In 1993 one of the most celebrated scholars of political theory, Samuel Huntington authored an article in the Journal of Foreign Affairs under the title: The Clash of Civilizations. The good old professor hypothesized seminally that after the Cold War wherein nations were pitted against one another along the lines of the ideologies of East and West, the East represented by the then Soviet led Marxist-Leninist system on the one hand and the West represented by the liberal capitalist system led by the United States, the conflicts in the new world were no longer ideological as before, but cultural. He argued that whereas the ideological Cold War was not between nation states per se but between economic interests, in the new world the nation states would assert themselves more strongly culturally and religiously. In more ways than one, Huntington leaned toward the conclusion that the new world would be represented largely by a Western civilization and the Muslim civilization, and agreed with some theorists, such as M.J. Akbar, an Indian Muslim scholar who concluded that the new frontier of international confrontation would come from the Muslim world.
This thesis was given credence on more than one occasion as the major religions in today’s world, Christianity and Islam almost collided. For instance, on 12 September 2006, Pope Benedict XVl gave a lecture at the University of Regensburg in Germany and in that lecture, the Pope made reference to older authors who argued on the efficacies of war in the name of religion, such as the modern Jihad. In his opinion as leader of the Christian world, the Pope articulated a fundamentally Christian doctrine, namely that violence is incompatible with the nature of God. By reference to other scholars, it was not the same with the Muslim faith in so far as the practice of violence in the name of religion is concerned. This lecture angered the Muslim community so much that death threats were made against the Pope, and a Catholic nun in Somalia was killed and several members of the faithful were threatened in different places in the world. The Pope had to apologize to stem the tide of anger and threats of violence. The point is that there is a fundamentalism in the Muslim community which is not matched by an equal fundamentalism in the Christian community. One could safely say that if this reality existed, conflict of the sort that Huntington spoke about would bring about a world war.
Before that, in 1989, another political theorist, Francis Fukuyama Fukuyama, published an essay, The End of History? in the international affairs journal, ‘The National Interest’, wherein he proposed that the collapse of the Cold War after the Fall of the Berlin Wall represented an end point of the history as we knew it. Fukuyama expanded on his theories in a book he brought out in 1992, The End of History and the Last Man. Both these scholars offered theories to assist policy makers plan their affairs in the changing world, anticipating as it were, what was possible in human affairs based upon human experiences in earlier times.
Many people still believe that the lines between Christianity and Islam, unless dealt with honesty that has not been witnessed thus far, could generate the next international conflict. What seems to mitigate the conflict at the moment is the fact that Christianity lacks the fundamentalist fervour that Islam has in many sectors in the Arab world and Afrika, the likes of ISIS in Syria and Iraq and Boko Haram in Nigeria.
Like all nations, Namibia is a country with a civilisation. According to these great minds, a civilisation is a cultural entity, a moment in history when a people in a given territory live and create a history with experiences and narratives which paint a picture of how they lived. Since 1990 when we became a nation, we have a story to tell which is not borrowed from anyone or anywhere – this story gives a composite of who we are, where we came from, what we are about, and in large measures how we shall be remembered. This story does not run a linear line as it includes and involves many players, some originally indigenous, others who join later, and the space fills up with time as more and more people become part of the story. This story includes those who were not born here but who are part of the Namibian experience now and in the future. This is so because Namibia belongs to all who live in it, regardless of when and how they came here, and regardless of the narratives they tell about a very important moment in this ongoing narrative, namely the liberation struggle. The liberation struggle as such is only a part of a civilization, not the whole civilization.
As Namibia evolves, grows and expands, contradictions are inevitable, partly because the nation grew out of contradictions and vicissitudes. In this organic process clashes emerge, as they did and do throughout human civilization. It is out of these dynamic human interactions that the game of politics emerge – that delicate art of managing the affairs of the nation which in turn requires an above average understanding of the human condition and some mastery of the administration of resources, human and material. We have begun to experience some of these clashes, not so much of civilizations but of values and world views that threaten the security and stability of this country. Our clashes are:
CLASH OF THE PAST AND FUTURE: The first clash we have, as we saw from the outcome of the Swapo electoral college election results, is that clash between the past and future. Where the past and future intersects is the beginning of the end, and there are casualties. The Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci warned that such crises consist “precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.’ We can all see the old Namibia dying, yet we cannot see the new one for it is still struggling to come about.
