Paul T. Shipale (with inputs by Folito Nghitongovali Diawara Gaspar)
The case for establishing the Dr Sam Shafiishuna Nujoma Museum and Living Conversational Center
The recent inauguration of the Obama Presidential Center has attracted international attention not merely because it commemorates the legacy of a former President of the United States, but because it reflects a growing global recognition that nations must invest in institutions capable of preserving historical memory, cultivating civic values, documenting leadership experiences, and transmitting national knowledge across generations.
Across the world, countries are increasingly discovering that monuments alone are insufficient. Statues may honour history, but institutions preserve it.
Buildings may symbolize achievement, but living institutions transform historical experience into public knowledge, civic education, leadership development, and national continuity.
For Namibia, this moment presents a timely opportunity to advance an initiative that has already received policy consideration and national support: the establishment of the Dr. Sam Shafiishuna Nujoma Museum and Living Conversational Center (SNMLCC).
This is not merely a museum project.
It is a nation building project.
More importantly, it is an institutional response to one of the greatest challenges confronting modern states: the preservation of collective memory and institutional knowledge.
A national institution with a national mandate
The proposed Dr. Sam Shafiishuna Nujoma Museum and Living Conversational Center should serve as Namibia’s principal institution for preserving, documenting, interpreting, and transmitting the historical, political, diplomatic, cultural, and intellectual legacy of founding father Dr. Sam Shafiishuna Nujoma, together with the broader liberation struggle and nation-building experience that gave birth to the Republic of Namibia.
Its mandate should extend beyond preservation to encompass research, education, public dialogue, civic development, leadership formation, and knowledge production.
The strategic theme of the institution should be:
“From Memory to Institution: Preserving the Past, Inspiring the Future.”
The objective is not merely to remember history.
The objective is to ensure that history continues to serve the nation.
Why the present moment matters
The question before Namibia is not whether the legacy of the Founding Father deserves preservation.
History has already answered that question.
The real question is whether the nation will act while the opportunity still exists.
Namibia is currently experiencing a historic generational transition. The generation that fought for independence, negotiated the country’s future, established its democratic institutions, and laid the foundations of the Republic remains among us. Their experiences constitute one of the nation’s most valuable intellectual and historical resources.
Yet this opportunity is finite.
Every year, Namibia loses liberation veterans, diplomats, policymakers, traditional leaders, administrators, educators, and community leaders whose firsthand knowledge cannot be replaced once it disappears.
Documents can be preserved.
Buildings can be maintained.
But lived experience, once lost, is lost forever.
The establishment of the Sam Shafiishuna Nujoma Museum and Living Conversational Center would therefore represent more than an act of commemoration.
It would constitute an act of national preservation.
The institution would ensure that future generations gain direct access to the voices, experiences, lessons, and insights of those who built the Namibian State.
Beyond a museum
Public discussion often treats museums as repositories of historical artefacts.
The world’s most successful heritage institutions perform a much broader function.
They educate citizens.
They preserve institutional memory.
They facilitate dialogue across generations.
They support scholarship and research.
They strengthen civic identity.
They help nations understand where they came from and where they are going.
The proposed Center should therefore be understood not simply as a museum, but as a national platform for memory, education, research, leadership development, and public engagement.
While preserving the physical environment associated with the Founding Father and the liberation struggle, the institution would simultaneously create a living space where students, researchers, policymakers, public servants, veterans, and ordinary citizens can engage with the ideas, sacrifices, decisions, and leadership experiences that shaped modern Namibia.
Its purpose is not merely to preserve the memory of Dr. Sam Nujoma.
Its purpose is to preserve the story of Namibia itself.
The Living Conversational archive: The heart of the institution
At the center of the proposed Museum and Living Conversational Center should be its most innovative component: the Living Conversational Archive (LCA).
Unlike conventional archives that primarily collect documents and artefacts, the Living Conversational Archive would function as a continuously expanding national repository of memory, experience, reflection, and wisdom.
It would become Namibia’s permanent national memory bank.
The Archive would systematically record, preserve, digitize, and disseminate conversations with:
• Liberation veterans;
• Former political leaders;
• Diplomats;
• Public servants;
• Traditional authorities;
• Religious leaders;
• Educators;
• Business pioneers;
• Artists and cultural practitioners;
• Community leaders;
• Youth leaders; and
• Ordinary citizens whose experiences form part of Namibia’s national story.
Through recorded interviews, oral history projects, documentary productions, public conversations, academic symposia, leadership dialogues, policy forums, and community storytelling initiatives, the Archive would continuously generate new knowledge while preserving existing knowledge.
Its guiding principle would be simple:
No significant national experience should disappear merely because its witnesses are no longer present to tell the story.
The Living Conversational Archive would transform history from a static record into a living national conversation.
It would preserve not only what happened, but also how it happened, why it happened, and what future generations can learn from it.
