This article responds to the rebuttal of Mr David Mabuta Kapule on my discourse ‘The Quest for a Paramount Chief in the Zambezi’, in the New Era of 2 September 2022. The half-Namibia-Botswana citizen, currently studying in the United States of America, tries to silence my academic freedom.
The article equally responded to the one on 26 September, ‘Let Academic Freedom be Scholarly’. The latter was a response to a series of diatribic audio clips distorting the origin of the Mafwe, and personal attacks on the author of this article. Mr Kapule as an academician should know that in the world of academia, it is the information which should be questioned, and not the personality of the academician. Whereas I respect his opinion as an academician, I totally disagree with the way he distorted the two discourses penned in the newspaper.
The secret cult audio clips: Mr. Kapule was not aware that his cult was infiltrated and the diatribic audio clips went viral. Whereas the Namibian constitution allows any person to join any association as per Article 21 (1) (e), it is the motive of his cult of undermining other groups and inciting violence in the Zambezi region which is worrisome.
Mr Kapule distorts and misinforms the public by implicating the Mafwe as belonging to ZaNABO, when it is actually his cult.
The secessionist case: In a democracy like Namibia, it is contempt of court when one refuses to appear before a court of law when summoned as a witness. The court sought the history of the Caprivi, and that I did. The question of secession arose, and the response was that only in a referendum is it justifiable as an international legal standard, and not through the armed struggle. The author of this article has been under security agencies and police surveillance since 1985 during the active Swapo days, and it resumed after the 2 August 1999 secessionist attack. One who needs investigation should be Mr Kapule for belonging to a cult which is bent on violating the constitution.
Luyana and Kololo occupation of the region: No amount of denial and distortion will erase the fact that the Zambezi region was part of the Luyana kingdom, and from 1830 came under the Kololo rule (a Sotho faction from the former Orange Free State, South Africa). It is this conquest of the Luyana kingdom which bred the current Silozi (mixture of Sesotho and Siluyana words). When the Luyanas defeated the Kololos in 1864, the region reverted to the Lozi rule until 1 July 1890 with the creation of the Caprivi Strip through the Anglo-German or Heligoland treaty. In this vein, the Malozi and Kololos are not only my darlings, but Mr Kapule included, as he partly originates from Muketela, which is a historical Kololo village, if he knows his history.
Bantu Botatwe sacred theory: This does not only include the Ila, Tonga and Subiyas, but the Mafwe too. The Fwe group is a composition of the Mafwe large group, and speaks a Bantu language called Chifwe. Fwe is a part of the Bantu language family which is part of the Niger-Congo phylum, Africa’s largest language family (Gunnink, 2018). De Luna (2010) places the Fwe in a sub-group called Bantu Botatwe, which consists of two branches. The eastern one consists of Toka, Leya, Ila, Tonga, Sala, Lenje, Lundwe and Soli, while the western branch are Shanjo, Fwe, Mbalangwe, Subiya and Totela.
The denial of Fwe existence: It is insulting to deliberately distort the information of the existence of the Mafwe, and insist that they were created by Kurt Streitwolf, the first German resident commissioner in Caprivi in 1909. Chief Imataa Kabaenda Mamili, the Mafwe chief, was regarded as the paramount chief in this German territory, and his headquarters were the biggest settlement in the Caprivi when Streitwolf arrived in the territory in 1909. It is unfortunate that Streitwolf rejected the proposal of Richard Rothe, a German businessman from Outjo and another German journalist Franz Seiner, to recognise and acknowledge chief Mamili as the paramount chief of the Caprivi. What Mr Kapule fails to mention is Streitwolf assisting his tribespeople to elect a chief between Munyaza and Chikamatondo. The area was ruled by Lozi representatives (Imataa Kabaenda and Mwamba Siluka), and the Subiyas in this case directly fell under Yeta 111 (Litia), the son of Lewanika, whose mother was Ntelamo from Lusese in Zambezi. Ntelamo’s younger sister, Mpambo, was married to Ngambela Namakando Wina, who produced two Zambian first nationalists, Arthur Wina (first Zambian Finance Minister in Kaunda’s 1964 cabinet) and Sikota Wina (first Local Government Minister). From archaeological evidence, the Fwe and Shanjo are connected with the Early Iron Age (EIA), and were the first to split from the Tongas at Lubumbashi (DRC) around 400 AD (Katanekwa 2016).
The liberation struggle: Many Namibians contributed to the liberation struggle, but there are areas which undeniably made enormous contributions like the northern regions. In 1968, the Zambezi region witnessed a period of untold suffering and many people under Mamili were arrested, tortured and killed while others were taken to Pretoria to serve jail terms for supporting the liberation struggle. Whole villages fled into exile, and their children were the majority when the Swapo Primary School was opened.
Oral versus Eurocentric literature: Africa is in a literary dilemma for lack of original literature. Whereas it is true that colonisers misunderstood the African environment, it is equally true that oral tradition is not totally objective. But then an alternative should be found if a scholar disagrees with a Eurocentric view.
The quest for a paramount chief: It is time the people who still harbour such divisive intentions shelf them, and concentrate on development. Mr Kapule may fool all the people some of the time, fool some people all the time, but cannot fool all the people all the time!