The nostalgia of liberation

I HAVE attended many mass meetings of liberation movements, mostly in South Africa, but also a few in Namibia. For about 30 years I could relate to the identity, justifications and motivations of political liberation movements.  

I was in Cape Town for Nelson Mandela's release and one of the instigators of the violence when the right wing wanted to prevent him from speaking in the Sanlam hall at Stellenbosch University in 1991. Rumour in Stellenbosch had it that Kallie Kriel and his henchmen had succeeded in keeping Mandela away from the Tukkie campus the previous week.

A bunch of brown students and I, together with some cautious, English-speaking, Nusas students (all dressed up in black, with a permanent martyr expression in the eyes), knew that trouble was coming and that we were going to be in the middle of it. The drama of fists flying made the SABC news. I got a disciplinary hearing, represented myself with great confidence, and was acquitted.

My enthusiasm was unbridled. I am the guy who on 21 March 1990, during a music concert to celebrate Namibia's independence, can be seen with a placard that said, “Viva Sam”. Seeing loyal Swapo (South West African People's Organisation) fighters such as lawyers Pierre Roux and Anton Lubowski on the dust-trodden grounds of Katutura (that township in Windhoek's name translates as “the place where we don't want to live") is etched in the “deep state" of my political memory. 

We drove all the way from Stellenbosch to attend this event. A large cattle lorry picked us up, a group of 12 hitch-hikers, shortly before dusk, just outside Mariental where we started to prepare for spending the night at the roadside, for the last 270km to Windhoek. In Windhoek-West, we stuck to a tough Namibian spirit, pitched a tent and told stories full of expectation. The liberation joy of black Namibians was high drama, and we shared it.

Waning optimism

Like most reasonable people who had personally experienced the dramatic changes in Southern Africa at the time – between 1990 when Namibia became independent and 1994 when the ANC won the first democratic elections in South Africa – I assumed that political liberation had a real chance of leading to economic liberation. I believed Mandela and had hope for Sam Nujoma. They were patres familias, not the leaders of militarised liberation movements.

It's now more than 30 years later, and I still believe in the integrity of these two gentlemen, but the political system they represent has been a disaster for those who could least afford it. Ultimately, the ANC and Swapo turned into political parasites. The two so-called liberation movements uprooted the nerves of faith, hope and love and plundered the dreams they represent until poverty, unemployment and alienation became the lot of almost half the population.

Perhaps my optimism at the time was modelled on the dismantling of something I could no longer identify with, rather than my trust in Swapo or the ANC. Distinguishing between sense and revulsion was difficult. Apartheid and colonialism destroyed millions of ordinary people's dreams for themselves and their children. It made white people into something they didn't have to be. Apartheid was primitive, as banal racism still is. But so is the entrenched corruption, political alienation, social destruction and elitist patronage of liberation movements in government.  

It was not just me who in the late 1980s began to develop a revulsion at the justifications for “separate development" and “segregation". Many ordinary white citizens in South Africa and Namibia, of all generations, were seeing the light. This did not mean they had confidence in the ANC or Swapo, rather that they were tired of being cruel and inhumane. The risk of liberation politics was less of a threat than the knowledge that God would hold apartheid against them.   

Now, in retrospect, we know apartheid was evil, but the “justice" that the ANC and Swapo brought reminds us of the eschatological reference to the “corrupting pestilence that walks in darkness, the disease that destroys at noon" (Psalm 91:6). Almost every country in Southern Africa that has held elections in the past two years can testify to the destruction because of a dominant one-party government.  

A well-managed economy

Botswana maybe less so. The country just east of Namibia and north of South Africa has not been responsible for political outrages and alienation in the same way as Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Perhaps this is because Botswana has a post-colonial past rather than a post-liberation struggle history. Elections have been largely free and fair, unemployment is currently a liveable 27%, inflation is 1.5%, interest rates are 2.65%, and debt as a percentage of gross national product (GNP) is 20.05%. Compared to the rest of Southern Africa, Botswana is a well-managed economy.

Southern Africa is experiencing a boom period. In more ways than one. After 58 years, the signs were that political contempt and latent corruption had become a modus operandi for the BDP (Botswana Democratic Party) and former president Mokgweetsi Masisi. Because there are not exactly good polls in Botswana in the run-up to elections, Masisi's sudden and immediate loss of political power hit him like a bucket of cold water. But like South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa, he swallowed political defeat with dignity.

In 2023, Zanu-PF's (Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front) Emmerson Mnangagwa stole the umpteenth election in Zimbabwe, because the masses who fought for liberation from Ian Smith's colonial rule had turned their backs on Robert Mugabe's liberation party. 

In Mozambique, Frelimo's Daniël Chapo had to tamper with the October 2024 elections, because there too the people opposed the liberation party, Frelimo (Mozambican Liberation Front), which had ruled the country since June 1975. In an attempt to save Frelimo, Chapo's government imposed internet restrictions that hampered general communication and opposition parties' ability to organise. When governments shut down the internet, it can only be with evil intent.

A lawyer, Elvino Dias, and a political party official, Paulo Guambe, were killed in Maputo shortly after the election; both were associated with the opposition. European Union observers pointed to irregularities during the counting of votes as well as the manipulation of results at polling stations. Violence led to the army being sent in and the border to neighbouring countries getting closed. Decide for yourself what Mozambique means to democracy.

The return of hope 

Now it is Namibia's turn, on November 27, to hold its most competitive election since independence. Again, there are not really any reliable opinion polls available to warn politicians about the resentment of the population. Opinion polls by Afrobarometer flash warning lights, but as in Botswana, it is not really possible for political parties to enter an election with the wisdom of, for example, South Africa's Social Research Foundation (SRF).

The SRF made it clear to South Africans and political parties on the eve of the 29 May election that there was going to be a big swing in KwaZulu-Natal, that the ANC was going to lose the election, and that a government of national unity would be on the cards. Ramaphosa and the ANC may not have believed everything they read, but by the time the final result became available, the shock was no longer so devastating. The ANC knew and had time to consider all political options, including, like the MK Party, refusing to accept the result. There was time to reflect, be reasonable people and act responsibly. 

In my childhood in Namibia there was a legend that God made this desert land in a moment of anger. Former journalist Foeta Krige and I are in Namibia from next week to witness the drama of the 2024 elections first-hand. From the 2019 national and presidential elections in Namibia we can extrapolate wisdom into the future.

Panduleni Ithula is a prominent Namibian politician, dentist and lawyer. He is was born on 2 August 1957 in the Old Location of Windhoek – the township from where the forced relocation to Katutura took place –  and was active for decades in Swapo, the current ruling party. In 2019, he attracted 29% of the support. He was still a member of Swapo at the time, but took part in the election as an independent.

My money is on the people of Namibia accepting regime change, should there be one, at least with composure in the belief that “If God is for us, who can be against us". Namibians do not think Swapo will necessarily lose the election. But the president is elected independently of the legislature and many disillusioned Namibians are pinning their hopes on Ithula.

This could limit Swapo's power immensely if the president of the country comes from the opposition. It's a “long shot" as they say in English, but who knows.

♦ VWB ♦

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