Boycott the session of the "Culture" Inter-Governmental Committee Convention in Botswana
The Patriot on Sunday newspaper of 11th December 2022 reported that Botswana has won the bid to host the 18th session of the Inter-Governmental Committee Convention for Safeguarding the Intangible, Cultural Heritage in a year’s time. The report further states that the Minister of Youth, Gender, Sport, and Culture announcing this at a press conference, said that the convention’s aim is to safeguard oral traditions and expressions, performing arts, etc. The report shocked me. How does a country that has outlawed the use of what was the most widely spoken language when the European colonialists arrived here in the late nineteenth century, the Ikalanga language, even get considered as a possible venue to host such a cultural convention? And it is not just Ikalanga language that is being eliminated from the national cultural endowment. Before the arrival of Europeans Ikalanga was the most widely spoken language, for the simple reason that virtually all the different tribes had ev...