AS the years after Independence are wearing on, we have become a society where the sword is mightier than the pen.
Since it is the sword that rules, we are a society with an entrenched passion for ignorance. In justification of my comment, I have experienced this free country through the lenses of being a high-school pupil at A.Shipena; as a student at the University of Namibia; as a high-school teacher in Katutura; as a student at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa; as a senior civil servant and now as a student at the Sorbonne in Paris.Within that period, the “happy few” have dangerously gazed at our State as ministers, permanent secretaries or top business executives: I am not sure, but I believe that there is a certain degree of anaesthesia about social problems that arise from holding high office consecutively for almost two decades; the poverty you see through the tinted window of your ministerial car does not give you sleepless nights; the 16 000 Grade 10 failures don’t constitute an educational emergency.In short, nothing seems urgent anymore.Returning to my original strand, each opportunity outside the country has oftentimes been one of observing political leadership in these foreign lands.President Mbeki would apparently spend nights on the Internet doing research, reading books and writing an intellectually stimulating weekly online newsletter.President Sarkozy of France has an inner circle drawn from various sections of French intellectual life and civil society that occasionally serve as an intellectual buffer between the President and opposing sections of French intellectual life.Alas, I have no clue as to where this country is going in terms of ideas: both in their construction and opposition.Through luck or some miracle we might solve our chronic unemployment situation, the housing challenge, the education crisis, etc.Yet much of the hard labour about crafting a modern society starts with an honest democratic conversation between leaders and among leaders, and with society at large.The current quality of our debate, from a policy perspective, and the general political stuff entombs one with a certain degree of nostalgia about our first decade of independence.One would conclude, perhaps naively, that we were a much more tolerant and pragmatic society then.Public lectures involving politicians and senior civil servants at various venues around the city were frequent, including at the University of Namibia (which now censors intellectual debates without raising the eyebrows of its teachers and students).Evidently, an engaging and critical culture has dissipated and has given way to one where ignorance has become a passion.This passion means a lack of honesty, intellectual rigour and the absence of common sense in our political and policy debates.While such ignorance may be the result of a lack of education in some instances – it is the fodder of those who through luck, circumstance and intermittent work occupy positions that insulate them from most of the bumps and bruises that the average Namibian endures.The cantankerous mentality of wielding the sword instead of the book does not pale into comparison to the colonial regime whose survival was anchored on the ignorance of the native.In a free Namibia ‘unreason’, ignorance (and not books) is often rewarded with a seat at the high table – in line with what a diplomat once said: in order to move up in this country, you must be prepared to descend frequently into ‘unreason’.Many of us have taken this advice rather too seriously.Ordinarily, we would expect youth and union leaders to pontificate about standards of excellence, complex inquiry, yet they usually spin out mediocre and uncreative statements.If I have to invoke Ernst Gellner’s seminal classic, ‘Plough, Sword and Book: The Structure of Human History’ to our current condition – we haven’t made the transition from the sword (force) to the book (cognition and knowledge).Our out-of-sync language of “bravery”, “heroism,” “the struggle continues” is illuminating of this totalising trend of force over knowledge.If there is an overarching issue threatening the continuity of our democracy, it is our passion to promote ignorance for the sake of political expediency.It is this dangerous experiment that has bred a culture of callousness into the politics of this country.Yet this callousness toward others has a tendency of spreading among us.Thus, those with the intellectual tools from the academy have a duty – not necessarily one of claiming to hold “intellectual truths or knowledge”, but most importantly to show the paths to knowledge.We need to contest the dominant anti-intellectual movement within our political parties from the inside as well as from the outside.The situation where those who don’t know claim to know and those who know claim not to know as a means of acceptance, is costly to our democracy and freedom.And if we don’t change course, we may leave an ignorant and weaker Namibia for the next generation.* Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari is a PhD fellow in political science at the University of Paris- Panthéon Sorbonne, France.In justification of my comment, I have experienced this free country through the lenses of being a high-school pupil at A.Shipena; as a student at the University of Namibia; as a high-school teacher in Katutura; as a student at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa; as a senior civil servant and now as a student at the Sorbonne in Paris.Within that period, the “happy few” have dangerously gazed at our State as ministers, permanent secretaries or top business executives: I am not sure, but I believe that there is a certain degree of anaesthesia about social problems that arise from holding high office consecutively for almost two decades; the poverty you see through the tinted window of your ministerial car does not give you sleepless nights; the 16 000 Grade 10 failures don’t constitute an educational emergency.In short, nothing seems urgent anymore.Returning to my original strand, each opportunity outside the country has oftentimes been one of observing political leadership in these foreign lands.President Mbeki would apparently spend nights on the Internet doing research, reading books and writing an intellectually stimulating weekly online newsletter.President Sarkozy of France has an inner circle drawn from various sections of French intellectual life and civil society that occasionally serve as an intellectual buffer between the President and opposing sections of French intellectual life.Alas, I have no clue as to where this country is going in terms of ideas: both in their construction and opposition.Through luck or some miracle we might solve our chronic unemployment situation, the housing challenge, the education crisis, etc.Yet much of the hard labour about crafting a modern society starts with an honest democratic conversation between leaders and among leaders, and with society at large.The current quality of our debate, from a policy perspective, and the general political stuff entombs one with a certain degree of nostalgia about our first decade of independence.One would conclude, perhaps naively, that we were a much more tolerant and pragmatic society then.Public lectures involving politicians and senior civil servants at various venues around the city were frequent, including at the University of Namibia (which now censors intellectual debates without raising the eyebrows of its teachers and students).Evidently, an engaging and critical culture has dissipated and has given way to one where ignorance has become a passion.This passion means a lack of honesty, intellectual rigour and the absence of common sense in our political and policy debates.While such ignorance may be the result of a lack of education in some instances – it is the fodder of those who through luck, circumstance and intermittent work occupy positions that insulate them from most of the bumps and bruises that the average Namibian endures.The cantankerous mentality of wielding the sword instead of the book does not pale into comparison to the colonial regime whose survival was anchored on the ignorance of the native.In a free Namibia ‘unreason’, ignorance (and not books) is often rewarded with a seat at the high table – in line with what a diplomat once said: in order to move up in this country, you must be prepared to descend frequently into ‘unreason’.Many of us have taken this advice rather too seriously.Ordinarily, we would expect youth and union leaders to pontificate about standards of excellence, complex inquiry, yet they usually spin out mediocre and uncreative statements.If I have to invoke Ernst Gellner’s seminal classic, ‘Plough, Sword and Book: The Structure of Human History’ to our current condition – we haven’t made the transition from the sword (force) to the book (cognition and knowledge).Our out-of-sync language of “bravery”, “heroism,” “the struggle continues” is illuminating of this totalising trend of force over knowledge.If there is an overarching issue threatening the continuity of our democracy, it is our passion to promote ignorance for the sake of political expediency.It is this dangerous experiment that has bred a culture of callousness into the politics of this country.Yet this callousness toward others has a tendency of spreading among us.Thus, those with the intellectual tools from the academy have a duty – not necessarily one of claiming to hold “intellectual truths or knowledge”, but most importantly to show the paths to knowledge.We need to contest the dominant anti-intellectual movement within our political parties from the inside as well as from the outside.The situation where those who don’t know claim to know and those who know claim not to know as a means of acceptance, is costly to our democracy and freedom.And if we don’t change course, we may leave an ignorant and weaker Namibia for the next generation. * Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari is a PhD fellow in political science at the University of Paris- Panthéon Sorbonne, France.
