Perspectives On Politics And Class In Namibia
By: Alexactus T Kaure
LOOKING around Africa today, one sees societies torn apart by two kinds of polarisation: class and ethnic conflict. Call them ‘stomachtocracy’ (what Bayart call the ‘politics of the belly’) and ‘ethnocracy’.
Both have been the root causes of many civil wars that have led to the creation of weak, soft and failing states on the African continent. Although the two are crucial in our quest to make sense of African politics, there has been paucity about the discussion of class in much of the popular literature, not only here in Namibia, but elsewhere in Africa. Much of the discussion has, on the whole, focused on the ethnic question. But this is perhaps understandable because most conflicts and wars on the continent have been conducted on the terrain of identity politics. Most African politicians play the ethnic card to stay in power. And unfortunately the masses don’t realise that they are being duped – they don’t understand that their interest are different from those of the elite even if they happen to come from the same tribe. Why? The masses have no sense of its own identity and are not politically consciousness of its own interests. It is only when that consciousness develops that this group would be transformed from being a class ‘in itself’ to a class ‘for itself’. Now because of the under-developed nature of our society, sociologically speaking that is, most of our people think that the main problem confronting them are ethnic in nature forgetting the central issue which is the daily struggle for economic survival.
So, it’s important that we bring the issue of class and class struggle back in our discussion. It is not just something that should be mentioned in passim but has to be central in how we understand contemporary Namibian society in its varied and complex dimensions – its racial, ethnic, religious, gender and, of course, its emerging class dimension and composition. Because class inequality is not only bad for the individual who have to endure the exploitation and the poverty associated with it; it’s also bad for the overall well-being of the country and society at large. A class and polarised society is inherently unstable and is a recipe for underdevelopment.
This might help to explain why after a good 21 years into our independence all we are seeing is the yawning inequality in the Namibian society leading to a sharply divided nation of ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. This is not what we promised our people.
What we promised our people was to imagine a country with no poverty. With no one who sleeps under bridges, no one looking through garbage for food. On the contrary: everyone would have what you or I would call a decent home and a decent standard of living. I am paraphrasing John Baker from his excellent book here: Arguing for Equality.
That was the battle cry and rallying point of the liberation movement before independence. The 1976 Swapo Constitution, for example, called for a balanced and classless society after independence.
But when independence came, they made a total u-turn and adopted and accepted the capitalist agenda in toto. The Swapo ruling elite didn’t commit a ‘class suicide’ – the notion that once in power the elite would implement socio-economic projects and programmes that would benefit the majority of their population. This didn’t happen as we realise retrospectively. Class far from being economically determined, it is now politically created – the superstructure have become determinant. Most Government policies are now geared towards the economic interests of the elite. Take the example of BEE (Black Elite Enrichment). Well, they call it ‘economic empowerment’. Who is being empowered here – just a handful of politically and ethnically well-connected individuals?
It is now openly recognised that the gap between rich and poor in much of the SADC is widening but yet policy-makers are not willing or unable to revisit and revise some of the plans that have failed to uplift our people out of debilitating poverty. The ruling elite are just playing ostrich politics. Because reports after reports are warning us that BEE, TESEF, BBBEE are not working. And yet we don’t want to remove our blinkers to reconsider our strategies and plans. We are thus caught up in linear trap. We seem to be satisfied with some mediocre achievements – a minimalistic approach. Last year, for example, Prime Minister Nahas Angula wrote that ‘at the end of the day we want to create a balanced society whereby 60 percent of our population shall be classified as middle class, 20 percent as upper middle class and only 20 percent shall be classified as lower middle class.
There you have it from the very people who at the dawn of independence promised the nation a more egalitarian or even a classless society.
From the look of things, however, this was not to be. The masses should now wake up from their deep slumber and wage a new struggle for their own liberation.