The Paralysis And The Parallelisation Of The State
By: Tsudao Gurirab
ARTICLE 1(4) of chapter 1 of our Constitution defines the boundaries of our country. And as a logical sequence, chapter 2 deals with the acquisition and loss of citizenship – that is the answer to who is or is not a Namibian.
These two chapters, therefore, define our home and who we are. Further, in contradistinction to the vices of colonialism, racism and apartheid, the preamble to our Constitution declares Namibia a “sovereign, secular democratic and unitary state, securing to all our citizens justice, liberty, equality and fraternity”. In other words, a republican state where power is vested in the people and that the only legitimate source of government is one where the franchised have freely consented to surrender power to the government of the day in trusts. And since the storming of the Bastille, consent is customarily expressed by means of elections.
The Bill of Rights, as set out exhaustively in chapter 3, buttresses the republican character and ambitions of our state. And therefore chapters five to nine complete the architecture of and the operations of the three-legged state with an elected legislature, an executive and a judiciary. The letter and spirit of our Constitution is that customary law is kosher to the extent that it does not offend our republican values and aspirations.
The public consultations of the Delimitation Commission have recently made for quite an animated and charged discourse with the protagonists revelling in the debate with the fervour of pious converts. This is quite unusual as Namibians tend to be docile about the conduct of public policy and matters of governance. But in unpacking the issues which excite these warriors and get them hot under the collar we come to the inevitable conclusion that they all want their pound of flesh in the here and now.
They want their land, they say. And pointing them to chapter 1 of the Constitution, with its republican and otherwise lofty values of sovereign, democratic and unitary state, only elicits reaction similar to that of a Spanish bull to a red rag.
Never before has the work of a Delimitation Commission attracted so much attention and be a source of such heightened anxiety.
The explanation surely must therefore be in the current seeping toxic politics being fomented to challenge the legitimacy of the state at the centre or, at least, that of its principals. In a bigger scheme of things it is a case of chickens coming home to roost. It is no cause of satisfaction to say that sloganeering is no substitute for an engaged and conscientious policy.
We also draw no pleasure by saying that it was always a cop out to mindlessly copy UNIP’s one Zambia, one Nation slogan or MPLA’s a luta continua, a vitoria e certa for want of policy. In matters of this magnitude, no victory is certain without a programme to mould the different and disparate tribesmen into swearing their allegiance to one country and a leadership elected through the ballot box. For now, centrifugal forces are squaring up to build parallel centres of power. The question is, will the centre hold? Or is it already fatally compromised by the Trojan horse?
The Traditional Authorities Act with its twin the Communal Courts Act, of course, detract from our republican march as they seek to not only freeze the pre-independence polities in perpetuity but also give an illusion of power to their operatives which have long been diluted or entirely abrogated by subsequent legislation.
In any case, we should not mourn but hasten the demise of these ornamental polities by extending the full authority of the republican state up and down our country.
The government has not only continued to genuflect to tribal glitterati but continued to accord them an undeserved place of prominence in our republican order.
And in using them to pacify their subjects to tend a receptive ear to the government’s political message the authorities are acting no different from our erstwhile colonial tormentors.
In the present political climate, it is exactly these centres of power which are germane for capture and abuse to paralyse the exercise of power at the centre. What is also becoming clear is that the subterranean contest between tribe and nation is finally threatening to become an open warfare. The proliferation of ethnic based political parties always represented a camouflage of the same malady – now it threatens to be an open season.
But all these are harvests of our ignominious failure to consciously mould and nurture a cohesive nation.
And the agency of the state is ideally suited for this purpose except it has been captured as a conduit for corruption and misappropriation. Those who presided over our common wealth therefore need to answer how we have ended up in this apparent cul de sac.