04/05/2018
FLIPSIDE --- Chris Jacobie
Endearing Nujoma
THERE are none more deserving of international honours than the Founding Father, Dr Sam Nujoma, who will celebrate 89 remarkable years next week at the Etunda house of his late and equally remarkable mother who lived beyond a hundred years.
Namibians are grateful to the new South African Head of State, Cyril Ramaphosa, who awarded Dr Nujoma with the Order of the Companions of OR Tambo in gold, the highest honour South Africa bestows.
Dr Nujoma has over the years proven his humility, also towards his successors, Dr Hifikepunye Pohamba, and President Hage Geingob, by serving both democracy and them as elected leaders by the people of Namibia. A quality as rare as the rarest Namibia diamond that still awaits discovery and might never be found.
In honouring Namibia, President Cyril Rampahosa, must reflect on the South Africa he now leads, and the influence of Dr Nujoma who fought for every inch of Namibia. A cause never abandoned, even with Namibia’s independence and thereafter continued with his successors, the founding chairman of the constitution, Dr. Hage Geingob, and the equally respected successor, and revered Dr Hifikepunye Pohamba.
Dr Nujoma is too humble, and his successors, Drs Pohamba and Geingob too respectful and diplomatic to request or to demand anything.
The independent Namibia that is a true friend of South Africa and was a staunch ally of the South African liberation movements until and after they achieved their goals.
Namibia is giving Africa and the world hope that peace and stability is still possible in spite of the most trying economic and political of circumstances.
The legacy of Namibian leaders never dropped the flag in the battle of unity, dignity and peace amongst races and tribes. Today under its third President, Dr. Hage Geingob, it is still staying the difficult and sometimes impossible course of nation building.
In the years of international turmoil beyond borders, no nation can hope for a better symbol of hope for peace in their lifetimes than a stable Namibia.
The Namibia of Drs Nujoma, Pohamba and Geingob and the ANC comrades of President Ramaphosa is the Namibia with a territory from the middle of the Kunene and Zambezi rivers to the middle of the Orange River, bordering a desert wasteland between the Northern Cape and Southern Namibia, and including Walvis Bay and the off-shore Islands.
The Nujoma honour and a conspiracy of history, with constitutional negotiators and writers, President Cyril Ramaphosa and the Founding Chairman of the Namibian Constitution and third President of Namibia, Dr. Hage Geingob, the Nujoma honour presented a rare opportunity to give Namibia the every inch - including the middle of the Orange river they fought for.
In the most trying of political and economic times, Namibia stood side by side and is still taking the blows that bad leadership and worse political decisions in South Africa delivered on the whole of the region. And Namibia will endure much more, because it is a comrade and a friend of all.
Namibia never wavered and the nation and its Nujoma, Pohamba and Geingob leadership will always be the beacon of peace and stability the world will look for when they look at their own wars and bad economics and wonders if good times will ever come when they only dream of home from the refugee camps where there is not even a chicken to announce the breaking of a new day.
In the most significant week for both South Africa and Namibia, ending in the Commemoration of Cassinga Day in Windhoek, those fallen fighters that were led by Dr Nujoma and their descendants must be able to stare at the middle of the Orange River streams and be free, because it is every inch.
There will be no sweeter water than the streams of the Orange River where two nations meet in the middle to demonstrate unity in the flow towards a better future for Southern Africa and where Namibians and South Africans can equally be refreshed along its banks because every sovereignty of every inch is respected and shared in a common and brighter future.
Namibian leaders are too respectful to demand, too proud to beg and too decent to remind a friend and comrade of its constitutional borders that they rightly believed to be only a small administrative matter between comrades.
Both Namibia and South Africa are building a sanctuary for peace out of the ashes of war and bitterly fought battles in trenches of countries far away and villages whose names are too complicated to pronounce.
The great Orange River ties nations together, from the great Maluti Mountains in Lesotho, along the Southern African economic powerhouse and the reliable Botswana in its race to the Atlantic through the rugged Namibian south to the legendary mouth in the Atlantic.
The promise of the future is what makes the sacrifice on the battlefield possible.
When President Ramaphosa during the award shook the 89-year old Nujoma - hand of a warrior and a peacemaker and stared into the eyes that saw so much tragedy, pain and sorrow he will see that Namibians want to shake hands on the middle of the Orange river, because the hand that held a gun is the hand that holds the constitution.
The middle of the mighty Orange River – a legend of Africa -- is the last few inches that will make Namibia free and South Africa at peace with a brighter future.
Because honour defines comrades and brothers.
