Kae Matundu Tjiparuro
Most of the time the dagger has been falling on the government and the Swapo Party of Namibia for its blatant lack of ideology.
This is not without reason because since the dawn self – rule and determination, it is the Swapo Party that has been at the helm of the country’s political direction, and/or the lack thereof, let alone being responsible for delivery and/or non-delivery on the socio-economic front. As much as on the economic front, investors, entrepreneurs, businesspeople and what-have-you predominantly whites, have been ruling the roost. With the government at best in this regard a helpless passive overseer, if altogether not harmless and toothless pretending at best to be in charge.
While the government is, must and should be the custodian of and over the country’s natural resources, keeping those renting if not having appropriated them, the government thereby surrendering them to Capitalism, it has been at best become an onlooker. If not a silent and behind-the-scenes player itself. Not in the national interest, but those of the foreign and native oligarchs selfishly and greedily. At the expense and detriment of the sovereign, the people. It is doubtful in the first place, if the country’s natural resources are indeed hers and her sovereign’s, the people. Given not only the scramble for these resources by foreign entities, the so-called investors, but essentially their blatant and flagrant wholesaling by none other than their keepers on their behalf, the government and its operatives.
The government has all along been harping on the derivatives of exploitation and extraction of the country’s natural resources, hence empty talks of beneficiation, as it would be. Which is nothing else but sweet talking the country and people into pacifism. In a process of their alienation.
But the government is only one element in this configuration as far as the Namibian state of socio-economic being is concerned. Being just an executive arm. Meaning all blame cannot just be heaped on the government. In view of the constitutional dispensation providing for the other two arms of government, Parliament and the Judiciary as well. Parliament has yet to bring and makes its voice heard ever.
Following the 2024 Presidential and National Assembly elections, the country does not only has a new administration, which goes by the mantra of “business unusual” but also one chamber of Parliament, the National Assembly, that expectedly and presumably has been renewed and infused with new blood, politically and otherwise. Including hopefully an ideological paradigm shift. Thus there cannot but also be an expectation that somehow, even on the legislative level, no business usual as much the “business unusual” is that of the Swapo Party of Namibia’s President, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah.
Notwithstanding, from the business of the so-called august house this far, the most notable one which is the budget debate, Yours Truly Ideologically is yet to be convinced that business in this house shall be on a new trajectory. That will catapult the country, socio-economically, and ideologically as well, on a new paradigm shift. Ensuring and ushering in a betterment of the living standards of the so-called have nots, the majority of the people, the working class, including the workers.
Addressing the Workers Day gathering earlier this month, on the 1st of May, to be exact, the Secretary General of the National Union of Namibian Workers was quoted in the media as saying: “Original goal of advocating for workers’ rights during the colonial period is still relevant today, as workers continue to face challenges in the workplace.” Qualifying further that “employees still work under unwarranted circumstances, hence employee representatives is still important”.
Yours Truly Ideologically cannot but note the ideological hollowness of the NUNW’s SG pronouncements. Referring to challenges generally without locating them in their proper context. Especially when alluding to the conditions of the workers remaining the same today. Today being what? And even the same as what? That means there is and must be a context in which the said challenges then and now must have been located to play themselves out. By the “then” the SG must have been referring, among others, to German colonial occupation followed later by Apartheid South Africa colonialism, both of which were different stages of Capitalism. “Today”, what we have is Neo-Colonialism, which is as much a different stage of Capitalism. The only difference being the Machiavenialism in which it is implemented and operationalised. The end goal still being the exploitation of the workers and their continued impoverishment in the name of Capitalism. A situation which is prevalent to this day in an independent Namibia. To which the unions are nodding and being in collusion with the government and the industry sic businesspeople-cum-investors. With the interests of capital and capitalism, more than anything, reigning supreme. Meaning when both the unions and the government are talking about the rights of the workers and/or employees, this is not intrinsic in themselves but to facilitate and hasten the exploitation of the natural resources all in the name of Capitalism. Hence the reference to industrial relations more than the true unshackling of the chains of Capitalism on the workers. Thereby releasing the workers from the bondage of Capitalism.
The unions of all, as the would-be champions of the workers, equally should be and/or should have been the at the forefront of the ideological battle. So that fight for the rights of the workers is not, cannot and should and must not be an end in itself. But a means to an end. This end being the complete emancipation of the workers. Workers cannot and shall not ever see total emancipation by the sheer realisation of their rights. Some to a certain but lesser and minimal degree they enjoy today. Which in essence this mere appeasement as opposed to the ultimate, which is meant pacify them and ensure peace, healthy labour relations, as the government of the day maintains. To which the unions seem to agree. With the ultimate mission of the workers seemingly long forgotten. Because hardly does one in this Namibia of this era and age hears the unions articulating the ultimate mission of the workers movement. The dictatorship of the proletariat.
If one dares take the country, especially politicians and the unions down memory lane to the days of the contract labour system, the genesis of the Ovamboland Peoples Organisation (OPO), later the South West Africa Peoples Organisation (Swapo), it was about the contract labour system. Today this very nemesis of the workers has been legalised in Namibia through what is known as the African Personnel Services (APS). Which is fundamentally and ideologically no different from the contract labour labour system as it exited during the Apartheid colonial era.
