Transitions in Namibia: Which Change for Whom?

262 Pages·2007·2.23 MB·English

by  Henning Melber

Transitions in Namibia
Which Changes for Whom?
Edited by Henning Melber
Nordiska afrikaiNsTiTuTeT, uppsala 2007
Cover:
The restored steam tractor outside the coastal town of swakop-
mund was made in Germany and brought to the country in
1896. it should replace ox wagons as a means of transport in the
further colonization of Namibia’s interior. The 2.8 tons heavy
machine in need of lots of water never managed it through the
sands of the Namib desert. The local colonizers named it after
the German reformer Martin luther, who in 1521 had declared:
“Here i stand – may God help me. i can not otherwise.” Today
a national monument and put behind glass, Namibia’s “Martin
luther” remains an early symbol for the failure of grand visions.

Indexing terms:
social change
economic change
Cultural change
political development
liberation
decentralization
Gender relations
international relations
economic and social development
post-independence
Namibia
Cover photos: Henning Melber
language checking: peter Colenbrander
© The authors and Nordiska afrikainstitutet 2007
isBN 978-91-7106-582-7
printed in sweden by elanders Gotab aB, stockholm 2007
Table of Contents
preface ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 5
Henning Melber
Transitions in Namibia – Namibia in transition
an introductory overview ………………………………………………………… 7
Christopher Saunders
History and the armed struggle
from anti-colonial propaganda to ‘patriotic history’? ……… 13

Phanuel Kaapama
Commercial land reforms in postcolonial Namibia
What happened to liberation struggle rhetoric? ………………… 29
Herbert Jauch
Between politics and the shop floor
Which way for Namibia’s labour movement? …………………… 50
Volker Winterfeldt
liberated economy?
The case of ramatex Textiles Namibia ……………………………… 65
Gregor Dobler
old ties or new shackles?
China in Namibia ……………………………………………………………………… 94
Henning Melber
poverty, politics, power and privilege
Namibia’s black economic elite formation ………………………… 110
Lalli Metsola
out of order?
The margins of Namibian ex-combatant ‘reintegration’ …… 130
Mattia Fumanti
imagining post-apartheid society and culture
playfulness, officialdom and civility in a youth elite club
in northern Namibia ………………………………………………………………… 153
Graham Hopwood
regional development and decentralisation …………………………… 173
Wolfgang Zeller / Bennett Kangumu Kangumu
Caprivi under old and new indirect rule
falling off the map or a 19th century dream
come true? …………………………………………………………………………………… 190

Dianne Hubbard
ideas about equality in namibian family law …………………………… 209
Lucy Edwards
HiV/aids in Namibia
Gender, class and feminist theory revisited ………………………… 230
Suzanne LaFont
decolonising sexuality …………………………………………………………………… 245
Biographical notes on the authors ……………………………………………… 261
preface
This volume on social realities in Namibia completes the ‘liberation
and democracy in southern africa’ (lidesa) project undertaken at the
Nordic africa institute between 2001 and 2006. The chapters in it mainly
address topical socioeconomic and gender-related issues in contemporary
Namibia and complement the earlier stock-taking publication on Namibian
society that focused on aspects of the country’s socio-political culture since
independence. as before, most of the contributors are either Namibian,
based in Namibia or have undertaken extensive research in the country.
Their interest as scholars and/or civil society activists is guided by a loyalty
characterised not by rhetoric but by empathy with the people. They advo-
cate notions of human rights, social equality and related values and norms
instead of being driven by an ideologically determined party-political
affiliation. Their investigative and analytical endeavours depict a society in
transition, a society that is far from being liberated. Not surprisingly, they
explore the limits to liberation more than its advances.
i wish to thank all the authors for their collaborative commitment to
this project and for their contributions to a necessary debate, which must
take place first and foremost inside Namibia for the best of the country and
its people. Thanks also go to Jeremy silvester and Jan-Bart Gewald, who
again served as external reviewers of the draft manuscripts and added to
the value of the final texts. i am also grateful for the meticulous language
editing so reliably undertaken by peter Colenbrander, for whom this part
of the world is anything but a distant abstraction. i am indebted to Nina
klinge-Nygård, who assisted me over the years in executing my duties at
the Nordic africa institute. special thanks are due to sonja Johansson,
Boël Näslund and karim kerou, among many other supportive colleagues.
They processed the final manuscript in the shortest possible time without
compromising the quality of the product. finally, i extend my heartfelt
gratitude to lennart Wohlgemuth and karl-eric ericsson, director and
deputy director during most of my time as research director at the Nordic
africa institute. They welcomed me from Namibia as part of a team and
1. Henning Melber (ed.), Re-examining Liberation in Namibia. Political Culture since
Independence. uppsala: Nordic africa institute 2003. for other outputs of the pro-
ject, see the summary report and further bibliographical references accessible on
the institute’s website (www.nai.uu.se).

