Shashe

 It would take a lifetime to try and change place names back to their original Kalanga language form. Indeed the exercise is neither practicable nor desirable, because to the inhabitants of those places, the corrupted versions of the names are what now makes sense. However, now that we have news read in Kalanga here at home, we Kalanga speakers feel bombarded by constant mispronunciation of place names. Take the name “Molepolole” for example, which is a sprawling village/city some fifty kilometres west of our capital city, Gaborone. I put it to the news writers that if they ask an old (and I mean old) person in that village, what the name of the village is, the answer will be “Mulipulule”, which is the Kalanga pronunciation. The question now is: in reading the name “Molepolole” during Kalanga news cast, which pronunciation should be presented to listeners? Should Kalanga news writers not make an effort to do just a little research on the correct (Kalanga) pronunciation before givin...

 Last Friday, 14th November 2025 a friend of mine, Damien Uwe Hobona, told me a harrowing tale of what he had endured at the receiving end of a tongue lashing by the Tonota chief. Below I'll try to produce what he told me as closely to "verbatim" as I can remember. "Last Friday 14th November, I was subjected to absolute terror, public humiliation and ridicule at Mafungo-Hubona kgotla by a Kgosi from Tonota. I can’t remember very well who they introduced him as: Kgosi Raditladi or Radipitse, I’m not sure. The Kgosi had been expected a week or so earlier. The villagers had duly gathered at the Kgotla, but the Kgosi had failed to show up. It was announced that he had not been able to secure diesel for the sixty (60) Km journey from Tonota. So, on Friday 14th November, the Kgosi arrived to deliver his long awaited judgement. The venue is a leobo, which is basically a shed with wide openings in the walls to provide natural ventilation during gatherings. The architecture r...

I have just watched a Botswana Television (Btv) program which, in my opinion, can best be described as a horror show. The grizzly show depicts how huge swathes of pristine wilderness around the town of Kuke is being cleared of trees in the name of “commercial” charcoal industry. Our country is semi desert, as we all learnt and hopefully continue to teach our children today. How then can we cut the few trees we have and expose the land to the ravages of wind and other erosive forces? For those of us who still speak Kalanga, it is clear that the un-corrupted name of the town of Kuke is “ku bgwe”, meaning “at the rock/s”. This is so because travelling by bus on a tarred road from Maun to Ghanzi you see no rock outcrop of any sort whatsoever for close to an hour. The land is flat as far as the eye can see. Then suddenly you see a rocky chain cutting across the road in the distance. The spectacle is breath taking. At the base of the rocky outcrop is the town of Kuke. It takes little imagina...

 Take this statement: "If A,then B ..."  In the above statement  1. Is TIME implicit? 2. Is SPACE implicit? If the answer to both questions is "NO" doesn't that suggest that it was THE WORD rather than a BANG that started it all? Just thinking!

I have just watched Botswana television (Btv) news cast. It is reported that some six hundred cases of economic crime have been reported to the Directorate of Corruption and Economic crime (DCEC). I wish to register, rather than report one such crime; the difference being that I do not know who committed the crime, and the person whose name was used is deceased. My hope is that regardless of who committed the crime, the current government will move to remove the “ear sore” from our discourse. Our late president Ketumile Quet Joni Masire was not entitled to use the title “Sir” before his name. The Knighthood he was awarded in 1991 was an honorary one, which does not confer the right to use “Sir” before one’s name OUTSIDE THE UNITED KINGDOM.  Some, especially those who may have used their proximity to the seat of power to GRAB the title un-procedurally, may see my registration as political vindictiveness. It is not. I would not care a hoot if president Masire had died along with his ...

 There have been rumblings of late, criticizing our continued use of the death penalty. I think these criticisms are misplaced. The death penalty can and should be practiced WITH A SLEW OF SAFEGUARDS AGAINST INTENTIONAL ABUSE by the state, and unintended failure of the justice system. If we replace the death penalty with life imprisonment, it won’t be long before we have criminals serving life in jail and serving death to innocent citizens on the outside SIMULTANEOUSLY. How would we then deter such criminals other than through the death penalty?  Look, it is hypocritical of any state to say it does not practice the death penalty, when it LICENSES some of its citizens as non-state actors, to carry firearms. In such a situation, the state has effectively OUTSOURCED THE DEATH PENALTY to private citizens; to mete out the penalty to would be criminals who try to usurp the state’s right to be the sole practitioner of said penalty. State actors carrying firearms on the other hand are...

 There are several practical steps that can be taken to successfully roll back Chirwa: 1. Chirwa language should immediately lose its “official” status to the English language. 2. Ability to speak Chirwa language should immediately cease to be a requirement for one to obtain Botswana citizenship. 3. Chirwa, just like other “indigenous” languages, should cease to be a compulsory subject in schools. Where possible, scholars should be encouraged to study any other languages spoken in the country, including Chirwa. Only English should be retained as a compulsory language in schools. 4. Knowledge or proficiency in Chirwa should immediately cease to be a requirement for one to get a government Department of Information and Broadcasting job. Instead, that requirement should be replaced by consideration of THE TOTAL NUMBER OF “INDEGENOUS” languages that the applicant is proficient in. 5. Government should move to legalise community radio stations which will have the latitude, tho...