‘Mind Your Language’: Tribal Bigotry and the Spectre of Rwandan Genocide in Peaceful Botswana

Abstract

In just a period of 34 years (1966-2000) nation-building in Botswana resulted in a peaceful and relatively
united society despite the imposition of Tswana linguistic hegemony on the country’s ethnic ‘minorities’.
Since the country’s independence in 1966 there had been sporadic and ineffectual campaigns by the elites of
the ethnic minorities for constitutional recognition at the same level as Tswana-speaking groups. However,
in 2000 the government of Botswana finally constituted a Commission of Inquiry to consult Batswana
on the old grievance that sections 77, 78 and 79 of the Republican Constitution discriminated against
ethnic minorities. The consequence was heated and often inflammatory public debate by those against the
cited sections of the Constitution and those supporting the status quo. The debate soon degenerated into a
Bangwato-Kalanga skirmish characterised by vicious accusations and counter-accusations of tribal bigotry,
name calling, and war talk. The 1994 Rwandan genocide was often evoked as likely to be repeated in
Botswana. This paper, analyzes the dynamics and magnitude of this discourse through detailed exchanges
in Botswana media. It concludes that repeat of Rwandan genocide was unlikely in Botswana thanks to the
country’s democratic tradition, and multiple and layered ethnic identities that seem to sustain peace. Not
least the executive’s stranglehold on the legislature seems to have also cowed ruling party legislators from
the so-called minority groups into acquiescing to the status quo.