offered me their loyal support and friendship throughout the days we shared
as colleagues.
last but not least, i dedicate my own contribution to this last product of
the lidesa project to my wife susan and my daughter Tulinawa, for their
love and tolerance during all the years of our family life in uppsala (which
at times suffered considerably from my professional commitments); and to
the memory of my brother rainer (1951–79) and my mother Gretel (1923–
2007). They were reunited this very day in the local cemetery between the
atlantic ocean and the dunes of the Namib desert, exactly 56 years after
my brother’s birth and 40 years after we first arrived as German emigrants
in this coastal town of then south West africa. Transitions have many faces,
dimensions and meanings.

Henning Melber
swakopmund/Namibia
9 august 2007

Transitions in Namibia – Namibia in transition
an introductory overview
Henning Melber
“We Africans fought against colonialism and imperialism and successfully overthrew
colonialism and white minority rule to achieve genuine social and economic eman-
cipation.” sam Nujoma in his opening address to the congress of the swapo
Youth league, Windhoek, 17 august 2007.
This statement was made by one who should know better: sam Nujoma, the president
of the national liberation movement sWapo since its establishment in 1960, and
Namibia’s first head of state, a position he held for three terms from 1990 to 2005. at
the time of publication of this volume, he remained in control of an influential faction
within the swapo party, which, through its political office bearers, has exercised politi-
cal control over the government of the republic of Namibia since independence. after
his retirement from the highest office of the state, Nujoma’s personal merits earned
him the official title of the founding father of the republic of Namibia. Nonethe-
less, and with due respect to the ‘old man’ who over almost half a century has clearly
demonstrated an ability to cling to power as a political leader, he has got it wrong
in claiming the above achievements. speaking as a ‘political animal,’ he either lacks
the analytical grasp of social transition and transformation or (more likely) is merely
showing that a political project and its rhetoric at times display profound ignorance
of social processes (or simply seek to cover up certain class projects by means of such
misleading rhetoric).
The implications of such fabrication of a ‘patriotic history’ were the main focus of
the volume that preceded this one, which concentrated mainly on the political culture
and ideology cultivated since Namibia’s independence and its effects on governance
issues and different sectors of society (Melber 2003). The first chapter following the
introduction to this second volume serves as a kind of link to these socio-political
and ideological dimensions of the Namibian nation-building project. it shows how
the liberators use their power of definition in a hegemonic public discourse to rein-
vent themselves within the heroic narrative that was already being constructed during
the anti-colonial struggle. But this rhetoric must be gauged against the achievements
claimed by among others the founding father, a central figure in the Namibian ver-
1. as quoted in “Nujoma addresses Youth league”, The Namibian, 20 august 2007.
2. for the politics of transition from the first to the second head of state in more detail, see Melber
(2006).

