Imagining the Post-Apartheid State: An Ethnographic Account of Namibia 9780857450913

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Imagining the Post-Apartheid State

IMAGINING THE POST-APARTHEID STATE An Ethnographic Account of Namibia

John T. Friedman

Berghahn Books New York • Oxford

Published in 2011 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com ©2011 John T. Friedman All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Friedman, John T. Imagining the post-apartheid state : an ethnographic account of Namibia / John T. Friedman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-85745-090-6 (hardback : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-0-85745-091-3 (ebook) 1. Ethnology–Namibia. 2. Political anthropology–Namibia. 3. Kaokoland (Namibia)–Politics and government. I. Title. GN657.N35F75 2011 305.80096881–dc22 2011006254 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Printed in the United States on acid-free paper. ISBN: 978-0-85745-090-6 (hardback) E-ISBN: 978-0-85745-091-3

For my parents, Gail and William Friedman

CONTENTS

List of Figures List of Abbreviations Acknowledgements

vii ix x

INTRODUCTION Chapter 1 Imagining States Chapter 2 State Imaginings

3 28

PART I GOVERN-MENTALITY IN KAOKOLAND Chapter 3 ‘How Do You Feeling about Freedom’ Chapter 4 The Art of Being Governed

55 81

PART II

COURTS, LAWS AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE Chapter 5 In the Matter of The State v. Custom Chapter 6 Judicial Statements Chapter 7 Legal States of Imagination and their Effect

109 132 159

PART III CHIEFSHIP AND THE POST-APARTHEID STATE Chapter 8 Making Politics, Making History Chapter 9 ‘Tradition’, Authority and the State in Northern Kaokoland

202

CONCLUSION Chapter 10 Towards an Ethnography of the (Namibian) State

237

Notes References Index

258 273 303

179

LIST OF FIGURES

1.1 1.2 3.1 3.2 3.3 4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1 5.2 6.1 7.1 7.2 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 9.1 9.2 9.3

Map: Namibia, Kunene Region, Kaokoland and Opuwo ‘The people are living very hard here in Opuwo’ ‘All windows broken’ ‘We were left behind’ ‘My brother eating white bread’ ‘You can do what you want’ ‘All nations standing together’ ‘Family means more than that’ ‘Only the government and police can do that’ ‘It is where the man is having the power’ ‘He is looking for the stolen things’ ‘This is the High Court of Namibia’ ‘As Mukuene imagined’ ‘Herero history is not recognised’ Genealogy of factions in the Kaokoland chieftaincy dispute ‘The heroes that fought for their country’ ‘A family of the Namibian people’ ‘He is the ruler of that village’ ‘If you have power you can do anything you want’ ‘It has remained covered for many years’

14 19 69 73 78 93 98 101 120 129 133 165 175 187 194 196 199 204 224 229

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

COD DRC DTA GDP GRN KRC NAN NGO NPF NUDO OTC OTA PLAN SADF SWA SWAPO UN UNAM

Congress of Democrats Democratic Republic of Congo Democratic Turnhalle Alliance Gross Domestic Product Government of the Republic of Namibia Archives of the Kunene Regional Council National Archives of Namibia Non-Governmental Organisation National Patriotic Front National Unity Democratic Organisation Opuwo Town Council Otjikaoko Traditional Authority People’s Liberation Army of Namibia South African Defence Force South West Africa South West Africa People’s Organisation United Nations University of Namibia

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

They say that one never really finishes writing a book; instead, one just stops. After many years, perhaps too many, I have finally decided to stop writing this book. My affair with the Namibian State began in the early 1990s. Since then, I have come to know so many lovely people, many of whom gave of themselves in ways that can in no way be matched by a mere acknowledgement such as this. Although they have given me knowledge and support, and ultimately made it possible for me to start and then stop writing this book, it is actually their gift of friendship that I value most of all. I owe my gratitude to the many Kaokoland-connected people who shared their ideas, time, knowledge and space, and who assisted me during my stays in Opuwo and Windhoek. In particular, I would like to thank Jennifer Chin, Maja and Ted Essebaggers, Ingenecia Humu, Kenneth Humu, Kahorere Hungi, Kapandu Kashango, Jekura Kavari, Tjiuree Kazavanga, Uripoye Mburura, Nici Muhenje, Inimgirua Musaso, Karumia Musaso, Kiana Nelson, Uvatera Venane Ngombe, Eberhard Rothfuss, Lucresia Ruiter, Johannes Ruiter, Jacob Schoeman, Sophie Shipepe, Tjikajona Siraha, Kapuka Thom, Uziruapi Tjavara, Ursula and Pieter de Villiers, and the staff at the Opuwo Magistrate’s Court. Three Kaokoland-connected individuals deserve a special acknowledgement: Uhangatenua Kapi was the most ideal research assistant imaginable, and his contribution to this study, though unfairly hidden, was highly significant; as for Mike Kavekotora, he was the most ideal informant imaginable, and his tireless willingness to convey his knowledge was only limited by my ability to comprehend; and, finally, Aparicio ‘Chinho’ Lopes was the most ideal spirit imaginable, and like such special and rare people, he has never quite realised his own contribution in making Opuwo so memorable and meaningful. During the past eighteen years, my relationship with Nick Mkabelana, Raya Tjieva, and the rest of the family and neighbours in Gemengde Een (Windhoek) has anchored me in Namibia like no other. They have always made the country feel like a home to me. A number of other Namibia-connected people have also gone to great lengths to assist me. I am grateful to the staff at the National Library and the National Archives, particularly Kenny Husselmann and Teresa de Klerk. Ben Kasetura was a fantastic

Acknowledgements

xi

language teacher; Jon Barnes and Beth Terry opened their home first as strangers, and then continually throughout the many stays thereafter as friends; and Evelyn Shilamba has given me the gift of her friendship since those early days at the ministry. In addition, I would also like to extend my appreciation to Michael Bollig, Joshua Forrest, Robert Gordon, Franz Irlich, Mary Isaacs, Nixon Marcus, Naff Mieze, Abe Naude, Svein Ørsnes, Elrich Pretorius, Paulina Shivute, David Simon, Jacqueline Solway (who is almost connected to Namibia), Ciefriedine Tjeriko, Alet Witbeen and Steven van Wolputte. My years affiliated with the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge left an indelible mark on both me and this book. I feel most fortunate for having had the privilege of working closely with the late Sue Benson. Despite her most untimely death, she continues to shape me as a teacher, researcher and writer. In addition, a number of other Cambridge-connected individuals have inspired, encouraged and/or supported me throughout the course of this project. Many of them have read and commented on draft chapters or earlier incarnations of the book. I would thus also like to extend a sincere thank you to Anthony Baylis, Robert Edgar, Mariane Ferme, Wenzel Geissler, Thomas Blom Hansen, Keith Hart, Leo Howe, John Iliffe, John Lonsdale, Alan Macfarlane, Hayley Macgregor, Nolwazi Mkhwanazi, Ruth Prince, Todd Sanders, Fiona Scorgie, Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov, Julie Taylor, Marilyn Strathern and Lucy Ward. A group of Netherlands-connected people have also assisted me during the course of this project. Peter Geschiere has been both an inspiration and a constructive critic; I have appreciated his willingness to engage my work, and I have benefited greatly from his feedback. Mart-Jan de Jong insisted that I persevere, and he enabled that by winning valuable (and very hard to come by) writing and research time for me. Pieter Ippel has supported me in ways that extend well beyond the confines of this project, and for that I am most grateful. I also wish to thank Arno Coppens, Isperih Karaivanov, Liesbet Mallekoote and Peter Slager, as well as the many Roosevelt Academy (Utrecht University) students who have sparked my thinking while participating so enthusiastically in my ‘Faces of the State’ seminar. At Berghahn Books, Ann Przyzycki, Mark Stanton and Marion Berghahn have been a pleasure to work with. I thank them for having made the production of this book not only possible, but also pleasurable. In addition to all of the individuals mentioned above, a number of institutional bodies helped finance this project. In the United States, I am indebted to the National Science Foundation and the Wenner-Gren Foundation. In the United Kingdom, generous financial support came from the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of the Universities of the United Kingdom, the Smuts Memorial Fund, the Cambridge Political Economy Society Trust, the Cambridge Overseas Trust, the H.M.

