BEE Versus Netwerk

I WOULD like to commend the establishment of a community initiative called Netwerk by the Afrikaners in response to the Black Economic Empowerment initiative.

In my view there has been an error of judgement to come up with the name Black Economic Empowerment, as the word ‘black’ implies that white people cannot benefit from or take part in the scheme. This to me is totally senseless because it is against the policy of national reconciliation.One cannot talk about political reconciliation and ignore economic ones.Of course political reconciliation creates a stable environment for business and economic development, but people don’t eat political reconciliation — they need money.The Government and its allies are making a mistake if they think that excluding white people from economic empowerment initiatives will help the country address the past imbalances.You can’t build the country with deep-rooted revenge from the past.If you start to work together with the white people, you could come up with sound economic development projects that would benefit many people in this country.However, if you publicly say we shall exclude them (the whites) because they colonised us in the past, this is totally unproductive because these people are Namibians and some of them are poor people like anybody else.By excluding them you are forcing them to start their own clubs like Netwerk, which is exclusively for Afrikaners.This type of grouping is not necessary in independent Namibia, hence it is high time that the concept Black Economic Empowerment is reviewed before it causes unnecessary formation of racial economic groupings.Look for an acceptable name and get rid of the word ‘black’ because if you keep it, the whites can also come up with a White Economic Empowerment scheme, which is not a healthy thing to do.Selma Taatu WindhoekThis to me is totally senseless because it is against the policy of national reconciliation.One cannot talk about political reconciliation and ignore economic ones.Of course political reconciliation creates a stable environment for business and economic development, but people don’t eat political reconciliation — they need money.The Government and its allies are making a mistake if they think that excluding white people from economic empowerment initiatives will help the country address the past imbalances.You can’t build the country with deep-rooted revenge from the past.If you start to work together with the white people, you could come up with sound economic development projects that would benefit many people in this country.However, if you publicly say we shall exclude them (the whites) because they colonised us in the past, this is totally unproductive because these people are Namibians and some of them are poor people like anybody else.By excluding them you are forcing them to start their own clubs like Netwerk, which is exclusively for Afrikaners.This type of grouping is not necessary in independent Namibia, hence it is high time that the concept Black Economic Empowerment is reviewed before it causes unnecessary formation of racial economic groupings.Look for an acceptable name and get rid of the word ‘black’ because if you keep it, the whites can also come up with a White Economic Empowerment scheme, which is not a healthy thing to do.Selma Taatu Windhoek