Enter Kings – Exit the Republic (Part 2)

Professor Joseph Diescho writes:

Some of the people we have been burying in Namibia at taxpayers’ costs would not pass the test as the best representatives of what we as a nation hold dear, and which can inspire the young people to emulate in their own lives.

Worse, we go to the extent of telling lies in state funeral speeches just to polish up the lives of individuals.

It is both important and necessary for us as citizens to be honest about our own contribution, big or small or none. We are still citizens of the Republic and can still make a contribution.

In other words Namibia did not stop to exist on 21 March 1990, but became a sovereign nation which demands the same from all and gives the same to all as citizens and residents who play by the rules of the Republic.

We need not lie about who and where we were, and what we did; otherwise we deny those who were not born at the time to contribute as agents and agencies of change and development in their time. After all, the future belongs to those who are not yet born.

For all intents and purposes Namibians suffer from a chronic inferiority complex which manifests itself in the scramble for recognition.

State funerals have become a habit like the dishing out of fake and honorary doctorate degrees by our universities for fundraising purposes, leaving our leaders parading around with bogus doctoral titles. It is silly!

Many leaders in the world have been recognised with honorary doctorates by many universities but they do not walk around as “Doctor This” and “Doctor That”.

Nelson Mandela had over 300 such doctorates but refused to be called “Doctor Mandela” on a daily basis. Obama is a recipient of over a dozen honorary degrees, but he is not “Doctor Obama”. Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma, Cyril Ramaphosa, Joseph Tshabalala of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the late Hugh Masekela, Bill Gates and many personalities were honoured by universities but they are not called “Doctor” at every function because they have respect for the university tradition and are comfortable in their skins without these bogus titles.

But in Namibia almost every person close to power is a doctor or will be soon, or wants to be a hero. This has become a sick culture to the extent that many people in the public service have lied about their degrees, and nothing happened to them. One day the youth will demand their own respect as real graduates who laboured to get their qualifications.

The whole business becomes degrading of what is meant to be high recognition for contribution to what we can become. It becomes cheap and meaningless and separates the political elites from the masses they are supposed to serve.

People now go to state funerals as a business - to be seen to be loyal. Like singing other peoples’ anthems and hanging other peoples’ flags, it waters down the meaning of a Republic and the idealism of One Namibia, One Nation under One National Flag with One National Anthem.

There is not one European state that flies the European Union flag in national offices. They cherish their sovereignties. This absence of a national identity must cause us to pause, regroup and ask ourselves some tough questions about who we are and where we are going - and as what.

Dishing out degrees and state funerals degrades and desecrates what is otherwise meant to be recognition for contribution to society through knowledge or service.

The university ceases to create knowledge and the State House ceases to be a sacred place.

Namibia has become a theatre of the ridiculous—where we do things for no reason whatsoever.

Our ladies go shopping and tune themselves to travel long distances to appear to mourn people they have never heard of before. State funerals are a carnival of state power, a jamboree to exhibit who is who.

This national behaviour simply waters down the meaning of sovereignty or a Republic.