Shashe

Just when you think that Barwa have finally learned the truth about what the roots of this republic, Botswana are, you receive the shocking news that the President, who is incidentally a Nrwa, is recommending that Francistown, our City of Gold, be called "Spaghetti City". For those who have not been to Francistown recently, a "spaghetti traffic junction" built by the Chinese, was completed last year. It is the first of its kind in the country, but another is due for construction in the capital city Gaborone soon. The building of the Francistown spaghetti junction was intended primarily to improve the flow of traffic from the south (South Africa, Lesotho) to the north and west (Zimbabwe, Zambia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Namibia etc.). The junction is part of an International trade corridor infrastructure - an African equivalent of the Chinese Silk Road, if you will. The current informal "streetwise" name for Francistown is "The Ghetto"....

As our country hurtles towards the March 31 Presidential transition, much unsolicited advice is flowing thick and fast from newsrooms, chatrooms and even sh*trooms. As citizens we are all itching to advise the incoming president about what to do and what not to do in order to improve our economic conditions, but we forget to ask ourselves how well, if at all, our advice was taken in the past. I remember the skepticism that was expressed by some when then incoming president Ian Khama was succeeding President Festus Mogae some ten years ago. A man whose academic credentials were  certified to be no higher than primary education was taking charge of an economy that had up to then been run by an economics graduate of top British universities. We held our breath. I regret to say that I was not among the skeptics. I felt that if the incoming president could appoint highly qualified people into the top posts of government, learn to trust their advice or continually cross check such advi...

And so the group of tribes that spoke the language now called "Setswana" disowned the name "Bechuana" that the newly arrived British colonialists used to refer to them. They claimed, indeed insisted, that they were not one nation but different tribes (Bakwena; Barolong; Batlhaping; etc) who happened to share one common language. In Egypt Kalangas referred to those people as "Basuthu" while in Southern Africa, Kalangas referred to them as "Barwa". Barwa were not our country's southernmost inhabitants that the British first came into contact with. It was "Bakhwana". Recall that our country's southernmost regions are what became known as "British Bechuanaland", and are now part of South Africa. British Bechuanaland is where the British encountered the "Bakhwana", and spelled their name "Bechuana". Some might argue that the British could have written the name as "Bequana"                ra...

I implore non-Kalanga readers to please understand that a cultural genocide was unleashed on Kalangas at attainment of Independence from Britain. Kalanga language and therefore Kalanga culture has been banned in the Kalanga motherland. As a Kalanga, this is why I am angry and why  I relentlessly pursue this topic. And so when the British colonialists met our country's Southern inhabitants for the first time, they referred to the latter as "Bechuana". The so-referred-to Bechuana told the British that they were hearing that term (Bechuana) for the first time; that they in fact were just different tribes with different names - Bakwena, Batlhaping, Barolong etc. But the tribes shared one common language , a dialect of Sumerian/Coptic/Arabic/Sotho language. That language, now called "Sechuana" has been declared the ONLY national language throughout the Kalanga motherland. Normally the British colonialists, on making contact with local people, would ask the local ...

Somewhere in the record of Dr. David Livingstone's travels throughout Southern Africa it is noted that the people he called "Bechuana" denied that that was their name. They claimed that they were just tribes (merafe) - different tribes! So the question can be asked: What did those tribes call their language at that time, given that they did speak one language, which subsequently was and is still called "Setswana"? The adoption, out of the blue, of the name "Setswana" to denote a language which not only existed, but also had name, and which was NOT spoken by the majority of the people within the geographical area of the designated "protectorate" was a clever ploy by the speakers of that language to colonize the rest of the population. In other words, whereas the name "Bechuana" could have equally referred to all people within the protectorate, and was probably meant to do so by the British colonialists, the adoption of the languag...