Who are Bayeyi?

I'm flying blind. The reason I have to fly, despite the blindness is that since this is Christmas time many Bayeyi will be "home", and therefore can check on the truth or otherwise of my SPECULATIONS.

There are three closely related Kalanga words, which I believe apply to Bayeyi: KU KOBA, meaning TO DIVIDE UP (and share among several people); KU ABA, meaning the same thing; and YEI, meaning THIS ONE.

The person conducting the sharing exercise could be called NKOBA or NKOBI. He/She could even be MOKOBA (when "Tswanalised"). The same person could be N'HABE, from the verb KU ABA. When sharing out cattle or something similar, the person would say "YEI ngeya woyu, YEI nge ya woyu!". So could it be that just like the Hottentots, there is nothing derogatory about the word "MOKOBA", that in fact that's who they are?

A plea to "Mthwakazi".

As we traverse the historical ladscape of Southern Africa, and converge on the Kalanga nation, various interesting things emerge. The Hottentots are Hute-ntota's, or Nguni's. Their name is often abbreviated to Ma-Tota, or simply Madoda!.

One of the greatest Kalanga Kings - a Nguni by tribe, was King Mutota. I can hear murmurs of "but, he was a Shona". Yes, he was a Shona. But what may not be clear to some is that "Shona" is just another word for "Nguni".
Ba-Shona are called "Bazwina", and not "BaSwina", in Kalanga. Bazwina and Batota means exactly the same thing - those who mend or patch (fences).

So, to Mthwakazi, I have a plea. You are as Shona as Mugabe. Mugabe is as Nguni as Mzilikazi was. Start learning Kalanga, and teach us how you built Great Zimbabwe ruins. You see, the names of tribes around Great Zimbabwe are nothing more than the names of workgroups that built Great Zimbabwe. Unfortunately I do not speak Shona, and so cannot analyse those names in their current corrupted Kalanga form. But I have developed a curiosity; an unquenchable thirst for knowledge into "HOW" Great Zimbabwe was built.

I can see Basesuli (MaZezuru), who were probably responsible for "peeling off" slabs of rock  which were later split into bricks. I can see "Ma-Anika" (MaNyika) who were probably responsible for drying whatever was used, in its wet form, to crack stone slabs. It's fitting that their King's name was Tjikanga, which means "one who fries" in Kalanga.
What I find really frightenning about the things I "discover" is that many of our people have always known these things!.

Death penalty: Let the dead have a say.

The death penalty is a very serious matter. I recently read Sonny Serite's column in the Telegraph newspaper, in which he stated quite clearly that he is a retributionist, and  that he supports the death penalty.

Many people support it too; and many do not. What was very persuasive about Serite'e article though, is that he put himself in the boots of the murdered person and asked the reader to do the same. This approach opened my eyes to the predicament of legislators faced with the question of banning from, or keeping the death penalty on the statute books!
I got to thinking; seriously thinking about possible solutions. I think there is at least one.

Our national registration card (Omang) could have one piece of hidden data added to it. The piece of data could be accessible only to judges of the High Court, and only in the event that the ID owner has been murdered. The data would simply state whether the ID owner supported the death penalty or not; if s/he did then the murderer would be eligible for sentence to death if found guilty. Otherwise, the murderer can only be sentenced to life imprisonment even if s/he is found guilty of murder without extenuating circumstances.

As a society we strive to fulfill the wishes of our departed relatives. If the departed would have us NOT play God by executing their murderers, so be it.

Tribal Territories Must Go (TTMG)

The Reptilians may have accentuated tribal differences among the Kalanga people that they converted from Kalanga to Sotho speakers, but the most significantly divisive operation on the Kalanga nation was carried out by the British colonialists who ASSIGNED TRIBAL TERRITORIES TO SUCH TRIBAL ENTITIES.

Before you “remind” me of my previous claims that the British wanted us to remain a UNITARY possession of Great Britain, let me explain that the UNION that the British wanted us to maintain is something akin to the African Union (AU) today. It was a union to facilitate their (British) administration of our lands, but nothing of any benefit to the “united” people themselves.

And so the drawing up of Tribal Territory boundaries in our country was a divisive master stroke by the British. They assigned disproportionately large tracts of land to Tswana-speaking components of Kalanga tribes, the idea being to invert and subvert the political power relationships existent in the Kalanga nation at the time. Only Tswana speaking tribes were allocated territories. There was no way the Kalanga nation could resist such manoeuvres from British military might; and so we ended up with a territorially warped Republic when we signed up for “independence” from the British ON THEIR TERMS. We should have insisted that the Tribal Territory boundaries be removed, and the country left in the state that the British found it in.

