Do they really care?

By Jefrey Shapange

In Africa and Namibia in particular, politics is has become about individual interests before the masses can receive any benefit. Whoever tries to question the status quo is labelled as having ill-discipline or lacking respect.

The status quo will resist and will try to remain unchanged while many of our citizens continue to wallow in poverty. The opposers of the status quo are sometimes beaten to keep silent. They want to scare and sue us. They are plotting injustices against us, but they will never kill us. It's sickening to see what has become of our rights? Are we invisible because we do not exist or because they just choose to stubbornly ignore us? Their proclamations have promised us liberty, but nothing is happening. We are tired of being the victims of shame every time. They're throwing us in a class that has a bad name and one wonders if this is the land from which we have come. The government does not want to see us opposing its decisions, even if they are wrong.

But if we are to reverse time, we would know confidently that if Ya Toivo was the president, he wouldn't let this be. Some things in life just don't need to exist at all. If we would reverse the time further, we would again take pride in knowing that if Mandume Ya Ndemufayo was alive he wouldn't let the status quo to continue unchanged.

Paraphrased in the famous, “all I want to say is that they don't really care about us” song, one would point to the current events in the present-day Namibia. The decisions of those in high office favour their pockets and their families under the pretext of 'peace and stability'. They keep on blaming colonial oppressors and refuse to take blame for their own mistakes. The colonisers may have had their flaws and they lived up to them, they didn't shift their failures to others like we have been made to believe. Again, if B. J. Vorster was alive on this very day, it wouldn't have come to this. Colonisers are turning over in their graves, their names viciously being used as the reason for the poor sanitation and poor housing Namibia faces many years after their departure from the face of the earth. It's a shocking shift in blame. The oppressors are now the reason the Cabinet was expanded to an incredible number, with some officials not really knowing what their task is. Oppressors are now the reason that rhino poaching continues to be on the rise.

All these shifts in blame have done little in repairing the wounds of our country instead, they have divided the youth into groups; puppets, bootlickers and the radical ones (who are labelled as peace destabilisers). The puppets are being promised jobs and high ranks for singing choruses. These bootlickers are living fancy lives, claiming to be hard-working and disciplined, while they actually betray and sell out their own country. They are being awarded tenders and they sell them to their sex partners, namely the Chinese and other Asians, who drain the country to its very core.

We have also seen incredible budget cuts because the country is perceived to be broke. This whole catastrophe happens while the partners of those in high office continue to steal from the country. These disciplined chorus singers are the reason why the partners want to employ people of their nationalities only, in our country, while our own brothers and sisters are jobless. This group of the youth that always want others to fail and disciplined, instead of helping them. These are the people that wouldn't be living if Adolf Hitler was still in power. These are the people Swapo guerillas would have killed during the liberation struggle.

The known peace destabilisers are being sidelined; they are not fortune enough. They are always seen as bad ones. These are the people that are never given a chance to express themselves. These are the group of people that have this nation at heart. These are the people running up and down donating to their brothers and sisters in need, but the state-owned television find it useless - they never broadcast such events, they are more interested in broadcasting the SPCA donating cats, which are now a concern at the main Unam campus in Windhoek. Yet, these people are the one destabilising peace, and are very disrespectful.

Initiatives are being brought to the poor nation to manipulate them. Agreements are being signed to benefit the two parties, but not the nation. After all this, we should be brave enough to question certain things without fear of expulsion. For instance, what happened to the money meant for the struggle kids? What happened to Kora Awards money? What happened to Food Bank? Mbuae, what is happening? If Kandara was alive, then we would know. If Anton Lubowski was alive, these wouldn't happen. If Phil yaNangolo was the president, then these questions would be less. However, if a person who truly understands our struggle becomes president, a lot of the so-called disciplined chorus singers will pack and Namibia will be able to stand on its own two feet again.



*Jefrey Shapange is a student in the Faculty of Education at the University of Namibia. He authored the book 'Wining Hearts and Minds'. He also serves as secretary for external affairs and acting vice-president of the SRC.