Namibia Is Starved Of A Socratic Dialogue

AT the time of writing this piece, I find myself with donkeys as my only mode of transport on the small picturesque island of Hydra in the beautiful Greek Saronic Gulf close to the eastern Peloponnese shore.

Modern Hydra is known as a beautiful island with blue waters, but its role in Greek history against Turkish invasions is evident from the defensive character of the island with narrow streets, tall stone fences and canons facing the waters.But what is largely of common intellectual interest is Athens, which is a few kilometers away from the island of Hydra. After all, it is in Athens where Plato, his mentor Socrates and his student Aristotle, all classical Greek philosophers, laid the foundations of much of the intellectual antecedents of Western philosophy and natural science.Importantly also, it is also in Athens where the first institution of higher learning in the Western world was founded by Plato. The relevance of the island of Hydra or Athens to many of us Namibians is scant, apart from those with a deeper interest in scholarship and the importance of such in thinking the modern republic. But there is what I consider to be a deeper level of relevance in the evolution of our state.Societies evolve and become great on the basis of certain historical contexts. Greece was a centre of scholarship and scientific achievements. But the very same societies that were centers of achievement may also collapse or be left behind as a consequence of that very same historical context.I am not too sure if one could find the same level of Socratic or Platonic intellectual sophistication in Athens today. I am also not too sure if one could explain the intellectual shift from Athens to other Western centers as the stuff of the cyclical rise and inevitable decline of grandeur. But the point that ought to be emphasised in part is that the foundation that leaders and the broader collective set in motion today is what will ultimately determine if future generations will inherit solid institutions and broadly speaking, a solid republic.Just like the modern Western world that has gone on to think with and against Plato and Socrates in running the affairs of the state, we as Namibians are left with little wiggle room, but to also think with and against Plato and Socrates. We need our own dialogue with Plato, and against Plato and Socrates.However, we have become like the island of Hydra in the 19th century. Instead of opening up ourselves to fresh and new ideas, and undergoing a transformation, our state, perhaps our mind, has taken on a defensive character, with narrow streets, tall stone fences and canons facing the waters.Everything that goes contrary to what we think we know or have known for the past fifty years is hostile and must be torn apart, even if what comes from the ‘other’ is founded on sound reasoning and logic.I am not too sure if what we experience today – this ‘destructive identity crisis’ – is the immediate legacy of anti-colonial struggle – one that will pass with time or whether it is a phase that has assumed a certain permanence. And if it will pass – what is the cost of this current phase with regard to the foundations that we ought to lay for a successful state?As a society, we are caught up excessively in the immediate. The panacea to this immediacy lies in part in our own form of a Socratic debate.Such a discussion means that as a society we must have a meaningful oppositional, but philosophical discussion in order to illuminate ideas. We must start to talk deeply about what it means to live in a republic. Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari is a PhD fellow in political science at the University of Paris- Panthéon Sorbonne, France.