The Tribal Territories are the main cause of most of the problems we face at national level today. The ruling cliques within these territories now consider it their entitlement to also rule the Republic. As a result they lazily lie around, allowing their children not to pursue education, because of this perceived entitlement to privileged lives. They have created a Republican government based on these senseless territories; declaring themselves Paramount Chiefs of supposedly “major” tribes, when in fact and in truth their subjects are only PARTS of such tribes, with the rest of their tribes being lumped and dumped together as the “minor” Kalanga “tribe”. The national allocation of development resources is tailored to these senseless Tribal Territories. While the country adopted a sensible law that natural resources such as minerals belong to the whole republic irrespective of where they are mined, the reality is that the distribution of the resources so acquired, is a warped exercise where the Tribal Territory ruling cliques, who have become the Republic’s ruling oligarchs, buy popularity among their tribes by disproportionately allocating development resources to their Tribal territories. For how else would you explain that the only two universities in the country are built within 260 Km of each other on a main road stretching more than 1000 Km from Ramatlabama to Kasane? How else would you explain that national District boundaries coincide with tribal territory boundaries, thereby forcing the national development budget to be allocated according to Tribal territories?

Some people may argue that the Tribal territories are the guarantors of poor peoples’ right to own land. I accept that argument with a qualification – poor peoples’ right to access land. For if the Government has the power to sell tribal land, what poor peoples’ ownership of land is there to speak of? No; Tribal territory boundaries should be scrapped, the land should become state land, and the land boards should be elected officials in the DISTRICTS (not Tribal territories) where they reside. District boundaries should not necessarily coincide with current tribal boundaries.

Cultural genocide

In this post I use the words “Chirwa” and “Setswana” interchangeably, both meaning the language of the Tswana people. The latter is a derogatory (albeit more acceptable to the Tswana) form of the former.

It is less than one hundred and thirty years (130 yrs.) since the nation that was fraudulently called Bechuanaland was carved out of Southern Africa by the newly arrived British. When that occurred, the Kalanga nation had been in contact (military and otherwise) with the Portuguese for almost 400 years.  The theatre of operations was the same – Southern Africa.

After the Portuguese landed, they constantly wrote letters back to their Kings in Portugal. The same was done by British missionaries, only 350 years later. It stands to reason therefore, that the Portuguese records are more reflective of pristine African society, than the British records.
Portuguese records are widely and eloquently referenced by Ndzimu Unami  Emmanuel in his book “The Rebirth of Bukalanga”. In those records the people concerned called themselves “Mokaranga”. Emmanuel even shows how early Portuguese language writers replaced the “L” with an “R”.

From other records, the Tswana-speaking population was never considered a separate nation from the Kalanga nation. Tswana-speaking tribes were a mere extension of the same tribes in the Kalanga-speaking part of the nation. This is why they even denied that they were called “Bechuana”. They claimed that the label “Bechuana” was an invention of the British. And yet today the Tswana propagandists would like us to believe that the Tswana viewed themselves as a nation, separate from the Kalanga nation!

A recent exchange in the press between one Bawumbe wa Chiwidi and one Kangangwani Phatshwani concerning the Domboshaba cultural festival misses one important point – the ruins of Domboshaba offer a cultural refuge for a Kalanga culture that is under a barrage of legislative blows from genocidal maniacs. Throughout the (Tswana) country cultural celebrations are conducted at the Kgotlas, because the Kgotlas are the traditional and cultural administrative meeting places. In contrast, the Kgotlas in Kalanga-speaking areas have been hijacked into foreign assembly points where the language spoken (Chirwa/Tswana) has nothing whatsoever in common with the culture of the people who assemble there. It does not matter whether you are in the so-called Central district or in the North East district, the Kgotla is a non-welcoming object of foreign domination, where you often find everybody (including the chief) being fluent Kalanga speakers, and yet all proceedings are conducted in Setswana language. Just how does one go and celebrate (as opposed to demonstrating) their culture in such foreign surroundings?

My enquiries have revealed that Kalanga ethnicity may not be an identifiable trait, at least not in Southern Africa, because every nation was originally a Kalanga subgroup. However, Kalanga cultural identity is readily identifiable, because Kalanga language is a spoken language today! Kalanga language identifies us as a cultural entity, quite distinct from Chirwa language speakers. We have our cultural songs and dances, our cultural stories for the kids, our cultural norms; in short – our cultural being. There is nothing we need from Setswana language; indeed Setswana language has nothing to offer us, because the body of knowledge that Setswana language uses is from the English language, and we are equally capable of accessing this body of knowledge directly from English.

