DEVELOPMENTAL state, knowledge economy, information society.
These are just some of the buzzwords that are thrown around by some of our politicians and the so-called educated classes in this country.
These are not vacuous terms or notions if they are used in proper context. By proper context I mean seeing these terms in operation. But I am afraid they become vacuous when used in our Namibian context where I don’t see traces of those.
I will argue here that we are neither a developmental state nor a knowledge economy and neither are we travellers on the information super highway – assuming that we are trying to get on the highway in the first place. Let me, by way of an entry into this journey of exploration share with you my own story – basically an ordeal.
It was on a Wednesday in mid-December last year. I had just finished my article for the newspaper and all I needed to do was email it. A friend had borrowed my device, which I usually use, over the weekend and never returned it to Opuwo, where I am based.
So my options were to make use of other facilities in town.
My first step was the Teachers Resource Centre (TRC), which is close to where I live. I went there to make use of their internet facilities to send the email. Got there but was told that their system has been down for some time now and besides, their computers are infested with viruses.
The next stop was the Opuwo Public Library. Here, I knew that their internet system has been down since last year in November but nevertheless I went there hoping that perhaps the system was back to normalcy. Again to no avail. Thus, since November the internet system at the Opuwo Public Library has been down and nobody cares to do anything about it. There is always this ‘there is nothing we can do’ attitude among our people.
Then I rushed to Telecom Namibia. Mind you the deadline was fast approaching and the editor had started calling. My response: yes it will be there soon sir. At Telecom, to my dismay, I was told the mouse was missing – they have only one computer for Opuwo (Telecom really?).
My only hope was now the two internet cafes in town. Got to the first one, logged in, opened my email, and wrote a quick message to say sorry for the delay and attached, ‘Please find the article’. So, I inserted the USB and opened it. The message: there are no items on this folder.
Then a quick dash to the next internet café. Logged in and without wasting time, I inserted the USB. The articles were there but within seconds everything went into ‘shortcuts’. End of story and I called the editor to say sorry but no column.
I am citing this personal experience to argue how the majority of Namibians are still far away from using this new innovation of our time – the Internet. The Internet is indeed a revolution but is a revolution that has shaken off a few people from their traditional way of doing things but the majority remained untouched by it even in our cities.
They remain trapped in the paper age and still have to enter the digital age.
There are, of course, bright spots around. In 2013 the Polytechnic of Namibia, for example, used electronic voting for its students representative council elections.
Now put yourself in the position of a student at Opuwo who has to register online for admission to a college or Namcol students and others who have to do their courses online where the internet system at the public library or the TRC have been down since last year! Mind you, the Opuwo public library, the TRC and Telecom are all state institutions and yet they are allowed to operate at their most minimal. Where have all the government’s IT technicians gone?
The founder of Facebook (Bookface?) Mark Zuckerberg’s dream was to provide internet access to billions of people around the globe and yet many have no access to this modern innovation just as many people today still do not own a television set.
The potential is that the Internet is a handy tool to get news, communicate with others around the globe and above all help do research. As a non-expert on the Internet, those are the potentials that I see but I realised now that there are apparently many other possibilities that experts on the Internet can make use of to be on par with others globally.
As Peter Singer notes: “Zuckerberg’s vision may sound like a self-interested push to gain more Facebook users.
But the world currently faces a growing technological divide, with implications for equality, liberty and the right to pursue happiness that are no less momentous than the racial divide against which King preached.”
I submit here that if Namibia wants to become a ‘knowledge economy’, ‘developmental state’ or ‘information society ‘, then it must get its information industry in place and develop a reading and learning culture among the majority of its citizens.
