The pain of Morupule B

Mmegi, “The Reporter” newspaper of Friday 02 December 2016 carries a report headlined “Why Morupule B was doomed from the start” by one Mbongeni Mguni. Mguni’s report literally made me cry. Mguni was basically summarising a World Bank report, which I haven’t read.

I now understand why the Chinese ambassador would have warned the Botswana government that the Chinese company CNEEC which won the tender was not qualified to build such a plant: – the plant design requirements were changed after the CNEEC had successfully prequalified for the initially required design. I submit that the engineer who changed these requirements was motivated by criminal malice and should be charged with economic crime. No engineer would change design specs of a billion dollars’ project without issuing NEW Prequalification documents unless criminally motivated. If the changes were made by foreign consultants, where were our own home-grown engineers? Why did they let such a disastrous alteration pass? Did the politicians overrule our engineers’ concerns?

If the politicians did overrule our citizen engineers, then the head politician i.e. the President of the Republic should accept responsibility and resign forthwith. If he is no longer in power, then the nation should be told that he carries political responsibility for one of the greatest crimes ever committed against our nation.

I hate addressing my people in Setswana language, but because my people have been forcibly converted into Setswana speakers, I have no alternative but to use Setswana for illustration.

Go tshwana le motho ana le ngwana yo ngaka e rileng a se anywe mo go mmaagwe. Gona le barui bale bararo – Radikgomo, Radipudi le Raditonki. Motsadi (wa ngwana) abo a ntsha “prequalification documents” are o batla phologolo e egamiwang, mme gotswe mashi a aka nowang ke ngwana. 
Radikgomo, Radipudi le Raditonki babo ba iteka lesego ba araba tendara. Radikgomo le Radipodi babo ba atlega. “Nkadilatlha” abo a goroga; are ngwana o tshwanetse go nwa mashi a tonki. 

Boemong ja gore motsadi a ntshe “prequalification documents” tse dintsha, abo a tswelela hela a ntsha “request for proposals document” a neela bone baba setseng ba atlegile.  “Request for proposals” yone ebe ere e batla tonki! Radipudi abo a atlega, Radikgomo a retelelwa. Radipudi ha a sena go atlega, abo a thloka ko aka rekang tonki teng, a bo a tlisa pitse.

Ke ha ba gama pitse ba neela ngwana. Ngwana abo a lwala. Motsadi a bo are “ke tlaa rekisetsa Radipudi pitse e gore a egame, anthekisetse mashi a yone, ebong mashi a tonki, ke tle ke otle ngwanake ka one”! 

Seemo sa Morupule B ke sone seo gompieno, BeShashe! 

Keep your culture, we don't need it.

I beg the indulgence of this blog's followers. My Internet bandwidth is now so heavily constricted that my blog administrators really have to bend over backwards, and "manually" enable me to post. For their help, I am eternally grateful.

There have been at least two occasions when the citizens of Botswana (Batswana) needed to feel like a united and proud nation. On both occasions Professor Thapelo Otlogetswe wrote articles that went against the grain of national sentiment. The first occasion was during preparations for the latest "Son of the Soil" festival. Professor Otlogetswe wrote a war "poem" in his column in the Telegraph newspaper. The poem praised the war gallantry of the Tswana-speaking tribes and ignored the Kalanga speaking tribes. The impression created was that the Tswana speaking tribes are more deserving of the title "Son of the Soil" than are Kalanga speaking tribes. After reading Otlogetswe's poem, I decided that even if I were anywhere near the venue of the festival, I would not attend.

The second ocassion was the recent campaign in Kigali Rwanda by Botswana's candidate, Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi, to succeed Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as African Union Commission Chairperson. All Batswana needed to "own" and embrace the candidacy of Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi. For this to happen we as Batswana needed to feel united and proud to be one nation. However, Professor Otlogetswe's article titled "Why Setswana must be made Botswana's official language" in the same Linguist Chair collumn of July 13 Telegraph newspaper, does nothing to foster such a  spirit of nationhood among our people.  He writes "...For full national unity to occur Batswana must not only be united by a flag and a national anthem, they must be united by a common language and culture..." The language and culture referred to here of course are the SeTswana language and culture.

