Namibia: A Year to Forget, and Remember

THIS YEAR WAS by all accounts a memorable year.

It began with president Hage Geingob declaring 2021 the year of resilience as he intended to set the tone after Covid-19 upended just about everything in 2020.

He said the Cabinet identified agriculture, health, and education as priority areas. But hindsight tells a different story, as Geingob would spend much of his time dealing with issues of another kind. It seemed the pandemic retreated only to come back with devastating potency. We may never know what the government would have delivered in agriculture, health, and education.

By the latest count, Covid-19 has taken more than 3 500 lives in Namibia, ripping families apart; it shut down businesses; it exposed the inadequacies in our healthcare system, and came very close to collapsing our education system.

To say 2021 was tumultuous is an understatement.

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, we saw heightened activism in the areas of gender-based violence, colonial reparations, fierce abortion debates, and, of course, the Fishrot saga that continued to occupy news and social spaces.

On the bright side, the brilliant performances of our sprint queens Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi provided comfort and joy when we needed it the most.

After all, we were holed up in houses due to movement restrictions imposed as death spiralled in a manner that Namibia has never witnessed before (3 000 in less than three months).

Irish playwright and Nobel Prize winner George Bernard Shaw is quoted as saying: “If history repeats itself and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must man be of learning from experience.”

And so we must learn from mistakes and experiences of the past. We cannot afford to fall into the same well twice. We cannot afford to do business as usual without preparing to deal with catastrophes and calamities in future.

We should not walk into 2022 hoping there will be a magic switch that will change everything for the better. The reality is that we will have to work hard at anticipating the future and adjusting to ‘life unusual’.

To give president Geingob his due, we have as a nation really been resilient this year with little support from the government or some sort of big brother.

We have largely managed to weather the storm despite the catastrophes suffered.

If this year was a year of resilience, then next year should be a year of prudence and pragmatism.

In facing the new year, we will have to make and live by tough decisions. They won’t be palatable to swallow, but they are in the interest of the greater good for the nation to thrive again.

While focusing on rebuilding the economy, mending the healthcare and education systems, we need to be prudent and pragmatic in all manners possible.

Forget as we may want by writing off 2021, we must go into 2022 equipped with lessons learnt.