Naming our republic “Botswana” was never meant to unify, but to divide.

An argument has been advanced that by banning the teaching of all indigenous [I’ll use that word here] languages except Setswana in 1971, President Seretse Khama was motivated by the desire to unite the new nation. Let’s assume, without conceding, that indeed that was his motive. One conclusion we can immediately draw is that Khama was in fact acknowledging that the act of naming our republic “Botswana” had not united the new nation, because some people continued to uphold their cultural identities which were distinct from those of the Setswana speaking people. At this point, if Seretse Khama was a unifier, he would have sought to give the republic an identity that all its inhabitants welcomed rather than impose the Setswana language on everybody. The easiest such identity was a neutral name; a name drawn from a river, a desert, a mountain/hill or some other physical feature of the new republic. Note that practically all countries in our part of Africa, on attaining independence or freedom, adopted such names: Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa, Angola, and Mozambique. The notable exceptions were the two protectorates which were transitioning, not to republics but to monarchies, namely Swaziland (now Eswathini) and Basotoland (now Lesotho). Unlike those two monarchies, our country was transitioning from a protectorate to a republic, and therefore should have been treated differently. It is instructive to observe that the people of the two monarchies were originally from the same Anunnaki era workgroup – BaSwazwi. The mere adoption of the Sumerian/Arab/Coptic/Tswana language by the cattle rearing Basotho, meant that as far as the colonising British were concerned, the Basotho were now a different tribe which not only continued to speak their separate language, but deserved to be given a different country and kingdom. But I digress.

And so by choosing to impose a language that not everybody in the new republic of Botswana spoke or for that matter identified with, Seretse Khama was uncompromisingly confrontational and dictatorial. The name Botswana was actually adopted in that frame of mind. It deliberately excluded a large chunk of the population that spoke languages other than Setswana. It was never meant to be a unifying name, such as Zambia, Zimbabwe etc. Nothing under the sun, presented any difficulty in naming our republic after some non-tribal feature as aforesaid. Having named the republic after the Tswana speaking group, a unifying leader would then have established the new nation’s capital in a non-Tswana speaking part of the country. The capital was after all, being moved from South Africa to within the territory of our new republic. The cost differential in building the capital in say, Francistown, instead of Gaborone, would have been minimal, and well worth pursuing in the name of national unity. But all this was overlooked or avoided.

It can be safely concluded therefore that the name given to our republic, “Botswana” was never meant to be a unifying name. It was, just like the associated language, Setswana, a tool of oppression; a false carrot to dangle before the non Tswana speaking populace, which by the way had been declared subject tribes, and keep those “subject tribes” perpetually hoping to one day be accepted and treated as “Batswana”. The damage done to non Tswana speakers is now so extensive that reversing it will need exceptionally talented patriots. Setswana language has now been forced upon several generations of people who at Independence did not speak it. Many of these people could be as good English speakers as those in our neighbouring countries today. But one thing that can be done to reclaim a semblance of national oneness at minimal cost is change of our republic’s name to a non-tribal name. That is a national imperative more urgent than any other envisaged constitutional review, because the constitution itself is at stake here.