Journal of the African Literature Association

ISSN: 2167-4736 (Print) 2167-4744 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rala20

Fiat Justitia, Ruat Caelum: Justice Juxtaposed to

Questions of Maturity, Community, Gender, and
Moral Action in the Novels by Unity Dow.

Sonja Darlington

To cite this article: Sonja Darlington (2013) Fiat Justitia, Ruat Caelum: Justice Juxtaposed to
Questions of Maturity, Community, Gender, and Moral Action in the Novels by Unity Dow., Journal
of the African Literature Association, 8:1, 74-86, DOI: 10.1080/21674736.2013.11690219

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21674736.2013.11690219

Published online: 04 Apr 2016.

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 Fiat Justitia, Ruat Caelum: Justice Juxtaposed to Questions of
Maturity, Community, Gender, and Moral Action
in the Novels by Unity Dow.

Sonja Darlington
Beloit College

I dont want any arguments later as to whether I said this or that. The
form, please, officerIm literate, you know. She glared back at him.
How old are you? he asked. Arent you a TSP? He was trying to figure
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out how a girl her age had the guts to question a man wearing a police uni-
formhe was used to dealing efficiently with obedient villagers, regardless of
their age.
What relevance is my age?

In Onalenna Doo Selolwanes article entitled The Future of Democracy in

Botswana: The Role of Youth, the author analyzes preliminary data on the
political participation of youth in the development of Botswana as a democratic
country. One of the significant journeys for Botswana she states is its search for
the meaning of democracy within and outside Botswana. Citizens of Bo-
tswana have been on quest for self-discovery and identity as much as they have
wanted to contribute to world knowledge. As part of this journey for Botswana,
Selolwane maintains not only have political parties begun to tally the position
of youth as potential voters and as an interest group that can be harnessed to
strengthen parties and ensure survival, but also the youth have been exercising
their electoral will and have made important demands on political parties to free
up space for more transparency and accountability. Her argument rests on the
idea that youth have the potential to change existing political institutions as they
seek to gain legitimate power and participate in governing their country.
The cultural phenomenon of empowered youth, if Selolwanes research
data is to be granted serious consideration, can be a contentious and threatening
idea for a nation. Just how contentious and threatening it can be is part of what
Deborah Durham deals with in Disappearing youth: Youth as Social Shifter
in Botswana. For her, the term youth is highly complex, because it positions
an individual and/or group with respect to a range of social attributes, which
include age, independence-dependence, authority, rights, abilities, knowledge,

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 Fiat Justitia, Ruat Caelum

and responsibilities. Thus, according to Durham, determining who the youth are
in Botswana involves crucial issues of power, agency, and moral structures of
society. As she elaborates, I mean that arguing over youth, or maturity, involves
exploring what it means to be a person, what power is and how it is exercised,
how people relate to one another, and what moral action might be and who may
engage in it and how (601). In discussing Unity Dows novels, it is precise-
ly these kinds of questions about personhood/ maturity, community, gender
relationships and social action that allow for the strength and uniqueness of her
artistic contributions to Botswana literature in English to become evident.
Dows detailed investigation of these themes throughout her literary output
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works to initiate a realistic portrayal of Botswanas process of self-discovery

and issues of identity. As the character Amantle Bokaa poignantly questions the
relevance of her age in her attempt to get justice for the brutal murder of Neo
Kakang in The Screaming of the Innocent, Dow demonstrates why it is import-
ant to execute the highest standard of justice though the heavens may fall for this
fledgling democracy. A key purpose of her work is to depict females willing to
take moral action on political issues, in order to demonstrate how the country
can become more democratic. With a focus on justice relative to age, communi-
ty, gender, and moral action in Dows novels, the organization of this article will
follow four lines of investigation. One, when is personhood/maturity attained?
Two, where is community to found in contemporary society? Three, what are
the major conflicts in gender relationships? And four, how is social justice best
served during critical disputes in politics? In trying to respond to these lines of
questioning, I will depend on other critics who have labored to interpret Dows
writing and will provide specific references from her texts to tease out responses.
As part of the process, I hope that what is presented may well encourage other
critics to respond to her novels, challenge her to keep writing about Botswana as
a democratic state, and help to increase her influence as a significant Botswana
writer in the 21st century.
To begin, all four of Dows novels, which include Far and Beyon (2001),
The Screaming of the Innocent (2002), Juggling Truths (2003), and Heavens
May Fall (2006) involve female protagonists who are youthful, strong-willed
and energetic in their endeavor to challenge Botswanas social and political
structures. In Far and Beyond Mosa Selato, a nineteen-year-old, amidst a family
in which two brothers have died of AIDS, a mother is in despair over her losses
and a younger brother is conflicted about his place in the world, reaches a new