Henning Melber
sion of a liberation gospel. This gospel claims that the seizure of political power and
the ideological commanding heights included a more profound transition to another
society and transformation of colonial structures into a liberated society and economy
that benefits the majority among the formerly colonised masses.
Most chapters in this volume are a kind of stock-taking exercise: they examine the
extent to which a transition is taking place and the results it has achieved during the
17 years since independence. in so doing, this volume seeks to add to the existing body
of knowledge. This new knowledge is by no means confined to the era beginning with
Namibia’s independence day (21 March 1990). instead, one needs to emphasize that
societies are in constant transition as they reproduce (and modify) themselves. The in-
tensity of the transition may change, and the formal end of colonial occupation and
foreign rule – inasmuch as political power is transferred to a local agency – are the most
obvious points of reference or departure for these new chapters. These milestones are not
necessarily complete turning points, but may induce more rapid social change through a
more dramatic shift in the organisation of political and social structures, with a result-
ant direct impact on the fabric and nature of societies.
social transitions in Namibia have been analysed on many occasions before. This in-
troductory overview cannot provide a complete analysis but it can introduce some of the
relevant literature touching on transitions in Namibian society since the 19th century.
Brigitte lau, who headed the National archives of Namibia until her untimely death,
was among those who contributed to insights on early transitions in Namibia with the
advent of colonialism (cf., lau 1987), and John kinahan, an archeologist with the local
authorities, provided an even more historically oriented perspective on social transitions
in parts of Namibia and its population (kinahan 1991). These authors greatly benefited
from their direct access to local archives or their own field studies. so did those oth-
ers who compiled relevant documentary evidence in the true sense by using existing
photographic material to document and analyse the visually obvious social changes and
power structures induced by colonialism (Hartmann 2004, Hartmann/silvester/Hayes
1998).
The colonial impact on local and regional modes of production, social reproduc-
tion and related aspects of identity has already been explored in numerous analyses,
often undertaken in pursuit of an academic degree. prominent examples of such his-
torical research by local scholars are the thesis by frieda-Nela Williams (1994) and by
Wolfgang Werner (1998), but also by Nampala and shigwedha (2006). other insights
from a local perspective into historical changes under colonial occupation include
Gewald’s seminal work (1999 and 2000), which supplements Werner’s thesis on the
Herero communities. local analyses on social change in owambo societies under co-
lonial rule were complemented by the work of finnish scholars (siiskonen 1990, eirola
1992), thereby highlighting in an historical perspective – similar to the academic work
linked to the German period of foreign rule – the special relations between the northern
3. references are limited to books published in english and ignore numerous relevant journal ar-
ticles and individual book chapters as well as the additional relevant works existing in German
(testifying to the fact that Namibia had been a German settler colony, which resulted in a par-
ticular interest among German-speaking scholars that has persisted into the present).
4. local (especially historical) knowledge production is now reaching a wider audience thanks in
part to the publication efforts of the Basler afrika Bibliographien.

Introduction
region of Namibia and the finnish missionaries. The focus on Namibia’s northern re-
gion previously called owamboland has also produced scholarly work dealing with the
particular impact of Christianity on social transition and transformation (Mckittrick
2002) and the effects of environmental change on the organisation of these societies
(kreike 2004, but also erkkilä/siiskonen 1992). a good example of how a study on
owamboland-based elites in transition resulted in far-reaching political consequenc-
es for the personal future of its author is evident in the case of Gerhard Tötemeyer
(1978).
studies of social organisation and transformation among Namibian social forma-
tions other than the oshiwambo- and Herero-speaking communities are relatively few
(see, among others, kössler 2006 on the Nama). The san or Bushmen communities
represent an exception to the general tendency for most analyses to focus on the most
relevant (in the sense of most influential) social groups within a country: as the most
marginalised indigenous minority group (who are almost viewed as social outcasts),
they have achieved relative prominence in the literature (Gordon 1992, Widlok 1999,
suzman 2000, dieckmann 2007).
The focus on social transformation processes linked to sectoral and regional issues
that go beyond specific group identities has been rather limited in historically orient-
ed studies. among the noteworthy exceptions are Wallace (2002) and contributions
to the volumes edited by Bollig/Gewald (2000), Hayes/silvester/Wallace/Hartmann
(1998) and Miescher/Henrichsen (2000), while emmett (1999) provides insights into
the formative stages of modern political resistance to colonial occupation. analyses of
the subsequent politically organised liberation struggle and its internal dynamics are
provided by leys/saul (1995) and dobell (1998). a particular trade union perspective
within the anti-colonial struggle can be found in works by peltola (1995) and Bauer
(1998), while Becker (1993) explores the gendered perspective. pendelton (1994) pro-
vides a special focus on the most significant urban setting in Namibia and its changes,
while Hinz (2003) combines environmental management, ecology and the particular
role of local traditional leaders and their control over nature as a resource to present
another perspective relevant to the transition of Namibia’s society.
several edited volumes have meanwhile added to the picture of social challenge and
reorganisation since independence. keulder (2000) does so in a historical, state-centred
perspective; Melber (2000) looks at socioeconomic realities after a decade of sovereign-
ty; while chapters in diener/Graefe (2001) offer a wide panorama of relevant studies, as
5. This has resulted in a tradition of academic writings, especially from a social anthropology per-
spective on aspects of the owambo kingdoms.
6. He obtained access to the field on the basis of his political loyalty to the then south african
government occupying Namibia. The results of his interviews, however, originally submitted as a
phd thesis at stellenbosch, illustrated the generally anti-colonial and anti-south african orienta-
tion among the new elite. This was no welcome finding and initially dramatically circumscribed
the further career of the author drastically – only to result in a politically very different second
career: after Namibian independence he left academia to enter politics and ended up as a deputy
minister before his retirement.
7. Which to some extent is also reflected in the prominent role of the German-speaking minority in
the analysis of segments of Namibian society (though admittedly mainly in the German litera-
ture).

