THE RATIONALE OF AFFIRMATIVE REPOSITIONING George Kambala, Dimbulukeni Nauyoma and Job Shipululo Amupanda AT THE 1884/5 Berlin conference that became known as the Scramble for Africa, Namibia was given to Germany, who dispossessed our people of their land, establishing colonial administration and settlement. After the First World War, Namibia was given to white-ruled South Africa as a protectorate of the League of Nations. The South African government of the time was faced with the problem of “Arm Boer”, the crisis of poor and uneducated Afrikaners. A 1932 study, on the question of “Arm Boer” by the Carnegie Commission made several recommendations on how to deal with the “Arm Boer problem. As a result, between that period and 1940, about 32 million hectares of Namibian land was given to poor and uneducated Afrikaners. Again, after the Second World War, seven million hectares of Namibian land were given to colonial soldiers as reward. Before this theatre unfolded, pioneers of our struggle, such as Chief Samuel Maharero, Hendrik Witbooi, Iipumbu ya Tshilongo, Mandume ya Ndemufayo and many other leaders fought bravely and heroically against superior fire power until they were defeated. They fought for land. Revolutionary warrior Nehale lya Mpingana of the Aandonga took on his own brother, King Kambonde ka Mpingana, for the latter was too receptive to whites who had taken our land. He attacked and defeated whites who settled at Amtuni (wrongly called Namutoni) and abducted their women. The generation under Swapo took up arms against apartheid not for malls, the willing buyer-willing seller concept or flowers but for land. After independence, a land conference in 1991 took an apologetic approach to the land question. The post-independence government set a target of transferring 15 million hectares of land to the State by 2020. Only 2,5 million hectares of land have been transferred to date; amounting to less than 15% of the set target. With only five years left to 2020, it is safe to say we probably wont meet the target. Despite this dismal failure, those in charge of land reform have resorted to devious tricks, in partnership with Germans, of storming communal areas dispossessing rural people of their land by measuring and limiting them to only 20 hectares. The commercial land of whites and absentee landlords has been left untouched. It is this land that is being sold to foreigners. The authorities speak of the willing buyer-willing seller approach, which has not worked and was shunned by the 2012 Swapo congress. They seek to suggest that the land issue is concluded. “Viva reconciliation”, we are told. Land is everything; a master means of production. There is nothing you can do without land. It gets worse with urban land; a paradise for capitalists. Central to urban land is housing, a major crisis treated with kid gloves. Like orphans, we are at the mercy of market forces. It would appear that leaders surrendered to capitalism at will or through coercion. It is, therefore, unsurprising that house prices in Cape Town are said to be 30% cheaper than those in Windhoek. Leaders are not troubled by our ranking as the worlds number two in regard to expensive house prices. Consistency in land supply, basic economics dictate, will mean prices will stabilise. This, capitalists do not want. If ministers and MPs are property moguls and landlords, how can they change the law to make land available if it means they lose rent income? The crisis is deep. We are troubled not only by corruption, nepotism and elitism but more so by the fact that no one seems to be brave enough to stop the land shenanigans in the whole country. The youth are the hardest hit by the land crisis and shenanigans. We are left to rent, subjected to unregulated housing prices and cannot find land. To NHE [National Housing Enterprise], young professionals salaries are too high for housing. To the banks, their salaries are too low for home loans. Youth are only good when listening to exile stories and not when they demand their share as citizens. “Affirmative Repositioning” is a rejection of the view that the land question is concluded. It is about restoring black peoples dignity as it relates to land. Ours is to give a clear message that youth will no longer eat bones in their country while even the elites dogs eat better. We seek to establish an order quarantining and liquidating this capitalist anarchy. “Affirmative Repositioning” is about standing up for the 60% of our population and shielding them from capitalist greed and economic rape. It is not about election or political parties but about land. Sell-outs and propagandists were saying we want to disturb elections. After elections they say we want to destabilise the incoming government. We are not shaken by lies and propaganda. We are not in the bush; we are in a free country. We just concluded a successful mass action, one of many to come, which saw more than 6 000 youth submitting more than 14 000 land applications. It has never happened in post-independence Namibia. This is a sunrise on the land question, not the sunset. • George Kambala, Dimbulukeni Nauyoma and Job Shipululo Amupanda are land activists who were recently suspended from all Swapo activities by the ruling partys top four leaders
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 19:00:00 +0000
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