Lazarus Kwedhi
Deng Xiaoping’s instruction to “seek truth from facts” still rings in our ears. The “Conference of the Left” held in Ekurhuleni on 29–31 May 2026, convened by the South African Communist Party (SACP) and attended by the EFF, MK Party, PAC, AZAPO, trade unions, and Pan-Africanist formations, should compel Namibian and African leaders to do exactly that – reflect.
What we saw in Boksburg was not new. It signalled the return of the old communism versus capitalism blocs, reshaped for the 21st century. Same wine, different bottle.
During the Cold War, each bloc competed to win hearts at home and abroad while blocking the other. Today, the communist bloc meets under the banner of state-led development, BRICS alignment, and anti-imperialism. The capitalist bloc meets in Davos under public-private partnerships, green finance, and “inclusive capitalism”.
Both claim to have the solution, and both are answering the same question: who owns and controls the factors of production, nationally and across global value chains?
Namibia must not mistake this for jubilation, as we did during the liberation struggle. A shift in global alignment does not equal a shift in our material conditions. We must not be dragged into antagonism that serves the blocs, not us.
The history lesson is brutal. During Namibia’s liberation, we were divided and made to fight each other. On one side, Koevoet under apartheid protected capitalist interests for a post-independent Namibia.
On the other, PLAN, backed by the communist bloc, fought to end colonialism and apartheid. Both claimed to fight for a Namibian welfare state. Yet the fact is plain: the political leadership on both sides failed to unite the nation and dismantle the colonial structures that exploited and divided it.
Post-independence Africa, including Namibia, ended up benefiting globalist capitalists from both blocs, together with liberation movement elites who became the ruling class. To date, ordinary Namibians remain the battlefield, not the beneficiaries of global capitalist value chains.
The collapse of the Soviet Union sent a signal the world could not ignore. Russia embraced leadership that cherishes property rights, even if it entrenched oligarchy. China pursued “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, protecting state control while harnessing market forces.
Both rejected the old command model, but both focused on one thing: ownership and control of land, capital, and technology.
Africa did not make the same clean break. Today we face the same dilemma: why is Africa, and Namibia specifically, so rich in resources yet poor and underdeveloped?
Part of the answer lies in the trap our leaders walked into – made to be divided, to fight and kill each other in order to create market space for the two global ideological blocs. Boksburg and Davos reproduce that risk.
The SACP, MK, and EFF rally under state-led development and BRICS alignment. The ANC-DA Government of National Unity pushes public-private partnerships and climate finance. Both claim to serve the working class, but both are competing for power to control platinum, lithium, cobalt, land, and data.
Scholarly warnings are clear. Acemoglu and Robinson, in Why Nations Fail, show that any system unable to guarantee property rights, incentives, and inclusive institutions will not survive in an age of information and technology.
Extraction and patronage do not build prosperity; they breed division and underdevelopment. Mahmood Mamdani, in When Victims Become Killers, together with Alice Amsden in Escape from Empire, adds a starker warning: if post-independence leadership fails to dismantle colonial structures that exploited native Africans, it remains trapped in self-hate and internal fighting.
Those structures continue to speak through liberation movement elites and other political formations, doing exactly what the colonisers and apartheid did. Without dismantling them, post-independent Africa and Namibia will not achieve prosperity on the level of our former colonisers, no matter which global bloc we align with.
That is the new battlefield Boksburg exposed. The Davos crowd wants Africa’s minerals for the green transition, tied to ESG conditions and private finance.
The participation of African and Namibian leaders at Davos year after year, while their countries remain poor and underdeveloped, signals what Chris Bunch and Allan Cole warned in The Return of the Emperor: the return of colonialism through new channels – neocolonialism. Namibia’s recent downgrade by the World Bank from upper-middle income to lower-middle income in 2024 proves the point.
The Boksburg crowd wants the same minerals, tied to BRICS loans and state-to-state deals. Platform capital – Starlink, M-Pesa, BlackRock buying housing – wants data and assets, with no flag. Both blocs now compete inside Africa.
The risk for Namibia is that we pick a side without asking to whose benefit – cui bono? – and again become victims of market forces serving global elites’ capital interests, while our people remain poor in a rich country.
Deng further warned us with his conventional wisdom about the black or white cat: the colour of a cat is insignificant as long as it catches the mouse.
Fighting for either ideological bloc without addressing Namibia’s struggle against poverty, unemployment, housing, and underdevelopment is like bringing a black or white cat, or both, into a house while the house remains full of mice.
The ANC declined the Boksburg invitation, calling it “a coalition of negation”. That dismissal misses the point. The conference also formed a permanent Council of the Left to coordinate campaigns and political education. Whether that council breaks the binary or gets absorbed by it will shape SADC.
For Namibia, the lesson is direct. We cannot repeat the mistakes of the past generation. The task is not to choose between Davos capitalism and Boksburg state capitalism.
The task is to dismantle colonial economic structures at home: place a government leadership with the capacity to grow the state economy, feed the nation, and protect state sovereignty.
Secure property rights and incentives for Namibians, enforce local beneficiation of minerals, treat data and digital infrastructure as public goods, and refuse debt that locks us into either bloc’s agenda.
Deng told us to seek truth from facts. The fact is: the communist and capitalist blocs are back – one meeting in Boksburg, the other in Davos – representing either “black or white”.
But the truth is: Namibia cannot afford to be their battlefield again. We need a system that works for the welfare of everyone, and Ubuntu – “I am because of you; you are because we are” – is the philosophy and ideology that answers the question.
It ties humanity together irrespective of race or origin in all aspects of state governance and human existence. If Boksburg 2026 is remembered as the birth of a united left that puts Namibian and African interests first, it will matter.
If both Boksburg and Davos are remembered as the moment we drank the same wine from a different bottle, then our generation has learnt nothing from our own history.
