Namibia: Desert Land of Harshness or Land of Reconciliation?

Namibia in November 2010
A long awaited journey to Namibia took finally shape in November the purpose being having talks with representatives of the University of Namibia and of various churches. The small delegation from the University of the Western Cape had as aim to strengthen contacts and see what we can do together.
To travel by car from Cape Town to Windhoek in Namibia is in itself a fascinating experience and a very pleasant one. Traffic is busy the first two to three hours then the roads become next to empty. In southern Namibia you can drive for an hour without seeing a car. The other side of Windhoek is much busier. Namibia is by and large desert or semi-desert, not so much sand as rocks or semi-arid bush veld. You need roughly two days for a car drive to Windhoek, which is about 1450 km from Cape Town. It is not easy to describe in words the sense of freedom and letting go of busy city life when on the way up through northern South Africa into this very scarcely populated country. One way of describing the size of the population is to say that Cape Town in itself can hold at least two Namibias (Namibia has less than 2 million inhabitants, Cape Town something in the region of 4 million). Coming from a very populous South Africa with many less well off people most over the place, Namibia appears to be fairly well off and neat and in some good order. This impression is increased when entering Windhoek, where one also can see a lot of building construction coming up. However it is a fact that massive poverty exists also in Namibia and today a white minority plus a black minority are quite well off while the rest indeed are poor. The incredibly wide country with its austere but highly aesthetic features and welcoming light and warmth most of the year make Namibia the ideal country for eco-tourism which also is growing with leaps and bounds.
However, the political reality hits you in the face when driving into central Windhoek. Whichever way you come in you would soon enough be driving on Robert Mugabe Avenue. Thus the name of one of the central streets in town speaks volumes about the protective leadership in the SADCC region, where the one leader always is supported by the others, come what may. SWAPO, the liberation movement become political party, certainly has been a vehicle of important changes to a (more) democratic and free country. At the same time the inability or unwillingness to deal with a leadership such as Mugabe’s corresponds with a similar unwillingness to accept new political parties at home. Those few who are struggling to open up for and apply multi party democracy have a hard time.
Even more serious is the unsolved problem of the so-called SWAPO detainees. At least 2000 Namibians are missing from the SWAPO camps that were established in Angola during the liberation war. The SWAPO leadership have decided to leave this unsolved problem under the carpet, unattended, but the problem does not go away. Relatives and others concerned make sure that the disappearance of these people is not forgotten. How can there ever be reconciliation in this nation if truth is not told and confessed?, they say. A very stark and touching example of this is the following. A SWAPO member in the camp was probably tortured and killed as he was believed to be an informer (for South Africa). He never came back to a free Namibia. However, somebody had picked up his very special sunglasses with blue frames. The family immediately identified these as his and organised a funeral with these sunglasses representing the missing son!
A process with a TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) like in South Africa was never felt necessary by the new leaders in Namibia. But people are not happy as they cannot get closure. The truth must be told and only then can one go into some kind of act of reconciliation. As in other sub-Saharan countries the churches are very strong in Namibia, especially the Lutheran churches. However they have not been of much help in this instance as they have stayed very close to SWAPO since liberation. This silence on the part of the churches (including the CCN, Christian Council of Namibia) has wider implications. The world body of Lutherans, the Lutheran World Federation, who even has sent a small fact finding mission to look for facts regarding the SWAPO detainees, also does not seem to worry about this unsolved problem. It seems that the LWF leadership so far has accepted the line taken by the local Lutheran churches. There is no wish to disturb the political leadership.
During our short visit we were able to meet two groups of people concerned with this issue. First we were able to meet a few of the current church leaders, a few of whom also were Lutherans. They spoke strongly about the need to open up the case of the SWAPO detainees and they said that the churches must and still can do something about it. The following day we met with about ten representatives of a group called Breaking the Wall of Silence (BWS). I will never forget that very sobering and humbling moment when they all, one after the other, told their story about how they had suffered torture and humiliation in the SWAPO camps, and how they wanted the violations that had taken place there recognised so as to prepare the way for real reconciliation. A problem of that nature does not go away. It is a wound that does not heal; rather it has become a festering wound. And it is not too late for a process of reconciliation, and I cannot forget about the churches as virtually all those who had been exposed to torture and other sufferings were church members. For church leaders to maintain that these well over 2000 missing people from twenty years ago is not an issue, because the government has this opinion, is not good enough. It has a foul smell of wanting to sleep with those in power. That the international ecumenical leadership, especially that of the LWF, also has allowed this wound to fester is just as outrageous.
However, there is another aspect that should not be forgotten. The SWAPO detainee issue is only a part of a bigger picture. Since 1914 South Africa had taken over what was then South West Africa. South Africa colonised it, and in due time instituted apartheid as rigorously as back home. The ruthlessness with which the war against SWAPO (and even Angolan troups and their auxillary troups from Cuba that eventually made a difference in the war with South Africa especially at the battle in Cuito Cuanavale in1987) was fought, and the insensitivity with which South Africa co-opted the local population (Hereros, Ovambos, Khoi San etc) form a part of the larger picture. The truth is that any reconciliation process in Namibia has to take the South African violation of the Namibian territory into account as well, even at this late hour. Such a process, with this wider picture, would probably also make it easier for all stake holders to come to the table, a table where one soon enough could talk peace and agree on the dire need for closure. Such a wider picture would also make it easier for the SWAPO government to take part.
Namibia has a few surprises for the uninitiated. For example, people speak Afrikaans quite well, as their second or third language, and that goes for all groups, Namas, Basters, Hereros, Ovambos, Coloureds, etc. It makes Namibia, despite the strong sense of independence among all, in a strange way like a sister to South Africa. Driving back to Cape Town too soon, we were again reminded of what my mother always said about the open country in Västergötland, Sweden: the sky (heaven) is so wide (det är så mycket himmel). That is literally true all the way down through the desert land of this beloved Namibia. Pausing briefly at Noordower, the Namibian border post to South Africa before crossing the Orange River, I was reminded of another miracle. The day was heating up towards +30 C and I actually found myself sitting on an excellent piece of lawn, shrill green grass, somewhat to the left there was an equally green vineyard also drawing its water apparently from the Orange River. But only another hundred metres across the road there was the desert. Not one straw of grass, all was brown, dark brown or black as far as the eye could see. A land of stark contrasts, a number of population groups doomed or blessed to live together, a harsh country and land with rich minerals that eventually can yield enough for those living there and many more. But will there be reconciliation?