“It can become a way of excluding them from politics, education, access to justice and many other aspects of civic society,” she said while making a presentation on language at the seminar. The theme for this year’s HDR is ‘Cultural Liberty in Today’s Diverse World’.
Khupe-Mogwe said that the Setswana language was promoted by early missionaries, who came to South Africa and what was known as Bechuanaland to study languages of the people in the area. She said they grouped the dialects and called the language Setswana and named the people Batswana.
She said the missionaries took the language so seriously that Setswana became the first African language into which the Bible was translated. She said by naming the country Bechuanaland, after a group of people who spoke similar languages, the missionaries denied many tribes, some of whom were in the territory before the Tswana tribes territorial rights.
She said that they left the non-Tswana speaking tribes to be subjects of Tswana tribes. She also said that the land issue in Botswana is tied up with political power and has largely influenced the way non Tswana tribes view themselves. She added that the non-Tswana tribes viewed themselves as lesser mortals and spent time speaking Setswana while their own languages died. She said even Land Boards took on names of the dominant tribes, a reminder that the land does not belong to the other groups.
Khupe-Mogwe stated that the Botswana Constitution acknowledges the existence of only eight Tswana tribes making Botswana the only country in the world where some communities are listed while others are left out.
She said other tribes have been made subordinate and are denied the political power that comes with chieftainship. She added that in Botswana, dominant groups get services before the less dominant ones. “The recent example is that of anti-retroviral drugs. One would have thought that in rolling out these drugs, priority would be to target places where infection rates were very high, such as Selebi-Phikwe and Bobirwa area,” she said. But instead, areas of political power, where infections were not as severe were given the drugs first. She emphasised the need for multicultural policies that explicitly recognise linguistic differences.
Meanwhile, the director of the department of culture and youth, Gaogakwe Phorano said the issue of language came about to enhance national development and during a challenging time of nation building.
An academic and parliamentary hopeful, Dr Kathleen Letshabo questioned how Setswana could have been decided on as a single major language. She supported Mogwe and said Setswana as a national language is a legacy of the colonialists. She said Botswana could look at South Africa, which has school governing bodies where they decide which languages to teach in their schools. Businesswoman and council contestant, Ntombi Setshwaelo said Africans had a responsibility to develop their own languages.
