WINDHOEK – Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) president McHenry Venaani says Namibians can’t say they are independent when the majority of people live in poverty.
Venaani says that as many have expressed over the years, and which is particularly apt in the current context of the country, poverty is the worst form of violence. In his Independence Day message Venaani said it is not yet Uhuru. Uhuru, a Swahili word, means freedom or independence.
Venaani says in the autobiography titled ‘Not yet Uhuru’, Jaramogi Ajuma Ogina Ondinga, who was a prominent figure in Kenya’s struggle for independence, talks about the fact that even though the chains of colonialism had been broken, his country is not yet quite free.
Venaani says Odinga suggests that the impetus of African nationalism was the attempt to attain human dignity that was granted to a few. “This has immense lessons for us today, as we celebrate political freedom largely without the restoration of the dignity of our people, whether this is in the form of economic liberation or even owning a piece of land in the place of our birth. It can never be said that we are Uhuru when the vast majority – even those clapping and singing today – return to poverty and despair when the music dies down,” says Venaani.
He adds that Namibia must come first, and not politics, especially the kind of politics that simply uses people like voting cattle. “May we learn and practise tolerance and love. May we immediately cease hurting our most vulnerable, especially women and children,” he says.