The State and the Social by Ørnulf Gulbrandsen

Author:Ørnulf Gulbrandsen [Gulbrandsen, Ørnulf]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Anthropology, Cultural & Social, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780857452986
Google: ZUkDW7qaAAcC
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: 2012-03-01T05:11:33+00:00

Tswana Hierarchies at Large and Issues of Hegemony and Oppression

In postcolonial times, popular celebration of bogosi – and its incumbent, the kgosi – is indeed expressed in enthronement ceremonies. The Bangwa-to, for example, were thrilled by the enthronement of the man they recognized as the rightful heir to the Bangwato throne (bogosi), Seretse Khama's son Ian Khama. Both here and more recently among the Barolong, Batwana, Bamalete and Bakgatla, the enthronements were events of great festivity held in the presence of the state president, cabinet ministers and other high-ranking officials and thousands of other people. Most recently, Malope Geseitsiwe was chosen as the successor of Kgosi Seepapitso IV of the Bangwaketse after his death in March 2010. Although being the second son, he was selected in agreement with the royal family because his elder brother, Leema, is a cripple (see first main section of this chapter). Malope was received by the Bangwaketse with great and apparently unanimous enthusiasm and enthroned as Kgosi Malope II on 7 October 2011 by Kgosi Kgari Sechele III of the Bakwena, recognized by the Bangwake-tse as the senior morafe. Assembled in the royal kgotla was the state president, the two living former presidents, cabinet ministers, a large number of other dignitaries and hundreds of people. Without being explicit about Kgosi Kgafela's challenge of the state, The Minister of Local Government took the opportunity to underscore Kgosi Malope's subjection to the state and warn him against violent action against his people.

An intriguing case of popular enthusiasm about bogosi manifested itself in October 2001, when one of the minority Tswana communities – the Bakgatla-baga-Mmanaana, which is located within the territory claimed by the Kwena – got their leader enthroned as a Tswana kgosi proper. While technically a senior chief's representative under the authority of the kgosi of the Bakwena, he was nevertheless – provokingly in relation to the Bakwena – enthroned with a leopard skin,60 a major Tswana symbol of sovereignty, as Kgosi Gobuamang Gobuamang II according to customary ceremonial practices (Schapera 1984: 59f.; cf. Gulbrandsen 1995: 424). An audience of some three thousand people, including state dignitaries, enthusiastically received him. For the Bakgatla-baga-Mmanaana this event was, to be sure, conceived as a tremendous victory, comprehensible in view of the long struggle against Bangwaketse and Bakwena supremacy.61 As we shall see in my examination of minority struggles in the following chapter, it is precisely the recognition of their symbolic apex in line with the Tswana dikgosi which in many cases is of particular concern.

Intriguingly, the enthronement of Kgosi Kgafela II of the Bakgatla in 2008 was, I recall, performed by the state president, Ian Khama, underscoring that the enthronement ceremonies feature quite as a state act. In these spectacular ceremonies the prominence of the dikgosi and their close association with state power are, I reiterate, symbolized by the presence of the president or the vice-president of Botswana, in addition to cabinet ministers and members of Parliament. The dikgosi's centrality in these proceedings demonstrates the subjection of the

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