Time To Rise Against Leaders Stoking Tribal Fires
Pamela Dube | Monday May 13, 2019 13:02
The atrocities followed a long period of German leaders, Adolf Hitler and his lot, spewing all kinds of obscenities against the Jews. They sent out very strong messages to the blue-eyed whites that the people they lived side by side with were not human.
Overtime their message of hate and discrimination marinated, and when the final match was lit, millions were massacred, incarcerated in concentration camps just as generations later remain misplaced.
When in the 1990s Rwandese turned on each other, it was as a result of many years of leaders stoking fires of tribalism.
The people who look and act no different from one another, the Tutsis and Hutus, became sworn enemies. Within weeks in 1999, millions lost their lives in one of Africa’s worst genocides.
Apartheid, a race discrimination, was not established at the stroke of a pen. It festered over generations, with every word and utterance of leaders of South Africa’s white minority government of the National Party even from before they took power in 1948. The war to end the system of institutionalised discrimination went on for decades and left a trail of destruction, lost lives and refugees scattered around the world.
Civil wars around the world have left not just infrastructural destruction, and millions of lives lost and displaced, but continue to cause untold damage generations later. Is this what we want as Batswana?
Yes, I know many of us want to believe that such extremes would not visit us. We are special. We would not tear each other up. We are one nation, progressive in every way. We are not warmongers. We are a nation of peace, even the world knows. We are a people who believe in solving everything by consultation, as even those who came before us noted that ntwakgolo ke ya molomo. In a nutshell, we are one people, of different tribes, but one.
Well and good. If only we believe that those who had been through all the atrocities, from Biblical times, were born with natural hatred. If only we think that we are smarter than all others.
Truth is, Batswana have from time immemorial tried to solve their differences by engagement. But we also know that issues of tribal dominance and differences have been a simmering pot for long, even before independence.
We have always had ethnic groupings that have been dominated by others. Basarwa people have always been worse off. The drafters of the founding Constitution have not helped matters by declaring Botswana to be a nation of the majority (eight) and the rest minority. We can correct that, but only if we deal and rebuke leaders intent on doing nothing but worsening the situation.
The recent happenings within the ruling Botswana Democratic Party need to be attended to, urgently. When President Mokgweetsi Masisi, at the height of the campaign for the party leadership against former Cabinet minister Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi started talking of Batswana ba sekei, it was initially taken lightly as it was assumed he was talking of taking of empowering indigenous Batswana especially in the White-dominated tourism industry. But some smart people soon read it to be a sinister reference to Batswana with parents of foreign origin, the Khamas particularly whose mother was British.
When Venson-Moitoi opponents started hinting that she was not a Motswana wa sekei, as her father was from Malawi, it had many if the President’s initial statement was attack not only on his opponent but all those of different parentage.
Many of Batswana, especially those of the border villages, have one or both parents originating from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola, Zambia and many others.
The President’s call therefore had many wondering if the process of Botswana “cleansing” was with us, it was with Germany, Rwanda and many nations who have experienced civil wars of sorts.
And then the former president, Ian Khama has taken the fight with his successor to another, dangerous levels. His recent meetings with Bangwato in Serowe to seek their support in his political battles should have us concerned. The first before the BDP Kang congress, where he was selling Venson-Moitoi, and the one held on May 4, were not only intended to settle partisan political scores, but appealed to his tribe to view others, from the south of Dibete, as enemies of their chief.
It was at this meeting, where some elders, uttered words that sent shivers down the spine. When an elderly lady, convinced by Kgosikgolo Khama’s address that their chief, and by extension Bangwato, is under attack by the southerners, said something to the effect that the power (lehura) of Bangwato have been handed to Bakgatla (Masisi’s tribe) was enough to instil fear.
Just was the statement of the elderly man who said they would rather vote for opposition leader Duma Boko because he was a Mongwato.
It is at this point that I ask you my compatriots to rally against tribalism. The time is now to say enough is enough. We cannot allow our leaders to stoke the fires of tribalism and pit us against each other. We need to rise and end this now, lest we be another Rwanda.
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