Scrap public holidays
THE month of May, the bête noire of every Namibian employer, with its 12 public holidays is upon us. So, I’m thinking the unthinkable. Fewer or no public holidays? Our public holidays basically consist of Swapo celebrations and Jesus commemoration days. It’s ridiculous how many Christian holidays we celebrate while David Namwandi of Swapo refuses our children the great and valuable Christian teachings in schools.
New Year’s Day
This is a devil’s day. As a developing nation in the throes of our struggle for economic independence we ought to enter the new year ready to emancipate ourselves from the previous year’s burdens. Anyway, if we started work on 1 January we would not have so much debt at the end of January because we’d spend less money on that big drunken fest.
Independence Day
Since we know we are independent, is it really necessary for us to be tortured by NBC’s incoherent full- day broadcast of the same
haphazard programme, just in another town? Must we endure the same speech by the president? Must
we be tormented with a million people wearing Swapo scarfs, cramped into a stadium? And must we have front row tickets to the disturbance that is
the budding musical career of Nkrumah Mushelenga? I say we cull this day from our public holiday list like a baby seal.
Good Friday
What’s good about this Friday is that it’s the beginning of the longest of long weekends in the year. It’s good for visiting the family in the bos or just spending a lazy day at the car wash getting gesuip and eating kerrie vis. What’s really good about it is that it’s an off day before a Saturday. Christians believe it’s the day their deity died at the hands of his own tribe after he made prophet Elizabeth-like pronouncements about being the son of the king of the Jews. Naughty...
Easter Monday
The day the deity miraculously arose from the dead... If ever there was a reason to excommunicate this day from the list. If we continue to have this
day off we must also celebrate the day prophet Elizabeth made the sun turn blue, died and was resurrected four hours later. A much bigger feat, non?
Workers’ Day
We have no jobs, no unions and no reason to celebrate. Let’s just retrench this day like a Namibian mine worker.
Cassinga Day
Since Cassinga is situated in Angola can’t we ask the Angolans to celebrate it on our behalf? We’ve basically handed our economy over to them, what’s one day between friends?
Ascension Day
Forty days after his resurection he ascended into heaven on a cloud. Really? If we have days off for fictitious occurences why not have a day off when Arsenal start their challenge for a trophy under Arsene Wenger every season?
Africa Day
We still do business in shops or markets and not on the pavements. You can still get official documents without slipping the official a bank note and we can still drink our tap water. Why must we celebrate dodgy elections, backwardness, coups d’état, hunger and disease? Let’s ignore it like we ignore African opposition parties.
Heroes Day
Another Swapo day. Neh man! Apparently we celebrate all Namibian heroes on this day. So, why is it celebrated on the day Swapo started to fire shots at Omugulugwombashe? Couldn’t they start the whole thing at another place with a more pronouncable name like Berseba? Why don’t we call it
national wedding day for northeners? Just count the number of
wedding parties that want to take pictures at Bennies Entertainment
Park on this day.
Human Rights Day
If you tell me on what date we celebrate this
day without checking out the calendar or using Google,
you’re probably not a Namibian. What are we actually doing on this
day? Celebrating the achievements of Tate Phil and Kaseven?
Ja, the day hell freezes over.
Christmas Day
OK, so the whole of December is geared towards this day. Your hard earned bonus is squandered on buying gifts for people so you can all be ‘in the festive spirit’. You prepare so much food that you have to toss half of it away and then you don’t have money for the whole of January. All of this because apparently Jesus was born on this day. The Chinese don’t celebrate this day and look at them now.
Boxing Day
Why, in the name of everything that is holy, do we celebrate the colonial practice where the riff raff got a Christmas box from baas? If we have to celebrate anything to do with a box or boxing we should call it Nestor Tobias Day. As the man who put Namibia on the world’s soap box through being boxer, trainer, promoter, PRO, marketing officer, chief fundraiser, fasionista, trash talker and board chairman, it’s time that we celebrate the man who did more for this country’s GDP and national pride than Jesus. Or we can just knock out this useless day. One time!
What do you say? You can show how great a Christian
you are by swearing at me on my Facebook profile (The Rambler) or send me a scathing email to rambler@ namibian.com.na