WINDHOEKELVIS MURARANGANDA
Local political pundits have accused government and the ruling party Swapo of selective action on racism, following their strong condemnation of an alleged racial attack in Gobabis.
Like eagles on a hare, Swapo as well as its vice-president Dr Hage Geingob, issued statements condemning the Gobabis incident in which a black man, Levi Katire, was severely injured during an alleged racially-fuelled bar brawl.
Geingob, who issued a statement in his capacity as the country's prime minister, echoed the Swapo Politburo's call to close down Buffalo's, a white-owned pub where the fight took place.
Opposition party Nudo also demanded the closure of the now infamous pub.
As well as closing down Buffalo's, Geingob requested the attorney-general to close all "members-only" establishments across the country.
Analysts drew government's attention to the current "inherently cultural and political" racist and tribal structures in the sectors of the Namibian society, saying those must be addressed first. Dr Hoze Riruako, a senior lecturer of politics and administrative studies at the University of Namibia (Unam), told Namibian Sun that "the problem is bigger than the current issue".
"Although I condemn the incident in the strongest terms, we should not generalise it to all white people," he said.
"This case should not be viewed in isolation because racism did not start with the Gobabis incident."
"We had a recent incident where a Chinese national was subjecting his employees to throwing away her own faeces and nobody did anything about this."
According to him, the Gobabis incident is proof that government has done little in harmonising people of different races and tribes.
"When you look at the structure of our parastatals of government it is not good to have one tribe or race dominate all the top positions," Riruako added.
"The situation between the Ovaherero and San people at Gam, the Ondonga and Kwanyama dispute as well as the incident between the traditional leaders in Kavango and Caprivi regions over delimitation of regions, are all undercurrents of the bigger picture," he said.
"A few years back we had the founding president [Sam Nujoma] calling for the bashing of white people, what example did he set as the father of the nation?"
Unam's head of political and administrative studies Phanuel Kaapama said that the current trends of racist and tribal occurrences are just a tip of the iceberg.
"People think racism or tribalism is only when someone makes a statement," Kaapama said.
"The economic and political structures are inherently racist but we pretend not to see that.
"More than 20 years after independence and the political structure has not transformed at all."
He asked whether government's statements on racism will undo the current racist setup or prevent racism.
"I wouldn't read much into the statements made by the PM or Swapo," he said.