To show how impracticable Professor Otlogetswe's recommendation/prescription is let me quote from Dr. Jeff Ramsay's collumn "Back 4D future". In the Monitor newspaper of 11 July 2016, under the title "The orphan and the ants part 15 - The howling wind of Tshosa", Jeff Ramsay writes "...The wedlock of Sechele's parents thus conformed to the Setswana ideal of cross cousin marriage - "Ntsala wa motho ke mogatse: ngwana wa rrangwana nnyale, kgomo di boele sakeng" ("A man's cousin is his wife: child of my paternal uncle marry me so that the cattle may return to the kraal")..."

Dr Ramsay's article attests to the culturally acceptable practice by the Tswana tribes, especially the royalty among them, to marry their first cousins (children of their paternal uncles). In the Kalanga culture that I am aware of there is one English word that describes that practice - incest!  As a Kalanga, I consider children of my paternal uncles to be my brothers and sisters - no different from my own mother's and father's children. Only a mad Kalanga would sleep with, or marry his/her paternal cousin.

So how does an incestuous culture become an adopted national culture? There is simply no way that that can happen. Professor Otlogetswe should just forget about forcing his language and incestuous culture on us Kalangas; end of story!

Page of horror

The "Opinion/Analysis" page in the Telegraph newspaper of July 13 is, in my opinion a piece of horror; not because of Sonny Serite's excellently written appeal for support for the Botswana candidate to the position of Chairman of African Union Commission; not because the said candidate, Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi, is facing a tough battle from other contenders; but rather because in spite of such a desperate need for national unity in our country at this time, the paper has chosen to include on the same page a most reactionary appeal by Professor Thapelo Otlogetswe, titled "Why Setswana must be made Botswana's official language".

I read through Serite's appeal before scanning the page to Otlogetswe's column. When I reached the end of Serite's article, I felt that he had "spoken" for me. Then my eyes scanned past Ma-Moitoi's picture and across to Otlogetswe's article. At this time I would rather not describe how I felt. Suffice it to say that I caught myself wondering aloud "Is this what her chairmanship of the African Union Commission will  strive to achieve for my country?".

At the end of the vote for African Union Chairman, I wonder if Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi will consider Professor Otlogetswe's article to have been a help or a hindrance.

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.  

So, I'm lucky to be alive?

This week's papers, including The Voice carry a story of how a family from Jackalas 1 village had a close shave with death at the hands of Police manning a road block. I had an almost identical experience last week.

I was joining the A1 motorway from a side road, on my way from home to town. As I approached the junction, I noticed a police road block about forty meters from the junction. I therefore was very careful to come to a complete halt at the STOP sign. Then I joined the motorway. Normally police do not stop traffic coming from that side road, but rather concentrate on the motorway traffic itself.

On this occassion, there were two cops controlling the traffic just as in the Jackalas 1 incident. The first cop, a constable was in the middle of the road, while the second,  a much senior cop was about thirty meters behind the constable, and on the left of our traffic stream. The constable therefore could not see what hand signals/commands the senior cop was giving, but the senior cop had full view of what commands the constable was giving to traffic.

As I approached the constable, he waved me to pass on. But the senior cop behind him SIMULTANEOUSLY lifted his hand in a "stop" signal. Then he (senior cop) lowered his hand/arm while the constable was still waving me to pass. Something about the way the senior cop lowered his hand/arm didn't seem right. He lowered his hand in an arc, and not straight down. I decided to err on the side of caution. I deliberately disobeyed the constable's command to pass on. I stopped at the constable as he kept waving me on. He looked confused; obviously he hadn't seen what command  the senior cop behind him  had issued.

When he recovered, the constable made some idle remark  and waved me on. I drove away and never thought anything of the incident until I read the papers and realized that by stopping against the constables's explicit orders to drive past without stopping, I may have unknowingly, averted getting myself killed!

