Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro
Declaring Genocide Remembrance Day this time around last year, on the 28th of May, to be exact, the descendants were for the second year running since 2023, commemorating it at the Independence Museum, while this Wednesday the government held what it termed the inauguration of the day.
For Your Descendant Truly, there was not much to write home about regarding the said inauguration, be it in format, content, and attendance. Let alone about what was the inaugural speech of the day by the President of the Republic of Namibia, Her Excellency, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah. Especially for the descendants who are, so to speak, converts in this regard.
Yes, maybe, for the unconverted usual crowd of government, diplomatic, political and social elites, who essentially decorated the event. Warming up, despite being winter, their usual coveted and designated front-row seats. Hopefully from that vintage, taking something about the day.
But not so much anything of substance and essence about what the day is all about. And what it means. For surely what the President said to the descendants, among them, if not only the usual trusted government’s fellow travellers on the issue of genocide, apology and reparations, means little, if nothing at all. Given the dreaded Joint Declaration (JD), supposedly the reparations package that has been rammed down their throats and continues to be, and which is due for implementation by the government of the day and its German counterpart. Due to dispensing, if not already, a paltry 1.1 billion euros.
But this time around a group of traditional leaders hailing by the name of the Okandjoze Chiefs’ Assembly joined the fanfare. Against the best expectations and wishes of their would-be followers, adherents, followers and general supporters from among the communities of these respective traditional leaders of the Ovaherero and Ovambanderu. United in their firm belief that the JD cannot offer them a lasting, befitting and just solution to their consistent demand for restorative justice. In a nutshell, which they have been defining as reparations. As opposed to bilateral aid enshrined in it, and which, as far as they are concerned, the JD represents.
These cultural subjects-cum-activists, campaigners, fighters, advocates and general adherents from these communities were loud and clear in absenting themselves. Seeing the programme of the day, with no one they identify with, let alone the Vice President, Her Excellency, Lucia Witbooi, also a descendant in her own right. Confined to officialdom. The President and her men and women. Making it essentially more than a Genocide Remembrance Day, as it would and should be, but essentially the President’s Men and Women’s Remembrance Day.
Following on Monday an exclusive emergency meeting of the Okandjoze traditional leaders, who have converged in Windhoek for remembrance, the chiefs decided instead to attend the government’s remembrance inaugural ceremony at Parliament Gardens. Their communities are still to be apprised of their hurried rationale to attend the ceremony despite their flagrant , deliberate and malicious exclusion from the day’s programme.
Lasting only an hour or less. With the leaders of the descendants, and indeed their communities, supposedly represented on the programme by His Traditional Leaders’ Master’s Voice, Gaob Immanuel /Gaseb, the Chairperson of the Council of Traditional Leaders. Whose reparations ideology is little known about. Safe for considering himself also a bona fide descendant.
After their wining and dining with the President and her men and women, the Okandjoze traditional leaders returned to their people, who from the 27th of May have been converging at the UN Plaza, engaging, foremost, in their traditional rituals to mark Genocide Remembrance Day, as they have been doing since 2023, for three years running this year. For some, the exclusion of their leaders from the government’s programme was not only intolerable but a malicious and utter disrespect for their leaders and humiliation of them and their communities. Yet another show of disdain by the powers that be. That these traditional leaders and their communities think successive administrations, since independence, have been harbouring for their leaders and communities.
To descendant communities, Genocide Remembrance Day is not just and should not just be about political speeches. For that matter, by those with no knowledge, let alone a semblance of knowledge of the rigours, strictures and traits of the respective cultures of the affected communities. But a highly solemn occasion to rekindle the spirits of the ancestors. Which cannot be presided over by cultural aliens.
The very reason why the Ovaherero and Ovambanderu communities had an event at UN Plaza. Importantly, these events included the lighting of the holy fire. Yours Truly Ideologically notes the lighting of candles at the government’s ceremony. Indeed, candle lighting is a normal matter to show the sombreness of an occasion. But Genocide Remembrance Day is not just another sombre occasion but has deep cultural and spiritual meaning and should have been approached accordingly and/or in least been conducted in and with the requisite cultural and spiritual demeanour, presided over by cultural diviners of the affected communities. Instead of a Christian persona, as was evidenced. The genocide of the Ovaherero and Ovambanderu was preceded by the destruction of their cultures and replacement by Christianisation.
Thus, it is a contradiction that the very Genocide Remembrance Day, the essence of which is, partly, to remember and restore, should be shrouded in Christianity without any semblance and/or pretence at cultural spiritualism.
Back at UN Plaza, having attended the short-lived government’s fanfare, it was back to the roots and tradition for the Okandjoze traditional leaders. Back to reality and going on as business as usual as if they have not somehow ruffled some feathers of their own, having offended and angered their fellow descendants by attending, without offering any explanation and/or rationale for attending a ceremony they were excluded from purposefully.
Let alone, after the fact, daring to share what could have been the pros and cons of attending. Business as usual for the chiefs. Yet expecting the people to continue to rally behind them, if not the cause of reparative and restorative justice. How the apparatchiks can and may be expected to continue in championing the cause and/or put into operation Their Majesties’ reparation ideals remains baffling.
Needless to say, their Majesties need to redeem themselves in the eyes of their loyal and benign communities, their technical committee and the broader Okandjoze and Namibia public that has been unwavering in the cause of restorative justice. Sooner rather than later if the trust the group has been cultivating is not to wane and erode.
