For the second consecutive year, the Batawana regent, Kgosi Kealetile Moremi, has decreed that all wedding ceremonies in Ngamiland (where she is the supreme traditional leader) must be put on hold until after the harvest-home. On the other hand, the leader of Khwedom Council, Keikabile Mogodu, says that this ban amounts to cultural oppression because in the Khwe culture, this is the traditional wedding season. The tradition goes back to when Khwe suitors hunted wild animals to feed both their own families and that of their future in-laws. By Mogodu’s account, this tradition has become so entrenched that even with restrictions on hunting and the recent hunting ban, weddings are still celebrated around this time until the end of the rainy season.
“Khwedom Council’s stand is that such practice should be banned among the Batawana tribe and not the Bakhwe people. We respect that according to Batawana custom, this is a ploughing season and therefore their kgosi can impose a ban on wedding ceremonies to effect ploughing. However, such practice should not be imposed on non-Batawana and the government should not implement it. Should the government apparatus implement the ban, it would show that government is allowing tribal dominance of one tribe over another. That would be tantamount to tribalism,” Mogodu says.
Historically, those in positions of power who make fateful decisions have not made enough effort to acquaint themselves with the culture of Mogodu’s people. At the 2009 commemoration of the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD) in Kaudwane, organisers unwittingly committed a series of faux pas.
Now and again the youthful emcee would implore the predominantly Khwe audience to give a round of applause with continual exhortations of “legofi! legofi!” Without such prompting, the audience seemed unwilling to do so. Kaudwane is a settlement that was established 19 years ago by a Khwe community which was controversially relocated from the Central Kgalagadi Game Reserve (CKGR) by the government. There is very good reason why the hand-clapping did not come as spontaneously as the emcee would have wanted.
“In our culture, we don’t clap hands to show appreciation. When we do, it’s only because other tribes expect us to,” explained Kuela Kiema, two days after the WTISD event.
Kiema is the first CKGR resident to obtain a university degree as well as first to run for parliament. He is also a highly accomplished setinkane player who has represented Botswana at international music festivals as far afield as Europe.
According to him, the Khwe verbalise appreciation with expressions such as “mm”, “ehee!”, “aiyoo!” and “iya-iya!” which may also be accompanied by head-nodding.
Kiema that the word “legofi” (clapping of hands) does not even exist in the Dcui, Pshila and Dxana dialects of the Kua people in Kaudwane. The word’s equivalent in Dcui, “x’am”, cannot be used to issue a direct command in the manner that “legofi!” (call for applause) functionally operates in Setswana. Not that the Basarwa do not ever clap hands. They do, Kiema said, but only when singing or accompanying dancers.
Reporting live from a WTISD computer laboratory rigged up for the occasion, a Btv field reporter’s use of a Shekgalari word was not entirely appropriate because the language spoken in Kaudwane is Dcui. Prior to doing an interview with a Kaudwane Primary School pupil playing with a computer, the reporter announced that he wanted to hear from a “mohantjana”, a Shekhagari (not Dcui) word for “boy.” Dcui does not have the equivalent of “boy” – “mosimane” in Setswana. The closest the Khwe language has to “boy” is “kg’aokocoa” which means “little man” or “monna yo monnye” in Setswana.
When George Bush visited Botswana in 2002, Americans wanted to ensure that there was not one misstep by the hosts and so a group of civil servants was taken to the Sir Seretse Khama International Airport to rehearse how they would welcome the United States president when he got off Airforce One. It was a full rehearsal with a plane, an American coach and then US ambassador to Botswana, John Huggins, playing Bush.
In Kaudwane, a false assumption was made that schoolchildren who had won prizes in a contest had cultural familiarity with the photo-op choreography: firm handshake with prize-giver, big smile and turning to face cameras while still locking hands. The result was that the prize-giver, then Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Communications, Science and Technology and current Ombudsman, Festinah Bakwena, had to take on the extra role of marshalling the winners into position for the cameras and directing them to do needful.
Justice Unity Dow (as she then was) made a point about the cultural insensitivity that characterised the manner in which the Khwe communities were removed from the game reserve in the December 2006 High Court judgement over such matter. She put a huge question mark over the assertion by the government that proper and exhaustive consultation was undertaken at thekgotla with the affected communities. The government stated how, over a period of time, its officials visited settlements inside the game reserve to address them on government plans to relocate them to places outside the reserve. However, Dow (who is now the Minister of Education) castigated the government for having carried out the consultation in a culturally inappropriate manner and noted how in some instances, the said consultation was done in the absence of headmen. She questioned the wisdom of tearing down huts that accommodated whole families with scant regard being paid to the dynamics of the Khwe family structure.
One of the Khwe witnesses who took the stand testified that he was separated from his wife on the reasoning – put to him by a government official – that he was not legally married to her. The official is supposed to have said that the woman had no wedding ring on her finger as proof of matrimony.
At the height of the stand-off between the United Kingdom pressure group, Survival International, a permanent secretary was quoted as saying that the claim by the Khwe communities that their ancestors were buried in the game reserve did not hold water because during his visits there, he had not seen any graves. He was right. There are no marked graves in the CKGR, not because there aren’t any graves there but because the Khwe do not bury their dead the way mainstream Botswana tribes do.
According to Kiema, while they not construct permanent structures, they know where their dead are buried because they use trees as reference points.
“We know that so and so is buried near a particular tree,” he said.
The last session of parliament was also a good illustration of the cultural dissonance that exists between the Khwe and those in power. When the Jwaneng-Mabutsane MP, Shawn Ntlhaile, referred to the Khwe as “Masarwa”, the Deputy Speaker, Kagiso Molatlhegi and the Minister of Health, Dorcas Makgato, hauled him over the coals, saying he should use “Basarwa” instead.
Conversely, Mogodu reacted by saying that “Basarwa” is also derogatory. “It is not a self-chosen name and is no different from calling a black South African “kaffir” or a black American “nigger.” Being called “Basarwa” is testament to our position in society because oppressed people are always being given derogatory names by those who lord over them. We have to raise our voices about this practice. We are not Basarwa; we are Khwe. We have different tribes just like Batswana and we want to be referred to by the name of our tribes,” he said.
Last year, the Council held a press conference to announce that the people in question should no longer be referred to as “Basarwa” but the campaign against the use of this word never gained traction.
During the presidency of Festus Mogae, the term “Bushmen” was officially banned and “Basarwa” touted as the acceptable name for the Khwe. Interestingly, Mogodu says that “Bushmen” is actually more palatable compared to “Basarwa” because of its nearness in meaning to the tribal naming system of the Khwe. Tribal names in Khwe languages denote abode in a particular type of bush thus Mogodu’s tribe ÔÇô the Qhanikhwe, are found in a mokgomphatha (wild fruit) bush. Basically this means that the government banned official use of a name that is acceptable to the Khwe and approved another that they find offensive. This was a direct result of the concerned tribes not being consulted.
Khwedom Council is a lobby group that advocates for the rights of the Khwe people.