xii

Acknowledgements

Chadwick Fund, the Kurt Hahn Trust, the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, the Cambridge African Studies Centre and Darwin College, as well as the University of Cambridge, its Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology, and its Department of Social Anthropology. In The Netherlands, further funding was provided by the Contested Democracy research programme of The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), as well as the Department of Social Science, Roosevelt Academy (Utrecht University). Air Namibia also contributed to the realisation of the research. If it had not been for such wide financial backing, this book would never have come to pass, nor would have a series of previous publications. With respect to the latter, I should thus acknowledge that Chapters 8 and 9 appear as a muchexpanded and updated version of ‘Making Politics, Making History: Chiefship and the Post-Apartheid State in Namibia’, Journal of Southern African Studies (Vol. 31, No. 1). Less significant portions of those two chapters have also featured in Dialectical Anthropology (Vol. 30, No. 3/4) and the European Journal of Development Research (Vol. 21, No. 3). Although kinship is a most interesting and enjoyable anthropological pursuit, it is much more satisfying and enriching when practised. My sweet, sweet daughters, Estella and Morena, are as much a product of Namibia as this book. Throughout the years, they have always been able to give much more energy than they consume. They have offered me the strength and sense of purpose that has propelled me through the completion of this ‘story’ (as they call it). Lastly, but only because she has contributed everything already mentioned above and much, much more, Fatima Müller-Friedman has been my partner in every sense of the word. Throughout the past fifteen years, we have journeyed each step of the way hand-in-hand, and, for this reason, she is a part of each and every page. J.T.F.

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1

IMAGINING STATES

At first reading, the title of this book is likely to arouse some scepticism. How is it possible for an anthropologist to present an ethnographic account of Namibia, of an entire country? As anthropologists we are accustomed to investigate the localised, the small-scale, the village community. We are specifists, not generalists. The critic will thus be quick to suggest that any such attempt can yield only two possible outcomes: either a generalised account of ‘the Namibian people’, or a superficial survey of Namibia’s ethnic groups. Of course, both approaches would result in essentialised and incomplete ethnographies. However, in proposing this ethnographic account of Namibia I am focused on neither the Namibian people, nor the Namibian peoples. Instead, in this book I aim to constitute the Namibian State1 itself as an ethnographic object of study. Here, I am nudging my way towards what Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson (1997a) have called an ethnography without the ethnos, or an ethnography beyond culture. As such, this account takes ethnographic shape through its analytical positioning, its interpretive viewpoint and its holism; it is also ethnographic in its methodology, and in the sense that it aims to offer a ‘thick description’ (Geertz 1973) of its subject matter. In attempting to ethnographise the State, this work contributes to anthropology’s ongoing moves beyond the local in favour of those social formations and institutions altogether more complex, varied, global and dispersed. For this reason, it hopes to further de-centre the traditional anthropological gaze. Through such ‘location work’ (Gupta and Ferguson 1997b), then, this book aspires to help rethink ‘the field’ by exploring a methodological problem relating to the limits of ethnographic description. What might constitute an ethnography of the Namibian State, and how might an anthropologist study such an amorphous and problematic object? At one and the same time, this book offers an empirical illustration of the Namibian State through the eyes and experiences of those that inhabit it. The case of post-apartheid Namibia offers a rich opportunity to explore such a bottom-up contribution to the study of state process. As Africa’s second youngest independent State, Namibia liberated itself from South Africa’s former apartheid regime in 1990. Today, the Namibian State and

4

Introduction

its inhabitants continue to negotiate their newfound democracy. This ongoing process of state-making is contested at numerous levels. At the national level, political parties and their leading actors guide the State through a programme of post-apartheid reform. Among other issues, the crafting of Namibian unity and the transcending of the rural–urban divide remain high on the list of national priorities; all the while, we see neoliberal versions of the democratic state model intersecting with the SWAPO2 party’s attempts to retain control over what has become a dominant-party democracy. At the local level, however, we see quite a different set of parameters in the contestations surrounding the institutionalisation of the newly democratic State. In Kaokoland, a distant locale in the northwest part of the country, individuals and communities engage the new State in their everyday lives. Here, the Namibian State is encountered as an educational system, a development project, a bureaucrat, a memory, a war wound and/or a patrilineal ancestor. It may be invoked, or avoided. Among Kaokolanders, the State is perceived as legitimate, corrupt, liberating, constraining, repressive and/or a new form of apartheid.

Conceptual Bearings In studying Namibia as an ethnographic object in its own right, it is necessary to begin by locating ‘the State’ in a double sense, that is, both theoretically and empirically. With respect to the former, the State has obviously been a central and long-standing preoccupation of political philosophers and theoreticians. Beginning most concertedly in the seventeenth century, our list of early state theorists would include Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hegel, Engels and Weber, to name but a few. In the present era, the discussion has also produced a voluminous amount of theorising. Many of these more recent scholars have focused on the origins of the State (Service 1975; Cohen and Service 1978), or on its functioning (Robertson 1984); some have problematised the State (Vincent 1987), or have suggested that the concept defies definition altogether (Hoffman 1995); and still others have denied the State’s very existence (Miliband 1969). As Philip Abrams points out, ‘[w]e have come to take the state for granted as an object of political practice and political analysis while remaining quite spectacularly unclear as to what the state is’ (1988: 59). Although this work does not aspire to theorise a generalised notion of ‘the State’, in proposing an ethnographic account of Namibia it is necessary to make evident some of my own theoretical positionings. What existing claims have guided me towards the State in its theoretical sense? First, I am guided by the assertion that the State cannot be treated as an entity that exists over and above those living within it. The State is not a reified ‘thing’ in and of itself, but rather a complex system of social relations (Radcliffe-Brown 1940). Second, the State is often reduced to a cer-

Imagining States

5

tain set of specific functions. However, the State does not possess such strict intentionality, unity, and functionality (Foucault 1991a). Third, history teaches us to view the State as a dynamic social process (Lonsdale 1981; Bayart 1993). The State is thus always in the making, never complete.3 Finally, in order to avoid the tendency to objectify the State, it is important to take the ‘idea’ of the State just as seriously as its materiality (Abrams 1988). Taken together, these four observations offer a point of departure by opening up ‘the Namibian State’ as a space containing many possible and competing objectifications, personifications and reifications. These theoretical guideposts allow us to explore what kind(s) of object(s) Namibians make out of their State. Here, the Namibian State is granted enough disunity so as to possess internal contradictions, competing interests and multiple meanings. But in proposing an ethnographic account of the Namibian State, how might we locate ‘the State’ in its empirical sense? What constitutes ‘the field’ when we want to study the State ethnographically? There are, of course, many possible creative points of entry. An anthropologist could, for example, choose to study bureaucratic spaces (Herzfeld 1992), or networks of power (Riles 2000), or state effects (Trouillot 2001; Mitchell 1991, 1999). The State could be situated at the site of its performances (Geertz 1980), and through ritual acts, symbolic self-representations and spectacle (Kertzer 1988; Mbembe 2001). One might also focus on technologies of State, for example, census-taking, mapping and statistics (Scott 1998; Kertzer and Arel 2002), or even neo-liberalism more generally (Ong 2006). Finally, we might wish to construct a bureaugraphic record of the Namibian State by analysing archival materials as ethnographic objects (Stoler 2009); or we could locate the State through an anthropology of legislation, or through a historical analysis of legal thinking in the territory (Chanock 2001). All of these ‘locations’, and still many others, could serve as potentially fruitful ethnographic field sites for our study of the Namibian State. However, in heeding Philip Abrams’s plea to recognise the ‘cogency of the idea of the state as an ideological power and treat that as a compelling object of analysis’ (1988: 79), I have chosen to locate the Namibian State, first and foremost, in the political imagination of those who inhabit it. But like the State itself, this notion too is conceptualised in many different ways within the social sciences and humanities disciplines (Stevenson 2003)? Given the flexible nature of this pivotal concept, we have good reason to pause for a moment so as to unpack ‘imagination’, and to consider its relevance for the field of anthropology in general, and the study of state process more specifically. As detailed in her review article, Claudia Strauss (2006) traces anthropology’s recent interest in imagination to the fields of philosophy and psychoanalysis.4 Most influentially, Cornelius Castoriadis (1994) has utilised ‘the social imaginary’ in reference to a group’s ethos, that is, to a

