Unravelling History and Cultural Heritage in Botswana

Cultural heritage is today contested between historical scholarship based in educational institutions and popular and commercial presentations of the past emphasising myths and legends. A revival of interest in heritage in Botswana over the past few generations has been counterbalanced by a decline of interest in the study of history in schools and the university. If one looks back more than a century, however, the study of history and the presentation of heritage in myths and legends were almost indistinguishable. History textbooks published in Setswana in 1913 and 1940, and in English in 1952, presented parallel tribal traditions in a manner suitable for multi-tribal federalism. Professional research into and publication of national history, in English, supporting unitary state ideology, only came after independence with the opening of a university in which History was at first regarded as a key subject. Since then, History has been deposed within the curriculum by the march towards job-specific vocational education and by new forms of heritage presentation. Recent assertion of sub-national ethnicities, in alliance with local tourist and entertainment interests, challenges cultural and historical narratives written in support of the post-independence unitary state. And on the pedestal these words appear:‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’Nothing beside remains. Round the decayof that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,The lone and level sands stretch far away...(Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1791–1822)