A Nation In Need Of Blue-Helmets And Reformers

TO be alarmist is an unwise proposition when looking at our current political situation.

But it will also be an exaggeration to say that all is well in our country. Even as someone who doesn’t believe in making rows in an empty room, I think that Government, in the form of the President, handled what initially appeared to be a storm in teacup in a very maladroit manner.In doing so, what should have been for all intents and purposes an analytical and technical discussion amongst lawyers and political scientists, became a grave political discussion with far-reaching consequences for our democratic freedoms and dispensation of ideas.If I had to rely on my gut feeling, part of the reason in such a maladroit response to Ya Nangoloh’s submission is certainly the lack of wide consultation within the ruling party.Ordinarily, if Government or the ruling party is to craft a response to such a delicate issue, it should have consulted widely.Here, I am of course talking about experienced leaders with technical skills, those who understand the importance of a democratic project, but who do not necessarily form part of Presidents Pohamba and Nujoma’s immediate inner kitchen.Because part of the reason why some urged President Pohamba to respond in the manner he did, was more or less to ease the burden on the Founding President, and of course defend parochial interests.To a certain degree, it eased the burden on the shoulders of the Founding President – at the expense of the image of the Head of State – yet the response did not play the ball in a manner that would convince or assuage our concerns as Namibians across the political spectrum.In fact, we were left with more questions than answers.Worse, we saw a continuation of unnecessary harangues on the part of Jhonny Hakaye against sections of the media, notably this newspaper.In that sense, our language against one another was not far from turning into the Mau-Mau, Kenya’s liberation movement which used machetes to make political points.What emerges from this cacophony is a worrying political culture and trend in which ‘hardliners’, for lack of a better word, have taken the upper hand, both in the ruling party and our politics in general.In fact, they are the ones who shape our political discussion and the social construction of problems, if I have to invoke Alexander Wendt on the latter.I think it is the eminent Greek philosopher Plato who once said that society will not advance unless kings become philosophers and philosophers become kings.It is this Platonic line that I have always been trying to beat in this column; that we need to be a thinking society, one where the most fertile ideas rule and not the force or the authority of the offices we hold.It is an argument that is valid for all of us and particularly those who hold office must open up and promote contradictory debate in our politics.As a society we sit on the ghastly extreme of that Platonic aphorism.And part of the reason why we might not advance or misdiagnose our possible lack of transitioning anywhere near to an enlightened society, could be found here.We have been in denial about the need for enlightenment and moderation.Such denial, malign as it is, has a mental process which is not unusual.We all have models in our minds (Thomas Kuhn, the science historian called them paradigms) of how we think the world works.When the model is challenged, we try to explain the event away.Generally, people abandon their models only when they lead to complete disaster.We should not wait for that disaster to happen as a young nation.The concrete lesson that should emerge from the current Ya Nangoloh debacle is that our society does not only need to realise that democratic ideals are the foundation of modern life, but also that reformers must join and defend their views in our political discussion.They must shape the thinking models of our youth and political parties.In every society, mavericks exist, but of extreme importance are also the voices of moderation which must be heard.South Africa has Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, who as moral entrepreneurs command wide respect across the political spectrum.When the Founding President, Sam Nujoma, was stepping out of State House, I argued forcefully for him to become like Comrade Deng Xiaoping, a blue helmet, a voice calling us to reason when we are fighting, instead of his current involvement in the day-to-day fistfights of our politics.When that didn’t happen, I assumed perhaps wrongly, that President Pohamba would be the blue helmet.In the final analysis, we are nation without radars, without blue helmets or political reformers to lead and nurture political discussions.* Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari is a PhD fellow in political science at the University of Paris-Panthéon Sorbonne, France.He is currently on a UN research internship at the UN Headquarters in New York.Even as someone who doesn’t believe in making rows in an empty room, I think that Government, in the form of the President, handled what initially appeared to be a storm in teacup in a very maladroit manner.In doing so, what should have been for all intents and purposes an analytical and technical discussion amongst lawyers and political scientists, became a grave political discussion with far-reaching consequences for our democratic freedoms and dispensation of ideas.If I had to rely on my gut feeling, part of the reason in such a maladroit response to Ya Nangoloh’s submission is certainly the lack of wide consultation within the ruling party.Ordinarily, if Government or the ruling party is to craft a response to such a delicate issue, it should have consulted widely.Here, I am of course talking about experienced leaders with technical skills, those who understand the importance of a democratic project, but who do not necessarily form part of Presidents Pohamba and Nujoma’s immediate inner kitchen.Because part of the reason why some urged President Pohamba to respond in the manner he did, was more or less to ease the burden on the Founding President, and of course defend parochial interests.To a certain degree, it eased the burden on the shoulders of the Founding President – at the expense of the image of the Head of State – yet the response did not play the ball in a manner that would convince or assuage our concerns as Namibians across the political spectrum.In fact, we were left with more questions than answers.Worse, we saw a continuation of unnecessary harangues on the part of Jhonny Hakaye against sections of the media, notably this newspaper.In that sense, our language against one another was not far from turning into the Mau-Mau, Kenya’s liberation movement which used machetes to make political points.What emerges from this cacophony is a worrying political culture and trend in which ‘hardliners’, for lack of a better word, have taken the upper hand, both in the ruling party and our politics in general.In fact, they are the ones who shape our political discussion and the social construction of problems, if I have to invoke Alexander Wendt on the latter.I think it is the eminent Greek philosopher Plato who once said that society will not advance unless kings become philosophers and philosophers become kings.It is this Platonic line that I have always been trying to beat in this column; that we need to be a thinking society, one where the most fertile ideas rule and not the force or the authority of the offices we hold.It is an argument that is valid for all of us and particularly those who hold office must open up and promote contradictory debate in our politics.As a society we sit on the ghastly extreme of that Platonic aphorism.And part of the reason why we might not advance or misdiagnose our possible lack of transitioning anywhere near to an enlightened society, could be found here.We have been in denial about the need for enlightenment and moderation.Such denial, malign as it is, has a mental process which is not unusual.We all have models in our minds (Thomas Kuhn, the science historian called them paradigms) of how we think the world works.When the model is challenged, we try to explain the event away.Generally, people abandon their models only when they lead to complete disaster.We should not wait for that disaster to happen as a young nation.The concrete lesson that should emerge from the current Ya Nangoloh debacle is that our society does not only need to realise that democratic ideals are the foundation of modern life, but also that reformers must join and defend their views in our political discussion.They must shape the thinking models of our youth and political parties.In every society, mavericks exist, but of extreme importance are also the voices of moderation which must be heard.South Africa has Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, who as moral entrepreneurs command wide respect across the political spectrum.When the Founding President, Sam Nujoma, was stepping out of State House, I argued forcefully for him to become like Comrade Deng Xiaoping, a blue helmet, a voice calling us to reason when we are fighting, instead of his current involvement in the day-to-day fistfights of our politics.When that didn’t happen, I assumed perhaps wrongly, that President Pohamba would be the blue helmet.In the final analysis, we are nation without radars, without blue helmets or political reformers to lead and nurture political discussions.* Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari is a PhD fellow in political science at the University of Paris-Panthéon Sorbonne, France.He is currently on a UN research internship at the UN Headquarters in New York.