Moments, Monuments and Memory

WINDHOEK is not Namibia and Namibia is not Windhoek.

That was my reaction when I read that Government has been planning, for some time now, to build an Independence Monument in Windhoek. There has not been much public discussion on this issue since that revelation except some debate in Parliament and on national radio.But two recent interventions caught my attention.One was by Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari in his: ‘The Social Significance of the Memorial of the People’.The other is an aptly titled readers’ letter, ‘Appropriate Memorial, Inappropriate Site’.Unfortunately the letter writer chose to hide behind the veil of anonymity.I agree with some of the points raised by the two writers.I hope therefore that this column is not overkill.In fact, Hengari urges us to get engaged in this very important national debate.This piece is thus a prolongation of that debate.Back in 1992, I wrote an article in the Namibia Review: ‘Windhoek Versus the Rest: Development Challenges for Regional Towns in Namibia’.I argued then, and this was not a novel idea in the context of Africa’s development discourse, that Windhoek was getting the lion’s share of Government’s capital projects.Examples: the new State House, Government Office Park, the Heroes’ Acre, University of Namibia, the Polytechnic and the list goes on.But what has a monument got to do with all this? Well, a monument might not have a lot of economic significance or benefits for a country.Unless, of course, one is talking about monumental monuments like the Great Wall of China, the Egyptian Pyramids or Taj Mahal in India.But these have been elevated to that level of historical significance because of their great size and age.And don’t forget that these three countries themselves are part of much older world civilisations.So, Independence Monument or not, tourists will still come to Namibia.They mainly come here for another set of reasons: the sheer beauty of the land and its abundant wildlife.My concern, just like the letter writer referred to above, is why should this monument be built in Windhoek and not at another location where wartime atrocities occurred such as at Waterberg, Hamakari, Ongulumbashe or even Katima Mulilo? I see this move as part of our very skewed development planning philosophy which always tends to favour the capital – the seat of political and economic power – the hallmark of Africa’s developmental trajectory.Thus unlike Hengari, I’m not overly excited about what he terms the ‘memorial of the people’.Because this raises the obvious question of who the ‘people’ are in the context our formalistic democracy.We are told that the planning, design, drawing and even the site selection for this earthly edifice has been in the making for the past seven years – with no input and import from the larger populace or at least Parliament itself.This is thus a classic case of placation.No consultation, let alone participation.My own experience is that once issues have been decided at Cabinet level, then they are a fait accompli most of the time.The other reason why I’m not so eager we throw away another N$8 million on a statue at this stage is that the present generation is still busy writing the very independence narrative that we are supposed to celebrate.Questions of who is a hero or who gets buried at Heroes’ Acre or who qualifies for the status of a war veteran and thus entitled to Government payouts, or which historic battles we remember and commemorate, are all open-ended, even contested in some cases.We have to be on the same historical note before building this edifice.For me, monuments are like a historical text.They are supposed to remind us of specific events.By definition, history is time specific and monuments must capture specific moments in human history.Some are built purely for aesthetic purposes.How to make them inter-generational, as Hengari posits, is a tricky issue in the case of those that are time or event specific.Perhaps intra-generational? I agree with Hengari though, that we should also erect statues that would improve the appearance of our cities.But how many can one erect? There is simply no substitute for longer-term innovative approaches to a well-planned city.This is the challenge for town planners and architects.The question now is how much of the past do we want to erase from our collective memory? How many of the colonial monuments and names do we have to move, destroy or erase? I can’t imagine how I would feel to find that the Great Pyramid of Giza is no longer where it used to if I returned to Egypt one day.It changes the way you look at that specific space/landscape.Thus moving a monument to accommodate another statue does not make historical or aesthetic sense.You are distorting history and secondly defacing the city or locality.People don’t re-write history and definitely not by substituting a name or a statue with another.They make history.And making history at the present conjecture will have to involve addressing existential issues such as the creation of not only a civil but a decent society.Or what the late Fanuel Kozonguizi would term ‘the quality of our