Political Perspective

IF there is indeed infighting in the Swapo Youth League, and it’s about the ethnic makeup of the current leadership, then it’s really an issue that needs to be dealt a death blow.

Swapo has always prided itself as a national party that has no ethnic exclusivity, and even the founding President, Sam Nujoma, always took great care to ensure inclusivity and to offset the sometimes prevalent image of the former liberation movement being classified as an ‘Ovambo’ party.AND it is really time, nearly 20 years after Independence, that we dispense with tribalist politics because it’s the way towards backwardness and even possibly ruination. Judging people on race and tribe and how black you are or how light-skinned really needs to come to an end. One would have hoped that the Bill of Rights in our Constitution, and its later manifestation in the Anti-Discrimination Act among others, would have put paid to what I consider a nonsense!There are a lot of human attributes that people can consciously choose for themselves, but their skin colour or race or tribe or gender are not among those. And noone can hold inherent birth characteristics against them. Because that is the essence of discrimination.In a country like ours, with a richness of ethnic pluralism, we can use this diversity to good ends to forge a wonderful nation. We are all aware that there is one dominant ethnic group, but there are also numerous others whose voices need to be heard and not silenced.I for one, although I am by no means always in agreement with the SPYL, was pleased to note a reaching-out to other groups recently and saw this as a positive step in recognising the need to be inclusive. This especially against a background where various new opposition groups are coming into being and blurring the boundaries between the various ethnic groups.No political party which restricts its membership to a certain ethnic group has any chance of ever becoming a national movement. It is simply not possible, for they will inevitably alienate others, and it is right and just that they be shunned by the broad majority.However, we do need to take note that such parties will only come into being if the members of the group in question feel they are being marginalised and excluded from national affairs.This is why democratic and inclusive government is so important, for they need to be aware of the development needs of all areas in a country like ours for example and ensure that the national cake is apportioned and distributed fairly among all its people.There’ve been voices raised in criticism in the past that much of the development goes north and not south. These are perceptions, and sometimes they are real, and they must be taken into account by the ruling party. It is an election year, and simply by virtue of numbers, Swapo is undoubtedly Ovambo-dominant, but to look after only that section of the population, and to do so consistently over the years, is a recipe for disaster.I know that there are leaders in Swapo, even if they are members of the Ovambo group, who are absolutely committed to inclusion. But there are others who seem intent on drawing tribal boundaries and looking at issues such as the current leadership of the Youth League in a critical light, because it appears that it is dominated by non-Ovambo Namibians.It is one thing to judge them on their leadership qualities, or lack thereof, regardless of which tribal grouping they hail from, but quite another to take issue because of their ethnicity. It is a dangerous and divisive tendency that will drive people away from Swapo if it is allowed to take root.These tribal sensitivities, which derive largely from past history, have no place in the new Namibia and Swapo must ensure that whatever happened back then to give rise to the perceptions about dominance is erased by the present and the future.What I am saying applies to all political and other groupings in this country, and not only Swapo. I simply focus on the SPYL issue because it has recently found resonance in the media, and whether the present controversy is baseless or not, suffice to say that it is being fuelled somewhere by people with clear tribal agendas.The Swapo Youth League holds a Central Committee meeting this weekend, and I hope that this issue will be placed on the table and vigorously debated in order to ensure that Swapo’s image is restored as a political party that welcomes Namibians from all ethnic walks. Failure to do so will erode all the past efforts that have been made to ensure the importance of inclusivity.