6

Introduction

society’s shared and unifying conceptions; while Jacques Lacan chose to situate imagination in the Freudian realm of illusion, and thus fantasy. More recently, the philosopher Charles Taylor defines the social imaginary as ‘the ways people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations’ (2004: 23). Taylor’s conception lays emphasis not on what a given society imagines, as Castoriadis would have it, but on the ways people imagine society (Strauss 2006: 329). In the mid-1980s, anthropologists began experimenting with the concept of imagination in an attempt to transcend some of the problems associated with the more reified notion of culture. The social imaginary helped emphasise the polyvalence, dynamism and creativity inherent in social life. For example, Arjun Appadurai’s (1991) research on transnationalism highlights imagination as a new social force in the contemporary age. He points to the role of the global mass media for its ability to offer people consideration into a wider set of potential life possibilities. For him, the deterritorialisation of persons, images and ideas has taken on new force by shaping people’s fantasy into new social practice. Appadurai’s call for ethnographers to explore the connections between imagination and social life has been supported by other anthropologists who study the historical (Comaroff and Comaroff 1992), religious (Fernandez 1982), and techno-scientific (Marcus 1995) imagination. In pursuing the Namibian State through the prism of imagination, I will be drawing on the concept in relation to the realm of politics and power. In this sense, anthropology’s interest in political imagination can be traced to the work of Benedict Anderson (1983) and his notion of the ‘imagined community’.5 In detailing the origins of nationalism, Anderson argues that all nations are imagined political communities in the sense that ‘the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion’ (1983: 6). In helping to link imagination to the State, Anderson’s seminal work sparked a wide range of anthropological scholarship relating to identity and belonging in the contemporary nation-State, and to the constructed nature of national identity. Liisa Malkki (1995), for example, moves beyond Anderson’s unifying account by identifying competing national imaginations among two groups of Hutu refugees living in Tanzania. In her study, camp- and townbased refugees construct a sense of ‘nationness’ through their respective narratives of exile, and by reflecting on one another in the construction of identity. Michael Taussig’s analysis of colonial domination in the Putumayo relies on imagination as well, but this time in creating and sustaining a culture of terror. There, the colonialists constructed the region’s inhabitants as wild savages: ‘Far from being trivial daydreams indulged in after work was over, these stories and the imagination they sustained were a potent political force without which the work of conquest and of super-

Imagining States

7

vising rubber gathering could not have been accomplished’ (1984: 492). Similarly, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (1993) employs imagination as a technology. In her ethnography, the Indonesian State and the Meratu people imagine one another in specific ways, and the confluence of these counter imaginings helps structure the dynamics of their relationship. From these latter two accounts, imagination emerges as both a collective form of constructing and interfacing with ‘the other’, and a mechanism or tool by which individuals offer commentary about such relationships. Although many anthropologists have embraced the concept of political imagination in their work, most fail to offer an explicit definition of it. Jonathan Spencer is clearest in his rendition when he refers to political imagination as ‘the different ways in which people have identified, created or reacted to an area of life and a set of practices they themselves refer to as “the political” – sometimes including parties, usually including politicians, almost always including the post-colonial state’ (1997: 3–4). In this sense, then, political imagination becomes shorthand for a set of emic interpretations of politics. It serves to remind the ethnographer that Western conceptions of politics may not apply in other settings, and it creates the possibility for a diversity of political experiences and understandings. But anthropology certainly does not hold a monopoly over the notion of political imagination, especially in the African context. The historian Terence Ranger, for example, concludes that the so-called invented traditions that have been associated with the history of colonial rule on the continent are more accurately conceived of as imagined: [T]he word ‘invention’ gets in the way of a fully historical treatment of colonial hegemony and of a fully historical treatment of African participation and initiative in innovating custom.… Some traditions in colonial Africa really were invented, by a single colonial officer for a single occasion. But customary law and ethnicity and religion and language were imagined, by many different people and over a long time. These multiple imaginations were in tension with each other and in constant contestation to define the meaning of what had been imagined – to imagine it further (1993: 81).

While among political scientists, Jean-François Bayart (2005) argues for an examination of the political imaginaire as a means to better understand the relationship between culture and politics. In attempting to undermine the tendency of political analysts to essentialise culture as a natural given, he proposes that: we have to understand the imaginaire as the dimension from which issues a continuous dialogue between heritage and innovation that characterises political action in its cultural aspect. Understood in this way, the imaginaire is first of all an interaction … that is, an interaction between the past, the present, and a projected future, but also an interaction between social actors or between societies, whose relations are filtered by their respective ‘imaging consciousnesses’ (2005: 137).

8

Introduction

As a historical phenomenon, then, political imagination does not hold still; it does not necessarily constitute a totality, or a coherent range of restricted meanings. What it does do, though differently across time and space, is play a formative role in the production of both politics and the State (Bayart 2005: 227–33). The above approaches from within and outside the field of anthropology help to refine the notion of political imagination as used in this ethnography. Here, state-related political imagination refers to the different ways Namibians perceive and talk about, represent and construct, and experience the Namibian State. As such, I am choosing to value political imagination for two of its simultaneous connotations. On the one hand, my use of the notion connects the Namibian State with images in the more general sense; while, on the other, it references the inventiveness and creativeness of subjects, both individual and collective. Political imagination is herein treated as historically configured and reconfigured; it is susceptible to falsehood, illusion and fantasy, but nonetheless contributes to the making of social and political reality. Political imagination is seen as a technology used in both the production and reproduction of politics; it is both structured and structuring. By conceiving political imagination in just this manner, we create the space within which the Namibian State becomes ethnographically pursuable, and we do so in such a way that helps us walk a fine line between structure and agency in state process. Political imagination as herein conceived allows us to locate the State not only at the level of national government, but also in the everyday, localised experiences of ordinary people. In this case, however, ‘local’ will be used in a rather diffuse manner. This book focuses on the imaginings of a dispersed and diverse set of Namibians, those whom I label ‘Kaokoland-connected’. They are primarily people who reside in Kaokoland itself, an approximately fifty thousand square kilometre portion of northern Kunene Region in north-western Namibia (see Figure 1.1).6 But they are also former residents of Kaokoland, people who have since relocated to Namibia’s capital city, Windhoek; and they are relatives of Kaokolanders, individuals who themselves may have never set foot in the region. In ethnographising the State through this particular methodological positioning, the book relies on two state-related theoretical propositions of its own, two underlying premises that will carry through the text. First, political imagination can serve as a prism through which to refract the State. The book will detail certain aspects of state-related political imagination in Namibia, and, in doing so, it will explore such imagination as a location of State. This methodological approach leads to a second important premise: state-related political imaginings are not without effect. They are not only products of the State, but they are also productive of the State. Political imagination is therefore both constituted by, and constitutive of, the State. The extent to which this assumption holds true in the

Imagining States

9

post-apartheid Namibian State will feature as another central focus of this book. In what ways are subject-citizen and State in Namibia mutually constituting?

