What Was African Then?

THE Namibian Police Inspector General Sebastian Ndeitunga claims that miniskirts “are not African” and “too short and revealing” and “it’s not acceptable in the African culture”.

I am a little embarrassed to say that a hundred years ago, African women wore very little clothing, and that the Victorian (Western) dress code was forced upon African women in later years. So traditionally, very little clothing would be “truly African”!
I am also more than irritated that the police chief of a country where the rule of law is currently upheld by private security companies or a more and less privatised City Police, where court files get “lost” or sold to interested parties, where police do not turn up when called in for help, where a police-issued certificate of conduct takes more than six months to complete (but is only valid for six months), where every time one has to report stolen goods, citizens have to stand for hours in rows to wait, such a police force finds it important to pursue the “strengthening of moral appearance”.
Are we now pursuing the ways of radical Islamists where women are held responsible when they themselves get raped, because they dress to “revealingly”?
I plead with General Ndeitunga to concentrate on a more efficient, more law-abiding and citizen-friendly police force rather than the length of women’s skirts.
Andreas Herrle
By email

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