American Novelist Flannery O’Connor once said, “The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” It seems as though the recent hullaballoo around the proposed Third Constitutional Amendment Bill and the reckless utterances by the naysayers is a classic example of intellectual rumination syndrome.
The masses, who are highly susceptible to coercion and deception, have become the rats, following the Pied Pipers of Doom and Gloom down a path they do not know except for the deceptive and sly propagandists that are at work. Since they are usually too busy getting drunk, gossiping about everything from who got what tender to gay lists, engaging in anti-social and delinquent squabbles on social media, most of our citizens do no take time to read, educate themselves and make informed decisions on some of the pertinent happenings of our time. They therefore end up looking like pitiful buffoons, standing outside Parliament with placards that contain messages most of them can’t even articulate. Some out of desperation, decide to form political parties that can at best be described as Julius Malema cheerleading organizations.
The fact of the matter is just like President Barrack Obama exclaimed in front of raucous crowds in November 2008 that, “Change has come to America,” so similarly change is coming to Namibia. And that change is coming in the form of the sole SWAPO Party Presidential Candidate, Dr Hage Gottfried Geingob. Similar to the rise of Obama in the United States of America, there is some hardcore, sometimes frightening resistance to this change. The vitriol that is often used when describing our Prime Minister is similar in vulgarity and disrespect to what Obama has had to endure at the hands of radicalized right-wing Republicans who claim that they have to “Take Our Country Back.” It has prompted many to say from whom and for whom.
Similarly some of the local citizenry are struggling to hide their disdain for the Prime Minister, whom they feel represents something different from the status quo. Various academics, politicians, civil groups with backing from their economic handlers, have carefully crafted a campaign to discredit the Prime Minister and paint a picture of him that they hope will remain in the psyche of the masses come election time and even during the post-election aftermath. Just like right-leaning media houses such as Fox News in the USA constantly try to portray Obama as a leftist, communist, dictator even a terrorist so similarly certain individuals and their stooges in the local media who masquerade as journalists and political analysts are desperately and frantically trying to portray our Prime Minister as an extravagant, arrogant, corrupt friend of the Namibian bourgeoisie who if left unchecked will run the country into the ground. Their shear irrational logic, probably caused by the drunken stupor induced by their hatred for Dr Geingob, does not allow them to see that this is the only man at the moment who represents that light at the end of the tunnel for all Namibians, not only those who have shamelessly been riding on the gravy train since the final lowering of that despised flag of the old South African Regime. In America, where President Obama is seemingly always fighting with his back to the wall, conservatives and right-wing commentators have made a concerted effort to deceptively link any and all negative events to him and his administration. They blame him for Benghazi, the IRS fiasco, unemployment, the situation in Syria and most recently, Republicans have moved forward with a plan to sue him for his executive orders.
Then there is the incessant ranting and raving about the Affordable Care Act which has been provocatively called Obamacare. And that is where I want to go back to the Constitutional Amendment Bill. Similar to President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, the Constitutional Amendment Bill has been met with an unprecedented level of derision which sometimes borders on sheer insanity and incoherence. Those that are behind these attacks try to mask their true intent as concern for the future of the country, meanwhile their intentions are motivated by their dislike for the individual. In the USA it is Obama and in Namibia it is Geingob.
There is an eerie parallel in the unrelenting attack on the character and integrity of these two leaders. In the United States, conservatives have drawn caricatures of Obama, depicting him as Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. To the average person these attacks seem childish and spiteful but if you look deeper, this is a careful ploy used by those who want to assassinate the character of an individual. Hitler and Lenin are two of the most hated individuals in American history. I am sure there are some places in the USA where Lucifer would receive more love than these two. One represents the Holocaust which is one of the vilest episodes in human history and the other represents the formation of that great Cold War nemesis, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
So to compare Obama with these two is to induce a feeling of resentment, anger and hatred in the American people. Similarly, certain newspapers are seemingly suffering from a Hage Geingob bashing fetish. They constantly depict the Prime Minister in the form of a caricature that is hammering away at democracy, making cynical statements while draped in expensive garments with gold chains and gold rings and jetting off in a plane all at the expense of the poor. They also blame him for everything under the sun such as the dire state of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs), youth unemployment and the Struggle Kid phenomenon, underperforming Permanent Secretaries and the state of Health and Education in the country. And let us not forget, one newspaper’s favourite picture of the Prime Minister in Brazil. All of this is a ploy. To try to make the Prime Minister unlikeable. But why? The fact is that Hage Geingob represents a change. It is not simply that someone from another tribe is about to assume the mantle of power but he is a foreshadowing of a much larger change which is about to sweep across Namibia. We are about to enter an era in which like he says, “No Namibian Should Feel Left Out.”
To some individuals, this is unsettling and frightening. The Politics of the Belly that has served them so well is under threat since someone else is about to put a spoon in the pot. A big spoon. An all-inclusive spoon. Therefore, like fish in a drying pool they will engage in all sorts of acrobatics to stay alive. These include painting a false picture of a man.
Many have asked which models artists such as Michelangelo used when painting pictures. They used relatives, friends and family of course.
That’s why Jesus is always painted as a white man. Therefore these people who try to paint a false picture of the Prime Minister are actually reflecting themselves, their friends and their families, not the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is no dictator. The constitutional amendments being proposed are aimed at the betterment of the State. They are aimed at making the leadership of the country all inclusive. However, the naysayers don’t want to see this or even admit to it. Just like the right wing extremists in America can’t see beyond Obama’s complexion, some people will do anything to maintain a status quo that has served them well so they must fight tooth and nail against change. Whether in the USA or Namibia, these propagandists are able to succeed because they play on the ignorance and fears of the masses, stoking up the flames of confusions and reveling in the suffocation caused by the resultant smoke of deception.
However, we shall not fall for these pitiful and desperate ploys. Whether they are being construed by journalists, political analysts, neo-Leninists, uninformed masses or Julius Malema drones.
Our eyes are wide open in the darkness. And there is a light at the end of the tunnel. That light is Geingob.
Proud Namibian