75
 Sonja Darlington

place where she gains recognition for her intelligence, education, and deter-
mination. During her coming of age struggles, Mosa has kept the family in the
survival mode and her brother Stan credits her adult-like leadership for his own
coping ability. Amantle Bokaa, the twenty-two year-old national service worker
in The Screaming of the Innocent is the protagonist who states unequivocally
that age has nothing to do with the ability to seek out justice in adult society.
Amantle speaks to the courage of a young woman to use her literate background
to challenge male discourse when it violates females. In Juggling Truths, Monei
Ntuka tells her story of maturing in the village of Mochudi, against a backdrop
of the 1960s, when Botswana gained independence and traditional life changed
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dramatically, as modern patterns of living emerged among young elites often ed-
ucated abroad. In The Heavens May Fall, Naledi Chaba, a thirty-year old lawyer
and her best friend Dr. Mmidi More advocate for young female rape and abuse
victims, who solicit their professional help. In their environment of frequent
clashes with over-protective, male authority figures, Naledi and Mmidi insist on
their right as adults to challenge the health and judicial sectors in Botswana.
As part of the story in each of these novels, the female protagonist
deals with issues of infantilization, whereby she must assert her authority and
reject attempts by those who want to diminish her ability to think and act in
a mature fashion. Amantle in The Screaming of the Innocent is most direct
among Dows characters in addressing the non-compatibility of seeking justice
with defining the right to secure justice based on age. Assertive and quick-
witted, Amantle calls out the police officer who tries to intimidate her and
shut down her questioning about evidence she has found, which will later be
key to unraveling the truth about the ritual killing of a twelve year-old village
girl. Amantle resists being intimidated by a sergeant whose authority is poorly
grounded and rests primarily on his gender and age. Unaccustomed to being
out-maneuvered by an educated female, the agitated station master, to whom her
case is thrust next, resorts to tactics such as loud pronouncements, insults, and
threats. In the scene at the Maun Police Station, Amantle rejects dignifying the
question of How old are you? with a number, and she proves three officersa
sergeant, a station master, and a constableunable to match her brilliant, reverse
questioning strategies. The altercation ends with a series of grunts, emanating
from the station master who has clearly lost his ability to articulate orders to his
staff and to interrogate suspects so they will confess. If ever age is relevant to
gaining justice, it is not to be the case in this investigation. Amantles acuity and

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 Fiat Justitia, Ruat Caelum

maturity, which allow her to coordinate efforts to bring Neo Kakangs murderers
to justice, are more than a match for her opponents who are her so-called elders.

In A New African Youth Novel in the Era of HIV/AIDS, author Machiko

Oike states that Dows Far and Beyon is another text that deliberately revises
the progressive narrative of maturity of a teenage girl (80). According to Oike,
unlike many writers for young adult fiction, Dows aesthetic sensibilities lie in
not romancing the possibility of a romantic and hopeful life in the mature years,
but in depicting the violence that remains with many women all of their lives,
surrounded as they are by the traditional family and firmly-rooted sexism. Mosa
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in this story is stymied by the sexual practices that lead to HIV/AIDS, and her
actions depict a young woman tired of fighting. Dows perspective is there-
fore as Okie notes, a realism written for sober teenagers experiencing sexual
violence, witnessing the death of those closest to them, and surviving the times
of AIDS (83). Furthermore, this is a story about an exhausted and disillusioned,
19 year-old female protagonist who is barely able to survive, and her tale is a
narrative based on bitterly frustrated maturity (83). Following the norms of
traditional Botswana society, Mosa, neither wife nor mother, is not an adult. But,
yet, as Dow has conceptualized this heroine, through her travails with cultural
ills including HIV/AIDS, Mosa demonstrates adult-like behavior that is elabo-
rated more fully by Dow in The Screaming of the Innocent. In this subsequent
novel, the author deals intentionally with the issue of age and clearly endows the
character Amantle with the fortitude to confront limitations set by conflating age
with maturity.
What can be distinctly summed up about Dows novels and the communities
in which her protagonists, such as Mosa and Amantle, come of age is perhaps
best interpreted to date by Mary Lederer and Nobantu Rasebotsas criticism on
the rural-urban dichotomy in Far and Beyon. One of their insights about the
sense of place in Dows writing is that it is significant only to the extent that
it illuminates the nature of human relationships, which they argue is the most
valuable aspect of human life. They suggest that what matters is restoring
and maintaining peoples sense of to whom they belong, (22) and in Far and
Beyon Dow elaborates the values of unity and collective support found in a rural
Botswana village. As the main character Mosa is forced to deal with the deaths
of family members from AIDS, and although her life unfolds within the confines
of a local community, her intelligence and education help her to navigate beyond

