Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro
The Dr Hage Geingob University of Namibia Campus, on the occasion of the 85th birthday anniversary of the late Statesman, saw the inauguration of the Dr Hage Geingob Townhall Conversation.
Intended to be an annual event at the Dr Hage Geingob Centre being established. To keep alive his memory, marked by, if you wish, his immeasurable contribution and sacrifices for Namibia in his illustrious lifetime. The beginning was made in this regard indeed.
Not necessarily with a bang if the content, substance and quality of the contributions by the various panelists on the night is anything to go by. Which, to say the least, shortens my expectations personally.
In view of the fact that in terms of constitutionalism, let alone intellectualism, the panellists awfully fell far short than the late Hage Geingob would have fathomed.
A formidable team in many respects and aspects that it was intended to be and may have been notwithstanding. But their offerings on the night cannot have been justly reflective of the would-be legacy of late Dr Hage Geingob.
To say the least, most if not all of the panellists on the night were simply punching below their perceived respective weight. Given what must have been their different and varied vintage and vantage associations with the late Namibian liberation and/or freedom fighter.
In a nutshell any substantive takeaways from any of them were too few and far in between. With many of them appearing not adept at what the moderator, Steven Ndorokaze, was trying to coax and prod them into and towards.
Indeed the moderator very well equipped himself to the task at hand, which proved no mean feat given the obvious hesitancy and/or lack of confidence the panellists displayed on the night.
Thereby compelling the moderator to resort to all the troubles of trying to let the panelists understand what he was trying to extract from them to steer the evening into a direction that would do justice to the legacy of Dr Geingob. With most at best fumbling.
Thus, it was not surprising that there were few takeaways from the panellists on the night that one can for long hold onto as a near-fit reflection and embodiment of Dr Geingob’s legacy. But one observation by Bishop Zephaniah Kameeta could not but strike an interesting chord.
To the effect that all along it has been all talk by the Namibian government without anything tangible to show for the talk. Simply put the Namibian government has yet to deliver.
But deliver on what? Are there actually any matters that the government has been promising to deliver on but hasn’t? And why hasn’t it?
Whatever the promises of delivery there have been and may have been by and from any government, specifically from the Swapo Party government, as Namibia has not seen any other government since independence but that of the Swapo Party, could these promises any longer be valid 36 years into independence?
The foremost promise that could and may have been there from Swapo during the liberation era, is ridding Namibia from foreign domination. That is getting rid of colonialism. Colonialism has since, presumably been gotten rid of.
The big question now, which cannot be solely a question that needs answering by the Swapo Party, is that now that there’s seemingly no longer foreign domination, what is next for Namibia?
What is and should Namibia’s post-liberation and presumably post-colonial vision and mission be. To answer this question the country cannot but go back into the history of the country.
All the way back to the national resistance movement, and up to the national struggle and liberation era. The country can only find meaning to its current state when it retraces the ideals, if not ideology, of national resistance and liberation struggle.
If doing so she would perhaps be able, let alone remind herself, and find the reason for the two epochs of the national democratic revolution.
National democratic revolution essentially presupposes another kind of an evolution or revolution, from the national democratic revolution.
Namibia since independence, perhaps still suffering from the hangover of having gotten rid of colonialism and/or foreign political domination, has never zeroed in on the next step after the democratic revolution.
Let alone confronting the reality of the post-colonial and foreign domination era, and if such era was meant to be the end in itself and or means towards an end? This end being what?
That is why it is difficult to answer what is indeed a serious and legitimate concern of Bishop Kameeta. That it has been all talk and just words with the Namibian government with no action.
Action in doing what if the vision and mission was all about doing away with colonialism and foreign political domination.
Which on the face of it has been done away with. Because as far as many Namibians are concerned, they are free. Free to be whatever. Including being free to be poor. Free to be unequal. Free to be hungry. Free to be illiterate. Free to be exploited. Free to be marginal and to be marginalised. Free to live in ghettos, the sugar-coated informal settlements. Free for some to enrich themselves and in the process exploit and impoverish and disempower others.
You name them. Namibians, have as yet to decide what kind of a society they like and would like to live in. From the looks of things, comfortable with capitalism as it seems, admiring everything capitalism is and has been offering, they are just happy-go-lucky.
To the extent, one would wonder why bother rocking their current boat of comfort, until one day they wake up from the capitalist slumber. That is if such will bode well for the legacies of Dr Geingob and others long, long gone by.
