Red Star Cap Not Enough

WHY is it that people change from being socialists at heart to becoming hard-nosed capitalists soon after they get into powerful positions?

Does power corrupt all? And why does the African voter accept such as being ‘normal’ and why do those who should fight that phenomenon immediately back it up as soon as they themselves get into leadership positions?

We see this everywhere if we open our eyes – Zimbabwe, South Africa and even our own Namibia are rather perfect examples for that.

Soon after independence our leaders became filthy rich overnight while the masses drowned in poverty. Too many of us have no jobs at all today, others are underpaid and all these are literally unable to leave their miserable environments. While the leaders of all the people’s organisations advance, the members themselves stay stuck.

And interesting to write about it is the fact that these leaders seem to never fight the tools of our perverted capitalism, the banks and other financial institutions, also not the policies that keep the status quo alive. Are the leaders of the workers, of the youth, churches and the communities too naive to see that without tackling the systems and institutions of capitalism, nothing will change? It certainly is not enough to wear a cap with a red star on it to be a true socialist – that idea would be another ‘Amupanda’. It is also not enough to tout you as the best friend of China to be a true socialist – China is today practicing super capitalism and believe me, they are good at it. And what do our few own Namibian ‘communists’ do? Or those who pretend to be communists?

Well, they do not answer letters; they do not even have e-mail addresses, they are confused and preach a dead credo, this again and again. They are ideologically stuck in the past and so they forfeit their future.

An election in Namibia is not very far away. In fact, it is due in 2014. Are the poor, the youth, the workers and the old preparing for it? Did they spend their time to establish a ‘Party of the Poor’, as was suggested some time ago in different papers?

If the poor do not have money, then they have at least the time to be politically active, to go to the streets and write letters. And because they make up the majority in Namibia, they should win the next election. Or is this pure fiction because the poor are happy to be poor?

Esmeralda Juno-Kisting

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*What time and energy do the poor have to organise if they are pre-occupied with scraping for an income every moment to have something to eat? - Editor.