Kae Matundu-Tjiparoro
In many aspects and respects than one there’s no time than now that the writing must be clearly on the wall for all and sundry, especially true revolutionaries, to see for themselves.
Time and again, one has been hearing the cliché, from especially politicians, ruling, and ruling is the appropriate word to describe the political system prevalent in Namibia. Ruling as opposed to governing. Because Namibians during the last 31 years of freedom, independence, sovereignty, justice, you can mention all the adjectives imaginable, has indeed been ruled. Liken ruling in this sense with an archaic political systems and this can aptly conjures up what ruling is all about that often some political parties pride themselves in being, with political leaders happy to be referred to as such. Usually a political system with one dominant political party as opposed to a multiparty system in which no single party dominates.
As much as the current Namibian situation of decay could essentially be ascribed to the dip in the global economy, likewise it is also because Namibia has been ruled instead of being governed. The results of a polity under rule instead of governance are self-evident. Lack of accountability, transparency paving way for mismanagement of the affairs of the polity, and/or of the people if you wish. This is the situation which pertain to Namibia. Yes, admittedly the country may as yet not have reached an irreversible stage of decay or implosion. But something drastically needs doing to arrest the decay in every aspect of the various spheres polity, be it at the political level, economic, religious, cultural and what have you. And likewise of its citizenry. Hence Yours Truly Ideologically’s proverbial writing on the wall. The signs and/or red lights have been flickering for a long time since independence in terms of the direction the country has been moving, if she has been moving in any direction at all other than the direction of self destruction marked by greed and self aggrandisement. The looting of national resources by a few and without impunity has been the hallmark. Evidenced lately by the Fishrot scandal, which is just the tip of the iceberg. Whether the country would wish to admit it or not, the Fishrot saga is and cannot be the most significant and sufficient indicator of the extent of the plundering that the country has been subjected to. That is only the icing on the cake, so to speak. And it is not as if this has been unbeknown to the country’s lawmakers. Yes, it has been just that it a national culture that nothing must and should be done about it.
There can be no denial that the Namibian public has lost trust in the country’s political system, and naturally also in their political leaders of all political hue. Meaning to be able to see the writings on the wall it takes utmost consciousness. Not simple consciousness but class consciousness. The public, especially the workers must first and foremost awaken to the fact that they have been taken for a ride for a good 31 years. Not only by the government of the day, as it has been, but by their own supposed leaders, who in actual fact have been no more than wolves in sheep’s skins/clothes.
Leaders who instead of in the least attending to the immediate conditions of the workers, have been feathering their own nests by dinning, at best with the exploiters supreme of the workers, and at worst becoming shareholders to big corporations and companies, and thus naturally becoming beholden to the interests of these entities, and eternally thus to Capitalism and the status quo.
Yes everything is and has not been lost yet. But certainly Namibia has reached the Rubicon, a situation anyone, least the workers and their vanguard movements, if there are still any, must already have started to smell the ideological rot. That the people now, especially the workers, no more have an ideological anchor. This is a time all revolutionary minded strata of society must wake up to their historical mission and provide anything short of an ideologically inspired and driven redirection of the country on the correct revolutionary path. On the Second Phase of the Revolution, which has long been forgotten, if altogether not relegated to the dustbin of ideological masturbation, dead and buried essentially.
As the country gears herself towards relaunching the revolution, there must be little room for errors and opportunism. Because surely Namibia all along since the days of the struggle for liberation, has never been devoid of opportunistic elements pretending to have the best interests of the people at heart. The 31 years of independence is good enough a testimony that indeed the country has been taken for a ride, especially the workers. Lately as if to catch up on the evident betrayal of the workers and economic wholesale of the country, one has been seeing the mushrooming of pretentious unions. This is as if the country is not already swelling with workers unions, most if not all of them which have never proven their mettle. Not only in terms of championing the rights of the workers and improving their working conditions in the short term, but in ultimately ensuring the restoration of the means of production to its rightful owners, the workers.