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 Sonja Darlington

the perils of seeing AIDS as a local curse, like her mother does, and to move
towards regarding AIDS as a world-wide virus, like current medical practitioners
do. Implicit in the change in mental attitude from believing in superstition to
accepting a scientific-based approach to the illness, is that Mosa has under-
stood the negative beliefs associated with AIDS and has matured and embraced
possibilities of healing through contemporary means. As Lederer and Rasebotsa
say, Dows literary strategy is to use Mosa as a transitional figure who can keep
traditional values in mind while also judging them by modern standards.
While Far and Beyon is grounded by relationships in rural Botswana,
where unity and collective support are found closely tied to family and to tradi-
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tional behavioral codes, in The Heavens May Fall, connections among people
in urban Botswana are found tied not only to family, who may project more
modern behavioral codes, but also to personal and professional friends, who
reflect contemporary social arrangements. For example, Naledi Chabas family
consists of a single father who has chosen to live by himself as a widower. As
Naledi narrates, when she was ten My father declared himself capable of living
without outside female help, (7) and chose not to remarry as is customary. His
relationship with his daughter is firmly rooted in routines such as storytelling,
listening to the radio, and playing cards. Even when Naledi is an adult, she
continues to depend on him for advice, when they play Casino and dine together
on Thursday evenings. However, both father and daughter insist on independent
living arrangements by owning their respective homes, despite aunts and uncles
who disapprove of their untraditional life styles. They both make adjustments
to environmental changes, which include adapting to neighborhoods that have
developed from rondavels to bigger, multiple-roomed houses and to national
programs that have incorporated state-subsidized utilities, free education and
free health care (96). As father and daughter, they demonstrate that non-tradi-
tional families can build meaningful relationships in modern Botswana commu-
nities.
Naledis community also includes, Mmidi More, who is a working profes-
sional at Deborah Retief Memorial Hospital in Mochudi. As best friends, on
a personal and professional level, they represent urban relationships in which
nuclear families have been expanded to include friends, who as peers, provide a
kind of network, in which people support each other through strong, long-lasting
commitments. Naledi as a lawyer and More as a doctor work well together, and
the bonds that form between them represent the new spaces in which community

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can develop. They enjoy investigating meaningful aspects of their relation-

ships, which may include new understandings of sexual partnerships as well.
For example, when Naledi and Mmidi discuss judicial cases like that of Justice
Mmung, who has a child and denies his paternity, they are also able to relax and
discuss their own personal lives. Naledi, keen on supporting Mmidis sexual ex-
perimentation, advises her best friend to explore possibilities and tries to reduce
Mmidis anxieties over an unconventional relationship with a woman. So that,
although Naledi wishes that her boyfriend, Rapula, and she get married and have
children, she is able to contemplate possible alternatives that fit into the very
busy work schedule of other contemporary, professional women, like Mmidi.
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In an interview with Dow, Peter Browne suggests that changes in commu-

nity and in the authority ascribed to various individuals, such as the teachers,
police, and leaders in Dows novels, reflect her sense of changes in housing and
lifestyles in modern society. As Dow states, there are a lot of private spaces
that didnt exist before (Griffith Review. Web. 10 June 2013). As she related to
Browne, many eyes were watching her as she was growing up, and when she
deviated from expectations, neighbors were not afraid to question her; but, in
modern society, social controls rest in different places. In this regard, as Naledi
comes to terms with her lawyerly instincts, which are to charge headlong into
the judicial system that has mishandled the case of a 15-year-old rape victim, she
relies on her single parent and her personal and professional friends as support.
Unlike Mosa, who navigates in a rural community and addresses ways in which
tradition and modern can exist side-by-side, Naledi inhabits an urban landscape
and navigates ways in which tradition inhibits individuals, such as Sally Badisa
and her mother, from achieving social justice. As another of Dows transitional
figures, Naledi is a young professional woman who, along with her peers, con-
fronts strong patriarchal power that continues to undermine the ability for young
women to advance within their communities. Naledis question in frequent inter-
actions with Botswana court officials in The Heavens May Fall is clearly, What
relevance is my gender?
The previous lines of investigation into when is maturity attained and where
is community found are both linked to the questions of what are the major
conflicts in gender relationships in Botswana and how is social justice furthered
through critical disputes in Botswana politics. In Dulce Paula Biscaias disserta-
tion on Unity Dows empowering women in Screaming of the Innocent, Biscaia
presents a prolonged discussion on the asymmetric gender bias in Botswana,

