Where Is The Future?
“If I am dreaming, don’t wake me up! And if it is a lie don’t tell me the truth’’ So go the lyrics in one of the songs of the late South African reggae star Lucky Dube, may his soul rest in eternal peace. Maybe, I should add that if what I am seeing happening in Namibia is reality, you don’t need to tell me otherwise.
Years have gone by, but our leaders are pre-occupied by certain things they desire and have forgotten what they promised the people. The only thing they are reminding us about now and again is that they liberated this country, and died for this country.
I was fortunate enough to have witnessed with my own two eyes Namibia’s transition to nationhood. I attended most of the Swapo rallies in the dying days of colonialism in Windhoek during 1988 and 1989, and assisted with the return of our beloved Namibians from exile, erecting tents and distributing food at camp Döbra. It was one of those fascinating moments I will never forget, looking at people lining up to receive cooking oil and dry beans.
The rallies were well attended, because every Namibian was yearning for freedom and good things to come! The favourite spot was near Hakahana Service station. It was always packed to capacity, one could hardly move. Jerry Ekandjo would open the rally with ‘Sema! oulipeni’, referring to the founding father. Guitar man the late Jackson Kaujeua (may his soul rest in peace) took us through struggle songs with sweet melodies of the ‘winds of change’ strumming his guitar like nothing! The likes of Martin Kapewasha, Nahas Angula, Ben Ulenga, and many others would follow with a litany of promises! Good for Ulenga he saw the signs early and moved away!
“There is going to be free education in Namibia, housing for all, poverty will be eradicated, good health care, high pension for the elderly, good infrastructure and squatter camps are going to be things of the past!”. I heard citizen Angula saying Namibia is going to be a classless society.
Now a number of years down the line Namibia persists in being referred to as a least developed country. The United States of America, I am told, is the biggest foreign funder of our health care system. China has been funding a number of projects though some of them in dubious ways and of course with strings attached. Germany, of course, is contributing a lot. There are those who built the State House, the North Koreans.
The question remains, if Namibia is being maintained by generous countries 22 years after independence, then where is Namibia’s own money going? Education is in shambles, the squatter camps have tripled over the past years, dear comrades; teachers in big towns and other civil servants cannot afford houses. Poverty is everywhere, not to mention the unemployment rate which is convincingly over 50 percent.
Empty promises, now look what we have got. When something goes wrong with the country formerly ruled by our colonisers, it affects us too. Even watermelons are being imported from this country. Namibia is headed for a very serious power outage in the next five years, while we have all the sunshine at our disposal. Kudu Gas fields has been in the pipeline for decades, and talk of possible oil discovery remains a distant dream.
Do we really have a future in this country? Imagine if today the countries that are assisting call it quit, and we cannot rule that out. What will happen? No wonder the term imperialism has now find its place in the dustbin, otherwise we would have been biting the hands that feed us.
Kutenda Pankratius
Divundu