This Monday, the 9th of February, marked Constitution Day, the day when, 36 years ago, in 1990, the Constituent Assembly adopted the country’s constitution leading up to its coming into effect with the country’s independence the same year on 21 March.
The question that begs to be asked is, 36 years after, is there cause for celebration? Is there any reason why 36 years after everyone in Namibia should celebrate this day, and why? Needless to say, the answer to such a question cannot but be mixed. While the Namibian Constitution is and must be ordinarily a source of pride for each and every Namibian citizen, it is and cannot be. Depending on which side of the socio-economic scale one falls on. As there is and can be no doubt that socio-economically the Constitution can hardly be said to have been all things to all people. Indeed, there’s no way that it ever shall be everything and all things to all of Namibia’s citizens. Because by its sheer design, despite the desire and aspirations, let alone valiant attempts by some of its founders, it was and could never have been intended to be.
Thus, the unpalatable truth is there’s no way everyone can share and should be expected to share in whatever euphoria the marking of the day must have encompassed and entailed.
For starters, from official authority, 50% of Namibia is yet to be electrified. That leaves another 50% that is not. How can those left out, or who may be feeling they have been left out if indeed they have not been left out, be expected to feel about the Constitution, which, as far as they are concerned, has not delivered? That is if it was for it to deliver in this regard. Even if, for that matter, the non-delivery may be in one aspect only. But an aspect that for those feeling left out is significant, if not of utmost priority and importance.
But is the Constitution the sole deliverer of electrification, if at all it is the deliverer thereof, other than levelling the playing field for the delivery thereof? Anyone’s guess is as good as that of Yours Truly Ideologically. Surely electrification cannot be the one and only indicator of socio-economic progress in the country that the Constitution is supposed to aid and abet and propel at best, and at worst if it only allows for its generation and distribution as per the rigours of capitalism.
While electrification may not be the only yardstick of and for socio-economic progress and there are and may be many other indicators, you may find that usually, given the skewedness of socio-economic development in Namibia, it is usually the same cohorts that have access to all forms of electricity generated in the country and even imported to make up for the deficit left by the country’s inability to satisfy through its own internal means the local need.
With the country’s latest green energy dream, if not fantasy, one sees little sign of the distribution of energy in the country changing, even if little for that matter, so the majority of the people, so-called marginalised, including in the rural areas, are included. With the masses being excluded even culturally, religiously and otherwise, as usually there’s a correlation and/or causal effect between socio-economic development and cultural development.
Ala the Namibian Constitution, the country is a mixed economy, whatever this means. But what has been glaringly clear and may perhaps be taken as the manifestation of the country’s mixed economic orientation is the blatant divide between the rich and poor; opulence and poverty and squalor; impoverished rural areas and affluent urban areas. Even within the urban environs, the rich and poor divide has been increasingly manifesting itself. Can the Constitution be blamed for this state of affairs in the country? Not only this, but given the pertaining state of affairs as depicted and presented by the obvious divide between the rich and poor, rural and urban, and white and Black, if you wish, who really is to find any pride in such a constitution? That is if the constitution cannot escape any blemish in this regard.
Indeed there is and can be no denial that the constitution is to some degree responsible for providing some measure of tranquillity, peace and order. Necessary as such may be, can it be said to be sufficient and enough to inculcate in any citizen a sense of pride in the constitution and the attendant social order it wrought and cause to prevail?
Yes, admittedly the constitution is the best possible thing the Namibian independence has brought about. But just like freedom and independence itself that have brought civil and political liberties, these are all what the constitution has brought for the citizens of the country. Economic freedom remains illusive for many of the Namibian citizens, especially the indigenes, who have remained on the fringes of the country’s economy, be it in good or bad times. They have not seen the difference between good economic times and the bad ones. For them the economy has remained but one and only one season of bad fortunes through and in and out. Perhaps the constitution is not so much to be blamed for this state of affairs. But those entrusted with the duty to bring the necessary radical change in the socio-economic being of the people, the politicians. Many may think this is where the bucks stop and the constitution is without any blemish. But on closer examination and scrutiny, it would transpire that indeed the constitution was and has never been designed to deliver the masses from the yoke of capitalism. Granted! But what about the people themselves? Have they ever proven, either to themselves or to those who may wish to exonerate the constitution in this regard, that the constitution is far from being the impediment towards real radical socio-economic transformation? But the people themselves ultimately stand to be blamed for allowing the continuation and entrenchment of the very capitalist system that an independent Namibia has inherited. People themselves are equally much to blame for allowing themselves to continue to be subjected and subjugated to capitalism, which is camouflaged and presented as a mixed economy, whatever the meaning of ‘mixed economy’.
