Duminga K. Ndala
On 4 February, the Landless People’s Movement (LPM) celebrated its third anniversary in Keetmanshoop. The celebration was a reminder of our commitment to the cause of social justice, human dignity, and political transformation.
It reflected our journey of fighting high-level corruption, self-serving selfish administrators, radically conscientizing our people, and more importantly giving hope to the downtrodden, marginalised, and young people. It is important that young people remain at the forefront to raise critical debates and venture into telling the inconvenient truth to the seemingly watchers of this nation, for the betterment of all in society. This is good for democracy.
The youth should always be at the forefront of critical conversations in society and promote intellectual dialogues. We should not become part of the corrupt, unethical quakes in our society. We should not allow them to be subsumed in their criminal rings masquerading as holy business personalities. Those parasitic scums of earth thrive on human miseries and despair. As LPM Youth Command Element, we assumed that rent seeking is the mark of traditional societies and that it disappears as polities become more institutionalised and democratic, but we were sadly proven wrong.
Assuredly, three decades of political independence has not produced practical economic outcomes for the masses of the downtrodden but well-fed politicians and well-connected intellectuals who are very vocal about the importance of independence. In the comfort of their plush offices, they manufacture self-serving illusions of progress but in reality, they are the only ones who are experiencing the so-called progress. For the poor masses or the so-called voting-cattle, progress is only experienced in the form of slogans crafted by cunning, urban-based intellectuals camouflaging under party think tanks and rich politicians.
These unprincipled intellectuals, most of the time seeking party bosses’ attention, and proximity to underhanded procurement deals, forgot what Amilcar Cabral said as he warned us that, we must “always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone’s head. They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children.” Namibia has one of the highest inequality rates in the world as a result of colonialism, unequal distribution of wealth, continuous plundering of resources and economic sabotage by the ruling elite. This has led to a high unemployment rate, income inequality and wealth inequality, astronomical poverty, and rural economies underdevelopment. The Fishrot saga is one of the many cases in Namibia, which has revealed grand corruption in the country and has proven that “some animals are more important than others” as George Orwell rightly put it in his book, Animal Farm.
Therefore, it is high time that we rise to the occasion and defend what is rightfully ours.
We should not allow greedy politicians to steal from us. We should not allow old politicians to dictate the terms of our future. Former African National Congress (ANC) president Thabo Mbeki in the aftermath of the local government elections in South Africa, where the ANC recorded a low vote and lost out almost in all the metros warned that 2021 results represented a “reversal for the progressive movement and a significant advance for right-wing forces.” He attributed such a reversal to “factionalism, infighting, corruption, self-enrichment, incompetence, lack of implementation of agreed upon policies, strategic plans and service delivery programmes.”
The dilemma that the governing party in Namibia is faced with-incompetence, arrogance, corruption is valuable lessons for us and pitfalls to avoid and learn how such can reverse gains and lead to unpopularity. Once a reputation is damaged, it is difficult to rebuild and rebrand it. We should not fall into such traps.
Today, the ruling party faces not just a legitimacy crisis: but they are also facing a relevance crisis. Our immediate task should be to recommit ourselves to our strategic plans and decisions taken collectively at important policy gatherings of the movement, such as at the annual general meetings of LPM Councillors Forum. We must continue to remain steady and committed to the core values of the movement and fight for the true economic emancipation of our people, in our lifetime, and restore our people’s lost dignity.
Lastly, as Thomas Sankara once said, “our revolution is not a public speaking tournament. Our revolution is not a battle of fine phrases, but our revolution is and should continue to be, the collective effort of revolutionaries to transform reality, and to improve the concrete situation of the masses of our country.”
*Duminga K. Ndala is the Lead Youth Commander of the Landless People’s Movement Youth Command Element (LPM-YCE)