Twenty six years after the attainment of Namibia’s glorious political independence, the nation is at a point where it should now know its full national interests and the values that undergird its policies. The infrastructure and education, healthcare, safety and security, commerce and trade, and international relations systems and policies must be in service of these idea(l)s.
This week President Hage Geingob unveiled a litany of high-sounding ideals about this, that and the other. In all fairness there is nothing to disagree with. However, it is very difficult to figure out what is next! It will certainly be increasingly difficult for policy makers, programme designers and strategy implementers to discern which of the parallel agendas to execute as they move forward.
The President deserves praise for his pan-Africanist spirit, but one wonders whether his team was aware that Harambee is in Kenya’s (official) coat of arms and that it is not helpful for the Namibian Head of State to champion another country’s mantra as an inspiration of his own development agenda.
There are definitely Namibian indigenous words to carry the President’s spirit as he stewards Namibia forward – not Harambee. The same goes for the other parts of the Harambee Prosperity projects, including the Solidarity Wealth Tax, the Ubuntu Tax, and the Food Bank that is supposed to be manned by unemployed youth.
Not much of this is a fault of the President. The problem is older, bigger and far more profound and elementary: it is about the absence of clear concepts and definitions of the kind of society we want to create as Afrikans in general and Namibians in particular. In plain words we lack a coherent vision as a collective compass into our desired non-racial, not sexist future.
Our problem is that we lack a national philosophy or ideology of who we are, where we come from, how we got here, where we want to go, and what we have at our disposal to execute the task of socio-economic emancipation as the promised fruit of our political freedom.
We keep dancing around and around the now extinguished fire of freedom, going nowhere very slowly, until even the cold ashes have been blown away by the wind and we start blaming other people for our own failures. And we turn against one another.
We do not have a real game plan. In fact, no sub-Saharan Afrikan country has developed a real game plan for its future, and when a few leaders tried to truly uplift their people out of the rot of underdevelopment and inferiority complex, they were removed unceremoniously. The last of such leaders to meet this fate was Thabo Mbeki of South Africa with his African Renaissance and call for new modes of thinking about Afrikan problems, challenges and opportunities.
Some of our leaders remain hostile to their own people and loathe those with new ideas. We cannot afford to increase handouts, as we render our citizens more dependent on the State. This becomes a vicious cycle of dependency and a new form of enslavement and fear-filled culture.
There must be new and different ways of thinking about ourselves, our freedom, and this starts with the people as the most precious resource. People, who live here now and in the future, must have a sense of where they belong, what they do and how they can participate in making Namibia bigger and better so that there are more people to make our economy functional, productive, self-reliant and competitive.
Infrastructure and other developments serve people, not the people infrastructure. Development must start with the people – not their roads, what they eat and wear, but who they are and how to relate to one another. This fundamental ideology is lacking in post-colonial leaderships in Afrika.
Here is what it means: In the beginning was the word. Form follows concept. Structure follows strategy. Before Michelangelo created the statue of David now situated in Florence, Italy, he first had a huge block of raw marble only. Out of this piece of earth he created a beautiful piece of human-like sculpture as he envisaged it. Through many months of arduous process using chisels, he chipped away at the marble until what he conceived in his imagination came into view.
The narrative of the making of the statue of David goes to say that Michelangelo was so committed to sculpting a beautiful image of the hero, David, that he hardly slept and ate, and when he did sleep, he did so in his clothes and boots so as to not to waste time when he had to resume his work.
The history of state formation in Europe generally, and the United States of America in particular, shows that the leaders who crafted the current states and nations were very clear about the future communities they wanted to leave behind.
Afrikan nations on the other hand appear to have been created in the wrong image and in the wrong likeness – the oppressive ruler who has internalised a falsehood that his greatness and leadership was due to his being unlike the rest of his people, or those whom he purportedly led. Post-liberation Afrikan leaders in sub-Saharan Afrika think they are the only ones who never waiver under difficult circumstances and who have to be worshipped by the rest – at all times.
The construction and reconstruction of nations and states cannot be divorced from the evolution of concepts of equality, democracy and the relationship between the state and the society. Political scientists, such as Charles Tilly, saw the process of constructing a functioning state parallel with the emergence of specialised personnel, the taking into control of a defined and consolidated territory which is permanent, durable within clearly defined borders, and wherein people have loyalty to permanent institutions, not individuals, with an autonomous state that wields a monopoly of power over its people.
A nation state comes about once the following criteria are satisfied: (a) a political settlement reflecting the explicit and/or implicit agreement amongst its members about the rules of the game and where distribution of power and political processes connect the state and the society; (b) the state has the capacity and responsiveness to provide essential services to the voters; and (c) societal expectations and perceptions are articulated legitimately by the people and heard by those in authority and power.