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 Sonja Darlington

and her thesis ably demonstrates the strong connection that Dow has to wom-
ens rights. As have other critics, Biscaia draws upon Dows views in How the
Global Informs the Local: The Botswana Citizenship Case published in Health
Care for Women International, in order to illustrate the extent to which Dow
supports the idea of giving women power to be participate equally in Botswana
society rather than functioning as mens props. She quotes Dow as saying, there
cannot be a discussion about human rights without a discussion about women
and the law (323). Dows legitimate authority to address issues of womens
rights violation is founded on her own challenge to the Citizenship Act that did
not recognize her children as Botswana citizens, because they were born to an
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American male. In this case of utmost symbolic significance, Dow succeeded

in confronting the Attorney General of the Republic of Botswana and gaining
citizenship for her children based on her own birthright as a woman born in
Botswana.
Likewise, in examples from her fiction, The Screaming of the Innocent and
The Heavens May Fall, Amantle and Naledi confront major gender conflicts
with policemen, cabinet members, lawyers, judges, businessmen and communi-
ty leaders who use their professional roles in Botswana society to obstruct the
rights of women and children. Amantle defies the edicts pronounced by men
who are more interested in protecting their institutions, whether they are legal
or medical, than they are the rights of neglected female-headed families such as
Mma-Neo whose daughter has been unjustifiably murdered. Naledi defies the
decisions made by men who are more interested in defending their positions, as
businessmen, politicians and school administrators in the local community than
they are the rights of innocent children such as Keba Mosame. Both females
assert themselves in conflicts with influential men, such as community leader
Mr. Disanka and Chief Justice Mmung, by knowing how to access the rules of
law, which pertain to details that have been overlooked, obstructed, or denied.
Even on the most difficult issues, these women express themselves articulately
in public. Through sheer tenacity of spirit neither woman allows herself to be
bullied by physical or emotional ploys directed at them by men. Instead, both
protagonists project their determination to bring perpetrators to justice and insist
that the guilty individuals must ultimately be judged according to the law, even
as complex and misdirected as it may be. However, in some cases, the tangles
associated with appropriating justice on behalf of women are impossible to
undo. In chapter Eight of The Heavens May Fall, Naledi describes the enormous

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 Fiat Justitia, Ruat Caelum

difficulties with teasing out written and customary law, as she tries to help Kitso
Mokobi avoid a divorce caused from a spell cast by her mother-in-law on her
husband. With cases such as this, when the protagonist is not able to successful-
ly unravel a judicial issue, the point still has to be made that as Biscaia rightly
argues, Dow recognizes discriminatory gender behavior in Botswana culture and
effectively portrays the everyday challenges in its social life that stifle women.
Even Juggling Truths, which does not seemingly agitate for gender equality
and teenage independence as much as her other novels, is a studied introduction
to fundamental questions that arise from the interactions of individuals within
their community about gender. The young budding protagonist Monei who, like
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the country of Botswana, stands at the cusp of independence, interrogates many

issues in the process of self-discovery. She asks, Whose responsibility is it to
care for a family without a head? Who writes the history books? Why was Bo-
tswana ruled from Mafikeng, South Africa, and by whom? Why is a white baby
menacing for a single, black mother? In this novel, Dow presents traditional
Botswana culture against the backdrop of a young female, Monei Ntuka, whose
childhood is wrapped in the history of Mochudi. Moneis sense of identity
develops in this coming of age story, and it unfolds from her childhood years to
her entrance into secondary school, where she is one of the 15% who matricu-
late from primary school to the next level of education. As a young woman who
is ambitious and dreams of becoming a Queen, she is invested in the future.
Contrastingly, her mother, Mma Monei, reminds readers that traditionally when
justice has to be served on gender sensitive issues, as in the case of Rao-Gopane
who is entreated to take a Rhodesian concubine as compensation for his sons
death in the mines, caution is necessary. In this scene, Mma Moneis counsel is
not to accept the compensation and says, We must be cautious. It mustnt be
said later that you took a woman to meet men on such an important mater, be-
fore you told all the men in our family (99). Thus, it can be said that when Dow
looks back in history to create her fictionalized accounts of the British Bechua-
naland Protectorate, she scrutinizes situations in which characters are embroiled
in gendered conflicts that reflect various viewpoints, and she invites readers to
observe changes in attitudes and customs.
Beyond addressing issues of gender, community and age, Anne Gagiano, in
writing about Dows novels, embarks on establishing how the author acts like
the Socratic thorn in the flesh who, by examining the villainy and oppression
in Botswana society, exposes specific social practices and attitudes and, rather

