Reimagining Consciencism to Resuscitate Development in Africa: A Case of Namibia

2015

Twenty-five years after the inauguration of the first President of an independent Namibia, we at the Journal of Namibian Studies thought it was time to pause, take stock and look ahead. Of course, we were not the only ones. Throughout the year, celebrations and impassioned speeches have marked the anniversary. Indeed, praise is merited. Namibia has experienced a quarter century of peace and equality, and the country continues to stand as one of the continent’s most successful democracies. The list of accomplishments has been impressive, not least the number of new schools, hospitals and health clinics that have brought essential services to almost the entire population. But despite Namibia’s remarkable achievements, not all is perfect in the “Land God Made in Anger”, and many segments of society feel that there is not so much to cheer about. Young people, many of whom were born and educated in a free and independent Namibia, struggle to find employment and see few opportunities to fulfil their own dreams; the urban middle class is being priced out of the real estate market; the rural poor still find themselves without access to commercial farmland; and many people, from all walks of life, lament what they perceive as corruption among the country’s ruling elite. So amidst all the congratulations and praise we believe that a more critical and balanced reflection on 25 years of independence is appropriate, while at the same time not wishing to belittle the real and praiseworthy progress. It is not our intention to put Namibia’s ruling elites on trial – that would do Namibia and its citizens no justice, nor would it adequately acknowledge the debt all Namibians owe to the country’s founding mothers and fathers, and to its ancestors. Instead, we have opted to present a kaleidoscopic snapshot of Namibian society today. It was never our objective to cover all aspects or to provide a satellite view of the country, but only to represent a number of different, even competing, interpretations of recent history. In order to do so, we asked experts from both academia and civil society, from within and outside the country, to offer their take on “Namibia at 25”, with special attention to their respective fields of expertise.

Ufahamu a Journal of African Studies, 1985

During 2001, the Uppsala-based Nordic Africa Institute (established in 1962 as The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies) initiated a research project on 'Liberation and Democracy in Southern Africa'. 1 It highlights processes of political and economic transformation, or the lack thereof, mainly, but not exclusively, under the liberation movements that seized legitimate political power and have occupied the state apparatus since independence (or, in the case of South Africa, since the first democratic general elections). The research network was initiated to explore the relationship between liberation (in the sense of decolonisation) and social transformation, with particular regard to the political sphere. The aim is to offer grater insights into the scope and limitations of the social emancipation in Southern Africa, and especially into the "democratic notion" of the liberation movements who control power. Their victory over colonialism came at a price-as increasing evidence, including some of the chapters in this volume, suggest-since anticolonial wars were hardly a suitable environment for instilling, cultivating, internalising and implementing democratic values and norms. Within the research network, scholars have since 2001 provided insights into and evidence about Southern African affairs related to a political and human rights culture. A first consultative workshop was organised by The Nordic Africa Institute in December 2001 in local collaboration with the Centre for Conflict Resolution in Cape Town. 2 Soon thereafter, the controversies around the presidential elections in Zimbabwe brought some of the network participants together in an effort to cope with their frustrations. 3 A subsequent international conference on '(Re-)Conceptualising Democracy and Liberation in Southern Africa' took place in collaboration with local civil society actors, the Namibia Institute for Democracy (NID) and the Legal Assistance Centre (LAC), in July 2002 in Windhoek. 4 Most of the papers originally submitted to this conference have been published. 5 1. See the first results in the initial stages of conceptualisation, Melber (2001). More details on the project can be obtained from the Institute's web site (www.nai.uu.se). 2. See for a summary, the conference report in News from the Nordic Africa Institute , No. 2/2002. Most presentations to the workshop were published as Discussion Papers (Davids et al. 2002, Neocosmos et al. 2002). 3. The results were published two months after the elections (Melber 2002b). 4. I am grateful to Clement Daniels and Theunis Keulder for their immediate enthusiasm for the joint project and would like to thank Doris Weissnar, Arne Wunder and Charlotta Dohlvik for their unfailing administrative and organisational support. For a conference report, see News of the Nordic Africa Institute , No. 3/2002. 5. An unabridged, detailed discussion and analysis of the impact of the strategy debate around armed struggle in South Africa was published soon after as a separate monograph (Legassick 2002). Most papers on topics other than Namibia have been revised and edited as a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary African Studies (Vol. 21, No. 2) and are also published in a slightly modified format by the South African Human Sciences Research Council (Limits to Liberation in Southern Africa: The Unfinished Business of Democratic Consolidation , Pretoria 2003). The Namibia chapter (Melber 2003d) was drafted as a separate effort to add the Namibian case to the regional picture. It has been included in a considerably revised version as an introductory chapter in this volume. I wish to express gratitude to the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) for the material assistance rendered to the research project and the publication of its results, and The Nordic Africa Institute for the generous working environment in support of such activities.

Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 2003

2011

2019

T intellectual and academic task of rethinking and unthinking development in Africa arises from the reality of how development has continued to be elusive in Africa. The development imperative has remained caught up in ten discernible paradoxes and contradictions that were recently delineated by Odomaro Mubangizi (2018: 1): (1) rich and complex cultural diversity; (2) ever-simmering ethno politics that underlie contemporary conflicts; (3) underdevelopment amidst enormous resources; (4) a brain drain amidst limited capacity and financial illicit flows; (5) nascent democratic and governance institutions to anchor sustainable development; (6) longstanding tensions between tradition and modernity; (7) centrifugal and centripetal political and economic forces; (8) longstanding contradictions between the sacred and the secular; (9) an ever-widening gap between rich and poor people; and (10) the quest for homegrown solutions to African problems while relying heavily on foreign aid, foreign...

SOUTHERN AFRICA

African Studies, 2007

2018

The purpose of this paper is to conceptually analyse and assess the competency of the public servants towards redeeming the splendor of Africa in a South African context. Africa as a continent is well known about its splendor decorated by various rich resources. Surprisingly, the continent is prominent about the scourge of dire poverty. That radiate the assumption that relative majority of African countries are fronted with problems such as poverty and hunger in the midst of rich resources. That is so ironic because most of African countries have retained their power from colonial powers and other related aspects of oppression such as apartheid. Consequently, in the years of colonization, Africa did not have the power to emancipate people from slavery, hunger and poverty as well as not having the ability to materialize the existing resources, but that time is in the past. Ironically, in the current dispensation hunger and poverty is still unabated irrespective of gaining democratic ...

Encountering post-colonial realities in Namibia, 2020

This article offers an overview of the research undertaken in Namibia in 2019 by a group of emerging academics studying at Hamburg Germany to shape the core of this volume. We aim to tackle the challenging question of the speaker position within a field of discourse around post-colonialism from which our group can legitimately speak, and sketch the necessities for and challenges facing a decolonization of language, action and research. It is impossible with a small – though sensitive and ambitious – group of upcoming anthropologists to do more than scratch the surface of a problem that is so big and multidimensional. So, in this volume we present partial glimpses of our encounter with post-colonial realities in Namibia, and do not claim to be able to paint more than a rough picture. Here we have chosen to present our projects within a broader description of the current Namibian condition including aspects of history, sociality, politics, economics and ecology, religion, gender, iden...