PAUL SHIPALE
As I was looking for an answer to the question in the famous Ndilimani Cultural Troupe’s song ‘Hifikepunye Pohamba Ndhira Dhipi Wahenda’ and the titled of the autobiography “The footprints of Hifikepunye Pohamba – Ondjila Eyi A Enda,” or what I would rather title ‘The Arduous Life Journey Pohamba Traversed’ or ‘The Pathways Pohamba Walked in’ or even ‘Retracing Pohamba’s Footsteps,’ I realised that the answer to the above question is none other than what the son of former President Pohamba, Tulongeni Tutungeni Tudanaukeni Tuhafeni Pohamba, aptly put it that ‘The book shows that the path of integrity can be rewarding in ways that cannot be measured.’
To me, it is all about the simple basic human virtues such as firm attitudes, stable dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will that govern our actions, order our passions and guide our conduct. The four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance make possible ease, self-mastery, and joy in leading a morally good life as they are acquired by human efforts and are the fruits and seed of morally good acts.
Above all, I think the answer to the question is about humility and modesty as Uncle Ben Amathila rightly said “President Pohamba has an element of solidarity in decision-making. It’s reflected in the work he has done.” This is exemplified when at the launch of his autobiography, former President Pohamba acknowledged the contributions of Namibia’s Founding President and Father of the Nation, H.E. Dr Sam Nujoma, to his life achievements.
“I would like to express my gratitude to my colleague, the founding president and father of the Namibian nation, Sam Nujoma, with whom I have shared many trials and tribulations, as you will discover while reading the book,” he said.
Pohamba remarked that “It is perhaps no surprise that I was entrusted with the immense responsibility of filling his shoes, succeeding him as the second president of our nation. This role has been deeply challenging,” he said. “That’s my leader, the Founding President, and I also extend my gratitude to the other leaders,” he added.
By the latter, he meant people such as Uncle Ben Amathila, whom he also described as a humble person he met him in 1963. He also referred to the Speaker Professor Peter Katjavivi and acknowledged his contribution to the SWAPO statement from Dar-es-Salaam, drafted by Peter Nanyemba, which ended by making it clear that SWAPO was now going to launch the Armed Liberation Struggle after the Hague International Court of Justice (ICJ) reversed its 1962 judgement which has found that it indeed “Had jurisdiction to adjudicate upon the merits of the dispute between South Africa and the two African members of the former league of Nations (the Empire of Ethiopia and the Republic of Liberia)”.
Chapter 3 deals with the Contract Labour System and offers valuable insights into the narrator and others’ debasing life as migrant workers due to the contract labour system which he joined through the South West Africa Native Labour Association (SWANLA) in Rundu and was selected to work for the copper mine at the Tsumeb Corporation Limited (TCL), situated in Tsumeb where he worked as a Clerk.
At that time, the copper town of Tsumeb was a bustling beehive and a bastion of the working class or proletariats’ revolutionary consciousness of the mine workers including the farm workers in the adjacent towns of Grootfontein, Otavi and Otjiwarongo while the coastal towns where reserved for fishermen and factory workers and Windhoek, the capital, was mainly for factory workers and services such as hotels and others.
Chapters 4 and 5 deal with the ignition of political consciousness and charting the inevitable pipeline into exile. The author’s account of his escape from South West Africa into exile makes for pleasurable reading. Here, the narrator chronicles his escape and epic journey into exile which started on 5 August 1961 and he arrived at night in Dar-es-Salaam on 9 December 1961.
Chapter 11 titled “the dog years towards independence” deals with the narrator’s return home. Like in Founding President Nujoma’s autobiography, merged into the chapter dealing with the narrator’s home return is a rendition when he rushed home to Okanghudi to his father’s home and was overjoyed to see his father, as a dream come true. His son Natangwe Mandume, whom he had met for the first time on his return, accompanied him to Okanghudi. The author also narrates when on 1 August 1989, his wife Kambosho and children (Hamukoto, Tulongeni and Kaupumote) arrived in Windhoek as part of the UNHCR repatriation programme and he collected his family from Döbra a few hours after their arrival and brought them to the house that was allocated to him by SWAPO in Windhoek, Eros.