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 Sonja Darlington

than heaping blame on the perpetrators, guides her readers to recognize social,
personal, and cultural complexities (36). According to Gagiano, this so-called
thorn in the flesh gives rise in Dows novels to both forms and abuses of power
and to life-affirming, future-directed activities and social roles (36). As Muff
Anderson who has written on Amantles revolutionary spirit as amateur sleuth
with brothers in South African mines during the Apartheid notes, Dows writing
engages the political and reminds him of the revolutionary art form described by
Soyinka in Art, Dialogue and Outrage. To support his point, Anderson referenc-
es a passage in The Screaming of the Innocent as Principal Modiega asks Mrs.
Seme, one of the teachers, about students wearing smelly blankets instead of
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warm clothes to school. When Modiega questions Seme as to whether every-

thing has to be a political statement, Seme responds, Everything is political,
missus principal. (40). From this passage and others, one can argue justifiably
that Dows novels progress into the political more virulently as the villainous
acts perpetrated against oppressed individuals are examined and evidence grows
in magnitude with regard to the crimes that have been committed. Dow engag-
es on issues of ritual violence by wealthy males, corruption by police officers,
irresponsible judges, incompetent doctors, spouses who womanize, fathers who
abandon their children, and mothers who murder their newborns. Thus, it is not
incorrect to assess her writing at its core as socially interactive or activist, as
does Gagiano. As a state prosecutor and High Court Judge, Dow has learned to
act on what she perceives as the moral high ground. And, her activist stance ap-
pears prominently in her central characters, Mosa, Amantle, Monei, and Naledi,
who all share a tenacity to pursue justice. Dows choices about the questions
these protagonists pose are precise, timely, and morally compelling.
Overall, Dow is able to examine how it is that the health of Botswanas de-
mocracy depends on its youth who challenge its institutions, even as she credits
Botswanas elders with the traditions that have undergirded its development.
Much of her ability to deal with the juxtaposition of such contradictory forces
lies in the use of irony and understated humor as she tackles large politicized
issues that can be contentious. For example, even as Mosa in Far and Beyon
is beaten down by the deaths of two brothers by AIDS, she can still joke about
death by another means when she gives Stan an envelope with a negative report
to her own AIDS test. Ironically, in The Screaming of the Innocent, it is Mr.
Disanka, the good husband, father, lover, businessman and community leader
who cleverly arranges for the ritual killing of a Gaphala village girl with the

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 Fiat Justitia, Ruat Caelum

perfect young, budding body. This young girls impala likeness is compared hu-
morously, although with sinister undertones, with Mr. Disankas youngest child
affectionately called, Debaby, who jiggles and wobbles from being loved in
the form of endlessly being given ice cream, chips, fatty cakes, chicken, sodas,
and gum (4). Ironically, as well, in The Heavens May Fall, Justice Mmang
by virtue of being a Chief Justice ought to be a role model for a just citizenry.
Instead, he refuses to marry Gertrude Badisa and conspires to hide his true
identity as a Bush womans, son, so that he can snatch a top-notch education
and achieve laudable judiciary credentials. In the same novel, Dow pokes fun at
Naledi who though an admirable adversary for the judge and respected for her
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intellectual skills is nonetheless aware of her feminine appreciation for pink, use
of bad words as a child, desire for a weekly beer, and delight in the occasional
flirtatious male.
Despite Dows range of abilities in her writing, criticisms that have been
leveled at Dow, for being too political and feminist, have been overshadowed
by her successful, detective-like technique that focuses on crimes being solved
quickly in slim volumes. Her political and aesthetic approach have been widely
praised for their appeal as young adult fiction. Reputed to be established as a
unique genre for its young protagonists, brevity, succinct plots, simple vocab-
ulary and syntax, Dow gets high marks for these aspects of her writing style.
Most often, her details are either related to a case a protagonist is trying to solve
or to provide readers with background on Botswana politics, culture, or law that
Dow believes her audience ought to know. Her strongest attributes include her
Setswana vocabulary inserted as a reminder of the particular community with
which she identifies. She frequently uses a Setswana word to identify the cultur-
al aspect that she is trying to define, whether it is a social practice, such as phe-
kola (strengthening ritual), depheko (ritual killing), or borekhu hunting (gum/
resin hunting), or an environmental identifier, such as the morula trees, insects
mabere (beetles) or moselesele wood. And, the vast majority of her characters
have Setswana names, which themselves carry meaning. Other noteworthy
stylistic devices are the episodic approach to multilayered stories and the use of
suspense built around targeting perpetrators of heinous crimes and bringing them
to justice. Numerous incidents are also interjected to bring common Setswana
attitudes and beliefs into the plot and suggest a connection to historical markers
and customs.
A further analysis of Dows writing also includes a consideration of her

