By Frederick Philander
WINDHOEK
The cultural pride among Namibians is of vital importance as it will serve as a vehicle of their creative reflection upon their past and present realities as well as an expression of their aspirations for a better future.
This is the view of ruling party MP, Elia George Kaiyamo, who yesterday delivered the keynote address at the launch of the National Digital Archive of Namibian Culture.
The project is a combined one between the Polytechnic of Namibia, the National Archives and the Utah Valley State College in the United States.
“Since Independence, the government has promoted the revival and development of our peoples’ cultural expression and creativity. Preserving our cultural heritage is a challenge that can be overcome by our will and the required resources. In this, government has a crucial role to play,” said Kaiyamo.
He urged that all stakeholders combine their synergies by proactively responding to the challenge of preserving and maintaining the country’s cultural heritage.
“As you know, Namibia is a country that is embedded with a rich history and culture. However, we continue to have deficiencies in terms of digitally conserving well-documented records in our libraries and archives. With this launch, we are taking a great stride in making our cultural information digitally available,” he said.
He also said that the project will ensure the protection and promotion of the country’s cultural heritage in all its manifestations for generations to come.
Dr Tjama Tjivikua, Rector of the Polytechnic of Namibia, sees the launch of the project as a monumental task to look back into history and into the future to preserve the heritage and culture of the country.
“History, language and culture are everyone’s business and, without the intellectual analysis and contextualization, we cannot do justice to our forefathers and -mothers, and our history will be incomplete,” said Dr Tjivikua.
He also said: “In Namibia, the forces of change are seriously threatening our small languages and cultures and even the smaller ethnic sub-cultures. If we do not record and preserve what we have today, our history will be filled with amnesia and holes of misunderstandings.”
In Tjivikua’s view, the spread of Western culture plays a significant part in the decline of many languages.
“Western music and culture are a fact in the lives of the modern and disdain for the traditional, resulting in the abandonment of languages that seem no longer relevant or useful. Indeed, to preserve our culture, there must be the right social structures in place,” he said.
Tjivikua also blamed social demographic and political factors for contributing to the rapid disappearance of many mother tongues.
“Losing this linguistic diversity will be a blow not only for cultural studies, but also for cognitive science. The only option is to record and catalogue these languages and cultures before they disappear for good,” he warned.
“This unique endeavour represents a one-of-a-kind endeavour between two institutions of higher education and select community partners focused on a monumental goal – the digitization of Namibia’s cultural treasures,” said Michael Harper on behalf of the Utah Valley State College in the United States.
What is more significant is the fact that the research and development of the programme is conducted and implemented by undergraduate students from host institutions working together in teams.
“True education happens in applied situations where individuals must solve real problems to get the best outcome. Polytechnic and UVU students working together have the opportunity to do what some only dream of doing. Make no mistake; this engaged experience is no vacation! Hard work and an intense month-long labour-intensive process makesfor exhausting days and sleepless nights,” the American warned.
According to Harper, the goals for this project are simple in nature for such a momentous and arduous undertaking.
“The project has been broken into two primary efforts by both institutions and the preservation of physical artefacts to ensure their longevity, the desire to make available these singular resources to the public. The expectation is to cultivate a more refined understanding and appreciation of the Namibian culture through these tasks,” he said.
“Through the gathering and archiving of select artefacts in the form of photographs, documents, moving pictures and audio, we hope to: preserve characteristics of the diverse ethnic groups, peoples, customs, beliefs, histories, arts, languages, architectural designs, and notable achievements of the Namibian nation, recorded collectively through time; in an effort to transmit these characteristics from one generation to another,” he said of the project to stretch over five years.