A common lie advanced by apologists of Tswana cultural colonisation of Bakalanga is that we need to all speak one language in order to be a cohesive nation – Botswana. There is no truth in this position, because nearly all nations in Southern Africa speak and officially use more than one language. Indeed the nation called Botswana today existed for more than eighty years as Bechuanaland before “Independence”. Both Ikalanga and Setswana were native “official” languages.  To suggest that the British were less interested in our “cohesion” as a nation then, and therefore allowed Kalanga language to be taught in schools and to be used in the Kgotlas is to fly in the face of common sense. By delineating the boundaries of Bechuanaland, the British were unequivocally declaring that we are henceforth a UNITARY possession of Great Britain. No Tswana speaking tribe could have subjugated the Kalanga nation. The British had to carry out the subjugation themselves. The imprisonment and subsequent banishment of John Nswazwi was accomplished through the use of British military force. The relocation of Bangwato from Shoshong to Palapye was facilitated by British military force. The extension of Bangwato hegemony north of the river Motloutse was facilitated by British military force. In other words, the British were so committed to Bechuanaland being a “cohesive” country that they used ARMS to accomplish that objective. And yet they never saw the need to ban the use of Kalanga language in schools, in Kgotlas, the way “Independent” Botswana has now done.

What needs to be done is that Setswana language needs to be rejected in its entirety in all Kalanga Kgotlas and in all Kalanga schools. It is no longer enough to go cap in hand to beg the Botswana Government to allow Kalanga to be taught in schools. Kalanga ire should now be directed at the foreign Setswana language in our Kgotlas, our schools our homes. Old men, like those North Easterners who recently obtained an assurance that their concerns will be addressed in NDP 11, should cease to speak to their grand children in Setswana language, and instead teach them Kalanga language.  For it makes you wonder why they believe that their concerns will be addressed, and then NOT struck off NDP 11, just as they were addressed and subsequently struck off other (earlier) NDPs. One can’t help thinking that they acquiesce in the knowledge that they have been told a lie in the greater scheme of things - the forthcoming 2014 general elections.
Not so long ago any suggestion that Kalanga language could be taught in schools was met with derision - “if they want their language to be taught, let them go back to Zimbabwe where they come from”. These irresponsible utterances were made by the very people who, it now turns out, originated from deep inside Zimbabwe.

It is fitting to label what is happening to Kalanga speakers as cultural genocide. That it is genocide is evident from the fact that even the Tswana intellectuals, when challenged about the cultural status quo  in the country, where our people no longer watch national television because of the constant, unceasing barrage of Chirwa, quickly remind us of the Rwandan genocide!  According to them we have an option – get culturally assimilated or physically annihilated.  

Kgosi

A recent article in the Telegraph newspaper entitled “Bakgatla celebrate dikgafela in style” by Dr. Otlogetswe caught my attention. Dr. Otlogetswe was evidently attending cultural celebrations of the Bakgatla BagaManaana (BBM) at Moshupa kgotla. Dr. Otlogetswe is an educated and articulate man. What he writes has the aura of a science about it. He relates to us how the BBM Kgosi Mosielele came into being, born of a Mongwaketse princess. He then introduces the dignitaries gathered at the event. The Kgosi Mosielele’s are, of course, BBM Kgosis. The non-BBM kgosi Mosielele is duly introduced as Kgosi of Bahurutshe. Then comes the knocker – Kgosi Masunga of the customary court of appeal! I mean this was a celebration of culture; it had nothing to do with cultural administration of Justice. Why then couldn’t Dr. Otlogetswe show us how Kgosi Masunga lays claim to any cultural identity, if at all? What would Dr. Otlogetswe have written, if it had been Kgosi Maruje Masunga instead? Would he have written “of the Baperi baka Masunga” or “of the North East?

I pose the above questions because for too long, this country has been content to let false propaganda determine its national development agenda. Those who have been following this blog will by now know that this nation is a Kalanga nation. The nation carved out of the territory that is Botswana is composed of many tribes, ALL of whom have been part of the Kalanga nation; therefore it is fitting to call the nation a Kalanga nation, and NOT a Tswana nation. The Kalanga language is not entirely homogeneous – there is Nambdza, Lilima, Chinhu, Venda, Shona, Subiya, Nyanja, Swahili etc. These languages, though different to the point of being unintelligible to one another’s speakers, are nevertheless based on ONE language, which I call Kalanga.

