Swapo President Hage Geingob at the weekend accused young people of driving the tribalism agenda, a worrisome trend that he said will tear the country apart. 

He made the remarks during the Swapo interactive debate titled: “Socialism with Namibian Characteristics” held at the Swapo Party School on Saturday. “Young people are becoming more tribalistic, not the old ones. 

I would have understood if the old ones are becoming more tribalistic because they are old, but the future is becoming tribalistic. 

Which future are they leading us to? Where are you young people taking us? We only have one tribe in Swapo, the Swapo tribe,” Geingob said while opening the interactive debate.

Turning to the ideological debate, Geingob implored young people in the party to study the socialism ideology, saying at independence, the country made a mistake to adopt it without thoroughly studying it. 

“So, comrades, we the leaders made a mistake to adopt this policy without studying it, studying it by looking at the pros and cons and say, ‘yes we are adopting it’. 

However, the policy is in your hands now, how do we go ahead and implement it,” Geingob said. 

Swapo adopted socialism with a Namibian characteristics ideology in 2018. Fishrot accused and former minister of justice Sacky Shanghala last month also wrote from prison, criticising Swapo’s political programme as outdated and comprehensive by design. “Cut and paste of ‘sweet sounding rhetoric’ or the evangelical dislike for private wealth or the continued repetition of expired terminology and nostalgias will not deliver the much-needed development for Namibia,” Shanghala, who is awaiting trial, warned. He said the party also needs to emancipate itself from its trapped existence in the notion that Namibia’s resources are significant when they are but marginal. According to him, economic diversification ought to be the desired objective and with it, the constitutional objects of the Namibian economy of economic growth, prosperity and a life of human dignity for all Namibians will be realised. Social commentator Uazuva Kaumbi, who was also part of Saturday’s debate, said the socialism with a Namibian characteristics ideology will be integrated with lessons learned from international socialist revolutions, as well as the opportunities and threats posed by the new world order and the fourth industrial revolution. “Most importantly, the ideology of the Swapo party as the ruling party, as well as the constitution and the policy instruments of the Namibian government, will constitute key building blocks of socialism with Namibian characteristics (SWNC). Taken together, all these aspects will help to derive a contextually relevant and responsive socialist ideological framework with special characteristics that are uniquely Namibian,” he said.

ktjitemisa@nepc.com.na