We've had two days with speakers and discussions - lots of time in the classroom (aka living room). By afternoon it's gotten rather warm and it's been a bit hard to sit for so long, but it's been well worth it. The speakers have increased the depth of our understanding about what has made Namibia successful and not so successful at the same time.
For instance, from Professor Phanuel Kaapama we learned that one can only understand the continuing economic power of the white minority by knowing of the compromises made during the United Nations negotiations for independence. A key provision was that "there will be no nationalization or expropriation of property or assets without adequate compensation." Negotiations also resulted in article 141 of the constitution that says "any person holding office under any law in force on the date of independence shall continue to hold such office unless or until he or she resigns, or is retired, transferred or removed from office in accordance with the law." Civil war was avoided and civil servants all kept their jobs. Stability and peace were maintained, but huge disparities continue to exist between most blacks and the white population.
The issue of land is big. One might think that the big push would be to get the white-owned farms back into black hands, and certainly there is frustration over the slow pace of the "willing buyer, willing seller" approach to land redistribution. However, as we heard from the young activists of Affirmative Repositioning (AR), it is the need for urban land and housing that is coming to the forefront. One has only to view the extensiveness of "silver town" (the informal settlements of shacks with no services) to know the incredible need for affordable housing. The fact that housing in Cape Town, SA is 30% cheaper than in Windhoek shows something is really off with the housing market in Windhoek. AR has mobilized thousands of young people to put pressure on the government to come through with promises of housing - it will be interesting in the future to see what the follow through is on the plans that the government has recently agreed to.
Amazing things are happening on rural lands - both on freehold (private) land and on communal lands, the move is away from raising livestock and toward the formation of conservancies where wildlife becomes the economic driver. Raise steers for meat and you eat them or sell them. Raise springbok, impalas, oryx, giraffe.... and you can not only sell the meat but bring in tourists to view them, trophy hunters to hunt them, sell them live to other conservancies. As Chris Brown informed us, in such a dry climate the market forces actually work to increase wildlife. Namibia is one of a few places where wildlife populations are on the increase.
It was stunning to hear the story of Pauline Dempers from Breaking the Wall of Silence (BWS), an organization that advocates for the rights of those detained by SWAPO during the Namibian War of Independence. Pauline was among several thousand activists and members of the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) who fled Namibia as part of the fight for freedom and who were accused of being enemy agents by SWAPO. Imprisoned and tortured, Pauline was among just 169 men, women, and children that were repatriated to Namibia from dungeons in Angola. The rest are the disappeared. SWAPO continues to be the ruling party and BWS continues to work to get them to admit wrong-doing and exonerate the wrongly accused.
From Linda Baumann of Out-Right Namibia (ORN) we gained perspective on the status of LGBTI people and the efforts to improve quality of life and access to legal and social justice for sexually diverse persons. From Jennifer Gatsi of the Namibian Women's a Health Network we heard of the work to help the large number of poor women living with HIV and the shocking tales of HIV positive women who were sterilized without their knowledge while in the hospital when they gave birth. Overall, I think we all have come away from the talk (and experiences while in the home stays) with a sense of how important the status of women is and that this is a key issue here.
Lots of learning! We need some time to process this all.
Tomorrow we head to the coast and will spend two nights in Swakopmund, then off to Etosha National Park. Wifi access will be iffy for the next 5 days or so - so we may not be able to post blogs for a bit!
Martha & Donna
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