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Trojan Horse Tribalism

Trojan Horse Tribalism

ATTENTION seeking populists lashing out at Namibians never deserve a reply, but the victims of abuse deserves support from fellow citizens, not silent acceptance of abuse.
The derogatory statements of a legal aid lawyer of the Ministry of Justice — one Eva Nangolo Phillemon, against the Damara-speaking community, is a special example of lack of values and discipline.

Phillemon’s derogatory references about the Damara community were not a slip of the tongue because she has done it before and is clearly in a state of mind that is born from arrogance that privilege breeds.

Me. Phillemon did Namibia a favour by reminding them again that tribalism is even more dangerous than racism, because you can get away with it, because it is one member of a tribe insulting a whole of another tribe.
Therefore, tribalism should be recognized and treated as the Trojan horse that it is.
Namibians can only expose the dangers in the belly of the beast by criminalizing and prosecuting it and removing it from politics.
There is actually no more need for a racial discrimination law, but rather a strengthening of the criminal procedure act that can deal harshly and effectively with both tribalism and racism.
Phillemon is not only a serial tribalist, but so uniquely disconnected from Namibian reality that not only the Damara-speaking community, but all communities, should be concerned about the state of equality, dignity and justice for all.
If an official of justice acts like her, it should send cold shivers down the spine of any Namibian over the possibility that the search for justice might be unjust.

To allow the Trojan Horse of tribalism to remain within the gates of Namibian society will confirm that a tyranny of the minority can attack the will of the majority who chose sovereignty, peace, dignity and justice for all.
Anything else will be the worst kind of slavery, with Namibians enslaved by the vocabulary of the populists and opportunists pretending to be politicians.
Peace requires the same heroes as the heroes of war. Independent Namibians are not slaves of their devices, but masters of their keyboards.
The Ministry of Justice miscalculated if they believe Namibians are satisfied that the judiciary is distancing themselves from Phillemon or a promise of urgent action.
What else could the ministry say?
They can only say they are sorry that they did not act decisively after she insulted the Damara people in October 2022. That could have prevented her and any likeminded person from becoming a serial racist posing as a tribalist. It is the same.
What is really offensive is that the street-taking and rent-a-crowd activists who rally against real and imaginary threats are deafening in their silence.
The great pity is that the Damara-community must feel excluded and abandoned from social justice, while they should be admired as one of the solid blocks in the Namibian foundation for over 200 years of recorded history and many more centuries of oral history.
The majority of Namibians were or are still being brought up by Damara-speaking women in towns, farms and their traditional areas, where children of women who are Phillemon’s age are still being brought up by elders.
By far the majority of women getting out of busses in the early mornings have risen at 04:00 AM to prepare their own children for school, drop them at school and take a second taxi or bus to be in time for work, because the bosses can also not be late.
These women in all corners of the country leave their own children in the care of others in extremely dangerous suburbs where there are no neighbourhood watches, CCTV, high walls or alarms and devote their attention to the children of the rest of the nation.

Millions of children over generations in this Namibia pulled themselves up from the whirling dresses of their Damara-speaking care-givers before giving their first faltering steps.

Many tears were and are still wiped off on aprons while todays Phd-holders, law-graduates like Phillemon, reverends and artisans, were guided from their caregivers, because they learn to speak, count, pray and teach from this special and mostly unappreciated mother of all nations.
Take a look and salute those on the sides of the roads and bus stops that are always on the move.
They move, because they care and not because they belong to a restless community, but because they serve and endure Namibia in equal measure.

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