There is an urgent need to teach our children always to concentrate their mental and physical efforts on each situation they come across and on whatever they have to encounter in their chosen careers.
Seriously, nobody should ever waste their efforts on factors that are beyond their control or influence for that matter.
Yours truly has been following with disbelief and utter disgust comments made on various social media platforms about the composition of our national senior netball team representing the country at the ongoing netball Diamond Challenge.
Let me quickly borrow a phrase from Reinhold Niebuhr:
“God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed and of course, the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.”
Returning to the issue about the composition of the national senior netball team, the Desert Jewels, as the team is affectionately known amongst her ardent followers, it’s a well kept secret that the team does not fully represent our demographic layout.
Truth be told, a significant chunk of the 14 regions are notable absentees, obviously as a result of a significant number of contributing factors. For starters, the game of netball might be very popular at various rural schools but this is where it starts and ends.
There are no properly organized competitive netball leagues in almost all the regions apart from Khomas, Karas regions and to a certain extent, Erongo – thus leaving national selectors hamstrung in a Catch-22 situation when it comes to team selection.
National team selection should never be tribe-coated as such a practice would discriminate against deserving athletes, simply because they are not descendants of a certain tribe.
Unless we talk about transformation, athletes should be selected on merit only, nothing less and nothing more!!. Ooops !!! Interestingly, there seems to be a great element of selective morality when crying out loud for the inclusion of all indigenous Namibians.
Spare me a thought, there are also other sporting disciplines dominated by athletes from the same tribe (boxing, athletics and volleyball a case in point) – yet there are no qualms about the composition of such national teams but when our own kith and kin are notable absentees from other representative teams, it suddenly becomes a tribal issue.
Fellow Namibians, we should aggressively guard against judging events along tribal emotions and affiliation – that’s an extreme path of self-cannibalization.
Yours truly has taken note about this unfortunate nauseating trend that whenever people differ in opinion, some blokes are quick out of the blocks to brandish the tribal card.
Generally, people will always have isolated views on how things should be done but why can’t we address issues of national interest without the tribal theme? I’m just wondering.
Those occupied with tribal tendencies are always quick to label others as advocating tribal interest whenever they do not necessarily share their views.
A quick reminder, action speaks louder than words, tribalism is quite easy to be spotted, people are primarily identified and judged by their circle of friends, those we mingle and associate ourselves with on a daily basis. I rest my case.