CLASH OF TRUTHS: By their very nature, human beings are rational actors and act rationally most of the time. This rationality proceeds from their perceptions of the truth. As time moves on the memories of the liberation struggle fade, the truth becomes a remote reference and people tend to see the truth as they choose. We already witness how the truth about who the veterans are had been messaged so much so that many people who are qualifying to be called veterans and even receive money for being veterans were nowhere near the struggle. Some so-called veterans were key players in the bogus ethnic homeland administrations with resources to fight against those who were in the struggle. Sometimes, even people who know the truth bend it to suit their own opportunistic political agendas.
CLASH OF BELONGING: In a highly politicized environment, people behave rationally to belong where they feel safe. There have been cases where individuals told untruths about themselves to belong to tribes or ethnic groups simply to be safe politically. This choosing can only be short-lived as it is dependent upon the immediate rewards one receives from such deceptive conduct, and others can see through it right away. No nation or civilization can be sustained by chameleons for a chameleon has no belonging.
CLASH OF RELEVANCE: The Stone Age did not end because there were no more stones, but because the stones were replaced by more relevant implements and machines with which humans solved problems. This applies to leadership in that what was a relevant method of becoming a leader is no longer applicable as a standard. Young Namibians are becoming more and more unimpressed with leadership styles that were relevant in the days of struggle and are demanding more from leaders than it was the case in the past. The youth in the country are unlikely to consider irrelevant leadership styles that could have worked well in the past, but which are running out of context, out of steam, out of shape and put of time.
CLASH OF INDIVIDUAL VERSUS COLLECTIVE: The Afrika that operated by Ubuntu or the collective spirit is fast giving way to the world of individual success. Ubuntu worked well in a context where everybody knew everybody and/or was related to everybody, and whatever one owned was known to all. The moment private ownership enters a community, individuals’ personal bank accounts are not known to all, and people pay taxes according to what they are worth, and Ubuntu collapses. As a matter of fact, Afrikan communities are the most afflicted by the so-called capitalist world. It is the Afrikans who fall prey to the fangs of individualism as they begin to compete for the most meaningless artifacts of success such as who gets buried in a more expensive coffin and who dons the most expensive Brazilian hair. Other cultural communities, for that matter with more resources, treat wealth with more compassion to those who are in need or still to be born. The Afrikan confuses wealth with the old subsistence modes of consuming everything today, now—at the expense of tomorrow.
CLASH OF US VERSUS THEM: The tracks along which we had arrived in an independent nation, be it via apartheid colonialism or the struggle for independence ill-prepared us to be One Namibia, One Nation. Whether we admit it or not, we are still at one another with an attitude of self-righteousness. There are those who believe they are more Namibian than others. There are political leaders who are terminally dismissive of other Namibians by virtue of tribal, ethnic, racial, political party or class membership. This is likely to continue for as long as the nation lacks champions in the form of leaders who put the interests of the country first and others second.
CLASH OF PARTY VERSUS NATION: This is where the biggest problem in the country sits. The nation has yet to produce leaders who can go against the grain of their parochial and sectarian interests and put the interests of the nation above all else. At the moment, and as we enter the elections of 2014, none of the political parties is fit for this purpose to unite the country. We were more united at the time of independence than we are now, so much so that one wonders whether we have national symbols at all at the rate we are hoisting divisive sectarian political party symbols. It would appear as though each party represents a different nation altogether and these nations are at war with one another. The language of campaigning is not that of instilling nationalistic values about a better future for all, but nullification and vilification of other Namibians. The country is crying out for leaders who act in accordance with the values of the nation, not because they love their political parties less, but because they love Namibia more.
Perhaps Namibia needs a Moses – that missing leader who holds his walking staff with both hands and atop the staff is the beautiful National Flag of the Land of the Brave. That missing man or woman who lifts the blue, white, green and red with a gold sun bearing twelve straight rays, inspiring followers to march towards Vision 2030 under the banner which provides warmth, safety and comfort to all citizens. The nation is looking for that leader who can walk in front of us all, his or her one finger pointing to the future; yes a better future, for all! We pray that this happens before it is too late, and before the great foundation that had been laid, crumbles under the weight of political egos and Namibia becomes another banana republic, and a Country That Could Have Been.