How to abolish Tribal Territories

The inhabitants of the country Botswana were divided into tribes by the gods, but the area of said country was divided into tribal territories by the British colonizers. Therefore while it would be foolhardy to try and eliminate the tribes, no  real problem would be encountered in eliminating the tribal territories. Tribal territories should have been eliminated at attainment of independence from Britain. Unfortunately the new leadership that replaced the British had vested interests in the retention of the tribal territories (tt's) because the British had bequeathed to these new leaders, power commensurate with the size of these British-made tt's. As long as the tt's remain in place, true nationhood cannot be attained, because the power relationships among the tribes will forever remain those that best served the colonialists, and not us the inhabitants.

No boundaries existed between any of our tribes before the arrival of the colonialists. All the schisms like the difecane wars, the massive movement of armed formations from one place to another, were caused by European Imperialist conquest of our continent. The Europeans supplied one group of Africans with weapons and set such group against fellow Africans. Then they (Europeans) "intervened to make peace" by drawing a tribal territory boundary, classical divide and rule. To re-unite our tribes, we have to get rid of these tribal territories. The tensions that currently characterize relations between tribes will automatically vanish.

Botswana should be divided into provinces. The best way to divide it is by use of lines of latitude and longitude (the GRID). Such division eliminates the temptation to corruptly revert to tt boundaries. The provincial governments would then be extensions of Central government, run by politicians along the same  lines as district councils are today.

Tribes will be strewn across several, not necessarily adjacent provinces. There is nothing new in this: Bakaa, Bakhurutshe, Bakhwa and Bakwena are so strewn today, the only difference being that Bakwena of Molepolole have a tribal territory while those of Marobela and of Kalakamati have none. Tribal administrations, headed by tribal chiefs will be entirely the responsibility of the concerned tribesmen. The tribe will pay their chief and office support staff (if any) to facilitate cultural events and other tribal functions that the tribe may wish to retain.

The bottom line is that no tribe should exclusively control any territory of our republic. The territory of our republic should belong equally to all our people, irrespective of tribal identity! This concludes my contribution on the topic of Tribal territories.