Unlike the Jackalas 1 family, I was not shot at. But who knows what could have happened if I had obeyed the constable and driven past, just as the Jackalas 1 family did? What also made it so risky was the fact that had I driven past the constable, there would have been no reason to stop at the senior cop because he had lowered his hand BEFORE I REACHED THE CONSTABLE, and while the constable was still waving me NOT to stop!

Phew! on "hindsight", I think that I am lucky to be alive.

Government abusing Bakoba/Bayeyi

I have just read a report in a local paper that Government has "recognised" the Bakoba as an Independent tribe. While this gesture will no doubt be pleasantly received by some Bayeyi, especially those who stand to cash in on the chieftainship positions, the overall effect of this gesture serves only the BDP at the expense of our nation.

The various tribes of this nation need no recognition. They were made by the gods, and therefore "recognition" is meaningless. Rather than "recognise" the Bakoba, the Government should have simply declared that no tribe is subject to another. As for territory, I can only refer you to a letter in one of the recent papers. The letter was written by Rev. Cosmos Moenga in which he showed that there have never been boundaries in Ngamiland, and that the situation is best left that way. This blog too is on record, as calling for the abolition of Tribal territories. That Government seems to be in haste to do the opposite;  consolidate tribalism by hiving away parts of "Batawana" tribal territory to the Bayeyi, is completely self-serving on the part of Government.

If Government is successful in its endeavors, Kgosi Tawana's legal argument that his father never signed away the mineral rights of his people to Government will have been neutralised! Such mineral rights are likely to find themselves in a new "Baweyi" tribal territory very soon. While the nation no doubt benefits from national ownership (as opposed to tribal ownership) of natural resources, the party that accepted tribal divisions into our constitution at independence, the BDP, should not be allowed to carry out piecemeal patch-up jobs to correct the mess that should have been hurled at the British Imperialists on their departure. There is only one solution, (achievable through the steps listed below) to the tribal problems our nation faces today:

1. Abolish tribal territories. 
2. Introduce into our constitution a clause that declares any and every entity that considers itself a tribe, independent of any other tribes.
3.  Let members of a tribe (and not national government) carry the burden of paying their tribal government, which government will have no territorial control over any inch of our republic.

BAMB importing stock feed and not zengwe?

The latest Sunday Standard has an article by their reporter, headlined "BAMB [Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board] moves to quash cereal shortage rumors". The report indicates that BAMB has 41 000 metric tonnes of sorghum, and are in the process of importing white maize and yellow maize, with yellow maize being used primarily for stock feed.

Although the rains came late this rainy season, animal pasture is not extremely bad, certainly not in the north of the country. Grazing animals can now afford to spend hours lying and resting in tree shades. Not so with Kalangas, especially the elderly.

The staple food of Kalanga people is Zengwe, a type of millet. I don't know if any other people in Botswana equaly depend on zengwe for their food, but what I do know is that in Kgatleng people grow it as chicken feed or something similar. To Kalanga's zengwe is like potatoes to the British. We Kalanga's can survive on zengwe without relish for weeks on end. It has all the basic nutrients our bodies need.  Despite this, Botswana evidently does not consider zengwe to be a grain worth importing.

There has not been zengwe in the shops for several months now. If you visit the rural Kalanga neighbourhoods you will see, from the sunken eyes of the elderly, that something is badly amiss about their diet. They are being forced by circumstances to live on sorghum, a grain that is normally their first choice to feed the chickens with. No Kalanga person I know of, feeds chickens with zengwe.

And so some questions need to be asked - just how many "genuine" Kalangas are involved in the decision as to what grain to import to feed our people?  Why does it become necessary to import yellow maize for animals, when our people (Kalanga's) are literally starving, and animal pasture is as green as emeralds?

The answers to the above questions are not very difficult to work out. They are all tied to the fake republic whose national goal is the total elimination of Kalanga's as a people.  We are being conditioned, this time through food, that we are all "Tswana's" - a big lie!

First they banned our language from being taught in our schools; next they banned our language from being spoken BY OUR CHILDREN anywhere in our school premises; now they have eliminated our staple food from food worth importing. You get to wonder what they will do next.