Elections Won’t Change Much Anyway
By: T. Itembu and K. BassonTHE ruling by Namibia’s High Court judges confirms that the legal system cannot bring about qualitative change. The court failed to address the basic issue of the secretive and illegal verification centres which took one week to ‘recount’ the relatively small number of votes.
The great lesson in all this drama is that elections will not bring about grassroots transformations. The Namibian working class should not waste valuable time with bourgeois elections and courts. Elections are secondary to mass action such as strikes, protests, marches, boycotts, sit-ins, etc.
The direct action of the working class is the primary way of bringing about qualitative change in the country. We should learn lessons from the leftist winds (Alexactus Kaure) of Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia) in this regard. For a revolutionary left, elections are simply about finding a platform to get the political message out. But elections could never be the main form of struggle. There is no parliamentary road to fundamental change. Those political parties in Namibia that focus mainly on securing a parliamentary seat are not interested in real change.
The Namibian working class should also not be fooled by reformist trade unionists like Evilastus Kaaronda. His narrow black nationalism does not distinguish between the white elite and the white working class, the German elite and the German working class. Or are Kaaronda’s statements a deliberate attempt to confuse the fact that there is also a black elite and a black working class? The black elite are on the other side of the social class divide now. They are not on the same side as the Namibian working class and are part of the ‘haves’. It would be expected of a workers’ leader to make this crucial distinction unless you have a different agenda. When will the middle level workers rise up against this conservative leadership of Kaaronda and others? Only if the trade unions are politically independent would it strengthen our democracy.
We should also say that the excessive Swapo celebrations after the court’s decision shown on NBC television reminded us of the old song that ‘the revolution will not be televised’. It is clear that the Namibian revolution will not be televised on NBC – there is no freedom of speech on that television channel. So much for liberal democracy! Despite Swapo propaganda, no revolution took place in this country. A political revolution is when one social class replaces another. In the case of Namibia, the black middle class replaced the white middle class – that was not revolutionary change. And this is why we have this ‘boring peace’ (Hage Geingob) in the country – the white and black middle classes are at peace with one another. However, there is no peace between the ruling class and the working class – if we consider for instance the unemployment rate. There is no social class peace in this country. It certainly cannot be boring to be starving or to be unemployed.
The Deputy Minister of Finance rightly attacked the banks in the country. But the fact of the matter is that the whole capitalist system is geared towards giving super-profits to the banks. It is true that most bank managers in Namibia have a racial and militaristic mentality, but it is ultimately the absence of economic democracy that is the real issue. Our economic system should mainly be about human needs and job creation.
The Namibian working class must also realize that the understanding of ‘democracy’ is a contested idea. Democracy is not something which will happen as a result of some abstract political process ‘out there’. It certainly will not happen through the courts or even the ballot box. On the contrary, the struggle to achieve democracy is a battle to be waged at every level in society, and in every institution of the society, whether it be the education system, the factory floor or the health system.
The point is not simply to create a democratic political structure within which everyone exercises some formal political right, such as the right to vote every five years for someone who will ‘represent’ you.
Democracy exists only when people are able to exercise the greatest possible control over ALL aspects of their lives, including life in the community and at the workplace. We must make democracy happen everyday in our lives.
The Namibian working class should not waste time with the courts. Rather act now. Capitalism is a wounded system but the kicks of a dying horse are terrible. This is what we really face for the next 50 years. We should start preparing today.
T. Itembu and K. Basson
Katutura