Conversely, the narrator had a front-row seat to the saddest moment of his life as he recounted what he called ‘Kuhangwa and Nelengani, a fork in the road.’ This happened when Loius Nelengani, the then Vice President of OPO and then of SWAPO since it was founded in 1960, and Jacob Kuhangwa, who had been a founder member of the OPC and OPO in the late 1950s and had been elected Secretary General of SWAPO at its founding in Windhoek in 1960, disliked each other and quarrelled. ‘When they got into a physical fight, Nelengani fetched a sharp kitchen knife and stabbed Kuhangwa, injuring his spine so that he was paralysed from the waist down’ Pohamba recounts. Although not found guilty by the court in Dar-es-Salaam, Nelengani was suspended as SWAPO Vice President and later returned to Namibia. Kuhangwa also returned to Namibia before independence and died in 1993, and Pohamba attended his funeral at Odibo, together with the late Andimba Toivo Ya Toivo, Theo-Ben Gurirab and Moses //Garoeb.
The narrator again had a front-row seat to yet another contender for the saddest moment of his life as he recounted how he was very disappointed to see the late Hidipo Hamutenya insulting SWAPO saying ‘SWAPO and Namibia had lost a sense of purpose and direction’ and that there was an ‘arrogance of power’ the narrator said. Hidipo was one of the Comrades with whom he had worked for many years, both in exile and in independent Namibia. Hidipo was also Pohamba’s best man while his wife Nangula was the maid of honour when Pohamba and his wife tied the knot on 17 August 1983 in Luanda, Angola. So, when Hidipo left SWAPO to form his own political party, the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) in 2007, Pohamba said he was sad about Hidipo’s decision to leave SWAPO, the party he had helped to build.
In spite of these sad events, the book remains a living testimony of the narrator’s irrepressible passion for freedom and boundless hope for his country Namibia. However, there seems to be a bit of confusion when on the title or front cover page it is written “The official autobiography of Hifikepunye Pohamba as told to Ellen Ndeshi Namhila; Footprints of Hifikepunye Pohamba; Ondjila Eyi A Enda”, in that this is primarily the story of a life, which reveals the inner man, as seen right throughout the book from chapter 1, when the narrator says ‘My paternal family,’ to the last chapter titled ‘My final chapter’ where he concludes with the sentence ‘Eyi Oyo (this is) Ondjila eyi Ndaenda’ [sic].
One wonders why the writer’s name appears on the title or front cover page and her picture is inside the book instead of appearing at the blurb of the book, at the back cover. Secondly, I suggest that there should be a second edition of the book to look at the quality of printing from 284 to 293 and look at the parts of speech which need to be corrected, especially in terms of spelling, adjectives, adverbs and verbs, which at times are written together while in actual fact they need to be separated, to make sense of a particular sentence or word in Oshiwambo.
For instance, at page 13, ‘Adalwa ku ina ewifa’ the word ‘Adalwa’ is supposed to be written ‘A dalwa’ while the word ‘Semuweda’ is written ‘She mu weda.’ At page 73 ‘Vakwetu onghuwo yepongo oKalunga heyitondoka’ the word ‘heyitondoka’ is written ‘he i tondoka.’ At page 87 ‘vamati va Mandume ya Ndemufayo, ohamba yetu yokayalambadwa, yokapekwa ya Melulo, otamudi peni?’ the word ‘otamudi peni’ is written ‘otamu di peni.’ The last sentence of the final chapter ‘Eyi Oyo (this is) [sic] Ondjila eyi Ndaenda’ it is supposed to read ‘Ei oyo ondjila ei nda enda.’
Just like in English, the Oshiwambo language has pronouns too, including reflexive, reciprocal, relative and conjunctive pronouns such as ‘to liningi oshiyele’ (you are fooling yourself) ‘to liningi’ is a reflexive pronoun, in the sentence ‘you are fooling yourself,’ ‘you’ is a pronoun, ‘are’ is an auxiliary verb, ‘fooling’ is the main verb and ‘yourself’ is a reflexive pronoun while ‘one another and each other’ are reciprocal pronouns.
All in all, the narrator’s autobiography is a compelling portrait of a man whose entire life was a struggle for freedom. The book is made more poignant by the fact that it is written and published during the time former President Pohamba retired from active politics. The autobiography, co-written by the former Head of State, provides a retrospective reflection on his journey pre- and post-independence.
It details his trials and tribulations in the quest to liberate the country, as well as challenges encountered and opportunities presented by specific conditions that led to the attainment of Namibia’s independence. The book also contained chapters about his diplomatic work in Zambia, Tanzania, Algeria, Egypt as well as his two presidential terms.
Most importantly, it provides an answer to the question; which are the footprints of Hifikepunye Pohamba as he tells us his story with characteristic honesty. “It is a massive contribution to African historiography,” Amathila said and form part of the African decolonization process and historiography. Thus, this is not just about ‘memory politics’ and ‘patriotic history’ but an autobiography that adds to the African and Namibian historical and biographical texts about the human struggle against oppression. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of my employer and this newspaper but solely my personal views as a citizen.
