Kavango Mukunda Gwetu
DEAR editor, please allow me to act as a teacher, giving corrections to the student from Trinity College (Jackson Mwalundange) on his opinion article published in The Namibian of 28 March 2013 titled ‘Kavango and Caprivi - Sources of Inter-Regional Tension’.
The key to a well-written article lies in a thorough research, defining key terms and exploring the main issue. “Kavango and Caprivi are the only regions in Namibia that retained their pre-independence tribal names after independence” is a short-sighted statement which is half right and half wrong. It may be true for Caprivi but not for Kavango as this name was established by the different clans in Kavango Region to represent them all.
Kavango means “small place”. Therefore, if renamed to ‘Maguni’ or ‘Mukuro’ there will be internal conflict within the region because not every clan in the region has the exact words. These names being in ruKwangali mean the Shambyu and Hambukushu will be left out in the representation of their region’s name. The example you gave in you article is out of context and correlation and again I emphasise that Kavango is home to Hambukushu, Shambyu and vaKwangali and because of our togetherness we didn’t like the “O” added to the region like Ohangwena for Oukwanyama and Oshana for uuKwambi etc. If the Hambukushu step on Ukwangali ground they are welcomed as siblings, hence “Kavango mukunda gwetu”.
The solution is not as suggested by my “student” because renaming the regions will not change the attitudes of the inhabitants of the two regions but instead the solution lies in what was promised before independence, “one Namibia, one nation!”. We should simply remove the boundaries that were erected by the colonialists; or have we seen the importance of adopting the system that we fought against? We thank Mwalundange for letting us know that the Namibian government has declared a public approval and support of the colonial system of divide and conquer.
Our preferred name of representation has been and will always be Kavango.
Jhp
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