ONE cannot but help thinking and concluding that increasingly Namibia is becoming a country of intolerant, politically righteous and correct elements, a situation that at best seems to have been veering toward paranoia.
One is compelled to come to such a conclusion listening and noting some trivialities but which seem to unduly catch and enjoy media headlines, attention and coverage, even becoming topical issues such as the recent visit of members of the Economic Freedom Front (EFF) as guests of the Namibia Economic Freedom Front (NEFF). Such visits did not impulsively invite all kinds of reactions and comments, most of which seemed to border on political intolerance and immaturity but had all the hallmarks of paranoia.
These invoked such arbitrary and drastic measures such as the barring of bona fide Namibians and their honoured guests from visiting Heroes Acre’, a national shrine which is supposed to be open and accessible to all and sundry, including local and visiting guests whatever their socio-economic, political and even cultural hues.
Provided this is in keeping with the sanctity of the shrine, and those visiting it show and bestow the necessary honour and respect befitting those who have been laid to rest there.
However, for some worrisome and ominous reasons, the NEFF and their South African guests did not seem welcome at the shrine.
And the reasons are too obvious and glaring if ghastly. One would not want to contemplate and even imagine how many different elements, even some of them racist and fascist, may not already have been visiting this shrine without the jealous guardians of our public shrines uttering a word, or blinking an eye.
But the visit of the guests of the NEFF seemed to unduly unleash some verbiage as well as provide an opportune channel for some pent-up political anger.
And for the visit of guests whose political ideas and ideals could hardly be put on the same pedestal in terms of their undesirability or security riskiness to the Namibian democratic order. This is compared to other ideologies, political, religious or otherwise, perpetuated by old age racists and fascists, now repented to become the ardent nationalists and patriots.
And the best patriotism they have been possessed of and with is contaminating our Namibian backyard with archaic ideals and ideologies all meant to maintain the status quo, inherited from the Apartheid colonial capitalist era.
Most of these elements are today masquerading and are celebrated as “comrades” and “business personalities par excellence” thereby finding comfortable sojourn in once radical movements.
The barring of NEFF members and their guests from Heroes Acre was not the only embarrassing showmanship of our much celebrated democratic disposition lately, but attendant to this was the unwelcoming hospitality to which these guests were subjected to by our immigration authorities, having to spend hours at Hosea Kutako International Airport before they were eventually allowed to enter the country.
All of a sudden these guests seemed to be a different hybrid of citizens of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), who should be and seemed to be subjected to selective immigration requirements other than those pertaining normally. And as if this is not enough, the visit and contacts between of one these guests and Mandela Kapere, an old friend, political, ideological and simply platonic, never mind, seemed a critical issue.
Once again a clear sign of the precipice of political paranoia Namibia is edging towards if not hovering on. But such signs of paranoia have long been coming and may not have been confined to certain authorities and individuals only.
One of the organisations that should maintain high integrity, the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN), at one point seemed to compromise its integrity in the pretext of administrative dillgence, dilly-dallying in the approval of the application for registration of NEFF.
Not only this but when eventually approved NEFF apparently had to shed the title of Commander-In-Chief, a title sacrosanct to its organisational structure, if not politico-ideological disposition.
What the objection to the title of Commander-In-Chief exactly may have been remains a matter for conjecture as much as senseless as it seems.
But should the rationale be it is because Commander-In-Chief may only refer and be used by the Commander-In-Chief of armed forces, who is the Namibian President, then what a frivolity to be coming from an institution like the ECN.
Not to mention the fact that various organisations and instances have the title of President while our Head of State is also President! Has such in anyway denigrated from the Office of the Presidency of the country?
Your guess is as good as mine. But those are the signs of the times of the political paranoid we seem to live in and by. If at one point or the other we do not treat these signs of paranoia, we are fated to wake up one day in a country of political schizophrenics. And schizophrenia is not a easy ailment to arrest or treat.
A few years ago such a schizophrenia seemed to have affected the management and policymakers of the University of Namibia, manifesting itself in the prohibition of staff members occupying any political office, or high profile political office, as it may have been.
At the time such a policy seemed to be particularly targeted at two of the Swanu of Namibia leaders, current president, Usutuaije Maamberua, and their Secretary General, Tangeni Iiyambo. Whatever may have been the closure to this it has recently started to become evident that there may never have been a closure to such constitutional blindness on the part of Unam’s policymakers.
As recently we have seen something almost along the same lines rearing its head.
A recurrence of Unam’s old schizophrenia this time in the form of the barring of political campaigns from campus. Does it mean students who are among the youths whose participation in the upcoming elections, as all and sundry, including ECN and political parties, have been harping on and chorusing, do not now deserve the benefit of such campaigns?
Funny how schizophrenia affects the good judgment of those in power and authority.