by Toivo Ndjebela 

Job Amupanda Shipululo, a young political scientist, has earned himself friends and foes for his persistent calls for radical social and economic changes in the country. Loving or loathing him seems to be the least of his concerns and he recently, together with others, found a movement christened Black Radicals Namibia (BRN), which addresses what he termed ‘the black problem’.

New Era: What is Black Radicals Namibia?

JAS: “Black Radicals Namibia is a movement of black consciousness, primarily formed to bring together young people at universities to participate in public discourses.

We are primarily addressing inferiority complexes and the mental slavery from which black people still suffer today. There is no program or institution in this country that speaks about inferiority complex. You meet someone that you’ve known for 15 years and she will tell you ‘My name is Na-Way’ when her real name is actually Nandjila. It means she is not content with her name in Oshiwambo, which is her mother tongue. Many young black people have today named themselves as Mux, Dux, Mox and so on. It means they are not content with their being. You find a person is from Okalongo but when they are asked where they are from, they will tell you they ‘I am from Oshakati’.

“Young people no longer want to identify with their cultures. As BRN, we are trying to defeat these inferiority complexes among blacks. There’s much damage done to the black person’s mind by colonialism and these are issues we are trying to address.

“The second objective of BRN is to address social and economic inequalities. We are not shocked or under any illusion that 90 percent of our economy is still in the hands of the white man. We are not shocked that we have education in Africa but not African education. We are not shocked that our people are still sleeping under the bridges. The taxi drivers are from one race, the people in informal settlements are from one race. Because of this, young people do not want to live in Katutura, they what to live in the so-called white areas. But of course they have learned this from our national leaders.”

New Era: You mentioned the term ‘white areas’. Is that an illusion or do we still have them 21 years after independence?

JAS: “What we have learnt as black radicals is that we are blinded by all these terms such as unity and so forth. If you are watching the Brave Warriors playing and you are seated next to a white man or a black bourgeois, when the team scores, you’ll all jump as one. But after the match, where do you go? When the white man or a black bourgeois goes home, their wives would be asking their husbands for pizzas.

But the rest of us will head back to the shacks and be met by our barefooted 5-year-old, sporting big tummies and long necks.

“As BRN, we are addressing the black condition. We want to move towards a non-racial, non-sexist prosperous Namibia. We can’t continue to preach unity and equality when we have people who have nothing to eat. You can’t tell me that we are all equal when it’s only one race that lives in Katutura. We can’t talk on National Reconciliation when this concept only benefits one race. The race that benefits from the current status quo. Unity and equality will happen eventually, but only after we have addressed the concerns of the oppressed.

“We will not participate in any unity project until those dynamics are addressed. As long as things remain the same, we are not going to waste our time in those projects. If you look at the generation of Thomas Sankaras, Kwame Nkurumah, Amika Kabral, Sekou Toure, Sam Nujoma and others, this generation was measured by what they did for black communities. The scorecards for success were based on what a leader has done for his people. But today, the white man has come up with another type of scorecard, such as the Nobel Peace Prize, Ibrahim Mo, etc. You find a president ranked number five on the continent but his people are eating at the dumpsite. Leaders are no more ranked in terms of what they do for their people – they are ranked in terms of human rights, media freedoms and all these things that don’t put bread on the table.

“The white man has succeeded in shifting our focus into thinking that our achievements must be measured through humanity. How can you get a Nobel prize when your people are still oppressed? As BRN, we are committed to protect the legacy of our founding fathers. The legacy of a fight against colonialism and imperialism. We stand opposed to capitalism and imperialism. We see African socialism as the future for Africans in general and blacks in particular. We identify ourselves with what the liberation struggle stood for. We associate ourselves with the ideas of Nujoma, the ideas of Maxwilili, Peter Nanyemba, Robert Mugabe and all those pioneers. We want young people to engage in serious public discourses. Instead of engaging in progressive discussions, all they say is ‘LOL’, which apparently means ‘Laugh Out Loud’. We strongly reject this kind of lazy thinking by young people.

The liberals, mbwitis (people born and bred in urban areas) and the people in leadership positions are the ones who are telling us that we are all equal and all that kind of nonsense, as if we don’t know who lives in Ludwigsdorf and all these suburbs. Yet there is no record of achievements by liberals. ”

New Era: The formation of BRN comes at a time when Namibia seems to have made good progress on racial integration. What is the relevance of a black-interest group in a society like ours?