In Southern Africa, Botswana included, when what we now call the Tswana tribes were recruited to speak Sotho language, some of them remained speaking Kalanga to this day. This is a point the “Botswana” propagandists would like to hide from the nation. The Kalanga-speaking Bangwato, Bakwena, Bakgatla, Barolong, Batlokwa have never been Tswana speakers before. They have always been Kalanga speakers who know their identity from man’s origin itself. As constituent tribes of the Kalanga nation, they identify themselves by their totems, not by TRIBAL TERRITORIES, which are an invention of the colonialists, anyway. In any given Kalanga community, there will be Bakgatla, Barolong, Bakwena, Bangwato, Batlokwa, living harmoniously together, without any friction whatsoever, because THEY ARE OFTEN ALL RELATED THROUGH INTERMARRIAGES, ANYWAY. The ruling family may be Bakwena by totem, but they are proud nieces, proud cousins, proud uncles of the Barolong, Bahumbe, Baperi etc. who make the rest of that community. Genealogy is very important to Bakalanga – it prevents in-breeding. That is why even an illegitimate child must know his/her biological parents!

And so, in the national (Kalanga) context, a chief identifies with a tribe only to the extent that he has a totem; and not as a ruler of a specific tribal grouping. This is the nation that we as Kalangas were duped into believing we were creating at Independence. Of course it would have been possible to fashion a Tswana nation out of the constituent Tswana-speaking tribes as well. However the history of Tswana tribes would have been an impediment to such an endeavour: the very formation of the Tswana tribes by the Reptilians involved accentuating tribal differences in order to weaken the Kalanga nation; a classic divide and rule tactic. It is a fact on record that when the British first tried to gather the Tswana tribes into one nation, the Tswana resisted, saying “we are all just different tribes, not one nation”. That they spoke one language; that they had been part of the Monomotapa kingdom, but considered themselves just different tribes, is testimony to the fact that they understood the “nation” of which they were a part, to be a Kalanga nation. And so when the British left, some 80 years later, the propaganda banner had to be unfurled to create a Tswana tribally dominated enclave, where it didn’t exist before - Botswana.

To give this new identity a semblance of legitimacy, the rest of the Kalanga nation within the British-created boundaries had to be psyched into believing that we Kalangas are a tribe; a constituent part of the new nation – Botswana! The scheme worked – the sycophants are working day and night (and waxing fat) to feed us that garbage.      

Monster deserves death.

Mmegi newspaper of 11th September, 2013 carries a harrowing story of a Primary school teacher who is facing charges of raping a six-year-old pupil. In 2007, the same teacher was charged with defiling two primary school children, both of whom unfortunately, died before the case could be finalized, resulting in him being discharged and acquitted.

If Zibani Thamo could be hanged, as he was, on circumstantial evidence, what prevents this monster from facing the gallows? What have the Police now done to protect the latest victim from suffering the same fate as the other two?

BNF woes

One only hopes that common sense can still prevail among Botswana National Front (BNF) “activists”. You see, BNF president Duma Boko was right not to want to contest for Parliamentary Elections. His argument was very sound – he wanted to concentrate on growing the BNF. He wanted to shape BNF National election strategy and channel his energies into making the BNF a household name again, like it was during the time of KK. As President of the BNF, Boko is the man to do that. But he cannot accomplish such a demanding task if his attention is divided between party leadership and Parliamentary candidate.

The arguments used to “persuade” Boko to abandon his stance were not convincing at all. But he had to yield, partly because of the never easing threat from “activists” to destroy the BNF. It was claimed that if BMD president Gomolemo Motswaledi won the Gaborone Central seat, then he would most likely be the leader of opposition (LOO) in Parliament, and would thus tend to eclipse Duma Boko who would not be in Parliament. This argument flies in the face of common sense. So what if Motswaledi was LOO? After all, unless a party is in power, Parliamentarians constitute a miniscule proportion of any opposition party. Correspondingly, people (the Party) attach a miniscule credibility to what the Parliamentarians say, especially if such Parliamentarians are the kind that hops from one party to another like grass hoppers invading a field of lush green crops.

THE PARTY is supposed to be out there among the people, in Manxothai, Xanaxas, Groote Lagte etc. In these places, Duma Boko would have had the time to be seen, to be heard, to listen to the people and learn what constitute peoples’ greatest needs and concerns. In other words, the BNF would have had a face among the people.

