Never in the post-colonial history of Namibia has one seen our law enforcement agencies on such high alert, as eager, willing and daring to strike as with the current posturing in anticipation of July 31.
In fact, one can but wonder why and whence this new-found vigour?
Equally, one cannot but wonder why such a state of high alert against a section of the citizenry, who have not yet committed any crime by any definition. All that these citizens are doing is to put a pertinent issue of their livelihood and the cost of living on the country’s political agenda.
Truth is the land question and the attendant issue of housing, which is inextricably linked to land access and its affordability, has long been on the political agenda of this country. Indeed, it’s been an issue for as long as the nation-state, referred to as Namibia, has been in existence (25 years now).
The once-in-a-lifetime National Land conference of 1991 seems to have done no more and no less than putting a lead on land. Never would one have thought this conference took such important resolutions until this year with the emergence of the Affirmative Action (AR) movement shaking the government from its long slumber on the land question.
It is in this, if the only respect, that one cannot but give the AR youth activists due credit. The issue seems, at last, to have been catapulted to the top of the political agenda.
To many political principals, and the propertied classes, the actions of the AR proponents have been seen less as civil protest by legitimate and bona fide citizens, but rather as a criminal acts by an unruly bunch on whom the full force of the police may be unleashed, including the army.
Hence, the brinkmanship, as opposed to law enforcement, but somehow one detects and suspects the police may be offing themselves. One hears that the government is now seized with the matter and it needs time, despite having sat on the case for 25 years.
But whether it is sincere this time around and genuinely needs time, the onus is still on the government to communicate this. Certainly, if the AR has reason to trust the government, then what many doomsayers are predicting and expecting, can be proven as just a figment of their doomsday imaginations.
One cannot but muse about the signals and message, as well as precedent our political principals would really be creating in regard to other lobby groups with pressing issues. Are they telling us that the AR’s way of direct action and civil disobedience is the way to go?
And why should other pressure groups not see AR’s way as the way to go if for so long they have been crying about their own plight and pressing problems, while their cries have fallen on deaf ears?
One of the most disturbing evils in this society is gender-based violence (GBV), but never has one seen our political principals show such political will to address the scourge.
Namibian society has become an unsafe in most (if not every) respect, because of rampant criminality, but never has one seen our law enforcement agencies so eager, willing and daring. Yet with land and property they are ready to act, and it is not too difficult to understand why…
Land in this country is not owned by many Namibians, but by foreign guests and sojourners. Thus, when we talk about land and the need to protect it, it is all about protecting the property of non-citizens.
Can Namibia’s citizens then be blamed for feeling – and rightly so – alienated, propertyless and unprotected in their own country? Can people be expected to be hospitable when they have been left to rot away in miserable poverty?
Can they be blamed if they conclude that they cannot expect much protection from law enforcement agencies, whose pre-occupation, as it is now transpires – and one fears – is the protection of foreign landed interests?
AR has been accused of positioning itself to take over land, but whose land?
One vexatious problem in this country is stock-theft, but never has one seen the authorities showing so much concern about this matter, simply because this is only of concern to non-consequential peasants in the rural areas.
Never have the police been poised to flex their muscles against stock-theft, a crime that has been eating away at the hearts of impoverished people in the rural areas.
Cattle rustlers have been roaming these areas, freely expropriating the weak of their meagre possessions, a few livestock. But one has yet to see any fortitude, political will or otherwise from the police and our political principals in this regard.