Sem Billy David I
It’s time to face one of the biggest myths of our time: the idea that people who live in luxury can empathise with those who live in poverty. Each election season, well-dressed voices emerge from air-conditioned offices promising to “transform the informal settlements”.
Their feet have never touched the muddy floors of a leaking shack, but they wear the faces of saviours. How can someone who has never experienced a wound heal it? How can the misery of the valleys of poverty be alleviated by someone from the hills of privilege?
The pretenders of the struggle
The phrase “We will bring development to the poor” is one that we have become accustomed to hearing from politicians. However, far too frequently, these are the same people who have never gone a day without food, water, or electricity, who have never slept in dust, or who have never walked in the dark.
After the votes are counted, they disappear into their comfort after campaigning in our dust. Some people temporarily relocate to informal settlements in an attempt to “understand”—not because they have no other option, but rather to save money on living expenses or protect their businesses. To be clear, that is convenience, not poverty. They have choices, bank accounts, and options. They leave when things get tough. However, there is no way out for the real sons and daughters of the informal settlements. Poverty is a painful reality, not a project. It is the sound of a child wailing in the middle of the night as the rain pours through the roof. Because the government has forgotten you exist, you must endure the humiliation of using plastic bags for sanitary purposes.
Who would actually fight for change, the one who can leave or the one who can’t?
The politics of comfort
Our politics have gotten too cosy; let’s speak the truth without fear. Instead of being partners in change, the impoverished are utilised as campaign slogans. As if the impoverished had no voice, political parties recruit candidates from wealthy communities to “speak for the poor”.
However, those who eat while others go hungry cannot lead the revolution. The same tears cannot be shed by someone sleeping on a king-size bed as by someone sleeping on a cold floor. Windhoek is now a city with two faces: one that is aglow with luxury and the other that is covered in dust and hopelessness. But we refer to this as unity? We refer to this as freedom. When half of a country’s population still lives like refugees in their own country, how can it declare itself an independent nation?
The new revolution
We must wake up from this post-independence illusion. Political freedom without economic justice is nothing but a new form of slavery. The shackles have changed shape — from colonial chains to poverty and exclusion — but they still bind the same people. If the system moves too slowly to deliver, the people must move faster. If the bus of progress has stopped, we must jump off and board another — the bus of radical transformation.
This post-independence delusion needs to be broken. Without economic justice, political freedom is merely a new kind of slavery. The same people are still bound by the same shackles, which have taken on different forms from colonial chains to poverty and exclusion. People must move more quickly if the system is operating too slowly to deliver. We must get off the bus of progress and board the one of radical transformation if the one of progress has stopped.
A call to the people
Informal settlement residents are now forced to make their own decision. Don’t let titles, catchphrases, or credentials for liberation fool you. Independence was not the end of the fight for land and dignity; it is still being fought in every shack, on every street, and in every hungry stomach.
This is about freedom, not flags. It is about humanity, not history.
Let those who have lived the pain lead the healing. Let those who have been harmed rise and rebuild. And let the wealthy know that if you have never slept in the dust of the poor, you cannot speak for them. The revolution will emerge from the shacks, spearheaded by those who stand to lose nothing but their chains; it won’t be announced in comfort.
*Sem Billy David I, is a youth activist and a candidate for the City of Windhoek.