You see, there is something quite elegant about the way the British conduct their party political life. The party gives its leader full support while he/she is still leader. This ensures that the leader’s ideas are given full leeway to be implemented without internal party bickering and all sorts of hindrance. If the party loses elections the leader does not have to be reminded that it’s time to quit. He/she announces his/her resignation even before the official announcement of loss is made. The leader resigns, not because he did anything “wrong”, but because his best was not good enough. It is immaterial whether the elections were rigged or not, it happened under the leader’s watch; therefore the leader must go. He/she must pass the baton to others whose ideas were put on hold while his/hers ruled the roost. But you cannot demand such stringent adherence to political principle where the leader’s ideas were constantly rebutted by “party activists” and where the leader was wholly immersed in a constituency political campaign, at the expense of the party’s national footprint.

The BNF should avoid a situation similar to a certain political party in Zimbabwe where the leader was forced by circumstances beyond his control to declare his party ready for the elections, against the best advice of regional bodies, only to run around like a headless chicken when the party was booted out of government at the elections. Had the leader been under no pressure to declare his party ready for elections, he would most probably have gracefully bowed out after the electoral “loss” and not sought to prolong his leadership by cursing the very people whose advice he had been forced to ignore.

Bakwena cultural celebrations

This week’s “The Telegraph” newspaper carries a report about a forthcoming celebration of Bakwena culture in Molepolole. This should be a memorable occasion indeed. There is something though, that Bakwena hide from public acknowledgment – a hill on the North side of Molepolole, called “Lekgabanyana laga Ra-Kolanyane”.

If you come across a Mokwena in good spirits, he will tell you that it is from that hill that Bakwena obtain their Kings and get lightning to strike others with [Tladi le dikgosi ba di tsaya teng koo]. It is also alleged that items found on that hill, such as old clay pot pieces, ARE alive. So as a skeptic who does not believe in voodoo and stuff, I decided to visit the site.

The best description I can give for what I experienced is that the hill logged into me, just the way you log into a computer and issue instructions for it to do this and that. I agree with you 100% if you say what I am writing is absolute rubbish; that is why I went there in the first place – to confirm that claims that the hill has supernatural powers are total rubbish. So go climb the hill and enjoy!

Thaakaa!

The other day I went past an English Medium school. The kids were playing in the grounds. It was all “thwithwi-n-thwi”. I called one little boy (a Mongwato, I suspect) over and asked him why he was speaking to his friends in English, and not in Setswana. He replied that Setswana is a MINORITY language, and therefore they are not allowed to speak it. I walked away.

Later I began to digest what the little Mongwato boy had said. Surely he must have been told by someone that Setswana is a minority language. But is it? I wondered. Well, given that the boy’s scope of discourse was the school environment, he was as right as those who say that Ikalanga language is a minority language in Botswana.

Just like the English Medium School, an artificial environment called Botswana was created, from which Ikalanga language was forcibly expunged from public discourse by Presidential proclamations. After several years of its being in the doldrums, Ikalanga language was then declared a MINORITY language. It remains so to this day; thaakaa!

And speaking of “thaakaa” it may surprise some to know that this is a Kalanga word which was carried over into Sengwato. As Professor Otlogetswe pointed out in the Telegraph newspaper of July 10th 2013, the (Ngwato) word expresses surprise. Well, I believe that its original meaning was more than just an expression of surprise; it was an expression that spelt imminent danger when uttered by the Illui. When you eat thopi (porridge cooked using melon stew) and find a melon seed in the porridge, that seed is called “thaka” in IKalanga language. Now, imagine that you were charged with making a melon stew for the Illui, to supplement their diet of milk (or sh!t). Such a stew would have to be completely free of seeds. If they found a seed in there, they would of course exclaim ”thaakaa!”, and that basically meant that YOU were as good as dead!

3 chiefs monument - solution!

I have never heard a Mongwato, a Mokwena or a Mongwaketse use the phrase “go tswa goo-Lowe”, meaning “ever since Lowe”. The reason is simple – they never lived at “Lowe” (Mapungubwe). The Kalanga name for “Lowe” of course is “Liwa/Luwe/Luo”.

Instead, they most probably originate from Khami, near Bulawayo. Khami is a corruption of its  Kalanga name – Nkami; meaning “the milker”.

It makes sense therefore that a swap be made between Botswana and Zimbabwe - the monument of their three chiefs in Gaborone’s Central Business District (CBD) gets re-Christened “Bulawayo”; while the Zimbabwean city of Bulawayo reverts to its original name of "Khama" "Nkami".

