A new book shares a manifestation of faithful perseverance, but it also is a story of stigmatisation and discreditation when speaking truth to power within the anti-colonial resistance movement.
Idolised and glorified, this struggle led by Swapo displayed rather colonial concepts of authoritarian hierarchies.
It included the ruthless elimination of any dissent in its ranks.
The human rights violations in the name of liberation amounted to the killing of its own members in their hundreds if not thousands.
CHRISTIANITY AND LIBERATION
Described in the sub-title as the ethnographic biography of Salatiel Ailonga, ‘Christian Faith and Namibian Liberation. An Ethnographic Biography of Salatiel Ailonga’ is more evidence of realities in the struggle history.
Painful to acknowledge, and so easily glossed over by many veterans, it remains ignored or dismissed by those who follow a selective narrative of patriotic history.
But the personal account is a sobering reminder that resistance movements against inhuman, repressive regimes such as the apartheid regime and the settler-colonial occupation reproduced and included inhuman practices, too.
The narrative “places unique experiences of Christianity and constructions of what it meant to be ‘Christian’ as centrally as available sources allow” (p 23).
It displays the essential linkages between Christian faith and liberation.
After all, Namibia remains one of the most Christianised countries in this world, in which the ambiguities of the gospel – abused for apartheid while at the same time fostering liberation theology – played out over a century of colonial rule.
THE AILONGA STORY
Anita, a Finnish missionary, and Salatiel, an exiled theological seminary student, met in Tanzania in 1967.
Their “relationship transformed from acquaintance to romance and betrothal” (p 2).
As a member of Swapo, Salatiel founded the chaplaincy to Namibians in exile.
When in 1976 Swapo’s leadership responded with violence to internal challenges, the Ailongas took a stand. They cared and provided shelter for the victims.
Being deported from Zambia, they were forced to relocate to Finland. Drawing attention there to the plight of those victimised, they faced – like the German pastor and friend Siegfried Groth – isolation and discrimination, because what must not be, cannot be.
Such misconstrued solidarity with the liberation movement refused to acknowledge human rights violations by those claiming to be the liberators.
During the transition to independence in 1989, the Ailongas returned to Namibia and built a home at Nakayale. Like others who dared to speak truth to power they remained socially isolated and outcast.
In 2011, a young Finnish filmmaker portrayed their life in an impressive political documentary ‘From Namibia with Love’.
Salatiel, who remained partially incapacitated from a stroke he suffered out of grief over the injustices, never re-entered the Nakayale mission station until his funeral in January 2015.
Anita returned to her Finnish hometown, Vasa.
In October 2025, she attended the launch of this book in Helsinki. The event included a panel recollecting the crimes committed by Swapo. It also engaged with the contradictions of a solidarity movement willingly accepting the violation of fundamental human rights in the name of liberation.
On display at the event was a poem by Anita, also included in the book. She had written it for what would have been Salatiel’s 87th birthday. It begins with the line “What is left is a story about us, like shadows in the sand that tears did water”.
It ends with the words “under the sand, the seeds of truth are waiting”.
This book fosters the hope that these seeds are ultimately growing into flowers of truth.
FAITH AND JUSTICE
It is commendable that University of Namibia Press as local co-publisher provides access to this significant piece in the historic puzzle.
It will be launched in Namibia in a few weeks.
The account displays the sobering picture of the many sacrifices by ordinary people being denied a heroic status for their courage to follow their moral consciousness. There are many sides to the story of being born a nation. The life of Salatiel and Anita Ailonga is part of this story.
It now is made available to all who want to know more about the many faces of the human costs of an anti-colonial struggle.
Those in political power in Namibia claim their governance is guided by a strong Christian belief. They should be aware of and recognise this practical aspect of charity.
It has been the lifelong compass and beacon for Salatiel and Anita Ailonga. Dismissed and denigrated as betrayal, it is the true face of resistance to injustice.
– ‘Christian Faith and Namibian Liberation. An Ethnographic Biography of Salatiel Ailonga’ was written by Christian A Williams.
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