Henning Melber
do the contributions in Winterfeldt/fox/Mufune (2002). all these undertakings have a
high degree of local authorial participation.
finally, one must not omit from this brief overview another form of documenting
social transition, namely the personal testimonies of individuals involved in the pro-
cesses of social change, such as those compiled in the volumes by Becker (2005) and
leys/Brown (2005), and the various literary and poetic narratives, in which the creative
writing conveys a political message (cf., Melber 2004). New forms of recorded and pub-
lished oral history also provide access to testimonies that afford insights into processes
of social and political transition and transformation (cf., Namhila 2005).
The contributions to this volume seek to update earlier assessments and to deal with
hitherto largely unexplored aspects. They summarise and critically reflect on develop-
ments since independence. in doing so, they challenge parts of the dominant narrative
of the liberation movement now in political power and control. While swapo’s libera-
tion gospel suggests that the struggle for independence achieved meaningful change for
all people in most spheres of life, this volume presents a somewhat different perspective.
“We must take time,” urged swapo’s president sam Nujoma in the same speech to the
party’s Youth league congress in mid-august 2007 quoted above, “to consider where
we have come from as party and country, where we are today and where we would like
to be as a nation.” The chapters below share this motivation and approach, even though
they may put forward perspectives or conclusions different from those of the founding
father.
references
Bauer, Gretchen (1998), Labor and Democracy in Namibia: 1971–1996. athens, ohio:
ohio university press
Becker, Barbara (2005), Speaking Out: Namibians Share Their Perspectives On Independence.
Windhoek: out of africa
Becker, Heike (1995), Namibian Women’s Movement 1980 to 1992. From Anti-colonial
Resistance to Reconstruction. frankfurt am Main: iko
Bollig, Michael and Jan-Bart Gewald (eds), (2000), People, Cattle and Land. Transformations
of a Pastoral Society in Southwestern Africa. köln: köppe
dieckmann, ute (2007), HaiIIom in the Etosha Region. A History of Colonial Settlement,
Ethnicity and Nature Conservation. Basel: Basler afrika Bibliographien
diener, ingolf and olivier Graefe (eds), (2001), Contemporary Namibia. The first landmarks
of a post-Apartheid society. Windhoek: Gamsberg Macmillan and Nairobi: ifra
dobell, lauren (1998), SWAPO’s Struggle for Namibia, 1960–1991: War by Other Means.
Basel: p. schlettwein
eirola, Martti (1992), The Owambogefahr: The Owamboland Reservation in the Making:
Political Responses of the Kingdom of Ondonga to the German Colonial Power, 1884–
1910. rovaniemi: Historical association of Northern finland
emmett, Tony (1999), Popular Resistance and the Roots of Nationalism in Namibia, 1915–
1966. Basel: p. schlettwein
8. as quoted in “Nujoma addresses Youth league”, The Namibian, 20 august 2007.
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