Public Accounts Committee of Parliament

HoHoHo-HaHaHa!!!!LOLLLLLL. And so the “second best-performing Ministry” can’t even explain their accounting book discrepancies to the Public Accounts Committee! Lord have mercy on our land.

DIS boss and "lazy Government Officials"

The article entitled “DIS boss slams Government Officials” in the most recent Weekend Post newspaper makes for very sad reading. It makes me wonder why Mr. Kgosi does not escalate these problems he encounters, of uncooperative Government Officials to his job supervisor – or does he not have one?

It reminds me of the advice of a Chinese Government representative to a Botswana Government official, concerning the lack of competency of a Chinese Government-owned company to carry out a “mega” project in Palapye; which advice was also ignored, and which project has also disastrously failed.

According to the newspaper report, Mr. Kgosi’s Department of Intelligence and Security (DIS) has now adopted a “wait and see approach” as mega projects hurtle towards otherwise avoidable catastrophes. I don’t blame Mr. Kgosi’s DIS for this; anyone in similar circumstances would probably do likewise.

But surely there is someone to blame, and surely President Khama has the power to get rid of that someone. Question is – is he capable of identifying the culprit? If not, will his victory in 2014 elections make any difference?

Voter numbers or Voter names?

If you are wondering why I relentlessly pursue the matter of general elections, the reason is simple – it is the only time that I am given a say in how I want the country run. After the general elections, political parties and “civic” organisations meet at the GICC to do a “post-mortem”. We, ordinary citizens are never invited to these gatherings. Therefore to me the general elections are the beginning and the end of my democratic participation. As such, I need to be convinced that the result of the general elections IS A TRUE REFLECTION OF THE VOICE OF THE MAJORITY.

I fail to understand why, after dissolution of Parliament, Ministers then use taxpayer’s money to run the length and breadth of the country purportedly to tell us the citizens, about Government programmes.   Because Parliament stands dissolved, our input to these Ministerial and Presidential Kgotla gatherings cannot be acted upon; so why do we as taxpayers have to fund these gatherings? Indeed what other rationale is there for these gatherings other than political campaigning by the Ministers and/or President? It boils down to one phenomenon – abuse of office!

There have been two disturbing announcements by the government last (and this) year, in relation to next year’s general elections:

1. That computers would play a greater role than ever before in an election.
2. That election registration numbers would no longer be used but rather, that NAMES would be used instead.

Our population is a little over two million people.  In such a small population is there justification for widespread computer deployment during general elections? I would say yes; provided the computers, using the national registration database, are used solely to prevent an individual from VOTING MORE THAN ONCE.  I therefore accept the first of the above announcements, with the qualification just stated.
Given the first announcement, the second announcement presents a dilemma. A computer only understands numbers. Everything that we see a computer accomplish, be it our names, music or video or sound, is represented as a number in the brain of a computer.  The use of voter identification numbers in general elections therefore follows the natural process by which a computer works. My contention is that these numbers ought to be the same numbers that we are given at birth, and that remain our identification numbers until we die. We should not have to be “registered” again, specifically for elections. But numbered we must be.

Imagine the scenario of using only names and not numbers, as Vice President Kedikilwe announced. The election administrators would have a hard time determining if the voter Modise Molefe is the same as the voter Modisi Molefhi. But the numbers of these two people would be different, and no one would be faster at spotting that difference than a computer!

In conclusion, the use of computers at general elections is therefore essential, but so is the use of numbers in association with our names, a role for which our national ID numbers (Omang numbers) are ideal.

That Mmirwa...

He should have been forced to resign, failing which he should have been sacked the day he
stood up in Parliament and declared that there was NO ONE to blame for the failed Serowe
Stadium project.

For those who may have forgotten by now, the Serowe Stadium cost millions
and millions of the taxpayer’s money to build. At completion of the stadium massive cracks
appeared in the structure, rendering the stadium unsafe to use. It later emerged that the
stadium had been built on a geologically unsuitable location.  When Minister Shaw Kgathi (of
Sports and other things) was asked to say whose fault it was he said it was no one’s fault.
And none of those self serving political prostitutes in Parliament called for Mr. Kgathi to
resign or be sacked!

