Enter Kings - Exit the Republic (Part 1)
Professor Joseph Diescho writes:
A few weeks ago, while the nation was preparing to bid farewell to one of its better-known traditional community hereditary leaders, Tatekulu Omukwaniilwa Immanuel Kauluma Elifas, one citizen pulled a sick prank on social media by pretending to communicate a national message from the good Office of the Prime Minister that all Aandonga in the public sector be given this public holiday to commemorate their King.
The prank was a Freudian slip given where Namibia is in relation to its core national values that assist the nation to cohere as one. At the moment we are not sure whether to go forward as a Republic or go backwards as tribes distinct from one another and whether people’s ultimate loyalties go to their traditional and hereditary rulers or the Republic.
If anything, the farewell to Tatekulu Elifas reminded us that we are a country wherein the past and future have not made peace yet. The old is dying and the new still yet to be born.
Namibia as a Republic exists only on paper. In reality the citizens are trapped in the politics of a liberation struggle of old, only this time there is no foreign colonial ruler.
Namibians were closer to becoming One Nation when there was an external enemy. Now we are all trapped in the politics of perpetual transition without a Moses to point us to the Promised Land, if there is one at all.
Our political leaders, especially those who speak in the name of the governing party SWAPO, are totally unable to move out of the idioms of divisive, dismissive, self-righteous and mean-spirited suspicions and hatred that characterised the liberation struggle politics of "Us versus Them".
Our political leaders are without Big Dreams about the future for all, and therefore wholly unable to immigrate out of the old SWA into a free Namibia. They are by and large businessmen in government, hell-bent on serving themselves and their families at the expense of the Namibian child - black, coloured, white or other.
SWAPO as a once respected liberalisation movement is now a clearing house for politically connected politico-preneurs and influence peddlers who camp in SWAPO not because they admire the values, ethics and idealism of this organisation that shaped our identity and brought us national independence. The party´s membership, not to mention senior leadership, is a right-of-passage to personal self-enrichment.
In the scramble for power in order to get richer, our national leadership had turned to mundane and ephemeral things like funerals to show-off their power and to extract approval from the people to win elections. It is in this context that in Namibia state funerals are being dished out literally like school leaving certificates, whether one passed or failed matters not.
In mature democracies there is a decorum that determines who in the life of the nation is deserving of such an honour and expensive exercise, which is technically reserved for those individuals who served as Head of State.
In Namibia, there are no clear criteria and standards, and it is the result of the President’s knee-jerk reaction to grant whomever he wishes or lobbied to grant a state funeral.
A few weeks ago, while the nation was preparing to bid farewell to one of its better-known traditional community hereditary leaders, Tatekulu Omukwaniilwa Immanuel Kauluma Elifas, one citizen pulled a sick prank on social media by pretending to communicate a national message from the good Office of the Prime Minister that all Aandonga in the public sector be given this public holiday to commemorate their King.
The prank was a Freudian slip given where Namibia is in relation to its core national values that assist the nation to cohere as one. At the moment we are not sure whether to go forward as a Republic or go backwards as tribes distinct from one another and whether people’s ultimate loyalties go to their traditional and hereditary rulers or the Republic.
If anything, the farewell to Tatekulu Elifas reminded us that we are a country wherein the past and future have not made peace yet. The old is dying and the new still yet to be born.
Namibia as a Republic exists only on paper. In reality the citizens are trapped in the politics of a liberation struggle of old, only this time there is no foreign colonial ruler.
Namibians were closer to becoming One Nation when there was an external enemy. Now we are all trapped in the politics of perpetual transition without a Moses to point us to the Promised Land, if there is one at all.
Our political leaders, especially those who speak in the name of the governing party SWAPO, are totally unable to move out of the idioms of divisive, dismissive, self-righteous and mean-spirited suspicions and hatred that characterised the liberation struggle politics of "Us versus Them".
Our political leaders are without Big Dreams about the future for all, and therefore wholly unable to immigrate out of the old SWA into a free Namibia. They are by and large businessmen in government, hell-bent on serving themselves and their families at the expense of the Namibian child - black, coloured, white or other.
SWAPO as a once respected liberalisation movement is now a clearing house for politically connected politico-preneurs and influence peddlers who camp in SWAPO not because they admire the values, ethics and idealism of this organisation that shaped our identity and brought us national independence. The party´s membership, not to mention senior leadership, is a right-of-passage to personal self-enrichment.
In the scramble for power in order to get richer, our national leadership had turned to mundane and ephemeral things like funerals to show-off their power and to extract approval from the people to win elections. It is in this context that in Namibia state funerals are being dished out literally like school leaving certificates, whether one passed or failed matters not.
In mature democracies there is a decorum that determines who in the life of the nation is deserving of such an honour and expensive exercise, which is technically reserved for those individuals who served as Head of State.
In Namibia, there are no clear criteria and standards, and it is the result of the President’s knee-jerk reaction to grant whomever he wishes or lobbied to grant a state funeral.
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