The Essence of Activism: Are we supposed to be ‘poor’?

In response to Jonathan Kariseb

On my way home from the AR headquarters after a long, tiring but productive meeting, I stopped by Otjomuise shopping centre to buy newspapers.

The meeting was with our regional leadership about different strategies and tactics we will deploy in preparation of the upcoming regional and local authority elections,

As I was perusing The Namibian of 27 July, I came across an article by Jonathan Kariseb, scandalously titled ‘On Job Amupanda, Elites and the Burden of Responsibility: A Personal Reflection’.

In one of his famous essays, ‘The responsibility of Intellectuals’, Noam Chomsky tells us that “it is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies’’.

Antonio Gramsci, a distinguished Marxist philosopher warned us about traditional intellectuals and how they sway society into believing something that is not factual. Listen to him: “Traditional intellectuals believe they are autonomous and neutral above class interest. They often reproduce and legitimise existing power structures (e.g. capitalism, elitism) even if they claim to be independent thinkers.’’

In contrast, Gramsci promoted and celebrated the organic intellectuals whom he describes as rooted in the day-to-day life of a particular social group often the working class and shaping society through activism, education and cultural work.

As a young activist, but also as a student from a poor background, at one point I went to see Job Amupanda to engage him and seek organic guidance on how I should navigate the tough journey of being an activist and at the same time a student. He advised that it will always be tough being an activist and a student, but one must adopt “management by objectives” to manoeuvre around the never-ending challenges so that we improve not only ourselves, but also the unpleasant circumstances of our backgrounds.

I narrate this short experience to cement the point that Amupanda has been and continues to be a resilient voice of the dejected masses of our people. His scholastic achievements, which he did not achieve through political favours or corruption, but through discipline and hard work, did not strip him of his boldness to speak out against corruption and injustice being perpetuated against the dejected masses, unlike traditional intellectuals like Jonathan Kariseb.

The classification of Amupanda as an ‘elite’ is nothing but analytical laziness. Should we then believe academic qualifications and employment are suppose to make us oblivious to the hardships our society is facing?

If anything, our academic achievements offer us platforms and mechanisms to challenge the imbalance of our societies. Society should start demanding for public intellectuals, particularly traditional intellectuals, to offer organic inputs, analysis and solutions to fundamental problems facing society, and not intellectual input that weaponises the academic achievements of activists in an effort to stifle their voices.

– Onesmus Iyambo, AR communications department

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