Today what we read about Minister Kgathi is absolutely astounding. In his display of total
ignorance about the extent to which indigenous languages in Botswana differ from the
so-called national language, i.e. Setswana Mr. Kgathi talks of Sebirwa language as though it
was in the same league as Kalanga, Sheyeyi, Shimbukushu. Mr. Kgathi declares that he is a
Mmirwa and would not like Babirwa children to be taught in Sebirwa at Primary school. He
conveniently forgets to tell the house that when he accompanies his boss in the latter’s
walkabouts in Bobirwa, the language of the villagers as captured on Botswana Television does
not need translating so that Khama understands. Those villagers speak in hardcore Sebirwa,
but because of its similarity to Setswana, anyone who understands Setswana, like President
Khama, will understand what the Mmirwa is saying. Not so with Kalanga, and certainly not so
with various Bakhwa (I hate to call them Basarwa) dialects.

Sebirwa, Setswapong, and a few other languages, while different from Setswana, are
nevertheless similar enough to render Setswana understandable to a first-day-at-school child
who has never met a Setswana speaking person before. Not so with Kalanga. I know what I am
talking about because I was such a child, and I used to go through a whole lesson without
understanding a thing. At play time I would then approach my Kalanga friends who had been
brought up in the town, and therefore understood Setswana, to find out what the lesson was
about. It makes me mad to read that ignorant people who sailed through language chauvinism
to positions of privilege at our expense now have the audacity to stand in Parliament and
blow hot air!    

When death penalty is justified...

A month or so ago I read an article by attorney Kgosi* Ngakaagae in one of the local newspapers. Ngakaagae put up a spirited condemnation of the death penalty; not so much a condemnation of the fact that it is practised in Botswana, as of the methods by which the death penalty is retained on our statute books.  Ngakaagae argued that if the people who get consulted in open forums like the Kgotla were told the truth about how inefficient some of the pro-deo lawyers who defend people facing capital punishment were, the Kgotlas might demand that death penalty be abolished. In addition to the inefficiency of the pro-deo lawyers, Ngakaagae criticised the cruelty and inhumanity with which the sentence is implemented.

Ngakaagae’s article has been troubling my conscience a great deal. Surely it is wrong for the state to kill an innocent person. No matter how you look at it, a human life taken in a situation other than during war, can never and should never be treated as collateral damage. Surely the death penalty is not much of a deterrent against would-be murderers, because many now resort to taking their own lives after committing the murders!

I had become a convert to Ngakaagae’s view of the death penalty; until yesterday when I read this week’s “Botswana Gazette” newspaper in which a man is reported to have killed his brother and the brother’s whole family of five members, including a four month old baby. The killer is appealing against six death sentences and is defended by none other than attorney Kgosietsile Ngakaagae himself. When I read about how the killer killed the four-month old baby with a knobkerrie, after killing its mother and grandmother, my mind did a violent rejection of everything that Ngakaagae’s earlier article had done to it. 

I suddenly realised the full justification of the death penalty. I understood that the death penalty is not always about punishing a criminal, but often about RIDDING SOCIETY OF A THREAT TO ITS EXISTENCE. Some will argue, as no doubt attorney Ngakaagae did, that the murderer Orelesitse Thokamolelo had smoked marijuana when he committed the crimes, and was therefore not wholly responsible for the gruesome acts, but I would beg to differ. There will always be marijuana illegally accessible to those who really want it. Society can and should accommodate those who illegally access marijuana, but commit no heinous crimes after smoking it. Society should get rid of (i.e. kill) those who, after smoking marijuana commit crimes of the nature of Orelesitse Thokamolelo’s crimes. The aim is neither to punish them, nor to “make an example of them”, as a warning to the living. The aim is to PROTECT society, period.

Why voter registration..?

My National  Identity card (Omang card) has my unique ID number, which identifies me in the National database of Botswana. Furthermore, my birth date is recorded on the card. The law requires me to carry my Omang card at all times. We are told that in a democracy like ours, every person above the age of 18 years is entitled to vote.  Therefore the moment a day of elections is chosen; all valid-to-vote Omang cards can be calculated and announced to election monitors and the public at large.

Having established “which” Omang cards will be valid on Election Day, the only thing remaining to make the Omang card the Election card, is the place where the bearer MAY vote. But does that really matter if the computers (and election administrators of all parties) RECORD the ID of everyone who goes into the voting booth? No one can vote twice, by changing voting places, because even if they tried, their name and number will show more than once in the voting list and their vote will therefore be rejected by both the computer and the election administrators. In other words, bussing of voters will be futile; because those bussed will be merely reducing their numbers wherever they came from, and there at putting themselves at a disadvantage.