Anthropology and the Current State of Affairs Having established a conceptual framework that will carry through this book, I now turn briefly towards anthropology and its study of the State, paying particular attention to its most recent focus. With a clear recognition that the State represented a radical break from earlier forms of political organisation, one of the first anthropological projects relating to the State formed around understanding the nature of those differences. This was an attempt by nineteenth-century evolutionists (Morgan 1877; Engels 1975 [1884]) to define and categorise the State, a project again picked up in the 1940s by structural-functionalists working in Africa (Fortes and Evans-Pritchard 1940; Nadel 1942). Understanding the nature of these differences in political systems – whether between chiefdoms and States, or centralised and acephalous societies – was also central to a second main anthropological preoccupation with the State, the quest for state origins.7 Three main theses dominated this discussion, all of which fell within a neo-evolutionist paradigm. Some scholars argued that the State had its basis in conflict. In this regard, neo-Marxists were particularly influential in analysing economic inequality and class divisions as the essential components of state formation (Fried 1967), though others developed theories focusing on war and conquest (Carneiro 1970; Lewis 1981). Second, some anthropologists viewed the State as a social contract, emerging as a product of co-operation, as the most pragmatic form of political association (Lowie 1927; Service 1975; Cohen and Service 1978). Lastly, other scholars from this era placed emphasis on the role of technology and/or ecology in the development of the State (Childe 1936; Steward 1955; Goody 1971). Beginning in the 1980s the anthropological debate surrounding state origins and formation waned significantly. In its place, anthropologists began paying closer attention to the workings of the State, and to practices associated with it. For example, Peter Geschiere (1982) analyses the colonial and post-colonial State in Cameroon as a way to understand its impact on locallevel power relations and systems of authority among the Maka. Also of interest, Bruce Grant (1995) traces the twentieth-century historical trajectory of the Nivkhi in eastern Siberia by detailing the Soviet State’s ever-shifting construction of Nivkhi identity and its effects on the communities it aimed to define. In Sierra Leone, Paul Richards (1996) argues that young soldiers wage civil war in the rain forest as a rational attempt to re-attach themselves to a functioning State. For her part, Sharon Hutchinson (1996) analyses the Nuer in relation to the expansion and contraction of state structures in

10

Introduction

Sudan. She reveals how local meaning and sociality are firmly rooted in Nuer experiences of the State. The group of ethnographies highlighted above share a common attribute in that they all take a group of people, rather than the State itself, as their formal object of study. The State emerges on the fringes of each account, and most often as a catalyst of change. All of them thus seek to elucidate the impact of state policies and practices at the local level. In other words, they seek to answer the question ‘what can we learn about a specific group of people by investigating their relationship with the State?’ In this book, I flip the question on its head: ‘what can we learn about the Namibian State by investigating the state-related imaginings of a group of Kaokoland-connected people?’ In doing so, the object of ethnographic study shifts away from a collectivity of people in favour of the Namibian State itself. In focusing my inquiry so directly on the Namibian State, the present work aims to contribute to, and expand upon, the most recent anthropological conversation on the State. Since the mid-1990s, some anthropologists have turned their attention towards that which is sometimes referred to as ‘ethnography of the State’. This new research agenda represents a qualitative shift from a focus on state practice to one of state process. Two main characteristics distinguish this latest anthropological engagement with the State from its predecessors. First, anthropologists are now taking distance from earlier, more restrictive definitions of ‘the State’. Whereas ‘the State’ was once commonly understood as a set of clearly defined institutional and bureaucratic governmental structures, as separate and distinct from society, and/or as possessing a monopoly over the legitimate use of force, ‘the State’ is now being theorized as diffuse, porous, dynamic and contradictory in nature. In this way, these anthropologists of the State are contributing to a rethinking of ‘the State’ as an object of study. In addition to theorising the State afresh, this most recent approach has led to a concomitant repositioning of ‘the State’ in anthropological accounts. Anthropologists are now beginning to move the State to the very centre of their ethnographies. An ethnography of the State thus attempts to elucidate its object of study through a focus on the various social and cultural processes that help to constitute it. Although this shift in emphasis may sound subtle, it has significant and exciting methodological repercussions. These challenges have inspired innovative approaches, leading anthropologists to pursue ‘the State’ well beyond the confines of its institutional apparatuses. Today, anthropologists may research the State through a focus on the family, human subjectivity and affect, bodily practice, and/or discourse – to name but a few. By taking on such an unorthodox object of ethnographic study, this most recent anthropological engagement with the State has yielded some remarkably rich and creative scholarship.8 In the process, this body of new work has revealed anthropology as being better suited to the study of the State and state process than is usually thought (especially by those outside the discipline).

Imagining States

11

In relation to the present work, three particular accounts have most influenced my ethnographic approach to the Namibian State. Tsing’s (1993) study of the Meratus, a group of people living in an ‘out-of-the-way place’ in South Kalimantan (Indonesia), reveals how ‘[v]illage politics contribute to making the state; the categories of state rule are actualized in local politics’ (1993: 26). Here, Tsing seeks to develop a new set of conceptual tools in trying to address the problems of marginality. For her, marginality is not a form of isolation, or a mode of describing the position of a society in geographical or political space, but rather a dynamic and creative process which occurs in and through time, and which implicates both the Meratus and the Indonesian State. The individuals or groups involved in this encounter produce, interpret and reshape themselves in relation to one another, and, as a result, produce, interpret and reshape marginality itself. In this case, then, we see how the Indonesian State helps construct Meratu marginality, but in turn, we also come to understand how the Meratus contribute to the construction of the Indonesian State. In exploring the interconnections between State and selfhood in Berlin, John Borneman (1992, 1997) proposes that we approach States like we approach the study of culture, and with the same set of analytical tools. He argues that States are part of a historically formed cultural order, and therefore not independent or diametrically opposed to culture. States ‘get their meaning from contemporary culture and give meaning back to it; they are legitimated in a myriad of ways in everyday life much as they also shape life, in the extreme case by formally legalizing or criminalizing sets of practices’ (1992: 4). Borneman’s account also helps to close the gap between State and individual: ‘Like the factitious dichotomy between nature and nurture, the individual and state allegorize themselves in a symbiotic process in which it is illusory to think we can isolate the point where one begins and the other ends’ (1992: 285). Finally, James Ferguson’s (1990) well-known account of ‘development’ in Lesotho helps reveal the methodological possibilities inherent in an ethnography of the State. His deconstructive analysis is usually read as a post-structuralist critique of development. However, it is Ferguson's methodology that is of most relevance here. In particular, the primary object of his ethnographic study is not the people to be ‘developed’, but the apparatus that is to do the developing – in this case, both international development agencies and the Lesotho State. In approaching this non-traditional object of anthropological inquiry, Ferguson undertook fieldwork among people who engage the development apparatus in their everyday life. He thus employs orthodox anthropological field methods at the grassroots level as a means to research the State’s development apparatus. In drawing some of its inspiration from these recent anthropological approaches, this work will remain focused on the Namibian State as its primary object of study. As mentioned above, this ethnography of the State is made possible through an investigation into the ways political

12

Introduction

imagination manifests itself in everyday life. As a methodological exploration, the book proposes that the State does not lie beyond the reach of anthropology’s ability to know. Despite problems of scale, the postapartheid Namibian State is a legitimate and methodologically tenable object for ethnographic inquiry.