For the smooth running of the state, the operators must come from within and must possess autonomy to function organically. When external actors conduct such operations and reforms, such entities are referred to as failed or fragile states – like the majority of Afrikan states.
It would appear that the problem with post-independence Afrika is that some Afrikan elites or leaders who have taken over governance of the formerly colonised nations have not been able to define for themselves what types of nations they wished to replace the subjugated entities they inherited from essentially three sets of situations: (a) citizenries that emerged out of disparate pre-colonial communities that were subjects of their feudal traditional patters of authority and forced for purposes of control, administration and extirpation into unnatural bordered taxable communities; (b) the people who found themselves as administered nations never really accepted their oneness, even though they united in the fight to shake off colonial rule; (c) the fight against foreign rule never translated into an internalised ethos of governance based on equality, human rights and the rule of law, as was the trajectory of the European revolution.
It is this context that causes writers like Professor Raymond Suttner today to argue that there is no connection between (the struggle for) liberation and ethics.
Afrikan leaders, with very few exceptions – like Nelson Mandela – do not see their nations above their political parties. Namibia is no exception, where our identity is defined along the lines of what political parties we show loyalty to, not our birthright as citizens.
This week we saw how the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa chose to put the political safety of the ruling party above and at the expense of the nation when it rallied unanimously behind President Jacob Zuma. This is the consequence of the lack of a clear definition of what the nation and its interests are.
There must, therefore, be a new determination to create new communities that would live with new rules and in accord with the social contract.
We need to develop a new personality in Namibia in the likeness we wish that person to be and to function meaningfully in the community near and far. The New Deal is not in opposition to the current government, but a proposition of a new way.
The New Namibian Personality proceeds from the following:
The Right Attitude to Equality/Give and Take: Namibia is our land. It belongs to all who live in it, all races and all language groups. Independence came by compromise – there was no winner and no loser. We are all equal as citizens, by birth or by choice.
A New Language of Inclusivity: With thanks to those who did so much, without even knowing, that we would one day enjoy our unenviable peace and stability, our language ought to be more inviting than exclusive, and by which we acknowledge one another and give credit when and where it is due, knowing that it is easier to destroy than to build.
Ownership: All stakeholders must have the readiness to have ownership of both the dialogue and its outcome. We have a government that was elected by the people and our ‘fights’ with government have to bear cognizance of the fact that governments are there as the will of the people. We might not like some or all the officials, but they are the leaders now and we owe them a duty of respect and care.
A New Sense of Patriotism: A matter such as land falls within the ambit of dealing with difficult issues under the rubric of national interests with a new sense of patriotism, which is different from the combative struggle-mode to dialogue and futuristic attunement of our skills and competencies towards a common good. No one is at war with any other.
A War against Homelessness: Poverty eradication is a pipe dream in any society, no matter how rich. Poverty is, unfortunately, a permanent human condition. A better and more realisable goal is to have a country where all have a decent space to live with dignity and self-respect. Organs of state ought to be readying themselves to provide shelter for the people in all the regions so that the pressure on the cities is lessened.
Rural Development: While Namibia is still small and young, bias should be towards rural development, by which more resources and infrastructure are channeled into rural Namibia to make most people’s places of birth attractive to work and live, and not just return to for burial.
National Service for two years and Youth Skills Development: Idle youth is a dangerous ticking time bomb. In addition to free and compulsory education up to college level, there ought to be a post-high school national service programme for the youth, for two years.
Enforcement of Minimum Wage: All work has value, including serving in restaurants. All people who work sell their labour, for which they must earn a minimum wage. People go to restaurants to eat, not to pay salaries. For purposes of peace and stability the use of car guards must be stamped out and shopping malls be compelled to provide safety and security on their sites.
Public Transport System: Namibia is vast. A better public transport system must be created and administered to link all the nodes for easy movement of people, goods and services. There is already a good public roads system to build on.
Relaxation of Immigration Laws: The current immigration laws are too prohibitive for rapid investment and development. Namibia’s population is too small to buttress fast economic growth towards Vision 2030. A deliberate immigration mechanism that would facilitate smoother absorption of special annual quotas of 10 000 Afrikans, 2 000 African-Americans (1 000 of whom would be deployed to teacher training colleges to teach the English language) and 200 Germans, who wish to make Namibia their home and grow the economy, with special incentives for economic growth and expansion in rural Namibia.
Corporate Citizenship for the Private Sector: Entrepreneurs and investors who create employment and wealth through legitimate businesses, and who are environmentally considerate, must be protected as corporate citizens and they in return partake in the enterprise of growing the national economy for the benefit of all. A true and sustainable public-private-partnership (PPP) is in the national interest of the country!