Moopeloa and Constance Seoposengwe, advocate Mojanku Gumbi — people whose CVs could fill a small library, but who showed up simply to listen, reflect and learn.

We had gathered for the King Moshoeshoe II Memorial Lecture, delivered by formerpresident Thabo Mbeki, and rich is the only honest word to describe it — rich in history, rich in nuance.

Rich in uncomfortable truths. Rich in the kind of ideas that follow you home and refuse to be ignored. As expected of Mbeki, the lecture was not merely an act of remembrance, but a call to conscience. It reminded us that legacies are not inherited passively, they are carried deliberately. More importantly, they should never be allowed to fail.

There were many threads in the lecture that deserve deeper exploration, but three stood out for me: migration and its present-day global tensions; the unfinished business of the “Second Liberation” articulated by His Majesty King Moshoeshoe II; and the principled stand taken by the late Lesotho prime minister Leabua Jonathan’s government in refusing to trade human beings for political convenience.

Mbeki reminded us of a powerful intervention by King Moshoeshoe II when he addressed South African business leaders in the mid-1970s.

The king spoke plainly: Lesotho’s labour had helped build SA’s economy, but Lesotho itself remained underdeveloped, poorer because of the feeder relationship. That statement continues to echoe today. Migrant labour, once the backbone of industrial growth, has become a source of conflict, suspicion and political agitation.

We live in an age of global clampdowns on migration. From Europe to the Americas, from Africa to Asia, borders are tightening and fear is rising. The scramble for scarce resources, high unemployment and fragile economies has produced a dangerous mix.

Xenophobia often dresses itself up as patriotism, while exclusion is justified as economic protection. As I often remind myself that when fear replaces facts, the innocent become convenient targets.

History teaches us protectionist systems rarely work in the long run. People have always moved in search of dignity, safety and opportunity. No wall, fence or policy has ever fully stopped that.

I think of my father. Like many Basotho men of his generation, he became part of the migrant labour system.

He endured the indignity of single-sex hostels, long separations, fractured families and a life lived between two worlds. That system hollowed out households, normalised absence and passed trauma quietly from one generation to the next. The economic gains were visible, the human cost was hidden.

History teaches us protectionist systems rarely work in the long run. People have always moved in search of dignity, safety and opportunity. No wall, fence or policy has ever fully stopped that.

While I fully support the need for regulation, for addressing corruption, crime and exploitation, we must also acknowledge the limits of total control. Movement is as old as humanity; policy can manage it, but fear will never defeat it.

The second major thread was King Moshoeshoe II’s visionary call for a Second Liberation. Mbeki reminded uspolitical independence did not automatically translate into economic justice, social equality or human dignity.

The king understood this early. His Second Liberation was about freeing Africa from dependency, corruption, inequality and weak leadership.

I would go further. Completing that Second Liberation today must centre young people, inclusive societies, ethical leadership and economies that serve human needs, not elite accumulation.

It must move us from dominance and dependency to shared prosperity. As Frantz Fanon warned, independence without transformation merely changes the faces at the top.

The third thread struck me deeply: the moral courage of the Jonathan government. When apartheid SA offered a deal, ANC cadres in exchange for Lesotho Liberation Army members, the response was clear and principled.

Lesotho would not engage in “a political business transaction with human beings”. That sentence alone should be carved into the conscience of our continent.

Today, too many governments are willing to sell their souls, not for principles, but for political expedience. Values are traded for short-term gain, and morality is sacrificed at the altar of convenience.

Hannah Arendt once wrote the greatest danger is when evil becomes normalised. That danger is with us again. Maybe it never left. It just became bolder.

The evening closed with words from His Majesty King Letsie III that continue to ring in my ears: justice must walk with compassion. That is the leadership Africa needs, firm but humane, principled yet empathetic.

I left the hall convinced of one thing: we may lose leaders, but we must never lose their ideas. To memorialise is not to freeze history in bronze or marble, but to turn memory into responsibility, especially to the young people watching us, asking quietly whether these values continue to matter.

The continent of our dreams is possible, but only if we allow memory to guide imagination, and imagination to shape action.

If we choose to equip our youth not only with skills, but with conscience, not only with opportunity, but with purpose. If we teach them leadership is service, that freedom carries obligation and that dignity is non-negotiable.

Africa’s future will not be built by forgetting where we come from, but by reimagining where we are going, choosing courage over fear, principle over profit, justice tempered with compassion and hope over despair. That is how legacies live on. That is how tomorrow is claimed.