JAS: “I am a man of literature. I am a man of statistics. I know exactly who lives where, who gets educated where. You can’t talk about racial integration when politicians send their children to Windhoek Gymnasium, Saint George’s and all these expensive schools. You can’t talk about racial integration when there are no Afrikaners schooling at Unam and Polytechnic. There is a difference between rhetoric and reality. We don’t stand for the oppression of anyone. We stand for the true emancipation of the black man that has been aggravated by the white man and his agents such as the house niggas and black liberals.

“For us to reach a non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous Namibia, we must address the black problem. We know exactly what happened between the 1920s and the 1940s as far as apartheid is concerned. I am told that during that time, the then apartheid regime of South Africa gave about 40 million hectares of Namibia’s land to poor and uneducated Afrikaners. This was done so that they could reach where they are today in society. We want them to meaningfully share with the rest of us. Not these cosmetic things of charity where they go to Havana and donate sugar. We strongly reject the notion that our society is equal as it currently stands.”

New Era: You seem to suggest that proportionally speaking, the means of production are predominantly still in the hands of one race. What kind of intervention is needed to ensure the equitable participation of all races in the country’s economy.

JAS: “Our generation is facing a major challenge, probably a challenge that surpasses those that the Nujoma generation faced. The West wants to overthrow all forms of dictatorship – especially political dictatorship. But none is prepared to defeat white economic dictatorship, which we stand opposed to. I am therefore not proposing anything in particular but personally I would support any view that is going to address this problem.

“White economic dictatorship is to be defeated and addressed through radical economic policies. Capitalism and imperialism have sustained white supremacy and we stand opposed to this. There are fellows out there who are telling us that blacks don’t need farms because they don’t know how to farm. But those that are in farming have never gone through formal training for farming. Forty million hectares of our land was given to people who did not possess any formal education. After the Second World War, an additional million hectares were again given to soldiers that fought in that war. All that they knew was how to use a gun but they went on to farm successfully. It was for the land that we went to war. The State must capacitate black Namibians to derive benefits from land.”

New Era: Many people believe that there are no revolutionary leaders in the country’s current political leadership who would speak for the ideas that BRN stands for. Who would listen to your concerns?

JAS: “Most of the people that we have in power now are stomach politicians. Most of them live in white areas and most of them have farms. You question is very critical.

I travel quite a lot and what I find is that people want to copy what others are doing, even when there are no fertile grounds to effect those things. But we are going to engage any institution that is ready to listen to us. Consciousness is about change of mindset and pointing out directions. We want young people to be made aware of the black condition, so is the church. The church spoke out against oppression and colonialism. They participated in petitioning the UN. But what we are seeing now is that the church has gone on holiday. With the exception of their support for Basic Income Grant, the church has virtually gone to sleep. We want an ideal situation where we live comfortably in our areas of origin. We want to eat fish at Omaalala (his village) instead of it being taken away by the Spanish all the time. We want Omaalala Primary School to be the best in the country one day, instead of sending our children to some other schools because of prestige
attached to them.

We want black women to be confident of who they are. We want them to stop sporting horsehair in order to look like a white woman.”

New Era: Your call for fair distribution of resources echoes that of Youth Minister Kazenambo Kazenambo who recently drew criticism for touching on the land issue and threatening land grabs …

JAS: “We actually held lengthy discussions about Minister Kazenambo’s outburst because we believe Minister Kazenambo must be supported. We identify with what the minister has said. There are a lot of things in which we did not support him but we are with him 100 percent on this one. We will protect him with any means necessary.

He was very clear on the issue of land and the issue of insensitivity. To cut the long story short, we share the view of the minister on this subject. Cowards and agents of white supremacy have criticized him but he’s got our backing. His were revolutionary comments. We cannot allow the policy of national reconciliation, which is not in black and white anyway, to be used to molest us as black people.

“I’ve found two interesting scenarios at the University of Stellenbosch where I am studying. One of my classmates there told me that he does not know much about Namibia but he knows about Otjiwarongo where his family owns a farm. They are South Africans and they own a farm here. This is a reality of our time. How can we not support Minister Kazenambo when there are absentee landlords? They only come here for holidays.