Students Rise Up!
EVERY time I read about politics in our country I feel like this country will never change, even beyond 2030, as long as our mindset remains the same.
Believe it or not, the change in our politics may not come from those in the villages but from those who are visiting libraries everyday. One thing I don’t understand is how far we have travelled from 21 March 1990 to date. We seem to be moving backwards.
Our politicians have hypnotised us so that we cannot even understand even when they ask the difference between our left hand the right one. They have taken us so much for granted that there is nothing that we can decide on our own.
Let me start like this. Where did a change in Tunisia come from? In Zimbabwe...? It started with the students but where are the academics in our country? Those who can read the laws of economics?
We all remember when our own President’s child benefited from the scholarships of the Chinese together with a number of our top leaders’ children. That same year, a number of students at our university could not write their exams or get their results due to outstanding fees.
A mother of a poor child in Kavango or Caprivi struggles to sell a bag of beans or mahangu to finance the education of her child; a father in the south stands at the roadside to sell a goat to pay rent for his child who is at college.
The truth is we the students are to blame for much of the injustices that take place in our country. It’s us who allow crooks to carry on with these injustices.
Folks, in a democracy the power belongs to the people and in the streets. To be a Swapo member does not mean we cannot disagree with the party’s policies and leadership practices.
The local government minister asked Swapo supporters to paint their teeth in Swapo colours, forgetting that he should have started the project with himself. I passed by his house but found no flag of his party flying at his entrance. Do we know why? Because he has his ‘running dogs’ who will do it for him and who are the sons and daughters of poor Namibians.
Richards M
Oshikoto Region