It all started with a post this week in the streets of social media, scribbled by none other than veteran struggle journalist turned emissary of Namibia to India, ambassador Pius Dunaiski.
His articulation on Facebook is short but sharp and cuts into the very sensitive fabric of Namibia’s complex tribal divide, itself a very emotive and dangerous terrain to tread.
Immediately, as this reporter would observe, the post is followed by yet another post on the same theme, taking on a more a confrontational outlook yet retaining its uncompromising intensity.
But this is a typical Dunaiski public lecture and not all will agree with him.
It is trite to note that ambassador Dunaiski’s temperament is forged through a career that saw him writing political missives in Namibia when it was dangerous to do so under the ever-stoic eye of the oppressors.
The comment section is immediately populated by some of the finest legal minds the country has bred and political sharpshooters from the far left.
And so, the conversation on tribe morphs into greed with religious undertones and immediately it becomes apparent that the ambassador has a bone to chew with Namibians.
The more the conversation unravels into a web of sharp erudite commentaries, the more this reporter realized there is a need for it to reach a wider audience.
But getting the retired plenipotentiary will not be an easy walk.
It takes forever to secure his contact line and we resort to sending him a Facebook DM which he responds to but he is willing to settle for an interview, not on this day.
The following day, successive calls to secure an interview prove futile as the ambassador is wired in onto some family business and thus cannot talk.
But we are also reaching out for the likes of law-maker Mandela Kapere who is equally keen to respond to the ambassador on the air-waves.
It is on the third day that the Ambassador finally directs this reporter to his residents, a comfortable but humble domiciliary edifice in the leafy suburb of Pioneers Park.
Back in his struggle years, he wouldn’t be welcome in these bourgeoisie environs.
It is a Thursday afternoon and the sulphuric rays of the September sun are spearing the body of my azure sedan as I race towards his resident so I do not get late.
“Surely as we progressed into the new Namibia, I realized that something is not working here” he begins as his gregarious wife and companion treats to water and juice.
It was not after all that difficult to locate his house, this reporter says from within as we settle in.
The ambassador is quite loquacious.
His way of laughing his heart out at a joke as his voice resonates with a bit of history and contemporary politics.
His articulation begins by hitting right at the very topic that has necessitated this interview and in no time, we are engaging.
“The numerical strength of the Awaambo people, they are powerful, they are too many, I do not really hate that. Early in my life, I was not really too concerned about them having more positions, more EPLs, more mining rights, more fishing rights, more of everything. I thought that was fine.
“But about 10 years ago, I got so concerned about the situation in Namibia that I wrote a full-page article warning Namibians about the curse of trying to avoid the curse of tribalism in Namibia. Trying to show that elsewhere on the African continent this problem has caused serious problems. The most recent one, the paragon, the example, being Rwanda. So, I was quite full-force even as a diplomat,” said the ambassador.
He adds that he warned that all people ought to feel they have a say and that the national agenda is not driven by one tribe, otherwise “we are going to run into a serious problem”.
Ambassador Dunaiski says he has come to the realization that he has more space, in retirement, to speak out against tribalism and that if Namibia is to continue “down this path”, there will be regrets.
He also indicates that he has shared his thoughts with President Hifikepunye Pohamba while on national duty in India.
“In 2015 on heroes’ day I put on a Facebook post where I bluntly said Namibia has been affected by tribalism. This was something developing in me until I decided this time that I have to go full-blown and say this thing is hurting minorities and that we can not keep silent anymore,” he adds.
But the scourge of tribalism, according to the ambassador, was also to be exported into foreign lands and reflected on students that got scholarships to study in India where he was.
“I found out that 95% plus of those studying with government-funded scholarships were from one tribe only. I said but how is this possible? It hurts. Does it mean this one tribe has so much more capacity, mental capacity than others?
So that kind of thing where you are confronted personally and you see that the other tribes are a small minority, and this tribe is gaining from these resources. That was there,” he says adding that even Namibian embassies had tensions among staff bordering on tribal sentiment.
“How it played out in embassies, you will be surprised. How much tensions, you know personal tensions can be in embassies, just because people are fighting for different tribes and so on. How people from certain tribes are grouping, coming together under a little umbrella and so on but that I do not want to go into depth because I have heard from many of my colleagues that these fault lines, many times, were running even through embassies,” he says.
He says the rise to the helm of a President from a minority tribe and his message around the One Namibian House and that all ought to push together in one direction was a powerful metaphor that rekindled hope of tribal inclusivity.
His realization, as he puts it, was that the ground did not catch up with the policies from above and tribalism rages on the form of “tribal entrepreneurs.
These, he says, “are using tribal bases to acquire political power and then they become politically powerful people, all selectable, more electable because they know precisely how to utilize the tribal card.”
The conversation hits nearly half an hour and I know it is time to round it up, but his wife, his companion, has been following and cannot help but impress her thoughts in the manner we have engaged.
As he shakes my hand, the sun is already touching the corners of pristine Windhoek towards certain sundown.
Time to go.
Lunch with ambassador Dunaiski as he unpacks the “tribal cancer”