Thus using the Omang card as the sole voting document will result in a next-five-years snapshot of who voted where, such that participants in any in-term by-elections will be easily identified, should their MP or councillor die during term. The Omang database is readily available in Government computers. The whole expensive exercise of “registering” voters is therefore an unnecessary and time-wasting duplication of effort.

Some may argue that a person from Shakawe in the north-west corner of the country, should not be allowed to vote in Mochudi , in the south-east extremity of the country, and determine who will be MP or councillor in the latter area; something that my scheme of things described above would permit! Such an argument does not hold water, considering that a person from Shakawe may relocate to live in Mochudi any day and any time, without need for anyone’s permission or knowledge, for that matter. As things stand today, even with the requirement for “voter registration” in place, a person from Shakawe can relocate to Mochudi just a day prior to registration, and still register and vote in Mochudi , anyway.

So, why register voters at all? I ask you.      

On social breakdowns...

Early this year I read from one of the newspapers that the Chief Justice, Maruping Dibotelo had said that eleven million Pula (P11m) of child maintenance money lay uncollected from the courts by the babies’ mothers. That’s about one and a half million US dollars (US $1.5 m). The money had been paid to the courts by the babies’ fathers. At around the same time it was reported that unwed fathers complain that their babies’ mothers deny them access to their own babies. Last week I read about a priest who allegedly battered his wife to death with a hammer, then surrendered himself to the Police. Yesterday I read Iqbal Erahim’s religious piece in the WeekendPost, complaining bitterly about divorces and the resultant social breakdown.

All these speak volumes about the breakdown of society in general. But let me try and open up my confused mind on some of these “problems”. The first question I ask myself is: Where do the courts keep the P11 million? If it is in banks, why can’t the unwed mothers collect the monies direct from the banks, rather than from the courts? This will in no way increase the administrative burden on the courts, because the fathers will deposit the monies into the mothers’ bank accounts, and then submit the evidence of such deposits to the courts for filling. The mothers will only interact with the courts if their accounts have not been credited for a specific month. It seems to me that this will actually lessen the administrative load on the courts.

Should unwed fathers be allowed access to their babies? Here we need to go back to the IKalanga basics. In Kalanga it is the exception, rather than the rule, that two young unwed people engage in sex. When it happens though, a child is usually born. This child, like all other children born in wedlock, is entitled to a home and a family. If its biological parents cannot, for whatever reason, marry each other, then the child will either belong to the mother’s family, or be “wed” by the father, and belong to the father’s family. Yes, in Kalanga tradition a child is wed by its father in exactly the same way that its mother would be, except that there is no sex between father and child. The mother’s family “gives the child away” to the father, and the father pays a dowry (malobolo). This does not imply barring the mother from further access to the child. It simply means that if the mother should get married to another man, “adoption” of the child by the other man will be proscribed. Indeed the biological father, to whom the child will have been “married”, will have the option to take his child to his family, on the child’s mother getting married to another man.

The baby’s mother’s family cannot refuse to “give a child away in marriage” to its biological father, if the father has paid “damages” for impregnating their daughter, and if the father is mentally stable and economically capable of rendering a good upbringing to his child. The issue of mothers “barring” fathers from access to their children therefore falls away as such fathers would simply take away their “wed” children to their own (fathers’) families. The right of a father to “marry” his child is not absolute, though. If society should determine that the child’s father does not want to marry the child’s mother for no other reason than that he has someone else in mind to marry, then society (the courts) can refuse to let the father “marry” his child.

 In view of the above I do not believe that unwed fathers who have not “married” their children should have a right of access to their children, whether or not they pay child maintenance for such children.

What about “same-sex” marriages? For a start I DO believe that what goes on in anyone’s bedroom between two people is nobody else’s business but their own.  Equally, I DO believe that those two people should NOT make their relationship my business, either by demanding that I declare them to be married or that I recognize them to be so married. I believe that where there is no possibility of a child being born, marriage makes no sense at all. Where there is a possibility, but fertility issues intervene, marriage can and should be conducted. Child adoption should then complete the process.

People who decide to live with sexual partners of the same sex as themselves should be eligible to individually “marry” children from the state, the same way that Kalanga fathers “marry” their own biological children from the would-be in-laws  But since these would not be their own children, such people should be put under stricter scrutiny by the state or by whosoever gives them their child to adopt. The state should then proffer a tax rebate/exemption to such a parent on the basis of her/his having “married” a child, and not on the basis of her/his having  “married” a same-sex partner.