Fieldwork in the Namibian State Might it turn out, then, that not the basic truths, not the Being nor the ideologies of the centre, but the fantasies of the marginated concerning the secret of the centre are what is most politically important to the State idea and hence State fetishism? — Michael Taussig (1992: 132)

This book is based on eighteen months of anthropological fieldwork in the Namibian State.9 During that time I came to know ‘Namibia’ in multiple ways, and through various means. I tried to constitute ‘the field’ in as many places, and in as wide a mode, as I could imagine. Most central to my research, though, were those individuals whom I have termed ‘Kaokoland-connected’, and in particular, those who circulated in and through the town of Opuwo during my residency there. My new Namibian friends and acquaintances spoke a host of first languages: Otjiherero, Oshivambo, Dhimba, Otjihakaona, Oshinkumbi, Oshimbundu, Portuguese, Afrikaans and English. They identified themselves as Herero, Himba, Himba-Herero, Ovambo, Zemba, Afrikaner, Nkumbi, Mbundu and Hakaona; as Namibians and as Angolans; as citizens and refugees; as Whites, Blacks and Coloureds.10 They were scantily attired, semi-nomadic pastoralists who painted their bodies with red ochre; they were smartly dressed civil servants who lived in the new suburban-style houses of Okatuuo; they were young children in the early years of their primary school education, teenagers, school-leavers and the unemployed. The men and women whom I came to know in Opuwo were entrepreneurs and gardeners, workers and professionals, chiefs and headmen and oral historians; they were illegal immigrants, pensioners and housewives; and they were former South African soldiers and PLAN11 freedom fighters. Many of them attended one or another of the Christian churches in town; others attended to their ancestors; most accommodated both aspects of belief. A few of my acquaintances owned four-wheel-drive vehicles, televisions, and living room sets; but the majority lived in selfbuilt and sparsely decorated mud or concrete brick homes and had to manage without plumbing and electricity. The eclectic mix of people circulating in and through Opuwo while I was living there also included missionaries and international development volunteers, European tourists on ‘Himba safaris’, road works gangs in bright orange overalls, and international consultants in khaki-coloured trousers.

Imagining States

13

I deliberately chose to initiate my study of the Namibian State ‘from the margins’ (Tsing 1994). Such an initial positioning afforded me a number of conceptual advantages. First, it allowed me the opportunity to counter the tendency of both policy makers and scholars to account for the State at its so-called centre. This common vantage point suggests that state power and authority are founded in, and emanate from, the capital city. By situating my study of the Namibian State in its margins, I was afforded the chance to challenge these oft-held assumptions. My vantage point in Kaokoland thus helped me to consider the ways marginality also contributes to the making of the State (Tsing 1993; Das and Poole 2004a). As geographically distant and isolated locations, margins are often economically insignificant, and the population residing there tend to lack political efficacy. These circumstances contribute to the fact that those in the centre know little about the margins, and those in the margins know little about the centre. Marginality thus provokes imagination; and when acted upon by agents of the State and subject-citizens alike, these imaginings (of the centre about the margins, and of the margins about the centre) become an important element in the governing process. From this vantage point, then, we are also able to consider how, and to what extent, people’s everyday state-related political imaginings help construct ‘Namibia’ from the outer edges in. Finally, the perceived irrelevance of the margins also means that States tend to deploy few material resources there. The lack of penetration fragments hegemony, limits control, and reveals discrepancies between the rhetoric of state power and everyday reality. The margins allow us to see the State more clearly because from here it is easier to assess the limits of its capacity, authority and legitimation. Simultaneously, and for the very same reasons, the margins reveal the State’s susceptibility to colonisation by other forms of regulation and control, imagined or otherwise. Given all of the above, ‘an anthropology of the margins offers a unique perspective to the understanding of the state, not because it captures exotic practices, but because it suggests that such margins are a necessary entailment of the state, much as the exception is a necessary component of the rule’ (Das and Poole 2004b: 4). In what specific ways, then, might one characterise the semi-desert and mountainous northern Kunene Region as marginal? In 2001 a total of 34,021 people lived in Kaokoland, yielding a population density of approximately 0.5 persons per square kilometre.12 Most Kaokolanders reside in small settlements and villages where they earn a livelihood primarily from cattle and goat herding, small-scale agricultural production, and the collection of wild veld foods. Outside of Opuwo, communal land tenure predominates. In these hinterlands, government services and infrastructure are scattered over great distances and are limited in scope. In comparison to the other twelve regions in Namibia, Kunene Region as a whole receives the country’s second lowest per capita development budget.13 At the time

14

Introduction

Figure 1.1: Namibia, Kunene Region, Kaokoland and Opuwo (Source: Friedman 2005, adapted from Sidaway and Simon 1993).

of my main period of fieldwork, the area’s only hospital was situated in Opuwo, though five health clinics served smaller population centres in other parts of the region.14 There were no secondary schools outside Opuwo, and until only recently, very few primary schools. Police and Special Field Forces officers, as well as Namibian Defence Force (NDF) soldiers, were stationed at the few police posts across the region, though the officers often had to make do without any means of transport. The provi-

Imagining States

15

sion of technical services in Kaokoland was also limited in its reach. Few spots were electrified or connected to the telephone network, and most people took their water from government maintained boreholes, wells or the Kunene River. With the exception of a 500-metre stretch of main street in Opuwo, during my primary period of fieldwork there was not a single tar road in Kaokoland. Almost all roads required a four-wheel-drive vehicle, and no public transport services existed. A few Kaokolanders owned their own vehicle, but most relied on hitch-hiking, walking, and horse or donkey as their primary modes of transport. Formal employment opportunities outside Opuwo were almost nil, and small-scale tourism and mining interests generated the only significant sources of employment outside the government sector. In addition to these rare employment opportunities, people derived cash income from informal business activities, including the production and sale of traditional beers, foodstuffs, and tourist crafts, as well as the sale of livestock and receipt of state pensions. During my main period of residency in the region, there were no banking facilities. The handful of shops which sold more than just the basic provisions, as well as the region’s two petrol stations, were found only in Opuwo. At the time, three main NGOs operated in Kaokoland, however more than ten Christian churches and missionary organisations attempted to minister to the spiritual needs of Kaokoland’s inhabitants. Finally, Kaokoland is one of Namibia’s staunchest opposition party strongholds. In the 1999 elections (the one held closest to my extended period of field research), 69 per cent of Kaokolanders voted for the opposition Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) party, while the ruling SWAPO party received only 26 per cent of the votes cast in the region.15 In applying the terms ‘edge’ and ‘margin’ to Kaokoland, I am once again referring to a set of geographical, social, economic and political processes that contributes to the structuring and positioning of Kaokoland residents and the Namibian State vis-à-vis one another. Here, I am also trying to walk a fine line between conveying the difficult realities of life in Kaokoland, on the one hand, and inadvertently reproducing the ‘Kaoko myth’, on the other (Miescher and Henrichsen 2000). Since the late nineteenth century, an externally generated hegemonic discourse has contributed to the reproduction of a very particularised notion of and about Kaokoland. The tourist industry, journalists, activists, politicians, government officials and academics (including some anthropologists) perpetuate the myth by constructing the area and inhabitants as isolated, harsh, unspoiled, wild, exotic and natural. Okaoko has been treated as an exceptional and mysterious place, as a space for urbanised elites to project ideas of purity (Miescher and Henrichsen 2000). This Kaoko myth is also quite relevant to the ways the South West African and Namibian States have imagined Kaokoland and its inhabitants (see Chapter 2). Through my use of ‘edge’ and ‘margin’, then, I emphasise that Kaokoland is relatively isolated, that its landscape is relatively harsh and undis-

16

Introduction

The Photographic Narratives Project Photography offers great potential as a method of informant-engaged ethnography. Here, I refer not to the use of photographs as a tool to record data, or as a mode of presenting or illustrating findings, but rather ‘as a means of reversing the predominantly Eurocentric bias in the production of documentary and ethnographic texts in Namibia’ (Rohde 1998: 188). Inspired to do so, I undertook a Photographic Narratives Project with some of those who I came to know during the course of my fieldwork. I provided each participant with a disposable camera, and presented each of them with the same imaginary brief: as a photojournalist working for the local newspaper, they were to produce photographs to appear beside six fictitious articles. I explained that they could not view the text for each article, though they would have an opportunity to glimpse it’s respective headline. Thus, each photographer had to imagine the possible contents of a given article, and then use his or her creativity in responding to each of the respective (and ambiguous) headlines. The six headlines included: A Photo Collection of Namibian History; Independence Brings Change?; A Portrait of the Government; One Namibia, One Nation?; Power and Authority; and The Namibian Family. After developing each roll of film, I met with the photographers in order to review and discuss their photos. Together with the participants, I explored their rationale in having taken each of the photographs. We discussed their method of composition and their interpretations of the headlines. To instigate each participant’s photographic narration, I always began the discussion of each photo with the same two questions: ‘Describe the photograph’ and ‘Why did you choose this image in response to the particular headline?’ During the course of the project, a total of thirteen photographic narratives were conducted. Ten of the photographers were based in Opuwo, and three in Windhoek. The photographers were men and women, old and young, employed and unemployed; between them, they were native speakers of almost every language spoken in Opuwo. The participants shot and narrated a total of 250 photographs. Prior to their participation in the project, most of the photographers had never used a camera. Photography offered a creative space for Kaokoland-connected people to reflect aspects of their political imaginations. It helped people elaborate on concepts and ideas that they may have found difficult to express in words alone. In this way, what I learned from the photographers added to my general knowledge and understanding. The presentation of some of these photographs and narrations throughout the course of this work will offer more space for Kaokoland-connected people to represent themselves, both visually and discursively.

