Paper Tigers and Golden Moments
There are some things we shouldn’t allow ourselves to do. We shouldn’t ever do anything on an international stage.
We must stay in our little cocoon and play our little Mickey Mouse game with our own selves. Why am I preaching isolation in a world made so small by Rupert Murdoch et al?
Look at Tiger Simasiku: In the name of everything that is holy. Why didn’t he just do what most of these South African and Zimbabwean palookas, who Nestor Tobias manage to unearth to fight against his charges, do. Dance for a round or two, protect yourself at all times and then go down like a sack of shit. Why Tiger Why? Our only heavy weight boxer and you lay crawled up in the foetal position on the change room floor calling for your mommy? How do you transform from prowling tiger to scaredy-cat as soon as you cross a border? When even your promoter turns against you something is seriously wrong. The fight was initially set for July 29, but fell through and was postponed to October. Back then, our Tiger predicted that he would knock out Zambia’s national heavyweight champion in the fourth round.
“He was afraid. There was no proper reason why he did not fight,” promoter Kinda Nangolo told The Namibian Sport this week. Kinda, make sure the guy’s muti-man travel with him next time. This is extremely disappointing, even for Namibian boxing standards.
I wish I could say that Tiger’s trouble was our low point of the week. Compared to political shenanigans it hardly registers as the faux pass of the week. No, that honour belongs to our commander in chief. What do you get when you mix Al Jazeera and Hifikepunye Pohamba? An unmitigated disaster.
Pohamba is of the opinion that Namibia’s biggest challenge is economic growth. Others like myself might disagree. I actually think our entrenched inequality and the leaders’ inability to deal with it might be our biggest challenge. Maybe that, coupled with political impunity. Pohamba told Al Jazeera and the world that minerals are indeed taken out in raw form and our people left with poverty. Sowaar? And you call yourself the main man of this rubbish dump?
My question to Pohamba is: Do you feel the burden of your people? Do you realise that in your term people’s lives have not improved? We all know that the remnants of Apartheid still loom large but when people ask you what have you done, you can’t go back to the era of the Germans. Why didn’t you improve things in 22 years? And another thing, if the Constitution is such a burden why not change it?
Pohamba’s justification of the annual seal hunt was both hilarious and nonchalant. Those seal huggers must have pissed themselves with rage. We will harvest pappa!
But all in all I think Pohamba did himself no favours. He came over as an unsophisticated, ignorant old man with a chip on his shoulder. So now the world sees Pohamba like we see him. Yipee!
Another disaster occurred when a certain Trade Minister took it upon himself to invite a CNN crew to shoot a blow job piece for Namibia. The problem was, the diligence of our unusually diligent civil servants. It is said that the crew rolled into trouble when they arrived without the necessary filming and work permits and as a result had to be detained at the airport until some authority figure had instructed the immigration officials to release them while the permits are sorted out.
Now, civil servants, that’s how you screw with the politicians who couldn’t care less about your increment. Every time a bunch of ‘businessmen’ enter or leave the country you detain them for whatever they did wrong. I’m sure it’ll be easy. Insist the high ranking political connection or those generous folk at Home Affairs personally drive out to Hosea Kutako to sort out the issue. Some chaps will have to set up shop at the airport permanently, especially if you start questioning the Namibian documents of the Chinese looking individuals.
Even if we do go out and perform well it ends in a farce. Look at Johanna Benson. Against all odds she takes on the world, beats them silly and has the medals to prove it. But what do we do? We shaft her back home. It had to take the Ministry to put pressure on the Sports Commission to add an additional special category at the Sports Awards so that Johanna can be honoured. How?
What was your highlight of the week?
–rambler@namibian.com.na