Jeronimo Kateya
Sixty years after the first shots at Omugulugwombashe
Sixty years after the first shots at Omugulugwombashe, Namibians gather once again for retrospection, reflection, introspection, meditation and contemplation on Namibia’s past, present and future.
This reflection is fundamentally hinged on the Hegelian philosophical thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectic. The thesis rests on the premise that Namibia is independent, mineral-rich and formally sovereign (International Monetary Fund, 2025).
Conversely, the antithesis remains logically unresolved. Data show that the extractive enclave contributes 13.6 per cent of GDP and roughly half of foreign-exchange earnings, while employing only 1.4 per cent of the workforce (Reuters, 2025; IMF, 2025; Macrotrends, 2025).
This article interprets that contradiction through Hegelian dialectic, decolonial theory and McQuail’s (2020) social-responsibility journalism framework.
It argues that the well-documented economic phenomenon of a “rich country, poor people” must be confronted as a continuation of colonial extraction, not national backwardness, to realise economic freedom and equity within our lifetime and honour the aspirations of our national heroes and heroines.
The mineral paradox and the haves-and-have-nots
This paper interrogates the metaphysical question of why Namibia is endowed with extraordinary natural resources, yet large sections of its population languish in poverty.
The IMF (2025) Article IV report records a Gini coefficient above 0.55, confirming that Namibia remains among the world’s most unequal economies.
Quijano (2018) terms this the coloniality of power: an institutional arrangement that survives formal decolonisation because labour, authority and knowledge structures remain intact.
Mignolo and Walsh (2018) describe it as the colonial matrix of being-thought-economy — the entire epistemic scaffolding that permits a mineral-export enclave to be celebrated, while local communities endure deprivation.
Sam Nujoma’s “A People United Philosophy” speaks directly to contemporary haves-and-have-nots hierarchies, rejecting abstract neutrality and the politics of pity.
Heroes gave us freedom: Where is our economic equity?
Each year, university graduates enter Namibia’s labour market with formal qualifications, yet only a small fraction secure employment. Youth unemployment reached 38.05 per cent in 2025 (Macrotrends, 2025).
This outcome stems from deep-rooted, structural forces: coloniality retains control over labour-market gatekeepers, even under a post-independence national flag.
Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2018), in Epistemic Freedom in Africa, argues that deprovincialisation, ending the dominance of Western epistemologies, is a precondition for African universities to produce knowledge tailored to African needs.
Affirmative structural repositioning is therefore imperative and a conditio sine qua non. It requires employment-equity legislation tying mining licences to graduate-placement quotas, SME-finance reform through Agribank and the Development Bank of Namibia, and an enforceable national beneficiary register for extractive-industry rents.
Hegelian recognition through decolonial eyes
Hegel’s master-slave dialectic teaches that recognition is mutual, negotiable and never unilateral (Nguyen, 2020). Mbembe (2016) deepens this philosophical insight: colonised subjects encounter the colonial master on skewed, unequal terrain, and liberation requires structural reversal, not simply inheriting an unchanged post-colonial state.
Mbembe (2017) further extends this analysis through necropolitics and his critique of Black reason, arguing that a state that preserves a mineral-extraction enclave while its youth face despair exercises conditional, disposable sovereignty.
Grosfoguel (2016) diagnoses that epistemic decolonisation is essential because ostensibly “neutral” mainstream political-economy frameworks are themselves rooted in colonial economic thought.
Policy language itself must be decolonised so that reform beneficiaries can see themselves reflected in national policy documents.
Sam Nujoma’s “A people united” philosophy
Founding President Sam Nujoma repeatedly stated that “a people united, striving to achieve a common good for all members of society, shall always emerge victorious” (Africa Is a Country, 2025).
Read through a political-philosophy lens, this Ubuntu-infused dictum rejects social fragmentation. Amid the turbulent global context of 2026, marked by commodity-price volatility, energy-market shocks and growing resistance to multilateral cooperation, a people-united philosophy offers Namibia an affirmative repositioning instrument.
It provides a directive for government, business, universities, graduates and farmers to converge, plan collectively and deploy their competencies toward economic liberation. This intervention is operational, not merely ceremonial.
Policy Interventions in a turbulent economy
External shocks since 2020, including the Russia-Ukraine war and conflicts across the US-Israel-Iran theatre, have disrupted global supply chains. Inflation in fuel and food has tightened Namibia’s fiscal space (IMF, 2025).
Decolonial responses do not need to wait for global systemic change; they require local, collective political will to deliver tangible results impacting the lives of ordinary people.
Decisive policy interventions include: (a) a Beneficiation Act mandating local value addition and ending the raw export of mineral resources, such as diamonds and lithium.
Raw mineral exports effectively export jobs, leaving indigenous communities vulnerable to economic marginalisation; (b) an Employment Equity Act with enforceable local-content and graduate-employment quotas; (c) a Revolving Graduate SME Fund offering concessional-rate financing; (d) accelerated implementation of the 2023 Revised National Resettlement Policy to counter the 70 per cent historical-advantage land-ownership lock-in; (e) decolonial re-accreditation of Namibian school and university curricula, re-centring indigenous languages and local knowledge systems; (f) stronger protection of intangible cultural heritage, drawing lessons from China’s policy frameworks; and (g) investment incentives prioritising investors committed to local value addition and genuine win-win partnerships with Namibian stakeholders.
Conclusion
Heroes’ Day ought to remind us that Namibia’s independence remains incomplete: politically free, yet economically captive.
Decolonisation must be epistemic as well as political, and academic institutions should take the lead in generating knowledge responsive to Namibia’s domestic needs — especially amid today’s turbulent global economy.
Hegel’s synthesis does not average out thesis and antithesis; it sublates them into a higher, transformed category (Nguyen, 2020).
The synthesis advanced in this article is affirmative repositioning guided by a people-united philosophy (Africa Is a Country, 2025).
This framework is grounded in the decolonial theories of Mbembe (2016, 2017), Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2018), Mignolo and Walsh (2018), Quijano (2018), and Grosfoguel (2016), while remaining communicatively accountable under McQuail’s (2020) social-responsibility journalism framework.
The blood spilled by heroes sixty years ago must, within our lifetime, nourish not only the political independence secured on 21 March 1990, but also the economic freedom for which our people continue to strive.
Jeronimo Kateya is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Digital Communication at the Communication University of China. The views expressed in this article are entirely his own.