Imagining States

17

turbed, and that some Kaokolanders do live an ‘unmodern’ and ‘traditional’ way of life. But, as we will see, Kaokoland is also many other things, and its inhabitants live in many other ways. Marginality on the edge should be seen as a dynamic and creative process, and a process that contributes to the making of the Namibian State. Although the region of Kaokoland is easily conceptualised as existing at the edge of the State, the town of Opuwo is situated more ambiguously, for it lies simultaneously at both the centre and the margin. It depends on the direction of your approach. I, for example, first approached Opuwo from the south, after having spent six weeks trying to learn Otjiherero in the capital city. My wife and I left the tall buildings, street cafés and fashionable clothing shops of Windhoek early one September morning. After five hundred kilometres of tar road – through the towns of Okahandja, Otjiwarongo, Outjo and Kamanjab – and after an additional three hundred kilometres of gravel road, we finally approached Opuwo. We had been sitting in the bakkie (pick-up truck, in Afrikaans) for more than ten hours. It was the end of the dry season – bone dry in fact; not a blade of grass was in sight. Dust devils were negotiating the surrounding tabletop mountains, traversing the plains and the landing strip, and then whipping through the town. Pedestrians were closing their eyes tightly, clutching their small children, taking cover. We stepped from the vehicle, headto-toe in dust, sweaty. We needed a ‘cool drink’. In the Opuwo Supermarket there were drinks, but not cool ones. There had been a power failure since morning, and so neither of the other two food shops in town had anything cold. We decided to settle for a shower. In the small house on top of the hill, the one we rented as from that day, water refused to spew from the tap, just gurgling noises. Our neighbour told us that it was normal. The town’s pump often fails, she said, or the reservoir runs dry, or it might just be that our pipes had clogged with limescale. When one approaches Opuwo from the south – whether as a tourist, government official, visitor, town resident or anthropologist – one can easily feel oneself on the edge, in the margin. However, most people who reach Opuwo are not arriving from areas as far away as Windhoek, or England. For Tjikajona, her mother Twasewapo, and her son Mingeli, the approach to Opuwo from the north can feel quite different.16 The family lives in a small settlement twelve kilometres outside the town. When they arrive, it is usually on foot, through the bush and over the mountain. Tjikajona and Mingeli take the threehour walk irregularly, as needed. They may stay just for the afternoon, or they may sleep on the floor of an abandoned cuca shop (informal liquor store/bar) for up to two weeks. In Opuwo, the family purchases maize meal, or sells firewood, and sometimes Tjikajona sells her beaded jewellery to the tourists. ‘Life in town is very expensive’, Tjikajona explained during one of my visits with her. ‘Once you are in town, you want many things. But I don’t have anything, clothing, shoes or whatever. It is diffi-

18

Introduction

cult for someone who has nothing to do. Other people will see you if you don’t have anything in town. The people staying in town, many of them don’t have money. They are very strong people. They know how to survive.’ Opuwo is a place of income generation and consumption, of desire and danger. Tjikajona and the many others who approach Opuwo from near and distant parts of Kaokoland reach the centre. As an eleven-year-old boy explained, ‘it is the place where there is lots of electricity, and where light is.’ Opuwo is the centre, because it is a centre. As the capital of Kunene Region, Opuwo is a point of circulation, a liminal place, and most people who are in the town at any given moment are there out of necessity. Opuwo’s population is in a constant state of flux, but in November 2000 approximately six thousand people were present in the town.17 People move in and out of Opuwo regularly, and seasonally, and almost none of the people I met during my stay considered the town as their home. Many Kaokolanders maintain a freestanding room or house for use during their town visits, and thus 15 to 20 per cent of the 1,090 residences are vacant at any given time. People often come to Opuwo in order to access government services. ‘It [the government] is here in Opuwo. Just in this area’, Tjanakambendje explained. ‘It is not in my village.’ Kaokolanders arrive in town for medical treatment at the state hospital, or to visit a relative or friend who has fallen ill. If the person requires ongoing outpatient care, such a visit may last six months or more. Kaokolanders also come to town to collect state pensions, or to appear as a witness or as the accused in the magistrate’s court. In the latter case, court postponements and delays may lead to lengthy stays in Opuwo, as monthly journeys to and from a home village are often too costly and time-consuming. In addition, many of the town’s young people reside in one of the school hostels during term-time. They have come to the centre in order to gain knowledge and skills. Others may make shorter journeys to Opuwo to report a faulty diesel pump at the Department of Water Affairs, or to purchase goods from the Pep Store or China Shop, or food from the Power Save supermarket. Visitors may arrive to acquire legal documents from the Ministry of Home Affairs, such as birth and death certificates and Namibian identification cards. They may travel in with a couple of head of cattle to sell at the Meatco office, or with large sacks of mopane worms to sell to traders from Windhoek or the former Ovamboland. But not all of Opuwo’s residents are visitors. A significant number of people have been staying in the town for much longer periods. Mathews had been resident in Opuwo since 1985. He moved to the town from an outlying village so he could complete his secondary school education, and then subsequently found employment at a local shop. During the time of my fieldwork, however, Mathews had been unemployed for more than five years, and remained in the town only in the hope of securing employment once again. After all of these years, Mathews still insisted that ‘I

Imagining States

19

Figure 1.2: I have taken this picture in Otuzemba at the open market where I met this young Himba girl that you see there, and I asked her: ‘How long have you been here in Opuwo?’ And she says: ‘I have been here for two days in order to look for my uncle who sells the ox, but I can’t find him here in Opuwo. I haven’t found him in two days and also haven’t eaten anything.’ So I gave her two cakes which you can see in her hands there. It is just to show how the people are living very hard here in Opuwo, for a person to stay here for two days without anything to eat. — Mathews, Age 42, Opuwo

20

Introduction

sleep in Opuwo, but stay in the village.’ Many other residents had a similar relationship to the town. Some of the Angolan refugees I knew had to stay in Opuwo so they could report themselves on a weekly basis at the police station. Others – especially government employees such as ministry personnel, police officers and teachers – had been posted to Opuwo from other parts of the region or country. Employment was often their only tie to the town. The people at the centre of this study are some of the ones who circulated in and through Opuwo during my residency there. They are an eclectic set of people. They speak many languages, live by different modes, wear a wide variety of clothing and, despite the Kaoko myth, claim a number of different ethnicities. N.J. van Warmelo (1951), South African government ethnologist, was crucial in equating the idea of Kaokoland with the Himba people.18 Since this first professional ethnographic foray into the region (see Chapter 2), anthropological fieldwork in Kaokoland has remained overwhelmingly focused on this particular group of people.19 In fact, this ethnographic emphasis has grown even more pronounced since Namibia’s independence in 1990, leading one scholar to write of ‘the Himbanisation’ of Namibian anthropology (Gordon 2000). But the construction of Kaokoland as ‘Himbaland’ (van Wolputte 2002) is not only evidenced in the literature. Whether I was inside or outside the region, and whether I was speaking with a Kaokolander or a non-Kaokolander, the initial response to my status as ‘an anthropologist working in Kaokoland’ was invariably the same: ‘then you must be studying the Himba.’ However, only slightly more than half (53 per cent) of Opuwo’s population speaks Otjiherero as a first language, and only 7 per cent of the town’s residents identify themselves as ‘Himba’. For this reason, this anthropological study concentrates on neither Herero nor Himba people, though they certainly figure in it. Oshivambo-speakers (23 per cent), Dhimba-speakers (13 per cent) and others also play their part. The people who appear herein are all Kaokoland-connected, and with the exception of the few Angolan refugees and illegal aliens, they are all linked together as Namibians. But not all of the people who feature in this work shared the Opuwo space during the course of my fieldwork in Namibia. For others appearing in this ethnography, the Kaokoland connection rests in their respective personal histories. During my five-month residence in Windhoek I came to know some of the parents, children and other relatives of those whom I had met in Opuwo. In choosing a secondary field site, my intention was to dislocate geographically my ethnography of the Namibian State, a strategy intended to expand my field of vision beyond the regional terrain, from the margins to the centre. Namibia’s capital city spreads over an area measuring roughly 510 square kilometres and possesses a population of approximately 225,000 people. The legacy of the city’s apartheid urban design remains omnipresent in its contemporary morphology,

