With hindsight, Phage �s tribal rant is regrettable but has positives

Owen Nsala | Wednesday November 1, 2017 15:12

Phage, whilst addressing a charged-up rally in Molepolole made some very silly remarks about Batswapong. It was his stance that the Batswapong are hired to mourn and cry at Bamangwato funerals and that the occurrence has now become something close to common or normal.

Any person listening to that would have cringed at the suggestion of such, and would on any day shun such tribalistic sentiments which seek to put one tribe above the other, or alternatively a statement that seeks, on the face of it to presuppose an element or a semblance of dominance of one tribe over the other.

Whereas the statement is to be condemned in the strongest possible way as it hurt a lot of people and fueled the discussions on tribalism, I am however glad that he made the remarks and of course it is he who would burn. He took the bait for most of us who had always wanted an occasion to deal with the issue of tribalism when there was sufficient public outrage to give one sufficient attention and interest from the reader.

So I must thank Phage for the silly remarks and proceed with my discussion. Once again, may it be reiterated and a disclaimer put in the front that I am totally against tribalism, or any utterances or acts that have tribalism connotations within them.

What Phage said is nothing new to be frank. Those are discussions that people always share in the comfort of closed doors and in secret. The conversations are shared as between close allies who ridicule some of the so-called minority tribes as if it’s a normal occurrence. Tales are told of how the so-called minority tribes owe their allegiance to the major tribes and how the so-called minority tribes must be submissive to the so-called major tribes. Those conversations however never enter the public domain as the audience is not as wide as that which Phage had.

I do not think what Phage said was only said in the spur of the moment. It was something to which he knew to be a shared theory amongst the Batswapong and the Bamangwato. Only that he said it to the wrong audience.

Now that the conversation has lightened up and he has apologised to the Batswapong who have accepted the apology, I believe the occasion is now that we take the debate on tribalism to its logical conclusion. Questions must be asked if indeed this evil called tribalism does exist and if it so does, what perpetuates it, and how can it be nipped on the bud.

I am bound to be general given the space that I have on the column, but will try to address the questions as brief and as able as I can.

My take is that tribalism in Botswana exists or if there is a denial on that bold statement, at the least there must be an acceptance or an admission that the ground is fertile for tribalism to exist in Botswana. The basis upon which I say tribalism exists is simply because our laws and policies fail to normalise the inequalities that are evident between different tribes.

For any tribe to pride itself, its identity and culture must be on its forefront. As it is right now, everyone in Botswana is forced by the existing laws and policies to be able to speak either Setswana or English to the exclusion of their mother tongue. A child born to Herero parents and growing up in the Herero community is born and taught Herero as a child. As soon as he has contact with formal education, he is indoctrinated into believing that Setswana is the go-to language and Herero is secondary, or worse even third to English.

The same problem is never encountered by the Tswana-speaking kids who are born and raised to speak Setswana, which then becomes the medium of learning at primary school. Right at that moment the inequalities are born and the Tswana speaking child adopts a sense of heroism over the Herero child. Try speaking your Kgalagadi language with a Kgalagadi native in the presence of the Tswana speaking and the normal reception would be to suggest you are attempting to gossip and further that you must speak Setswana since you are in Botswana. If that is not close to tribalism, what could be?

Kenya was nearly torn apart by tribal divisions. We must control that time bomb and heed to the obvious murmurings of anger from tribal pressure groups as they seek to rise. Let the policies and laws allow for equality amongst all. The argument on Setswana being a unifying language is now a lazy one which cannot hold. Thank you Phagenyane Phage.