Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro
THE issue that has been the subject of exchange between two Namibian leaders and/or personalities in the media makes for interesting reading for various reasons.
The first that boggles the mind is why the issue is becoming a public debate between two people who are supposed to be from the same political formation? Would it not have been appropriate for the two to first internally debate the issue and come to one understanding and/or difference and subsequently further submit the issue for further interrogation and/or discourse by the relevant and appropriate structures of their political formation before eventually opening up for debate publicly? Not that I have anything about the general public being part of any debate. Only that I am concerned as to what is and should have been the natural pathway of having such an issue clarified, expounded and elaborated on, especially when the two people who are seemingly at variance with each other are supposed to be from the same political inclination and/or if not from the same ideological disposition and persuasion. One is not quite sure to what extent this issue has found exhaustion, and even airing and debate within the political formation to which both these personalities belong, before being an issue for public debate which may devalue its importance and criticalness when subjected to what may seem a public gallery for its own sake and the sake, whatever this may be, of the proponents thereof.
I am referring to the issue of citizenship of Batswana of Namibian descent or Namibian-Batswanas or Namibians in Botswana. Call them how you may wish to call them but this may come down to the name meaning the same thing.
If one has to retrace and deposit the being of these fellows in the first place in Botswana, this was for political reasons. Because most of the people we are talking about today are third, fourth to fifth generation Namibians so to speak, meaning people born in Botswana from parents who would ordinarily have been Namibians. In the first place we should look at why they were born in Botswana. That is because their parents fled the onslaught on their parents by Imperial Germany, and a result they were born in Botswana. In view of the fact that their parents did not leave the country voluntarily or on some kind of joyride and expedition but because of Imperial Germany’s war machinery that was unleashed on them one cannot see why and how politically it becomes debatable whether they are Namibian citizens, and what type of citizens they are and/or as opposed to being as this would again denote some privilege while theirs is supposed to be a birthright. And as much as it is even incomprehensible that such citizenship should be upon them invoking it? Ordinarily with the correct political and ideological mind frame, one would have thought these fellows would automatically have become citizens by descent. As much as they are today also Botswana citizens should be immaterial because they have actually been born in Botswana by a sad historical mishap. Thus the choice should be theirs and only theirs without any condition for their being and should ordinarily have been, that is Namibian citizens by descent because had it not been for the historical travesty that befell them and their ancestors, they would have been citizens by birth today. But because they cannot be, the best next they indeed are, can become and should become is citizens by descent. Because their predecessors would have been bona fide citizens of Namibia. Thus it is unfortunate that at this hour when they must reclaim their birthright, our policy makers and advisors seem to be doubtful, undecided and ambivalent in their resolve on such a vexed question of principle. That is why it is incongruous that such an issue has first been subjected if not relegated to the inanimate rigours of constitutionalism without the necessary politico-historical context. Until the time that the political principals correctly apply themselves in the appropriate politico-historical context and perspective from which the matter can justifiably if not justiciably be approached, its rigorous constitutional approach shall remain a “tricky” one to say the least. Not only this but it shall also render our Constitution, hailed the world over as a masterpiece, a hollow and non-living document unable to respond to the needs, wants and necessities of its citizenry.
One cannot actually fault Dr Albert Kawana for his legalistic opinion and/or advice to the Minister of Home Affairs. Neither Dr Ngarikukutuke Tjiriange for his interpretation. But the bottom line is that the matter needs first and foremost a politico-ideological wisdom and principality rather than being premised solely on constitutionalism and legalism. This political principality is that descendants of born Namibians, or would-have-been born Namibians, because their parents, fore-parents and great fore-parents who retreated in the Ovaherero German wars, Nama-German wars, or any other wars, for that matter, and who now have been born outside the country, either in Botswana, South Africa, or any other country, should by any stretch of one’s imagination, wisdom and judgment, constitutionally, legally, politically or otherwise, be denied their birthright and have such called into question. That is the pertinent and most critical question that the country should first and foremost pose and ponder. And by its very nature this is a political question that can only be answered politically and on political principles.
One would at this juncture wish to know whether a precedent and a principle have not already been established with the repatriation of the first group of Batswana Namibians in 1993. The understanding one infers is that there could not be any limit to Namibian citizenship, in this case citizenship by descent. What has changed since then? One would want to know. Or is it a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing, or did? One is only left to wonder and muse what may have been the political understanding with this repatriation? If a precedent and principle had been established in this regard, what has informed the apparent reneging on such? One has been hearing so much about the Swapo Party think tank, is this not a typical issue needing its brains trust?