When real and true is not proper

Editor | Monday January 17, 2011 00:00

It happened at a time when the India team had beaten the Proteas in the first of the One Day Internationals in Durban three days ago.  At the celebrations of the 150 years of Indians in South Africa, much ado was made of Mahatma Ghandi's contribution to the resistance against apartheid.  This comes after the celebration of 99 years of the founding of the African National Congress, now popularly known as the ANC.

It will be noted, however, that Ghandi has also been criticised for a somewhat unsavoury attitude towards Black folk in South Africa, even though that has not been spoken about in the open.  It should be of great interest that throughout the proceedings on Thursday, these people of Asiatic extraction were referred to as 'Indians'.

That would sound impolitic in Botswana where you do not refer to people by their place of origin, but rather by their nationality, which is Botswana.  So, Satar Dada is not 'Indian' but 'a Motswana of Asian extraction'.

Perhaps South Africa, because of its history, can accommodate the poignant pointing out of the 'true' nationality of its citizens.  'The struggle' has educated them into accepting the reality of differentiation of peoples; the Zulu, Xhosa, Pedi, Tswana, Khoi, San, Afrikaner, English, Venda and so on.

Perhaps it is time that Botswana should discuss how the 'nation' should be made up.  Should it embarrass anyone that Indians are called exactly that and Bakalaka Bakalaka?  Should the 'Basrwa' be referred to as San or Khoi? 

Seemingly, these questions are also related to the question of the settlement of poverty.  Needless to say, it is the initial inhabitants of Botswana who are the poorest.  The neat name for them then becomes 'Masarwa', and the issue is forever settled.

Should they rebel, the Western press would report a tribal war in Botswana, and the country would fit in comfortably with the rest of the explanations for wars in other parts of the continent. It always has to be a tribal explanation.  That is the reason that we are given for the existence of two presidents at the so-called Republic of the Ivory Coast.  Surely, they should have long realised that the current battle for political power was planned for by the French colonialists who are now sitting and watching as the savages claw at each other's necks.