RUNDU – Late Founding President Sam Nujoma was one of the rare individuals who came to earth with exceptional gifts and talents, academic Joseph Diescho asserted.
“In the providence of God, there are people who come to earth with rare gifts and talents, and one of them, for our purposes in Namibia, is Tatekulu Shafiishuna Nujoma,” he stated at a memorial in Rundu on Saturday.
Nujoma, he said, walked ahead of a nation not yet born, giving it a name at a time when it had none, which instilled in Namibians the courage to think about tomorrow.
“I join the multitude of people both in Namibia and beyond our borders who are celebrating this illustrious son for what he meant to us here in Namibia and the world,” he added.
Diescho first met Nujoma 40 years ago when he was a graduate student at Columbia University in New York, and he was taken to him by his political teacher Theo-Ben Gurirab.
“We are summoned this day by our collective griefs, beckoned by a national agony of death, and we realise that the hand that holds the master key has once again turned that key clockwise, and withdrawn from amongst us a very illustrious son of the soil who had a big dream, who walked ahead of the nation that was not yet born, and exemplified and epitomised courage at times when it was not easy to think ahead, to plan ahead, and have the rectitude and fortitude to love and think for others. The providence of the hand of God has removed from amongst us Tatekulu Sam Nujoma, whom we are funeralising today,’’ Diescho said.
The Namibian nation, he added, will always remember Nujoma for how he made them feel when he struggled to gain access to the world’s platforms to represent Namibia at a time when the country was still unknown.
“You cannot quite appreciate how difficult it was for Nujoma to knock on the doors of countries such as Algeria, Egypt and Indonesia, lobbying for support to liberate this country,” he continued.
Many times, these nations had not even heard of Namibia, but Nujoma would humbly tell them that Namibia was a small country next to South Africa.
“It was not easy, but Nujoma ploughed ahead, moved ahead, marched ahead and represented Namibia to the extent that it too is now a little piece of international law,” Diescho said.
The professor said there comes a time when people need to pause as they did on Saturday, “not to cry, not to lament, not to mourn, but to celebrate the illustrious life of the extraordinary human being, that of Nujoma”, by which they were blessed by the fact that he lived amongst them, he dwelled amongst them, and he taught amongst them.
“In a moment like this, we pause to remember, if you permit me, the words of one of the most celebrated African-American writers by the name Maya Angelou, who wrote – ‘People will forget what you said, will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel’. So, today we remember how Tatekulu Nujoma made us feel, when he struggled to enter portals of the world to represent us at the time when we did not have a name, at the time when our world was symbolised by hopelessness, restlessness, helplessness and meaningless,’’ he said.
A great deal has already been said about the larger-than-life persona called Nujoma, he stated.
All he could do was amplify and punctuate the essence of Nujoma in the lives of the people he impacted.
“At times like this, we call to mind what we know about what Nujoma did in the world. At times like this, we call to mind not the mistakes, the errors and the shortcomings that he was accused of. At times like this, we call to mind not his weaknesses, and yes, at times his angry words of admonition by which he taught us to love ourselves more and more deeply,” he noted.
In many of these encounters, Diescho remembers how Nujoma was always the teacher, and he the student of politics.
He likewise expressed gratitude to the 72-member committee, calling them the founding fathers and mothers who drafted Namibia’s Constitution, which he described as second to none.
-Additional reporting by Nampa