Strategic objectives
The institution should pursue five strategic objectives:
Preservation
Safeguarding the documentary, symbolic, cultural, and historical heritage associated with Dr. Sam Nujoma and Namibia’s liberation struggle.
Documentation
Collecting, digitizing, cataloguing, and preserving records, oral histories, photographs, audiovisual materials, testimonies, and archival resources.
Education
Promoting civic literacy, constitutional values, national identity, and leadership development among future generations.
Conversation
Providing a permanent national platform for dialogue on governance, reconciliation, development, nation-building, and public leadership.
Research and knowledge production
Supporting scholarship, publications, policy reflection, and intellectual exchange relating to Namibia’s historical and developmental journey.
Governance and institutional stewardship
To ensure credibility, professionalism, sustainability, and historical integrity, the institution should operate under a robust governance framework.
A Governing Board should comprise representatives from:
• The Sam Nujoma Foundation;
• Members of the Nujoma Family;
• The Ministry responsible for Education, Arts and Culture; and
• The Technical Committee of the Sam Nujoma Foundation.
The Board would provide strategic oversight, institutional stewardship, policy direction, and long-term sustainability guidance.
The institution should further be organized around three core operational units.
Research and documentation unit
Responsible for historical research, publications, oral history projects, educational programmes, and partnerships with academic institutions.
Archive and symbolic heritage unit
Responsible for museum collections, conservation, exhibitions, digital archiving, and the preservation of symbolic spaces associated with the Founding Father and Namibia’s nation-building history.
Living Conversational archive unit
Responsible for oral testimony programmes, leadership conversations, community memory projects, digital knowledge platforms, public engagement initiatives, and intergenerational dialogue.
Together, these units would ensure that the institution functions not merely as a museum, but as a dynamic national center for knowledge, memory, and learning.
A national and Pan-African institution
While firmly rooted in Namibia’s history, the institution should aspire to broader continental significance.
Namibia’s liberation struggle formed part of a larger Southern African and Pan-African struggle for freedom, dignity, and self-determination.
The life and leadership of Dr. Sam Nujoma are inseparable from the histories of Angola, Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, and the wider liberation movement that transformed the region.
The Center therefore has the potential to evolve into a leading repository of Southern African liberation heritage and Pan-African memory.
Through partnerships with universities, archives, foundations, museums, and liberation movements across Africa, it could become a regional hub for research, dialogue, exhibitions, and historical preservation.
Such a role would position Namibia not only as the custodian of its own history but also as a contributor to Africa’s collective memory.
An investment, not an expense
The proposed Center should not be viewed solely as a cultural institution.
It represents an investment in:
• Civic education;
• National cohesion;
• Leadership development;
• Historical preservation;
• Research and scholarship;
• Cultural diplomacy;
• Heritage tourism;
• Knowledge production; and
• Youth engagement.
It can attract researchers, students, tourists, scholars, development partners, and cultural institutions from around the world.
More importantly, it can strengthen the historical consciousness necessary for democratic citizenship and responsible leadership.
Nations that invest in memory invest in continuity.
A statesmanship opportunity
For the Right Honourable Prime Minister, as leader of government business in Parliament, and the entire eight administration, this moment presents an opportunity that extends beyond routine administration.
It offers an opportunity for statesmanship.
Governments are often remembered for programmes and budgets.
Statesmen are remembered for institutions.
Roads deteriorate.
Buildings age.
Policies evolve.
Institutions endure.
The establishment of the Dr Sam Shafiishuna Nujoma Museum and Living Conversational Center would create a permanent national institution capable of serving Namibia long after current officeholders have left public service.
Importantly, this initiative should not be viewed as the creation of a new commitment.
Rather, it represents an opportunity to implement and give practical effect to commitments and policy directions that have already recognized the importance of preserving and institutionalizing the legacy of the Founding Father.
The question before policymakers is therefore not whether a new commitment should be created.
The question is whether an existing national commitment should now be transformed into a lasting institution.
From recognition to implementation
Across the world, nations increasingly recognize that sustainable legacy requires institutions capable of educating, documenting, engaging, and inspiring.
Namibia possesses the historical foundation, the policy basis, and the national imperative to achieve precisely that objective.
The inauguration of the Obama Presidential Center serves as a timely reminder that leadership legacies are strongest when they are embedded within enduring institutions.
For Namibia, the opportunity already exists.
The historical significance is unquestionable.
The national value is evident.
The institutional model is clear.
What remains is the decision to move from recognition to implementation.
Future generations will not judge us by what we intended to preserve.
They will judge us by what we actually preserved.
The establishment of the Sam Shafiishuna Nujoma Museum and Living Conversational Center would ensure that the values, experiences, sacrifices, and wisdom that shaped the Republic remain accessible to generations yet unborn.
It would transform memory into knowledge.
Knowledge into institutions.
And institutions into a permanent national resource for the future of Namibia.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of our employers or this newspaper. They represent our personal views as citizens and Pan-Africanists.
