Tatenda Sithole
THE San community have finally chosen their Chief and headman, a development which has pleased the often marginalised community.
The process took place on Wednesday at Butabubili in Ward 8 where Goledama Christopher Dube was appointed chief and then Zekius Tshuma was appointed the headman.
The San community has been lobbying for their own leadership that they believe will represent their needs to authorities.
Tsorotso San Development Trust director Davy Ndlovu said the community was happy to have their own leader.
“The Chief has not been installed but this has been a selection process. There are many things we want as a community which are not being addressed. All along we had no representation therefore the community found it difficult to have their needs met,” said Ndlovu.
“This means a lot to the community because the Chief will facilitate development of the community. When educating the San there is need to have someone with a long heart. For example if children are being chased away from school because of fees they will choose to have the children home.”
Ndlovu said they had to select their chief through a family tree.
“The selection was done through looking at a family tree on who were the leaders .We had to trace this as a community and found that there were three families. On the chief’s side we saw that there was no child of the once 1902 leader Goledama,” said Ndlovu.
“The community then agreed that since none of Goledama’s children were alive; let us choose from his grandsons. That is how the community got to Dube.”
Ndlovu said initially the San had no surnames; they had to copy what they saw in Botswana because they had no surnames.
“It was the first time for the community to see many government officials and they were happy. Government officials who were there were just facilitating the process but allowed everything else to be done by the community as they selected their leader,” he said.
“Tshuma’s mother was the one who facilitated the language project. It has taken us a long process for us to be on this stage.”
Often labelled as outcasts or primitive by other ethnic groups, the San community has been one of the most misunderstood groups of people who, since the advent of modernisation, chose to live in the forests and shunned modern civilisation.