Imagining States

21

especially with respect to the former Black and Coloured townships, and their relationship to the former White areas and the central business district. In political and economic terms, Windhoek is considered a classic example of a primate city, as most of the country’s industrial, commercial, administrative, governmental and social service activities are concentrated there (Müller-Friedman 2006). For these reasons, it is not only in geographical terms that Windhoek can be conceptualised as ‘the centre’. During my time in Windhoek, I spent time with people who had been born and raised in Kaokoland but had been living and working in the city for many years. Some of them were university and college students, those who still travelled back to their Kaokoland homes during vacation periods. Others had no family connections in Kaokoland whatsoever. Perhaps they had lived in Opuwo as the children of former colonial officials who had been stationed there; or they had never even visited the region and were connected only by a single relative who had come to reside in Okaoko for one or another reason. These Kaokoland-connected Windhoekians worked as ministerial drivers, domestic workers, civil servants and soldiers; some of them were unemployed. One was a university lecturer, another a chief executive officer. They lived in the Singles’ Quarters, in Pioneers Park, in the Herero lokasie,20 and in other parts of Windhoek and its former township areas. This set of people share the common attribute that they were all connected to Kaokoland and/or Opuwo through kinship relations. State-related political imagination is difficult to observe in action alone, or purely through people’s practices. As a result, one is also forced to rely on people’s utterances and opinions, and then attempt to link those expressions to certain forms of action. For this reason, a significant portion of my field data is based on informal conversations and interviews; and my findings have been shaped by what people said to me and to others around us, by their representations. As English is the official language in Namibia, I was fortunate in that I was able to talk directly with many people. Although I did attempt to learn Otjiherero, I never gained enough confidence or skills to converse effectively in the language. Thus, I often worked closely together with a group of local research assistants who assisted with the interpretation of Otjiherero, Oshivambo, Dhimba, Afrikaans and Portuguese. The fact that a second language was almost always in use by at least one party to any conversation was certainly a constraint, and must therefore be openly acknowledged as a limitation to my findings. Another limit to the knowledge which I profess concerns the hidden motivations people may have had in their dealings with me, and the ways that such motivations would have coloured our interactions with one another. I never paid people for interviews. However, I did occasionally offer a gift of appreciation to those who gave generously of their time. These gifts usually took the form of food. Some people inevitably saw me as a source for personal financial gain. In other cases it was obvious that people also saw me as a representative of the very State I had

22

Introduction

come to study, and thus as someone who had the power to positively impact their lives through potential employment opportunities or community development initiatives. Finally, because I was researching in an extremely racialised society, my skin colour was also an obstacle, as it was accompanied by what often felt like an inescapable amount of apartheid baggage. Despite all intentions, neither I nor my acquaintances and friends could ever completely escape my Whiteness. In other ways this ethnography is coloured by variables that belong to me and me alone (Okely and Callaway 1992). My relationship with Namibia and Namibians commenced in 1993 when I began working for the freshly independent State; it was a time in my life when I did not strive for as much social-scientific understanding. As a youth development worker in one of the newly formed government ministries, I spent the next four years associating with two main groups of people: marginalised youth on the one hand, and civil servants on the other. Within the former group, I watched as a sense of hopelessness turned to excitement over future possibilities, and then quickly faded back again. Among my colleagues at the ministry, I experienced pockets of undying commitment to young people, to the nation-building process as a whole, and to social justice. However, these individuals struggled with the apathy and national disinterestedness displayed by many of our other colleagues. It would be naive and preposterous for me to suggest that the findings of this study transcend my experiences of, and personal investment in, Namibia’s nation- and state-building processes. Additionally, I obviously bring my own set of state-related political imaginings to this study of the Namibian State. Neo-liberalism has sunk its teeth into me as well. As a product of my own society, I have been conditioned by state-related thinking and acting in the United States of America. The State that I grew up in has helped form me as a particular type of subject-citizen. I also imagine States, and the Namibian State. It would be foolish of me to deny the influence of my own imagination on the outcome of this study. Fieldwork in the Namibian State was not only about my engagement with Kaokoland-connected Namibians. It was also about my engagement with the State’s apparatus. I spent much of my time observing people interact with these entities, whether as pension recipients, hospital patients, court participants, or civil servants. Likewise, I frequently observed ‘the State’ in interaction with its citizens. I conducted fieldwork ‘in’ the Namibian State when I sat in the library surrounded by stacks of outdated legislation, or when at the National Archives I breathed in dusty old reports as if they had been emitted as fumes from the exhaust pipe of the State. For the purposes of this study, then, the terrain of the Namibian State and its byproducts – e.g., the magistrate’s courtroom, government offices, the archives, laws – are as much ‘the field’ as Opuwo and Windhoek.

Imagining States

23

Paternalism and its Imprints Unlike many other disciplines, anthropology’s unique methodological approach requires a high degree of flexibility, especially during extended periods of fieldwork. As participant-observers, we take our lead from those we are coming to know, and as our knowledge and insights expand, we embrace and incorporate the new possibilities, problems and directions that emerge. The structure of this book attempts to preserve the learning process as it unfolded for me during my main period of research in Namibia. That process began one afternoon when my car was forced to a standstill at a most unusual roadblock. Obstructing my path lay a large heap of arms and legs; not real ones, but rather a pile of prosthetic devices. On the side of the road, and under the watchful eyes of heavily armed soldiers, sat a number of people who appeared to have been stationed there for quite some while. With my curiosity piqued, I pulled over to enquire about the nature of this spectacle. I soon learned that this was a group of one hundred and fifty excombatants and war-disabled PLAN veterans, and they were in the midst of a protest march. The group’s walk had commenced six weeks prior in the former Ovamboland and was expected to end only after they had formally presented their demands to (then-) President Sam Nujoma at State House. At the time, Namibia was hosting a Southern Africa heads-of-state meeting, and the government, in an attempt to save itself the embarrassment, refused to allow the group to reach its intended destination. In defiance, some of them had removed their appendages to build the blockade, thereby drawing attention to their struggle. The ex-combatants explained to me that they had come more than seven hundred kilometres to demand employment opportunities and disability payments from the President, from the government, from SWAPO. They had helped liberate the country a decade earlier and had been expecting something in return. After having waited patiently for so many years, nothing had yet materialised, and they felt neglected and forgotten. ‘We are here in a peaceful demonstration,’ one of the veterans told me, ‘to demand to our government in order to give us something after the liberation struggle.’ The protesters wanted to know if ‘our President will allow us’ to get something from the government. Throughout the course of our discussions, the ex-combatants whom I spoke with commonly referred to themselves as ‘children of the government’, and to President Nujoma as ‘our father and mother’. I was struck by the ways the veterans relied on familial idioms to describe their relationship with the government, and the ways they couched their demands in the language of parental obligations and responsibilities. It was this encounter that first drew my attention towards paternalism as a possible ‘structuring structure’ (Bourdieu 1999a), as a mediating notion between Namibian subject-citizens and the State. Throughout the course of my research – whether in conversation with Kaokoland-connected people, or in my observations of the state appara-

