YOURS Truly Ideologically cannot but conclude that unless some miracle happens between now and whenever, Namibia is forever condemned to perpetual exploitation and endless poverty.
This is as far as most if not all the current political parties and formations continue to accept, embrace and glorify capitalism as a fait accompli as most seem to. Because currently in Namibia there is little, if any at all, among the various political parties and formations to choose from ideologically, policy choices let alone in terms clear and unambiguous and non-ambivalent commitment to radical socio-economic transformation. Whether one would wish to deny it or not, ideologically Namibia currently has no vanguard party. With the political parties and/or liberation movements which led the path towards political liberation, a journey then which was spiced with economic liberation mumbo jumbo , jargoned these days as economic emancipation, having no doubt completely shed their ideological convictions, if they ever had any genuine ones towards complete transformation of the Namibian society.
With the leaders of these political parties only masquerading as ideological powerhouses of sorts, but eventually came to reveal themselves in reality and conviction as no more than opportunists and inconsistent bourgeoisie. Only intended to grab power for not any well-meaning agenda and/or end, but to substitute foreign rulers with themselves, and to eventually by default enrich themselves. Enriching themselves by default because there’s no way they can enrich themselves directly because economically they are and have not and shall never be in charge of the country’s economy as long as they are satisfied, as it seems, of being proxies and appendages of foreign capitalists. Proxies of foreign capitalists because it is hard to imagine and envision indigenous African capitalists under capitalism who throughout human economic history have always and all the time been on the fringes of production.
Hence their alienation from production, including the workers, while they continue to be beggars living and surviving from the crumbs falling from the tables of the actual capitalists. While believing they have and been having a stake in production and ownership of the means of production. What has been unfolding in Namibia since independence with the country finding herself still in the current position, ideologically moribund, is not a strange phenomenon. But one defined and a legacy of the characteristics of her liberation struggle, which was defined in some quarters as a revolution. Namibia’s liberation struggle has never been close the definition of a revolution. A revolution with its first phase of the political revolution to be followed by the second phase , which is the economic one, presupposes a clear definition of transition once political freedom has been attained, to economic transition whereby the people, as opposed to the petty bourgeoisie, takes over ownership of the means of production. Bu
t because of the characteristics of the liberation struggle, that the political parties erroneously and misleadingly described as the vanguard parties, having never ever, let alone if only truly believing and having conviction in the economic revolutionary nature and/or intent and objective of the national liberation struggle. To them the struggle was national, period. Hence the concept of the indigenes taking over political reigns with no consequence and/or mattering little should they be the ones to mismanage the economy. Or become the exploiters of the country’s natural resources on behalf of the real exploiters, foreign capitalists, a reality prevailing today in all the former colonies, including Namibia. Hence the existence of neo-Colonialism.
The characteristics of the liberation struggle as alluded to had different constituents and/or social classes.Among them the petty bourgeoisie as mentioned already. One important class being the workers (proletariat) as you would have it depending on the level of the development of a particular society/country. (Because some would argue that workers would only exist in a highly industrially developed society). Be that as it may be, in Namibia the struggle had a very important if not critical and/or properly put, the actual and important component of the vanguard, namely the workers. But as it transpired it seems to have been consumed by the political/intelligentsia component, and/or may at that time not had been ideologically conscious to assume the role of a real vanguard constituent.
Likewise it was then, more than anything else, their exploitation notwithstanding, motivated and driven by nationalism. A situation in which to this day workers in an independent Namibia, seems to be entrapped in, objectively and subjectively ideologically. Despite the fact that their own government is today without impunity and compunction, complicit in the continued exploitation of the natural resources of the country, and thus of the workers. But under the guise of a tripartite arrangement, whereby workers and their trade unions are affiliated to the Swapo Party of Namibia, which is has been since day one of liberation been the agent number one of the continued exploitation of the natural resources and their wholesaling to foreign capitalists. Thereby also abetting and ensuring the continued exploitation and impoverishment of workers and the majority of the population.
Yours Truly Ideologically, nor any Namibian, of whatever political persuasion and/or intellectual capacity, needs any convincing that any other political party or formation shall ever change the status quo. The status quo being none other than Capitalism. Because none of the political manifestos of most if not all Namibia’s political parties and/or formations speak to or have ever spoken to any radical socio-economic transformation. Instead of most of manifestos being what they have been for a great deal, hollow pronouncements bordering on political fairytales if not political trickery and deceit of the voters.
“The outcome of the revolution depends on whether the working class will play the part of a subsidiary to the bourgeoisie, a subsidiary that is powerful in the force of its onslaught against the [pseudo politicians] but impotent politically , or whether it will play the part of leader of the people’s revolution.” Writes Lenin in his booklet Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution.
Whatever any political party and/or formation would want to make Namibians believe it can offer them an alternative to the status quo and the Swapo Party, Lenin’s observation’s cannot be more pertinent and instructive to either Swapo, other political parties aspiring for political power, but last but not the least the voters lest they are tricked there can ever be any alternative to the status quo unless such an alternative is driven by themselves as economically oppressed and exploited classes.
