Last Word On The ‘Herero Mall’

JOHN Maynard Keynes famously opined: ‘When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do Sir?’ Admittedly, I would have changed my mind on the Herero Mall if a more compelling case had been made in the crescendo of SMSes, as well as Barney Karuuombe’s bulky response in defence of it.

To begin with, Karuuombe is wide of the mark by referring to the fine philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah as “the great Pan-Africanist”. I am uncertain if Karuuombe read Appiah, but Kwame never claimed nor does he adhere to Pan-Africanism.In actual fact, Appiah provides a meticulous critique on Pan-Africanism in his seminal book, ‘In my Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture’.Returning to the main thread, the reasons why this Mall should not exist in its current form are not only sociological or political, as argued in my earlier apposite comments, but they are also legal.As Freud famously noted, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.Regardless of the colourful interpretations that Karuuombe and company tried to give to the Mall; the truth is that we are left with drawing sharp analogies between the Herero Mall and the infamous Guantanamo Bay where alleged terrorists are taken by the US government for interrogation.Guantanamo Bay exists, perhaps with good intentions, but we certainly can’t define or justify its status in international law.As such, this erodes those good intentions.Similarly, Karuuombe is implicitly advocating the dim view that community members can occupy any open space in the city, start activities, business or cultural and consequently argue that it is for a good purpose.Worse, Karuoombe does little to convince us why the Soweto market (where I usually get my haircut from tate Shikongo and buy Herero bread), or any other site demarcated for SMEs are not suitable.Depending on the storyteller, the result as to what people think the Mall is, especially the position of those who frequent the place will reflect the triumph of expediency over substance.On that score, Karuuombe accuses me of a “cursory analysis” of the place.Yet, even if I was to confess that I have a frog-eye view of the Mall, the methodology Karuuombe employs to build his case is extremely flawed.Evidently, a sample that is not representative, i.e.interviewing selectively those who frequent the place, do business there, would make a lax researcher arrive at wobbly conclusions.What about residents who are exposed to the noise, inconvenienced drivers who have difficulty using the adjacent roads etc? For Karuuombe to find out from patrons and vendors at the Mall about what they thought of my column, reminds me of Dracula being in charge of the blood-transfusion service! Additionally, the open space used as the Herero Mall is supposedly zoned for institutional purposes, i.e.schools, clinics, NGO offices etc.Karuuombe did not get to the facts in his “research” and I don’t think that as an “advocate” of participatory development, he would have difficulty with that space being used for these reasons.On many occasions, he tries to debunk my assertions, but actually confirms them through thick contradictions.As a case in point, while he tries to argue that the Mall is open to all Namibians, imposing the name ‘People’s Mall’ in the process, he confirms inadvertently or deliberately a few lines later that the place is used for Herero cultural meetings, discussions on issues affecting Hereros and so on.In an interview with Reuters, David Kabala, a car-wash worker in Kibera (Kenya’s poorest slum) where white tourists make organised visits said the following: “They see us like puppets, they want to come and take pictures, have a little walk, tell their friends they’ve been to the worst slum in Africa”.In Karuuombe’s framework, similar photo opportunities and pity visits by white tourists to the “Mall” (without being a Mall) serve as positive validation.Therefore, what is mostly irritating is that he unsuspectingly falls into the same bourgeois romanticising of poverty and misery.Moreover, if I have to speak as a Herero and Namibian (two of my multiple identities), the Herero Mall is the result of conjuncture and does not pass into our cultural or national tale.Hereros don’t need a degrading “Mall” in a capital city to discuss issues; they do so with dignity, informally or formally at funerals, weddings, cattle auctions, or village indabas etc.In my first column on this subject, I argued that we should perhaps see the Mall as a protest movement for the dispossessed.However, the question of its existence does not fit into the kind of mythical and emotion-laden stories that we try to apply to our experiences at the Herero Mall.The least we can do is not to defend the existence of the Mall as Karuuombe inappropriately does, but to demand government or the Windhoek City Council to create better entertainment facilities or more business incubators.Seemingly, Karuuombe has the ear of patrons and vendors alike at the Mall.He would do well to mobilise for a better facility, either at the same space or elsewhere.I chose Ropongi in Tokyo, Japan deliberately, because here is a society which succeeded in fusing cultural and moral values with the workings of a developed world class economy.Therefore, moving from certain ways such as hunting with knopkieries or, as Karuuombe does; chilling with the Omakura (peer circumcision groups) at the Herero Mall (in a City) around a fire and with a pot of meat does not make us less in tune with our Herero-ness.Culture as a social construct is dynamic and being Herero should be reasoned beyond such banalities.In a multi-ethnic state like ours, divided by apartheid as a generic form of colonialism, the communitarian temptation exists and perpetuates itself, albeit differently and for dissimilar reasons in our post-colonial condition; hence the perverted invention of a ‘Herero Mall’ 17 years after independence in the capital city.As Namibians we should guard against becoming reclusive and framing issues in exclusively communitarian or tribal frameworks.Cities must be places where we integrate and see developmental challenges in broader terms.My claim is not one of being more cosmopolitan, but to argue the case for ethical cosmopolitans as presented persuasively by Appiah in his offering, Ethics of Identity.Because to conclude, if there is one solid lesson to learn from Karuuombe’s essay; it is that we should desist, unlike our Karuuombes, from the overzealous tendency of putting everything into erroneous cultural and nationalistic narratives.Most importantly, I hope that the Herero Mall will have a happy ending for the people of Katutura, its conversion or closure.* Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari is a PhD fellow in political science at the University of Paris-Panthéon Sorbonne, France.He is currently on a research internship at the UN Headquarters.I am uncertain if Karuuombe read Appiah, but Kwame never claimed nor does he adhere to Pan-Africanism.In actual fact, Appiah provides a meticulous critique on Pan-Africanism in his seminal book, ‘In my Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture’.Returning to the main thread, the reasons why this Mall should not exist in its current form are not only sociological or political, as argued in my earlier apposite comments, but they are also legal.As Freud famously noted, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.Regardless of the colourful interpretations that Karuuombe and company tried to give to the Mall; the truth is that we are left with drawing sharp analogies between the Herero Mall and the infamous Guantanamo Bay where alleged terrorists are taken by the US government for interrogation.Guantanamo Bay exists, perhaps with good intentions, but we certainly can’t define or justify its status in international law.As such, this erodes those good intentions.Similarly, Karuuombe is implicitly advocating the dim view that community members can occupy any open space in the city, start activities, business or cultural and consequently argue that it is for a good purpose.Worse, Karuoombe does little to convince us why the Soweto market (where I usually get my haircut from tate Shikongo and buy Herero bread), or any other site demarcated for SMEs are not suitable.Depending on the storyteller, the result as to what people think the Mall is, especially the position of those who frequent the place will reflect the triumph of expediency over substance.On that score, Karuuombe accuses me of a “cursory analysis” of the place.Yet, even if I was to confess that I have a frog-eye view of the Mall, the methodology Karuuombe employs to build his case is extremely flawed.Evidently, a sample that is not representative, i.e.interviewing selectively those who frequent the place, do business there, would make a lax researcher arrive at wobbly conclusions.What about residents who are exposed to the noise, inconvenienced drivers who have difficulty using the adjacent roads etc? For Karuuombe to find out from patrons and vendors at the Mall about what they thought of my column, reminds me of Dracula being in charge of the blood-transfusion service! Additionally, the open space used as the Herero Mall is supposedly zoned for institutional purposes, i.e.schools, clinics, NGO offices etc.Karuuombe did not get to the facts in his “research” and I don’t think that as an “advocate” of participatory development, he would have difficulty with that space being used for these reasons.On many occasions, he tries to debunk my assertions, but actually confirms them through thick contradictions.As a case in point, while he tries to argue that the Mall is open to all Namibians, imposing the name ‘People’s Mall’ in the process, he confirms inadvertently or deliberately a few lines later that the place is used for Herero cultural meetings, discussions on issues affecting Hereros and so on.In an interview with Reuters, David Kabala, a car-wash worker in Kibera (Kenya’s poorest slum) where white tourists make organised visits said the following: “They see us like puppets, they want to come and take pictures, have a little walk, tell their friends they’ve been to the worst slum in Africa”.In Karuuombe’s framework, similar photo opportunities and pity visits by white tourists to the “Mall” (without being a Mall) serve as positive validation.Therefore, what is mostly irritating is that he unsuspectingly falls into the same bourgeois romanticising of poverty and misery.Moreover, if I have to speak as a Herero and Namibian (two of my multiple identities), the Herero Mall is the result of conjuncture and does not pass into our cultural or national tale.Hereros don’t need a degrading “Mall” in a capital city to discuss issues; they do so with dignity, informally or formally at funerals, weddings, cattle auctions, or village indabas etc.In my first column on this subject, I argued that we should perhaps see the Mall as a protest movement for the dispossessed.However, the question of its existence does not fit into the kind of mythical and emotion-laden stories that we try to apply to our experiences at the Herero Mall.The least we can do is not to defend the existence of the Mall as Karuuombe inappropriately does, but to demand government or the Windhoek City Council to create better entertainment facilities or more business incubators.Seemingly, Karuuombe has the ear of patrons and vendors alike at the Mall.He would do well to mobilise for a better facility, either at the same space or elsewhere.I chose Ropongi in Tokyo, Japan deliberately, because here is a society which succeeded in fusing cultural and moral values with the workings of a developed world class economy.Therefore, moving from certain ways such as hunting with knopkieries or, as Karuuombe does; chilling with the Omakura (peer circumcision groups) at the Herero Mall (in a City) around a fire and with a pot of meat does not make us less in tune with our Herero-ness.Culture as a social construct is dynamic and being Herero should be reasoned beyond such banalities.In a multi-ethnic state like ours, divided by apartheid as a generic form of colonialism, the communitarian temptation exists and perpetuates itself, albeit differently and for dissimilar reasons in our post-colonial condition; hence the perverted invention of a ‘Herero Mall’ 17 years after independence in the capital city.As Namibians we should guard against becoming reclusive and framing issues in exclusively communitarian or tribal frameworks.Cities must be places where we integrate and see developmental challenges in broader terms.My claim is not one of being more cosmopolitan, but to argue the case for ethical cosmopolitans as presented persuasively by Appiah in his offering, Ethics of Identity.Because to conclude, if there is one solid lesson to learn from Karuuombe’s essay; it is that we should desist, unlike our Karuuombes, from the overzealous tendency of putting everything into erroneous cultural and nationalistic narratives.Most importantly, I hope that the Herero Mall will have a happy ending for the people of Katutura, its conversion or closure. * Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari is a PhD fellow in political science at the University of Paris-Panthéon Sorbonne, France.He is currently on a research internship at the UN Headquarters.

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