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 Sonja Darlington

syntax: short sentences and simple structures, well arranged into brief chapters
from two to 19 pages, which fits the purpose of providing investigative research
into the process of self-discovery. Among the syntactical forms that appear
frequently is the interrogative, which also fit the purpose of questioning what
lies beneath the issues that confront contemporary Botswana society. In addition,
her semanticswords, phrases, sentences and their meaningsuggest the sense
of how not only society changes but also how language changes and varies,
according who, when, and where someone speaks. Many of her female char-
acters, in order for them to challenge authority, have had to learn to make their
way within particular language communities, so that they know what words and
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phrases will attract attention and unsettle the interlocutor, who is often an adult
male. For example, Naledi Chaba, as prosecutor, is merciless in her questions to
Justice Mmung who does not recuse himself from a case in which he would be
disbarred, were he to remain the presiding judge. In a spectacular verbal joust,
when he is seemingly willing to do anything within his power to remove Naledi
from the roster of speakers at the Law Societys Annual Dinner, she combines
her written speech with an impromptu address and demonstrates her unflinching
verbal assertiveness. In the end, she relishes the speech she gave that brought
across to the audience some of what [she] considered to be the social and legal
issues (166). Naledi has taken her sophisticated audience and brought them into
their former shared world of no tar-roads, no running water and no electricity,
limited places in school and reminded them amidst applause for Botswana, that
despite being the shining example of democracy in Africa not all was well,
what with the disintegration of the extended family system, the ravages of AIDS
and the runaway crime (167).
In summary, Dows key focus in her fiction can be said to mirror Selol-
wanes concern for the future of democracy in Botswana by also investigating
the role of youth. Dow casts her support behind young people and teaches them
about the process of changing political institutions and provides stories in which
young protagonists gain legitimate power and participate in governing Botswana
society. Each of her novels emphasizes the potential for youth as social agents
to change institutions and political circumstances. In addition, Dow also mirrors,
Deborah Durhams careful interpretation of youth in terms of how they are
positioned as an individual or group with respect to their social attributes. Dows
concerns, like those of Durhams, address a nuanced understanding of what it
means to be a mature person, define how relationships work in society among

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 Fiat Justitia, Ruat Caelum

young and old, examine in whom power is invested and why, and identify who
can engage in moral action and for what reasons. So that, as Gagiano and others
rightly insist, Dows novels do not present static social constructs nor do they
present pre-digested conclusions. Rather, Dow defends the right of young
people to challenge the political system, so it reflects the highest expectations
for honesty and integrity. She rejects pronouncements in favor of processes of
education that involve adjusting to contemporary realities, within the framework
of social and cultural traditions that have evolved within particular communities,
such as Mochudi, over time. Thus, she brings issues related to maturity, com-
munity, gender, and moral action up close for careful scrutiny. To that end, Fiat
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justitia, ruat caelum, a call to justice at any cost, is precisely what Dow has en-
deavored to exemplify through her novels. Her militancy, if it can be called that,
is to articulate that society is always changing, and its youth, whether female
or male, ought to be enabled to exercise its power and participate in governing
Botswana, so that as a democratic state, it hopefully grows more transparent and
accountable. Arguably, she avoids the trap of imagining that as she portrays is-
sues of justice in Botswana that she is the custodian of African identity (Kalua
82).

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