On November 12, Survival International (SI) joined the fray of “Jailed for saying Botswana President Looks Like a Bushman”, which first brought to some prominence in the Botswana media by The Botswana Gazette of October 7, 2009, in an article penned by the Editor, and bearing the title, “Jailed for 2 days for saying ‘Khama looks like a Bushman”. This was in turn picked up from the Sowetan's (South African newspaper) sensational story that reported an offence uttered by a South Africa lady, a certain Dorsey Dube, who was arrested and charged for being a public nuisance in Botswana. Other opinion commentaries have been issued on this eye-catching news item, and the most recent one appeared in The Gazette (10 November 2009), “Khama’s meeting with Obama timely”, submitted by my learned colleague Kesitegile Gobotswang. Survival International believes that there are “deeply-entrenched racist attitudes of many people in authority in Botswana towards the Bushmen”, and they go further informing their readers that they are “…sending a report on the incident to the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination”.  My colleague Kesitegile Gobotswang also in his reflection expresses the view that, “In Botswana it is a serious crime to say that the ‘President looks like a San or Bushman’ as if Botswana practises a case system”. This matter then becomes critically interesting by the sort of “crimes” or “abusive actions” that are inferred. But maybe we need to really understand this term the “Bushman”, since it is the root of all ‘evils”. What is a Bushman? Where is this term coming from? Has this term the equivalence of San or Sarwa or Khoisan? Is there a crime committed when the Botswana Police views that President Khama was insulted by being likened to a “Bushman”? Does this matter help some people (“Bushmen”) out there?Let me, in spite of myself, in trying to enter this fray, recall some history which may help us understand, and with that may be judge fairly whether they are “insults and crimes”.  Isaac Schapera (1930) in his The Khoisan people of Southern Africa provides some interesting discussion of the term ‘Bushman” as well as the now acceptable Khoisan. Köhler (1971), Die Khoe-sprachigen Buschmaenner der Kalahari, also provides a socio-historical and linguistic account of the use of this term “Bushman”. These two scholars are agreed that the term from its history, especially as used by European settlers in Southern Africa, is pejorative just as “Kaffir” is. Köhler (1971) in his discussion cites a certain E.C.E Letham (undated) who, when describing a “Bushman” made reference to “a second species of the genus homo”. It therefore follows that this term has been used in disparaging contexts in reference to some people in Southern Africa, and those people certainly are not “Bushmen”. They have definitely better names to call themselves.In the anthropological and linguistic discourses that Schapera (1930) and Köhler (1971) discuss, and the understanding and knowledge they furnish us with, European settlers referred to the ‘Khoi-Khoi”, obviously a corruption of “KhoeKhoe” as “Bushmen”, also as “Hottentots”. The ethnic group that was referred to as “Khoi-Khoi’ or “Hottentots” were the Cape Khoekhoe, whose modern remnants are the Nama (also known preferably as the Khoekhoegowab speakers) of the North Northern Cape and Namibia. In his attempts to avoid the unfortunate alien labels of a people by foreigners, Schultze (1928) coined the term “Khoisan”, made up of the “Khoe’ (Khoekhoe, meaning ‘real people’ in modern Nama) and the San (Non-KhoeKhoe), a term derived from ‘saon”, meaning ‘gathering’ in Nama (Khoekhoegowab). The Nama used these terms to make a cultural distinction between the “GomosKhoe”, those who were cattle people, or pastoralists, and the SaonKhoe, those who were the gathering people. It was therefore not a linguistic distinction, but a cultural one that the Nama were making. To Europeans settlers, whether these ethnic communities were pastoralists or gatherers - these people, who were also characterised by their “strange sub-human tongue”, were just summarily labelled “Bushmen”. The term Khoisan as used and rehabilitated by anthropologists and linguists is not even suitable, just as it is unsuitable to be calling every time a German, “European”, when he delights in its appropriate ethno-linguistic label “Deutsch”. Among the Khoisan therefore, specific ethnic and linguistic communities exist called the |Gui, ||Gana, !Xoon, #Hoa, Shua, Kua, Buga, Naro, Ju’|hoan, and many more.
Now, of “Bushman” as person, physical looks or culture, I admit, I am completely lost in following the quintessence of the obsessive debate that is fomented by Survival International and by colleagues who commented in The Gazette – what exactly do they want to make of it?  I am eagerly interested to hear the response of the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on the matter that Survival International will bring to it.  Will President Khama and the Botswana Police (yes, the police who arrested Dorsey Dube) be found guilty for finding offensive a term that has a known pejorative and derogatory history? Who will be “Bushman” to stand up to testify against President Khama and the Botswana Police? The error of Survival International is in my mind this inopportune amalgamation that they happily make about “Bushman” and the agenda of a people whose cause they are championing – the |Gui and the ||Gana of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). Those are not “Bushmen”, and they (|Gui and the ||Gana) should be offended by that cultural and language mingle from their advocates. To my learned colleague, I did not think that the sweeping statement helps anyone to understand its essence and its association with the visit of President Khama to meet President Obama of the United States (US).  Therefore, President Khama and the Botswana Police have, in my well-considered opinion, no case to answer. Khoisan or San people should also refuse to be associated with this matter which incites opportunism.
To help the Khoisan communities in Botswana we need,  perhaps, to understand who they are and what are the helpful issues that will promote their languages and cultures so that Botswana is not a museum of their history – when they are long dead, but a reserve of their living and dynamic languages and cultures - when they are preserved. Advocacy from outside or from within Botswana should help the Khoisan people, but not fuel debates that are far from suggesting practical actions of capacity building for the Khoisan communities. I for one do not think that the Khoisan peoples of Botswana are happy in Botswana, and I would wish that there is an existent serious debate which will make Botswana a multicultural and multilingual society that it is. Let individuals (politicians and academics) seriously demonstrate the ideas they have that will make Botswana move to another pedestal where some of the defining issues of democracy and  social harmony are predicated upon what Botswana has – a nation of ethnic and cultural diversity.
Andy Chebanne
From Cape Town

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