The future is bleak
By Victor Angula|
There was a time when the future looked bright for the nation known as Namibia.
Excitement was all over, and the most popular song was “Sema ouli peni?” While there was much meaning in the words of the national anthem.
But today, people can’t even sing the national anthem at events. They just stand there listening to the national and AU anthems play on the sound system.
If there is no sound system at the event so that people are expected to sing the anthem they will sing like they are at a funeral, just mumbling inaudible words like dead people trying to sing.
There is no patriotic feeling, no enthusiasm, to energy in the people when they sing the national anthem.
And I am talking about people at a political event, such as the many consultation meetings which ministers and government officials are always attending in the regions. People stand there like dead trees whenever the national anthem is playing.
Now if government officials and stakeholders who are in charge of community institutions can’t sing the national anthem, what about ordinary people in the community? To them the national anthem has become something meaningless and just a waste of time.
This is an indication that Namibia, the “Land of the Brave,” has become the land of the grave – the land of the dead.
People are dead. The excitement is not there. There is no passion. In fact the little excitement they might have for being able to breath disappears as soon as the word “Namibia” crosses their minds.
The word “Namibia” has become synonymous with failure, disappointment, and betrayal, so much so that it’s OK if people refuse to sing the national anthem with passion, because otherwise one might even be carried away and sing: “Namibia, land of the grave, freedom fight we have won…”
Hope has disappeared, Vision 2030 has gone with the wind and so we are unhappily beating a path towards being just another African country.
