Let me tell you a story…When Anna Kakurukaze Mungunda was shot and killed in the Old Location in 1959 and the struggle turned real, apartheid’s now well documented ratchetry seemed to inject itself with steroids.
Like an armpit smell carefully cultivated over five sweltering days, it overwhelmed and immersed every crack and crevice of the lives of every Namibian – black, white and everyone else in between.
She was the only woman among the 12 casualties of the Old Location uprising in Windhoek on 10 December 1959. There were more than 50 others injured.
At least one version of the story has it that the brutal shooting of her only son, Kaaronda Mungunda, enraged her so much that she ran towards the car of an administrator, poured petrol over it, and set it alight.
Mungunda, who was employed as a domestic worker, was shot dead during or immediately after this action.
Mungunda is now rightfully regarded one of the heroes of the Namibian nation.
As illustrated by the story of her killing, police brutality was the order of the day, there were no-go areas and services and police protection was exclusively for those blessed with light skin.
A minority appropriated the land and dished it out to themselves, made laws that subjugated the people, ignored their pleas for basic services and used religion to justify their actions.
Sounds familiar…
For most Namibians, not much has changed since ousie Mungunda died on that December day.
Except for the fact that those dishing out the land and subjugating the people used to be brutalised and subjugated under the jackboot of apartheid themselves. Hell, some might even have been from the Old Location.
I don’t have to tell you again how we treat domestic workers but I’ll never get over the fact that one Charles ‘Ho Chi Minh’ Namoloh said in public that the N$1 200 minimum wage for domestic workers is too much. Never! He was part of the decision to establish that amount. By the way, Mister Minister makes over N$3 500. A day.
When our older people, especially those living in urban centres, speak with a yearning for the good old, bad old days, we have to ask what the hell went wrong.
Maybe economic apartheid replaced racial apartheid. Maybe that, coupled with the reckless impunity of an untouchable and out of touch ruling class, have led us here.
Mungunda wasn’t an activist for domestic workers’ rights, she was merely fed up with the brutality and unfairness of the system that came to visit her home once too often.
Today, this still entrenched inequality and our leaders’ inability to deal with it might be our biggest challenges. Are they ready to deal with our problems, which are varied and many but not difficult to overcome?
That armpit stench has drenched every sphere of our society and those who we asked to start to wash the stink away are only interested in dressing up in the latest bling, complete with fashionable, shiny jackboots.
Were you not puzzled by Lukas Pohamba accepting all the gifts lavished on him by businesses last week after the nice package we sent him into retirement with? Can they not say no? Did their moral principles evaporate when they left Katutura for Windhoek’s leafy suburbs?
I’m getting drunk tomorrow to celebrate Pohamba’s departure. If I’m not back at work on Monday, please understand. It’s a moerse celebration, a decade in the making. It’s not every day that we greet a man who was a lame duck for over nine years of his 10-year reign. But that will teach us to trust these damn politicians to solve any of our issues or fulfill their promises. It’s like taking a sleeping pill that has insomnia as one of its side effects and wondering why we are still up at 03h00 trying to make sense of the world.
Instead of just saying housing will be his top priority, Hage Geingob last week told reporters that young Namibians can’t have land because even he failed to farm productively on his Christmas farm. The arrogance of ignorance.
If the god that these leaders believe in comes down from heaven tomorrow and judges us on the way we treat our most vulnerable, I bet the independence braai will be held at 1 Furnace Street, Hell.
Who will they blame if the masses celebrate independence with Molotov cocktails on the roofs of their official cars? After all, they still live in areas reminiscent of the Old Location.
