Over the past few months we have seen the rise of social evils in our beloved country and down to the core we have nothing more to blame than our attitudes. The attitude of the Namibian is alarming. Firstly have we asked ourselves why there has been an escalation in Gender Based Violence and passion killings? In general the attitude of men is that they are superior. The fact of the matter is that society has failed in its role to produce progressive citizens, we have forgotten and done away with the philosophy “It takes a village to raise a child”. Parents have failed in their roles to nurture their children into dealing with emotions. We have a broken youth. A youth that is uncertain and who doesn’t want to deal with emotions in the right way. Not so long ago the media reported that Namibians spend a large portion of their income on alcohol abuse and yet we still ask ourselves what we are doing wrong.
Now that these social evils have prevailed, we have turned to our leaders for solutions and yet we are the most indecisive nation and we are psyched to criticise. Firstly our leaders come forward and addressed the issue at hand. Cabinet sat and came up with 13 different decisions to try and combat the national hitches we were facing. As we are defined by our nature to disparage and oppose whatever the government throws at us. Firstly we saw how the Namibian Newspaper Editor wrote an editorial which by the way for the first time in a long time was front page. He decided to take out the president’s call for a national prayer day and to fight the issue on a spiritual level. He’s arguments were around the secularity of Namibia and how this call defies the Constitution. He also made it seem as if this was the only solution brought to the table. Firstly the President didn’t say that only Christians should pray, which by the way makes up 90% of our religiousbackgrounds, as a matter of fact we will not go against Muslims if they pray or Buddhist if they meditate on that particular day, we actually would like to see that take place. In general it’s a call on all religious groups and spiritualists to fight this together on a spiritual level. The essence of this was to get the country to quiet down for one day and fight this on a spiritual level which is needed. The question we should ask ourselves is, with this attitude will we be able to combat the issue at hand. If we are already going into the fight with an opposing attitude just because we relish criticising and opposing the government. Because of this attitude no matter what initiative the government comes up with we will just oppose and therefore we won’t holistically approach these issues.
Another matter that has disturbed me the past month is the reasoning behind the killings on social networks. There has been tribalistic statuses and post on social networks. The general posts revolve around the tribe of the men who commit gender based violence and where they hail from. This type of mindset to me is still very colonialist. We need to start accepting that colonialism has passed and we need to change our mindsets and become nationalistic and work together to fight this social evil.
It’s vital for the development and systematic progression of our country that we start changing our attitudes and mindsets. We need to start acknowledging our similarities and that which we have in common and finally accept our differences and move pass that. If we oppose that which the government suggest we are bound to fail in the fight against these dying issues. I do hope that the gender based violence conference which is soon to be held under the leadership of the Office of the Prime Minister invites and acknowledges all the relevant stakeholders so that the nation can have their input in the solutions and policy formation towards combating the social evils.
In conclusion it is the mutual responsibility of the whole country to work together and fight the drastic societal concerns facing us. Only if we recognise that which we are doing wrong and change upon that, then we can fight this and win the fight. “United we stand, divided we fall and together we shall rise again.”
Shaandre Finnies is a first year BA Media Studies and Politics student at the University of Namibia (Unam) and currently serves as Deputy Speaker of the 4th Session of the Children’s Parliament, Namibia’s representative at the 2nd Commonwealth Youth Parliament for Africa, AngraPequena S.S.S Ambassador 2013/2014 and Pan-African Namibian Youth Leader.