Shafa Kaulinge
There is a difficult conversation Namibia must begin to have with itself. Not a comfortable one, not a politically convenient one, and certainly not one that can be reduced to party politics, race slogans or the usual post-independence excuses. It is a question of what happens to a society when the formerly oppressed inherit the institutions of power, but not always the moral, administrative and emotional discipline required to transform them.
Magezi Baloyi’s work on black self-hatred in South Africa is useful because it forces us to look beyond the visible symptoms of underdevelopment and into the psychological condition beneath them. His central argument is that colonialism did not only dispossess black people materially. It also damaged how black people see themselves, each other, their cultures, their institutions and their own capacity to govern, build and sustain. That argument travels uncomfortably well into Namibia.
The Namibian version of this problem is not simply black-on-black violence in the physical sense. It is often more bureaucratic, more passive, more subtle and more socially acceptable. It appears in the government office where a black citizen is treated as a nuisance by a black official paid to serve them. It appears in the professional workplace where black competence is undermined, not always by whites, but often by fellow black professionals threatened by excellence. It appears in the tendency to frustrate, delay, belittle and obstruct the very people whose progress should be seen as collective progress.
This is where the article in The Brief on being “educated, yet unkind” becomes highly relevant. It argues that emotional intelligence is not merely politeness but the ability to understand oneself, manage one’s emotions and recognise the effect of one’s conduct on others. In the Namibian workplace and public service, this gap is not a soft issue. It is an economic issue. A hostile official, an insecure manager, an arrogant administrator or an indifferent professional can delay investment, destroy morale, frustrate entrepreneurs and weaken public trust.
Namibia’s tragedy is that we often speak of development as though it is only about roads, ports, oil, green hydrogen, mines and logistics corridors. But development is also institutional behaviour. It is how quickly a permit is processed. It is how respectfully a citizen is received. It is how seriously a young entrepreneur is treated. It is whether a public servant understands that their desk is not a throne but a service point.
This is where regressive economic development begins. Not only in policy failure but also in attitude failure.
A country can have resources and still regress if its institutions are emotionally immature, administratively weak and psychologically hostile to its own citizens. Namibia’s unemployment rate was recorded at 36.9% in 2023, while broader unemployment, including discouraged workers, was reported at 54.8%. Youth unemployment and labour underutilisation remain especially severe. These are not just numbers. They represent a society where access, opportunity and institutional responsiveness are matters of survival.
And yet, how often are ordinary Namibians made to feel small in offices that are supposed to assist them? How often do citizens walk into public institutions already expecting humiliation, delay or indifference? How often do capable black professionals leave institutions, companies or even the country because their competence is treated as a threat rather than an asset?
This is not liberation. It is the recycling of colonial behaviour through black faces.
The postcolonial state can easily reproduce the psychology of the colonial state when power is understood as domination rather than service. The uniform changes. The office bearer changes. The flag changes. But the citizen still stands outside the door, waiting to be acknowledged.
Lazarus Jacobs has, on various occasions, captured an uncomfortable Namibian truth: we are often quick to celebrate status, titles and proximity to power, but far slower to cultivate the character, discipline and generosity required to build a serious society. That is the missing link. We have produced educated people, but not always formed people. We have produced officeholders but not always institution builders. We have produced professionals, but not always public-minded citizens.
The mistake would be to blame everything on colonialism and apartheid. That history is real. It shaped land ownership, capital accumulation, education, language, confidence and institutional architecture. Namibia remains one of the most unequal societies in the world, with World Bank material describing Namibia as among the world’s most unequal countries. But historical explanation cannot become permanent moral exemption. At some point, a people must ask, ‘What are we now doing to each other?’
That is the hard question.
Why do some black professionals reserve their sharpest contempt for other black people? Why is a white investor, consultant or applicant sometimes received with more urgency, patience and courtesy than a black Namibian entrepreneur? Why do we often treat foreign validation as superior to local competence? Why does black excellence so often have to be over-proven before it is trusted?
This is the Namibian expression of internalised inferiority. It is not always loud. It does not always announce itself as self-hatred. Sometimes it wears a tie. Sometimes it sits behind a government desk. Sometimes it speaks fluent English. Sometimes it calls itself “procedure” when it is really insecurity, laziness or contempt.
The deeper issue is institution building. Namibia has inherited institutions, but we have not sufficiently transformed institutional culture. We have ministries, agencies, boards, regulators and public enterprises, but too many still operate through personality, discretion, patronage and delay rather than systems, standards, accountability and service. That is why capacity building cannot only mean sending people to workshops. It must mean building habits of excellence.
Capacity building must answer practical questions. Can this office process applications on time? Can this ministry communicate clearly? Can this agency explain its decision-making criteria? Can this public enterprise retain skilled people? Can this regulator support investment while protecting the public interest? Can this government employee understand that the citizen is not begging but exercising a right?
Without that, Namibia’s oil, gas, green hydrogen and mining opportunities may enrich a few while leaving the country institutionally underdeveloped. The danger is that we mistake resource discovery for national development. They are not the same. Oil can expose weak institutions just as easily as it can finance strong ones.
There is also a cultural laziness we must confront. The laissez-faire attitude toward the needs of others, especially by those with some education, income or official status, is becoming socially corrosive. Too many people appear unmoved by the frustration of others. Emails go unanswered. Files disappear into offices. Calls are ignored. Meetings produce no action. Citizens are sent from one desk to another. Entrepreneurs are made to wait months for decisions that determine whether they survive.
This is not merely inefficiency. It is a form of social violence.
A society does not only collapse when people fight in the streets. It also collapses when people stop caring about the dignity of those standing in front of them.
To be clear, the argument is not that black Namibians are uniquely defective. That would be false, unfair and analytically lazy. The better argument is that Namibia carries the psychological injuries of colonialism and apartheid but has not built sufficient post-independence systems to heal, discipline and redirect those injuries toward nation-building. The result is a contradiction: a country politically free but often administratively indifferent, economically unequal and socially suspicious of its own talent.
The way forward must be more than slogans about unity, empowerment and transformation. Namibia needs a new ethic of black self-respect that expresses itself through service, competence and institution building.
Self-worth must mean that we stop humiliating our own people in public offices.
Self-worth must mean that we stop undermining black professionals because their competence makes us uncomfortable.
Self-worth must mean that we stop treating local entrepreneurs as chancers while foreign consultants are treated as experts.
Self-worth must mean that we build institutions that outlive personalities.
Self-worth must mean that public servants understand that dignity is not something citizens must earn at the counter. It is owed to them.
This is where decolonisation must become practical. It cannot only be about statues, language, curriculum and symbolism. It must also be about how we answer emails, how we treat applicants, how we mentor young people, how we process permits, how we build companies, how we respect time, how we discipline incompetence and how we reward excellence.
Namibia does not suffer only from a shortage of money. It suffers from a shortage of institutional seriousness.
And perhaps that is the most painful truth. We cannot build a modern economy on wounded egos, hostile offices and weak systems. We cannot speak of industrialisation while humiliating the very citizens who are trying to industrialise. We cannot demand investment while our institutions frustrate initiative. We cannot preach black empowerment while black professionals and entrepreneurs are casually denigrated by those who should be opening pathways.
The next stage of Namibia’s liberation must therefore be internal. Not inward-looking in a narrow or tribal sense, but inward-looking in the moral sense. We must ask what kind of people we are becoming with the power we now hold.
Because the true test of liberation is not how loudly we condemn the past. It is how differently we treat each other now that we have inherited the future.
