Even freedom can carry ghosts if the past remains unspoken.
Last month, my opinion piece on the underlying causes of Namibia’s mental health epidemic was published in The Namibian.
The response was overwhelming. I was contacted by individuals and organisations eager to do something about our country’s mental health crisis.
As a result, earlier this month I found myself in a room that reminded me of both the fragility and the strength of the human spirit.
There, among academics, creatives and survivors of the Lubango dungeons, I encountered stories so harrowing they reshaped my understanding of trauma, forgiveness and resilience.
The men I met were once young, full of hope, determined to fight for their country’s freedom. They went into exile ready to die for Namibia, but not at the hands of their own comrades.
Many of those detained left their towns and villages only to return to their communities years later as “detainees”. Others, including those from the northern regions, suffered under suspicion and imprisonment.
Yet the injustice remains: those who set off to fight for liberation were received not as heroes, but with silence and stigma.
PAINFUL PAST
The label alone – “detainee” – tells a painful story of injustice and erasure. Theirs is a pain layered with betrayal.
The enemy was not the foreign oppressor; it was a comrade, a brother, a friend.
That betrayal leaves a wound no anthem can drown out.
Yes, the fear of spies is normal in any war.
Suspicion thrives when survival is at stake. But what followed was not only fear but an absence of accountability, of reconciliation, of healing.
After independence, there should have been national recognition, forgiveness, reintegration, debriefing and at least some effort by the government – a government born of their sacrifices – to mend what was broken.
Silence became the official response, a silence that still wounds us today.
More than three decades later, these survivors live quietly among us.
They’ve raised families, built careers and contributed to the same Namibia that forgot them.
They have faced their nightmares alone, some numbing the pain with alcohol, others sinking into depression, others clinging to faith and purpose as anchors.
Yet, they live. They endure. They laugh. They teach. They forgive, even when forgiveness was not asked for.
In our conversations, one truth became clear: many of them still meet their former torturers. In shops, in churches, at funerals. Some even work together.
They are expected to smile, to move on, to embody reconciliation without acknowledgment, without apology, without truth.
That expectation is its own form of violence, the violence of silence.
CONSCIENCE AND CONSEQUENCES
Yet, I can’t help but think that the men who tortured – those who followed orders, those who wielded the whip or the rope – must also suffer.
Guilt, denial, nightmares of their own.
Cruelty not only leaves marks on the flesh of the victims, but on the conscience of the perpetrators.
When dealing with cruelty or trauma, our instinct is often to focus on helping the victim heal.
Yet in truth, the perpetrator may need as much, perhaps even more, help.
If the wounds remain unhealed, the cycle of harm continues, spilling into families, communities and generations.
Lubango is not an old wound to be ignored. It is a mirror, showing us that unacknowledged pain festers across generations.
You can see its reflection in today’s rising suicides, in the murders of loved ones by loved ones, in the quiet despair that grips numerous homes.
Trauma, when buried, does not die. It simply changes form.
Yet, even in this darkness, I saw light. The survivors I met are living lessons in resilience.
They carry unimaginable pain with dignity.
Their courage humbles me. Their strength gives me hope.
To the survivors of the dungeons: I am in awe of your strength and resilience. Your resolve, intellect and grace despite what you endured, and continue to endure, are incomparable.
I can’t fully imagine what it takes to rise each day, to live as normally as possible, knowing you might encounter your torturers in public, at work, or even in positions of authority.
WE NEED YOU
To your families, who stood by you through the nightmares and whose quiet love became your anchor, you too are heroes.
I urge the Lubango survivors to remain visible. Be the ambassadors of hope, resilience and truth this nation so desperately needs.
Your stories are not only about suffering but about survival, about the unbreakable human spirit, about the courage to keep living when silence was easier.
Namibia cannot heal without you. Your truth is part of our national therapy. Recognition, apology and inclusion in the mental health discourse are long overdue – not as charity, but as justice.
We owe you more than silence. We owe you recognition, counselling and platforms for truth-telling – not to reopen wounds, but to clean and heal them.
Healing begins when truth is spoken aloud, when the nation is brave enough to face its own reflection.
If we do not confront our trauma, our trauma will continue to confront us.
- Joyce Tjizu, apartheid survivor, mother, grandmother, lay counsellor, and poet.
