Political Perspective

IT is good to hear that the Secretary General of Swapo, Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana, has publicly told the ‘struggle kids’ that they aren’t special, and now it is incumbent on all political leadership in this country to ensure that there is a level playing field for all marginalised Namibians, or risk inflaming more ‘entitlement’ demonstrations in other sectors as well.

WHAT I am really saying is that if the issue is one of unemployed youth, then that is the matter that must be addressed, and not the demands of just one small group among them who claim a privileged status. This can no longer be tolerated nearly 20 years after Independence.The Government must be the government of the people, all of them, regardless of which political party is in power. And if they ignore this, then they imperil the country as a whole and they risk opening up a Pandora’s Box of problems for themselves.For it will not end with the ‘struggle kids’ if they are given preference. Others will demand recognition as well, and I see those seeds already germinating with regard to the Gam farmers’ invasion of Tsumkwe. In this case several families of Herero-speaking farmers have invaded a protected conservancy by cutting through the veterinary cordon fence, creating a potentially huge problem which Government now has to deal with.Gerson Veii of Swanu, while saying that his party is not in favour of the invasion itself, nevertheless feels that this too is an ‘entitled’ group. Blaming Government for being responsible for not resettling what he called ‘previously disadvantaged, displaced and dispossessed Namibians’, he emphasised that these were the descendants of genocide victims, and therefore also deserving of special attention.My view goes contrary to that of Veii and Swanu. And, inasmuch as I feel the ‘struggle kids’ can’t claim for themselves special treatment because they are the children of exiled Namibians, so too I don’t believe that the Gam farmers have any unique claim because they are the descendants of genocide victims! Next thing it will be the offspring of former Koevoets saying they’re being discriminated against because their parents held a particular political belief which happened to be the same as the oppressorsIt is extremely difficult to level a playing field taking into account the historical past, simply because it will never end and will lead us always back to the same question of who were the original inhabitants of Namibia, and if we’re truthful with ourselves, it would be none of the groups who are now making a lot of noise. We can’t really make right where our forebears were wronged, or if we tried we’d probably only manage to do it on a selective basis, so why do it at all?Governing inclusively with due cognisance of marginalised groups in our present society is the way to go. If we continued to right the wrongs of the past, we risk doing injustice to those in the present, and the future.Which is also why I believe that after nearly 20 years of Independence, we need to do away with the ‘previously disadvantaged’ slogan. More than this it has been abused by the advantaged elite, most of whom have managed, in addition to handsome present-day remuneration, to get additional benefits for themselves, which in turn has led to neglect of the plight of the currently disadvantaged people of this country.It is an election year which makes it even more important for Government to be fair to all, and not just to groups of people who represent the ruling party support group. So in this context Iivula-Ithana’s rebuke to the ‘struggle kids’ is fitting and right. Gerson Veii too needs to take note and ensure he does not inflate the expectations of Herero-speaking descendants of genocide, as he calls them. In just about every person’s past is some or other injustice, and we cannot ask, let alone expect, that Government make right what they were not responsible for in the first place.It is also important at this time that political leaders should measure their words carefully and refrain from making outrageous promises that can never be fulfilled We all know that while we strive for equality, we are not all equal. It stands to reason that the needs of the poor and unemployed and marginalised living in Namibia today have to be addressed if we want to claim to be fair and just towards all our people.But we cannot afford to have on our conscience the creation of new and additional marginalised groups in our society today by focusing on trying to make amends for the past.