Violet Sephotho as a political analogy?

Or was it an accidental analogy?

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Aisha: Number 17 in the series…

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Zahara: Of?

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Aisha: I’m talking about the Number One Ladies Detective Agency. The author claims to be non-political, but I can’t help but wonder about the ending of Precious and Grace.

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Zahara: Where Violet Sephotho wins the election by buying votes?

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Aisha: And he writes, “How could Botswana, of all places, choose as Woman of the Year a person as self-seeking as Violet Sephotho? Did people not realize? Were people such poor judges of character as to be unable to see Violet for what she was?”

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Zahara: Yes, but the reply is, “There are many things in this world that are not right.”

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Voice-over

Was it a coincidence that Precious and Grace appeared in September 2016 just before the U.S. elections were being decided? Did Alexander McCall Smith have a notion that the US presidential election would be won by Donald Trump overturning standards of decent behavior? Could he have been alluding to Hillary Clinton as being a self-seeking politician? Was he referring to what goes on in many other places in the world? Or did he intend no allegory at all?

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Two frog allegories

Of frogs and logs…

27 years under a coconut shell...

Kermit: I spent 27 years in the same job. I feel like the frog who spent his life under a coconut shell.

Olivia: Meaning you got to thinking that the shell is the whole world?

Kermit: Right, but now I’m losing my job and coming out into the real world, I see how insular and ignorant I was.

Olivia: There’s an even more cautionary story about frogs who wanted a leader. So Zeus threw a log in their pond with a big splash which frightened the frogs to begin with, but then the log didn’t do anything so they asked Zeus for another leader. Zeus sighed, then sent them a water snake which started eating the frogs.

Kermit: Be careful what you wish for?

Olivia: There’s a political implication too.

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Voice-over

Such stories may depict the frog as insular or foolish. But some cultures have seen the frog as an animal that undergoes many changes in its life: egg to tadpole to amphibian. Even to handsome prince! And it can be a symbol of fertility (because of the number of eggs it lays). Also of transition or rebirth as it passes from tadpole to frog. And cleanliness because of its diving in and out of water.

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