Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro
Stay positive! A message from a good long-time friend. Actually a granny, mother, sister, niece, and cousin all rolled into one sounded Yours Truly out on a Sunday morning on the last Sunday of 2026 preceding Christmas.
Was it just a Sunday morning remembrance salutation filled with the usual profoundness of love, or did it have a ring of reflection, and on what? The message could not but get me indeed reflecting deeply. Especially given the season of the times when we are not only readying for the typical season of capitalist decadence and opulence, hailed as Xmas, but also winding up 2025 to herald 2026. Surely, amidst the attendant capitalist craze of Xmas and Old and New Year, whatever and whichever, there must be some positivity. But certainly not the type that has been attendant to the consumer craziness and spendthrift euphemised as Black Friday. Which has been dragging on for the last two months, beginning in November and going into December. Passing by the Games complex in the City of Windhoek the other day on this festive season eve to quickly grab something to swallow while on my seemingly thoughtful errands courtesy of the crazy season, I stumbled into an unprecedented traffic jam as the well-to-do scrambled for something at Games as part of the so-called Black Friday.
Oblivious and unhindered by the genesis and real meaning of Black Friday. Which traces its origin to the day when slave masters, drivers and owners, as well as hunters, could barter African humans, meaning Africans were forcefully hunted, haunted, captured and shipped from Africa to the Americas. How one could be positive about this sad history and memory is beyond rational comprehension. When, despite trying to be positive, such unpalatable realities are not visited on one once but daily through the vicious and ugly face of capitalism, cloaked and touted as the festive season. Which, for that matter, is not an open season but more than anything accentuates the exclusiveness that capitalism is and has been. Exclusive to the opulent, with the wretched of the earth hypnotised and toxified into trying to mimic such opulence and decadence.
This is not to say that 2025 may not have seen some positives nor that 2026 may also not herald some. But the question remains, for whom? Certainly it cannot be for everyone, least of all for the wretched of the scorched Namibian earth. For most, every day, Xmas and New Year remain what they are and have been: typical capitalist reminders of squalor and poverty. Mark and follow missiove and go to the dumping sites of the city this festive period; for the usual dumping sites regulars, it shall be business as usual despite the declared era and seasons of business unusual.
The country just emerged from the regional and local elections on the eve of Xmas. When ironically those in our so-called informal settlements, which are actually no more and no less than literally ghettos, shelters not fit for human settlements. With and when councillors are just given another year term, ironically by the very people who are the subjects and objects of their blatant neglect. To continue and perpetuate their endless suffering and socio-economic neglect and subjugation. While the evidence is there that for the last five years these councillors have made no difference to their sad and eyesore existence. Who, for that matter, shall for the next five years make no difference whatsoever other than contaminating their minds and mental capabilities with the idea that their pitiful existence is the best they can offer them? That any sane person can really find any positivity in this is beyond reason. When and if what honestly transpires in this era of continued and entrenched capitalism?
But with hindsight, surely there must somehow be something positive amidst all these. Especially with the Swapo Party of Namibia having emerged victorious in succession from first the 2024 Presidential and National Assembly elections and now in 2025 the Regional and Local Authority elections. Certainly the stage must now have been fully set for no business unusual. When there can be no more excuses and compromises for a genuine radical socio-economic transformation. Unlike the Swapo Party, which would make the country believe that transformative lawmaking is being stalled in the National Assembly by verkrampte (opposition) lawmakers, the Swapo has it within its political (never mind ideological) will to drive real change now. Likewise, unlike the excuse at the regional and local level that lack of political control and/or dominance by Swapo at this level has hampered full service delivery, the party is now in full control in most of these regional and local structures. The road ahead now is nothing but delivery. More so that lately the weather has been very much promising, to the extent that rural populaces can fend for themselves in terms of the basic necessities to enable government to apply the scarce resources at its disposal towards needy causes.
Towards the close of the year the government has been seeming to pull out all stops in order to put all systems in gear. Like the task forces announced on Health, Economic Recovery and Land and Housing. Winding up the year with a Cabinet Retreat. Surely the stage must in all earnest now be set for 2026 of practical action in terms of delivery. It is now business unusual eventually and practically. Surely there can be no more excuses. Bye Bye 2025 Welcome 2026!!!
