Our Money

It seems the looks of our money is of great concern to many of us. And obviously, for our leaders of today, it is not good enough to put the heads of our late heroes on that money as other, better educated and older nations do – no, it has to be a ‘living hero’.

Most obviously, the imagination of our leaders to find a suitable ‘hero’ for the purpose to be served is extremely limited. It is Old Sam Nujoma, and again only Old Sam that comes to their mind!And if we look at the situation honestly, we are confused about it. Is it really a good choice to exclude the heroes of other people in favour of one or two only? There are various bank notes in our country, each one of a differing value offering us an opportunity to please many. It would be better to put on each of the different notes another ‘head’ to satisfy those who feel excluded already or will soon feel excluded.Let Sam Nujoma be on the N$10 notes and let Hosea Kutako, for an example, be on the N$20 notes. Let Hendrik Witbooi be on the N$50, N$100 and N$200 notes – and if these notes get old and have to be replaced by new ones, let us then put also other heroes who are great in the eyes of their people on them after carefully consulting our people.And if our inflation stays ‘healthy’, we may soon have N$500 and N$1 000 notes. Over time, everyone’s hero will have a chance to find a place in our pockets.However, as the saying ‘don’t praise the day before the night falls’ goes, let us not be in undue haste to honour the living because even a hero can change for the worse. Let us honour those who led an exemplary live by serving their people to the end so we can be sure whom we honour.The Namibian way of honouring those who still walk the earth is dangerous. The liberator Robert Mugabe became the bloody-handed dictator, the tormentor of his people and so changed others, too. It would not be nice to have a hated dictator on our money, I suppose.Think about the difficulties to eradicate such a person from our remembrance if the need arises. A monument we can demolish; however, would you like to destroy your hard-earned money?Kees A PopingaWindhoek