Why Kgafela must win

To understand Kgafela’s gripe with the Botswana Government, one has to go back six thousand years; back to Mapungubwe; back to the time when Bakgatla were called BeHakata.

Hakata, as you will recall, are divining bones (Ditaola in Setswana). BeHakata were powerful people. The Nshakashongwe (King) ruled through them. Indeed, even today, hakata play a crucial role in the lives of our people. If a traditional doctor claims that his hakata have identified person A as the culprit in the disappearance of a child, then person A will need police protection, else he may be run out of the village, or if he resists, may even be killed. Such was the power of BeHakata at Mapungubwe. Their language was Chindebele, the same language that was called Ikalanga in the Middle East.

Then from Egypt and North Africa a people arrived, who spoke various languages. Some spoke Ikalanga, others spoke Chirwa (Setswana/Sesotho), and yet others spoke Nguni languages. These people did not know, and had never been subjected to the power of, Hakata. When they saw hakata in the hands of BeHakata, they quickly understood that those divining bones were the means by which society was controlled (“go laola” morafe in Setswana). Hence they called hakata, “Ditaola” in Setswana language. The new immigrants from North Africa, the majority of whom spoke Ikalanga, merged with the local people, who spoke the same language under a different name – Chindebele. All  lived under the social control of BeHakata.

The arrival of the British colonialists dislodged power from its traditional custodians the BeHakata, and threw it onto the lap of three Chirwa (Setswana) speaking Bayela (Greeks) from North Africa.  It was these three Setswana speaking Bayela chiefs who were chosen by the British, to go seek “British protection” at the dawn of colonial occupation of our country. From then on, these three Bayela chiefs were transformed into veritable “foot stools of Imperialism”, to borrow Julius Malema’s words. Our country was divided, by the British, into essentially two main regions – the first region being British possessions, i.e. crown lands and British Company farms, and the second region being subdivided among the Bayela chiefs. No one else mattered, except the BeHakata, who were too powerful to be ignored. Consequently, the BeHakata got a sizeable share of the land as “Bakgatla Tribal territory”.

But on departure, the British ensured (with Seretse Khama’s help) that power was left firmly in the hands of the Setswana speaking Bayela tribes. They concocted a fraudulent constitution to that effect, which constitution the BeHakata King Kgafela Kgafela II now seeks to expose and to trash. So, Kgafela  as the direct descendant of the Mapungubwe traditional medicine leader, owes it to all the Batebele, to  win this legal challenge and trash the fraudulent constitution. All peace-loving citizens of this country Botswana, should support him.