A response to Dr. Itula on ancestral land
MITIRI FESTUS U. MUUNDJUA WRITES:
The statement by the learned leader of the independent Patriots for Change, Dr. Panduleni Itula, on Saturday 21st November 2020, is very unfortunate and most flabbergasting.
It clearly separates a dentist from a politician, and came at a time when such a miss-step would definitely cost him a lot of the Ovaherero, Nama and Damara votes. It is a self-inflicted political blunder during an electioneering campaign.
What provoked or advised him to make such a provocative statement? Was it perhaps his newly-acquired white folks who may be funding his campaign and who are the very people who are the owners of our ill-gotten ancestral lands that he denies exist?
One shouldn’t deny the existence of ancestral lands and then go out to those who have lost them to beg for their votes. That is insult, full-stop.
The Dr. has even the audacity to ask, “Where is it?” and goes on to throw out a challenge when he asks, “Can anyone point it out in the Constitution?”
Ancestral land is geo-physical, tangible and visible and in the context of the Namibian ancestral land debate, the names of places within ancestral land areas abound. A few should suffice, like: Okapuka, Okahandja, Ozongoto, Otjihinaparero, Otjozondjupa, Omaruru, Otjihaenena, Otjozohungu, Omataura, Okangondo, Erindi, Otjivingue-cum-Otjimbingwe, Ozondjahe, Otjituezu, and I can go on until the next day.
Dr., if we use the same enumerating principle or approach with regard to the Nama and Damara ancestral lands, you may have to reconsider your denialist statement, if you want to become the next President of Namibia after His Excellency, President Hage. G. Geingob.
The ancestral land issue is not an abstract concept that can be reduced to a line in the Constitution to which you invite "anyone to point it out". You should instead invite the descendants of those whose ancestral lands were taken away and they will tell you exactly where their forebears use to live.
The geo-political areas known as “Okaoko”, in the Kunene Region, and which is the ancestral area of those Ovaherero known as Ovahimba, the area of the Aandonga, Uukwanyama, Aangandjera, Uukwambi, etc., and equally so with the various ethnic groups in Kavango and Zambezi, where they are now or even before, are their ancestral lands.
The original expanse of these areas will today not be as big as they used to be, because of the issue of irredentism that I learnt from one of my professors about the colonial political gerrymandering, but, nonetheless, whatever lands there are in those areas, they are their ancestral lands.
Constitutional terms like “urban, commercial and communal land” also refer to previous ancestral lands, which do not exist in a vacuum and are not “virgin lands”.
Fellow landless, I hope you voted wisely on Wednesday. (Abridged and time reference adjusted. - Editor)
The statement by the learned leader of the independent Patriots for Change, Dr. Panduleni Itula, on Saturday 21st November 2020, is very unfortunate and most flabbergasting.
It clearly separates a dentist from a politician, and came at a time when such a miss-step would definitely cost him a lot of the Ovaherero, Nama and Damara votes. It is a self-inflicted political blunder during an electioneering campaign.
What provoked or advised him to make such a provocative statement? Was it perhaps his newly-acquired white folks who may be funding his campaign and who are the very people who are the owners of our ill-gotten ancestral lands that he denies exist?
One shouldn’t deny the existence of ancestral lands and then go out to those who have lost them to beg for their votes. That is insult, full-stop.
The Dr. has even the audacity to ask, “Where is it?” and goes on to throw out a challenge when he asks, “Can anyone point it out in the Constitution?”
Ancestral land is geo-physical, tangible and visible and in the context of the Namibian ancestral land debate, the names of places within ancestral land areas abound. A few should suffice, like: Okapuka, Okahandja, Ozongoto, Otjihinaparero, Otjozondjupa, Omaruru, Otjihaenena, Otjozohungu, Omataura, Okangondo, Erindi, Otjivingue-cum-Otjimbingwe, Ozondjahe, Otjituezu, and I can go on until the next day.
Dr., if we use the same enumerating principle or approach with regard to the Nama and Damara ancestral lands, you may have to reconsider your denialist statement, if you want to become the next President of Namibia after His Excellency, President Hage. G. Geingob.
The ancestral land issue is not an abstract concept that can be reduced to a line in the Constitution to which you invite "anyone to point it out". You should instead invite the descendants of those whose ancestral lands were taken away and they will tell you exactly where their forebears use to live.
The geo-political areas known as “Okaoko”, in the Kunene Region, and which is the ancestral area of those Ovaherero known as Ovahimba, the area of the Aandonga, Uukwanyama, Aangandjera, Uukwambi, etc., and equally so with the various ethnic groups in Kavango and Zambezi, where they are now or even before, are their ancestral lands.
The original expanse of these areas will today not be as big as they used to be, because of the issue of irredentism that I learnt from one of my professors about the colonial political gerrymandering, but, nonetheless, whatever lands there are in those areas, they are their ancestral lands.
Constitutional terms like “urban, commercial and communal land” also refer to previous ancestral lands, which do not exist in a vacuum and are not “virgin lands”.
Fellow landless, I hope you voted wisely on Wednesday. (Abridged and time reference adjusted. - Editor)
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