independence’.So, we have to be careful not to immerse ourselves too much in symbols while coming short on substance.There has not been much public discussion on this issue since that revelation except some debate in Parliament and on national radio.But two recent interventions caught my attention.One was by Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari in his: ‘The Social Significance of the Memorial of the People’.The other is an aptly titled readers’ letter, ‘Appropriate Memorial, Inappropriate Site’.Unfortunately the letter writer chose to hide behind the veil of anonymity.I agree with some of the points raised by the two writers.I hope therefore that this column is not overkill.In fact, Hengari urges us to get engaged in this very important national debate.This piece is thus a prolongation of that debate.Back in 1992, I wrote an article in the Namibia Review: ‘Windhoek Versus the Rest: Development Challenges for Regional Towns in Namibia’.I argued then, and this was not a novel idea in the context of Africa’s development discourse, that Windhoek was getting the lion’s share of Government’s capital projects.Examples: the new State House, Government Office Park, the Heroes’ Acre, University of Namibia, the Polytechnic and the list goes on.But what has a monument got to do with all this? Well, a monument might not have a lot of economic significance or benefits for a country.Unless, of course, one is talking about monumental monuments like the Great Wall of China, the Egyptian Pyramids or Taj Mahal in India.But these have been elevated to that level of historical significance because of their great size and age.And don’t forget that these three countries themselves are part of much older world civilisations.So, Independence Monument or not, tourists will still come to Namibia.They mainly come here for another set of reasons: the sheer beauty of the land and its abundant wildlife.My concern, just like the letter writer referred to above, is why should this monument be built in Windhoek and not at another location where wartime atrocities occurred such as at Waterberg, Hamakari, Ongulumbashe or even Katima Mulilo? I see this move as part of our very skewed development planning philosophy which always tends to favour the capital – the seat of political and economic power – the hallmark of Africa’s developmental trajectory.Thus unlike Hengari, I’m not overly excited about what he terms the ‘memorial of the people’.Because this raises the obvious question of who the ‘people’ are in the context our formalistic democracy.We are told that the planning, design, drawing and even the site selection for this earthly edifice has been in the making for the past seven years – with no input and import from the larger populace or at least Parliament itself.This is thus a classic case of placation.No consultation, let alone participation.My own experience is that once issues have been decided at Cabinet level, then they are a fait accompli most of the time.The other reason why I’m not so eager we throw away another N$8 million on a statue at this stage is that the present generation is still busy writing the very independence narrative that we are supposed to celebrate.Questions of who is a hero or who gets buried at Heroes’ Acre or who qualifies for the status of a war veteran and thus entitled to Government payouts, or which historic battles we remember and commemorate, are all open-ended, even contested in some cases.We have to be on the same historical note before building this edifice.For me, monuments are like a historical text.They are supposed to remind us of specific events.By definition, history is time specific and monuments must capture specific moments in human history.Some are built purely for aesthetic purposes.How to make them inter-generational, as Hengari posits, is a tricky issue in the case of those that are time or event specific.Perhaps intra-generational? I agree with Hengari though, that we should also erect statues that would improve the appearance of our cities.But how many can one erect? There is simply no substitute for longer-term innovative approaches to a well-planned city.This is the challenge for town planners and architects. The question now is how much of the past do we want to erase from our collective memory? How many of the colonial monuments and names do we have to move, destroy or erase? I can’t imagine how I would feel to find that the Great Pyramid of Giza is no longer where it used to if I returned to Egypt one day.It changes the way you look at that specific space/landscape.Thus moving a monument to accommodate another statue does not make historical or aesthetic sense.You are distorting history and secondly defacing the city or locality.People don’t re-write history and definitely not by substituting a name or a statue with another.They make history.And making history at the present conjecture will have to involve addressing existential issues such as the creation of not only a civil but a decent society.Or what the late Fanuel Kozonguizi would term ‘the quality of our independence’.So, we have to be careful not to immerse ourselves too much in symbols while coming short on substance.