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.