THIS weekend many roads would be leading to Omugulu Gwombashe. This historic area is where the first salvos of Namibia’s armed liberation struggle were fired when armed fighters of the Peoples Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), Swapo’s armed wing were for the first time engaged in a military skirmish against the colonial forces.
Everyone who identifies with the struggle of the Namibian people for liberation is expected to at least observe this day in her/his own way, especially for those unable to travel to the place itself. Because in more than many ways the day resembles and represents the aspirations of all Namibians for freedom and liberty, an ideal eventually achieved when Namibia became independent on March 21, 1990.
Thus, observing this Day with the requisite solemnity is all that is required from each.
But Omugulu Gwombashe is only one of the many days of equal and of no less or more status and/or significance in the liberation struggle of the Land of the Brave. Only last weekend a section of the Namibian people converged on Okahandja, for another important historical epoch in the resistance and liberation struggle of the Namibian people.
Such convergence was to pay tribute to the sons and daughters of this country, who sacrificed their all in the noble cause of freedom, liberty, and above all, economic justice and equality.
But unfortunately it as has become the norm due to the hegemonic tendencies within an independent Namibia, only a section of the Namibian people seemed to be observing and paying tribute to the fallen heroes and heroines in Okahandja.
This is despite the fact that Okahandja is factually and historically so, a forerunner, if not the foremost forerunner in the commemorative traditions and trajectories of the Namibian people dating back to 1924, when for the first time survivors of the victims of German Genocide of the Namibian people started a pilgrim thereto on the occasion of the re-interment of the mortal remains of erstwhile Paramount Chief Samuel Maharero.
Thus since 1924, come August 26, or any date close to that on a weekend, Namibian people have been undertaking pilgrims to Okahandja to pay their fallen heroes and heroines homage, and to rekindle their spirits in their ongoing struggle for reparation.
That is why days or epochs like Omugulu Gwombashe, the 1959 Old Location Massacre, the Cassinga Massacre of 1978, The Battle of Ohamakari, the Battle of Otjunda of 1896, the joint uprising of the Ovambanderu and Nama of Gei-/khauan in 1896, the German-Witboois battle of Hoornkrans in 1892, the Samkhubis Battle, the list is endless, if aggregated, have come to fall under Heroes Day.
This means that on Heroes Day we as people do not necessarily commemorate any single battle or historical epoch but a sum total of all these battles and epochs. Thus, in this context there is no way that any of these battles and epochs can and should belong to and be exclusively owned by any singular Namibian but this is a collective heritage and pride of all. In the same context Omugulu Gwombashe thus cannot be the exclusive domain of anyone, and the heroes or heroines thereof, not of anyone in particular but belong to all Namibians.
Neither can anyone one hero or heroine associated with one or the other of these several battles and epochs be less a hero or heroine than the other.
The problem, however, is that somehow and too often than not we do not see it this way, or do not want to see it this way. And one result, like it was the case with Heroes Day in Okahandja over the past weekend, regrettably this was observed by only a section of the Namibian populace.
In fact, given the controversy in which the day has been entangled, the very same people crying over the absence of political officialdom from its commemoration are the very same ones who stand to be blamed. But as much those who present themselves as either political and ideological leaders supreme and otherwise have no excuse whatsoever why they seem to have been ignoring heroes and heroines laid to rest in Okahandja!
This is not to forget, and indeed due regard should be given to the dictates of the historical proximity of anyone to any battle or epoch, which as a corollary define his/her heroines and heroes.
However, this should not be a source of alienation of the rest from such battles and epoch, and to the exclusive claim of the heroes and heroines associated with such battles and epoch by a few. Such battles and epochs are matters of pride for all, and if anyone is alienated, or alienates her or him from a source of such gallantry, then it is axiomatic that she/he cannot identify with and be proud of the act of heroism and achievement. Given this eventuality, because of human nature we tend to seek our own heroines and heroes, sometimes to the extent of fabricating them or even mythologising them.
However, this does not mean that at one time or the other there cannot be national heroes and heroines. One needs not look further than to our colonial resistance-liberation.
This started way back when our great-great grandfathers stood up against German intrusion, resisted German colonialism and subsequently passed on the torch to the generations that carried the banner against Apartheid South Africa’s occupation till the logical culmination of the resistance-cum-liberation struggle into the independence of the Motherland on March 21 1990.
One can thus only give anyone who fails to see the lineage that started from the resistance of the pioneers of the anti-colonial struggle, and ending with modern liberators, the benefit of the doubt and sharpen the teaching of resistance-liberation history in its proper and objective context in schools.
Not only this, but also as we ready to commemorate our heroines and heroes this weekend, it must be the expressed patriotic duty of those ascending the platforms where our resistance-liberation history it to be relayed, to do justice to this resistance and liberation history.
Failure to do this is not only a travesty of the history we so revere but a mockery of the remembrance of those who laid down their lives, among other sacrifices, and a betrayal of the mission.