Namibia battling, 2 decades later
2010-03-19 11:30
A YOUNG Namibian woman in jeans and T-shirt carries her textbooks
and a laptop bag, her headphones connected to a mobile phone in her pocket,
looking like a university student anywhere in the world.
But Mvula Ikela was born in exile in southern Angola weeks before
Namibia’s independence on March 21, 1990, to parents who were freedom
fighters.
“Through me their own dreams, which they sacrificed for the
liberation of Namibia, came true,” Ikela said.
But she’s a rare success in a nation still battling widespread
poverty after two decades of freedom.
Her parents fled northern Namibia in 1981, when the former German
colony was known as South-West Africa and under the control of apartheid South
Africa.
They settled in a refugee camp in Angola, run by the South West
Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO), which now runs Namibia.
Her father joined the armed liberation struggle while her mother
worked with children in the camp.
Ikela was born in the camp, but her parents returned home just
weeks before independence.
Two decades later, she and the rest of her generation reap the
fruits of the decades-long liberation struggle.
Ikela won a scholarship from a local engineering company two years
ago after earning top marks in her school exams.
Her father serves in the military, and he is lucky as unemployment
is high – 51% of the working-age population doesn’t have a job, according to the
labour ministry.
About half of Namibia’s two million people live in poverty, on less
than US$1.25 (about R9.13) a day.
“Unemployment is a threat to our social cohesion,” said outgoing
Prime Minister Nahas Angula early this month, in a public lecture ahead of the
anniversary.
Since independence, government has united a fragmented population,
with about a dozen main ethnic groups making up the two million population,
spread over an area larger than France.
Despite the new schools, clinics, hospitals, houses and roads, many
Namibians feel disappointed by the economic gains since independence.
HIV has infected about 15% of adults. Its small economy still
depends heavily on South Africa, with its currency pegged to the rand.
And the country has struggled to adapt to the globalised economy,
still relying on exports of commodities, with mining accounting for about one
quarter of the nation’s income.
The economy has grown steadily at an average of four percent a
year, but economist Robin Sherbourne says Namibia must become more competitive
to curb poverty and unemployment.
“That means making sure we improve in a wide range of fronts from
tax and business administration, (fighting) corruption and crime and government
efficiency,” Sherbourne told the local Insight magazine this month.
Government will mark the anniversary on Sunday with celebrations in
a Windhoek stadium, where President Hifikepunye Pohamba will be sworn in for his
second and last five-year term.
He is expected to announce his new cabinet later that day.
In 2005, Pohamba took over from liberation icon Sam Nujoma, who at
80 is still seen as the power behind the throne, with a firm grip over the
ruling SWAPO even though he has officially retired.
While peace and stability prevailed over the past two decades, the
young generation is beginning to express dissatisfaction with the ruling party
and its ‘old guard’ leadership of the struggle days.
The ruling SWAPO won over 75% of the votes in 2004 and 2009, and
the opposition remains fractured.
“SWAPO politics clearly drive government and changes to a more
encompassing and modern, pragmatic approach will only come once the old guard
retires and fresh blood is injected,” said Mvula Ikela.
“We of the young generation see a need for this – but when will we
get the chance?”
- Sapa - AFP