Let us be wary of tribalism

| Thursday August 23, 2012 00:00

It is a good development not unrelated to President Ian Khama's call when he assumed office in April 2008. The first to respond were Bakgatla through Kgosi Kgafela II who put initiation schools in Kgatleng on a new footing, although the idea ended up taking a wrong direction that led to criminal charges being preferred against him and some of his regiments.

Then followed Bangwato who also revived Bogwera a year or so ago. Balete joined the bandwagon at the beginning of this month, reviving their tradition of launching Bogwera in winter, although in a somewhat modified form because August signals the beginning of Autumn. Just last weekend, there was a ceremony at the Main Kgotla in Tlokweng, the centrepiece of which was the unveiling of Thakadu, the animal that Batlokwa venerate, as the emblem and logo of the tribe.

All these are good developments worthy of embracing because every people must take pride in their rootstock, from clan to community to nation. Yet we find a restless qualm gnawing at our conscience. Doubtless we recognise this uneasiness as fear that what is taking hold as cultural revival may beget a consuming fever of tribalism that will supersede our nationhood. While we have no quarrel with tribe as a form of pride of identity because we routinely speak of it without causing any harm to one another, we have a problem with tribe as the ultimate identity that commands loyalty ahead of everything else, friend and nation included.

When that happens, untold harm befalls a people once happier before axes were brandished and wells poisoned in the cause of the clan. Many among us still have vivid memories of Gukurahundi when an estimated 20,000 Ndebele civilians were wiped out in Zimbabwe in the 1980s and the inestimable atrocities visited upon other South Africans by Inkatha during the same period in the name of clan and tribe. In more recent times, the mid-1990s upheaval of the Great Lakes Region of East and Central Africa is a scourge that will forever haunt the ideal of pan-Africanism. A similar curse took hold of post-election Kenya in 2007.

We are a very small nation of less than two million and any tribal segmentation may result in such catastrophe. Besides, we should not forget that it was not long ago that the Constitution of the Republic was not free of tribalism, promoting, as it did, the notion that some tribes were 'principal' and others not. At present, perhaps even since Independence, we are wary that the North-South balance is not ignored in appointment to high office and Cabinet in the midst of ever-present moaning and carping - though muffled - that the North has always had the lion's share of everything.Hence our appeal to magosi to always bear it in mind that while we respect their desire to each leave a legacy, their cultural revival does not lose track of the Republic.

                                                            Today's thought

      'The worth of the state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.'

                                                         - John Stuart Mill