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 L‘ iberation 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:S am 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