Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro
Last week Namibia hosted the Commonwealth Business Summit which took place parallel to the ministers of trade meeting. “Namibia hosts historic Commonwealth Summit to bolster trade”, screamed a headline in one of the dailies in an apparent bid to invoke a sense of pride, if not in itself as a publication for whatever reason, and equally in the club of illusive and aspiring capitalists, but no doubt in the general Namibian public. Least the Namibian workers, as if the Commonwealth means and would ever mean anything to the workers. Not to mention the fact that if they have ever heard anything and know anything about the Commonwealth.
Oblivious to the fact that the Commonwealth is nothing but an entity that has been created by the British Empire to continue its stronghold over its former colonies. Because to Britain and its fellow partners of the north within this association, there’s no way that the Commonwealth can be said to be a mere colonial relic. But which cannot be said to its members from the Global South. Which unknown to them continue to be beholden to their pre-colonial masters, now post-colonial and or neo-colonial masters, but sublimely so. The Commonwealth being nothing as it has been but an entrapment of the former colonies of Britain.
In the same fashion Europe has re-designed, re-fashioned and re-packaged its relationship with its former colonies from Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, now members of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS). With the colonial ties rekindled in the Arusha Agreement, subsequently the Lomé Convention and later the Cotonou Agreement. Today’s EU-Africa partnership. Which cannot be seen as anything else other than a modernised 1884-5 Berlin Conference, which was about the scramble for African and which ended in the legitimisation of Africa legally and diplomatically but essentially economically, politically, religiously and culturally.
“European countries maintain various partnerships with their former colonies, primarily through trade agreements, development aid, and cultural ties. These relationships often involve preferential trade access and financial assistance, but also face scrutiny for potentially perpetuating neo-colonial dynamics,” this is how the Commonwealth is reflected by Google. Yours truly Ideologically cannot but noted the last part referring to the potential of such a relationship, essentially between colonisers and colonised, of “perpetuating neo-colonial dynamics”.
Namibia, by a narrow and strict interpretation of a colony, may not be a former British colony. But not forgetting with hindsight that following the defeat of Germany by the allied powers in the Second World War in the mid-1940s, she was entrusted to Britain as a League of Nations trusteeship, but that subsequently shifted the caretaking of this trust to apartheid South Africa. That instead occupied the country till its independence in 1991. Perhaps the reason why Namibia craved the membership of the Commonwealth. Becoming, as she is, a volunteer former colony of Britain, if her membership of the Commonwealth can be anything else.
Reading and listening to the summit unfolding, Yours Truly Ideologically could not but notice some hyping about it, especially by the government, as well as other participants, especially from the business community. Yours Truly was not with certainty, if at all, aware of who the participants to and in the summit were.
But one area which it was meant to look at is the SMME sector. Not to mention indeed sectors such as digital innovation, renewable energy, agriculture and transport logistics. Good-sounding and relevant as they are, and may be, one cannot but wonder as well as ask the question if those directly engaged and involved in these sectors were represented by self. Not to mention if there would ever be any outputs and outcomes with immediate impactful effect, especially on Namibia’s wretched of the earth. Who are the citizens barely surviving, other than scavenging from the country’s dumpsites and from many an affluent household’s refuge bins?
There are and have been many summits, conferences, and anything to this effect, year in and year out, but the outcome thereof, in terms of tangibility in the livelihoods, especially as far as the ordinary citizens finding themselves in dire straits, has been little, has been hidden if not zero. While their living conditions have been screaming for immediate and urgent relief.
Yours Truly Ideologically remains ever to be convinced about whenever any like summit has led to solving the immediate needs of those in need of urgent and permanent solutions to many and most of the problems they are facing daily. All of the conferences and what-have-you have been coming only for the next one with little impact. Simply because they have been all about providing small and imaginary niches for the participants, who usually are and have been far removed from the situations of those carrying the burden and brunt of social and economic neglect. Visited and perpetrated against them by those they have entrusted with this task, as onerous as it may. But to whom such a task or tasks have been but necessary necessities. Only to be scoffed at and shoved aside in the scramble for what such summits and conferences can provide them with as stepping stones towards money and glory. And once such glory is realised, there have been and are usually little trickles down, if any at all, to the suffering masses. “Trade must work for all, not just for large companies in major markets,” maintains the Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Shirley Ayorkor-Botchwey. Almost echoing Namibia’s Minister of International Relations and Trade, Selma Ashipala-Musavyi. Having said earlier, “Let us navigate the future together boldly, inclusively and sustainably”.
Yours Truly ideologically cannot but wonder if the inclusivity Ashipala-Musavyi may be talking about who is included and/or should be included and in what exactly because at the level of the said summit, one cannot for sure be referring to the working classes of whichever member country and/or nation of the Commonwealth. Whom, as far as the summit of the likes of the said one, hardly exists other than asa matter of convenience and placating reference. This is as much the Commonwealth SG’s reference to “trade working for all”. Who cannot be anyone else than the usual suspect crowd, to whom warming the seats of like summits and conferences, usually tailor-made for entrenching capitalism, has become an inalienable right and entitlement? With those who should, in reality, by the nature of their continued exploitation and marginalisation, be the deserving ones of serious, undivided and devoted of like summits and conferences.
