Too Much Religion
WE refer to the letters ‘Khomasdal – a time for reflection’ by Clive Willemse and ‘Dear Coloured community’ by Wallace Finnies that were published in New Era, August 27 2010.
Clive Willemse identifies himself as someone who supports the call ‘to bring religion back’ in the country. This supposedly means ‘bible studies at home and in schools.’ Leaving aside the lack of imagination in this call, the reality, however, is that this is already happening on a wide scale in the country. Namibia is a highly religious country and is perhaps the most Christian fundamentalist country on the entire continent. Our schools, despite the secular constitution, hold regular religious services and we are convinced that you would find many crucifixes in the classrooms. So we are not sure what is meant when some people talk about bringing back religion. We already have too much religion and it has not been able to stop the ever-increasing violence in the country.
On the contrary, if we are honest about it, religion contributes tremendously to the violence against women and children. This is shown by all the religious talk about the man as the head of the household, that the woman must be subservient to the man and that the children must be disciplined while they are young. These examples show the huge contribution of religion to the poisoning of the intellectual environment. The bible contains tremendous violence and intolerance. As is usual with religion, such calls to bring back religion are all about the self-aggrandizement and political opportunism of those who make it.
Wherever religion is strong, we should expect high levels of oppression and mystification. Religion is profoundly anti-democratic.
One of the most disturbing features of Namibia is the well-resourced Christian fundamentalist radio and television stations. Besides wasting resources, these religious media is all about keeping our people’s minds closed and providing a political platform to the right-wing. We need less religion and the fanatics should rather keep their religious ideas private. We regard it as against our constitutional rights to have these media broadcast into our private homes without our permission. The government should compel them to function on the basis of subscriptions.
Willemse also demonstrates the powerful link between religion and tribalism.
His letter is dripping with Coloured tribalism. It should remind us how much so-called tribal traditions in Namibia are nothing else but the traditions of western religions.
The same worrying tribalism comes from Wallace Finnies with his opportunistic call for a Coloured tribal authority. These authorities form the basis of promoting tribalism and division in the country.
And the tribalism in Namibia has reached dangerous levels. We have to be careful that we are not laying the foundation to a civil war.
Tribalism is an intellectual prison. More than any other tribal category, the Coloured one demonstrates how subjective and misguided tribalism is. This is why many Coloureds do not embrace this assigned tribal identity. It is a progressive negation of tribalism to refer to ‘so-called’ Coloureds. To accept this tribal label means that you define yourself narrowly in terms of colour only, instead of embracing the freedom and fulfillment of your whole humanity.
The country is wasting valuable resources on tribal authorities.
We should rather have a national debate about what kind of political party should lead the country. We have had two decades of corruption by the neo-liberal Swapo elite and have too many right-wing political parties in this country. Namibia should take a left-wing direction in order to make social liberation possible.
K. Basson and
R. Van Wyk, Katutura