Re-Viewing Resistance in Namibian History

Abstract

Over two decades have passed since the last battles of Namibia’s liberation struggle took place in April, 1989 and Namibia finally obtained its independence from South Africa on 21 March, 1990. Today over half of Namibia’s population is under the age of 25.1 When I first taught history at the University of Namibia in the 1990s the majority of my students had strong (and traumatic) childhood memories of the war.2 Today the majority of students at the university are ‘born frees’ who do not remember the independence celebrations of 1990, let alone the long, twenty-three year, guerilla war that preceded it. The majority of the population no longer has strong memories of the liberation struggle, but relies increasingly on the construction of a history of resistance that is reflected in written texts, but more pervasively in the spoken word through public speeches, the radio and TV, in public projects of memorialisation and commemorative public holidays. History was one of the early conscripts to the nationalist struggle with SWAPO’s To Be \nBorn a Nation creating a highly influential narrative that interpreted all acts of resistance to German and South African rule as nationalist. In his Foreword to the publication Prof. Peter Katjavivi highlighted the way in which a ‘history of resistance’ could play a role in nation-building. ‘The title is taken from a saying of the Mozambican liberation struggle – “to die a tribe and be born a nation”. It encapsulates the drive for unity and the bonds forged through common endeavour and sacrifice that are such vital elements of the national liberation struggle’ (SWAPO, 1980, p. iii). The book traced the roots of ‘popular resistance’ as far back as 1670 and the first meeting between indigenous residents and European travellers on the banks of the Kuiseb River (SWAPO, 1980, p. 151). Independence was thus the culmination of over three hundred years of struggle. Whilst the necessity of discipline and unity was evident during the course of a guerilla \ncampaign against a militarily stronger opponent, this reading of the past reduces the dynamics of struggle to a simple dichotomy in which characters are presented as either ‘Freedom Fighters’ or ‘Puppets’. The danger is that agency is reduced and the complex political dynamics around issues such as generational conflict, ethnicity, traditional authorities and gender are ignored (Van Walraven and Abbink, 2003, p. 3). The Archives of Anti-Colonial Resistance and the Liberation Struggle incorporated the nationalist narrative within its lengthy title.

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