24

Introduction

tus, or while reading the archives, or negotiating legislative history – the imprint of paternalism on state-related imagination, both past and present, continued to make its presence felt. Had it not been for my pre-existing familiarity with the region and its history, I certainly would have found such an ethos surprising. Colonialism has long been associated with a European notion of paternalism and paternalistic intention (Hetherington 1978). However, such paternalism is not necessarily something most people easily assimilate with the particularities of an apartheid past, with a violent history of unadulterated racial oppression and subjugation. In working towards an ethnography of the Namibian State, I will be exploring some of the many ways paternalism interfaces with political imagination in and of this post-apartheid State.21 I intend to show how paternalism is implicated in the state-related imaginings of Kaokolandconnected people, and I will try to reveal the extent to which such imaginings are constituted by, and simultaneously constitutive of, the Namibian State itself. Paternalism, the book argues, resonates in the political imagination of Namibian people and their States. My use of the term ‘paternalism’ requires some qualification. As a philosophical concept rooted in Europe, the term is susceptible to being read with a set of culturally specific and/or pejorative connotations in mind. In addition, the notion finds application in various settings, and thus the precise meaning of ‘paternalism’ remains context-dependent and open to interpretation. Today, philosophical discussions on the topic focus overwhelmingly on legal paternalism and the relationship between the State and the individual. In their deliberations, scholars have refined the concept by making numerous distinctions, for example, between strong and weak paternalism, positive and negative paternalism, active and passive paternalism, and direct and indirect paternalism, among still others (Kleinig 1983). In a very strict sense, paternalism refers to a familial order whereby authority resides with the father. However, paternalism is also used to characterise relations between any two individuals, whether related or otherwise, or between an individual and an institution. Western scholars have defined paternalism as that which ‘occurs whenever a person’s opportunities for deciding or acting, or her decisions about the conditions under which she shall or shall not decide, are interfered with, allegedly for her own good’ (Buchanan 1983: 62). The notion has been expanded upon further so as to include targets greater than the individual. ‘Political paternalism’, for example, applies the above principles to entire collectivities of people (Kleinig 1983). In these broader senses, then, paternalism is suggestive of an administrative principle whereby people’s lives are regulated and their needs provided for in ways that parallel the actions of a father-figure in relation to his children. In attempting to deploy paternalism as an analytical concept, we can also broaden its meaning in another direction, that is, by unhitching it from

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fathers per se. In its patriarchal form, paternalism has the tendency to obscure the existence of maternal and matriarchal authority. For this reason, some have chosen to speak of ‘parentalism’ instead. Throughout the course of this book I will remain with the concept of paternalism in order to emphasise the disproportionate political influence of men in Kaokoland. From time to time, however, my use of the concept will implicate parents as a social unit – that is, both fathers and mothers in their joint capacity visà-vis their children. In this broadest understanding, then, paternalism allows me to cast a conceptual net wide enough to capture the authority of men without completely excluding the authority of women, and without excluding the authority of parents as a social unit; it also helps to invoke the family and family relations more generally, and especially the relation between fathers/parents and their children, without taking the nature or content of those relations for granted. As my time in the Namibian State progressed, and as this paternalistic ethos of Kaokoland-connected people’s state-related imaginings became more evident to me, I began to integrate this imagination as part of my method of inquiry. In a sense, I tried to operate within this state-related imagination. The paternalistic imprint, for example, led me to explore and better understand the parent–child relationship, and other kinship relations, in the context of people’s everyday lives. Similarly, I spent much of my time with a number of specific families. I focused on lines of descent within them by always attempting to meet the parents and children of any particular person. I made the link between field sites in Opuwo and Windhoek in a similar fashion. Since kinship relations and the family appeared as central idioms through which Kaokolanders mobilised and deployed their political imaginations, it made sense to utilise kinship connections as my methodological transport to the capital city. By asking people in Opuwo to put me in touch with their Windhoek-based relatives, I was able to trace the State from its edge to its centre through the very vehicle that articulated people’s state-related imaginings. Finally, whether I was reviewing the archives, or researching legislative history, or observing cases at the traditional and magistrate courts, I tried to pay particular attention to issues of family. This inevitably meant a focus on family law, court cases involving disputes between family members, colonial perceptions of the ‘native’ family, and so forth. By researching and writing within these family structures, I was (and am) trying to work and write within the context of Kaokoland-connected people’s paternalistic mode of imagining the State. My research in and on the Namibian State has revealed my subject as a displaced process that is dispersed through time, space and practice. It is ambiguous, sometimes incoherent, and filled with disjuncture. The Namibian State is created and creative. As such, the book’s structure and style of writing aim to reflect this understanding, as well as the methodological approaches used to achieve it. In certain parts of the text one will notice breaks in time, narrative style, voice and subject position. One will

26

Introduction

also find various layers of content and sub-texts that run like threads through the book. For example, the photographic narrative sidebars that appear throughout this work allow Kaokolanders the space to speak and represent for themselves; while as from the end of Chapter 4, I begin inserting a series of what I call ‘paternalistic imprints’ as a way to move beyond the realm of the State per se. In oscillating between politics and kinship, between the State and the family, this strategy adds additional depth by further qualifying the notion of paternalism in Kaokoland. The remainder of this book is devoted to unpacking the paternalistic state-related imagination and detailing some of the ways it manifests itself in the States (South West Africa and Namibia) that I came to know. More specifically, the following chapters show the extent to which political imagination and the Namibian State are mutually constituting; and in this way the book ethnographises the State itself. The next chapter of this introductory section offers additional context by reflecting on the nature and content of colonial state knowledge in the former South West Africa, and it presents a number of other relevant observations relating to the specificity of the Namibian State, both past and present. The book’s subsequent chapters then begin charting the progression of my own learning as it transpired during the course of my field research. Thus, in the early pages of the ensuing account a number of anthropological problems emerge (as they did during the initial stages of my fieldwork); the problems continue their development throughout the middle chapters, turning towards kinship in the process (as I was forced to do while in the field); finally, they are ‘resolved’ in the latter part of the book (just as they were for me towards the end of my field study) through recourse to history. In this way, the structure of the monograph attempts to replicate a similar learning process in the reader. Part I (Chapters 3 and 4) of the book introduces the paternalistic ethos of state-related political imagination in Kaokoland. It highlights a rationality of government by exploring some of the governmental discourses emanating from the region, discourses pertaining to both the former South African regime and the independent government. In drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality, I begin considering the extent to which Kaokolanders also govern the Namibian State. In Part II of the book (Chapters 5, 6 and 7), I work to embed state-related political imagination in a set of practices relating to the law. In turning towards the administration of justice in Kaokoland, I consider issues relating to legal pluralism and Opuwo’s complementary judicial systems. A focus on traditional and state legal venues allows us the opportunity to link courts of law with state-related political imagination in Kaokoland. Then, in Part III (Chapters 8 and 9), I explore the dynamics of a long-standing factional dispute, a conflict that continues to consume a great deal of political energy in the region. The chieftaincy dispute helps us consider the rooting of state power in Kaokoland; and it offers the chance to explore an

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important set of post-apartheid problematics: chiefship and traditional authority; ‘history’ and ‘tradition’; identity and forms of belonging; and post-colonial state bifurcation. Finally, in the concluding chapter we return to the book’s main empirical and theoretical foci. With respect to the former, it offers final reflections on paternalism and contemporary political imagination in Kaokoland. What do Kaokoland-connected people’s experiences, perceptions and representations of government, law and traditional authority suggest about the state-related imagination in Kaokoland? But since the book aims to do more than just that, the final chapter also considers what the present anthropological study reveals about the post-apartheid Namibian State itself. In this sense, it tries to chart new territory towards an ethnography of the State. Taken as a whole, what follows will detail a resonating paternalistic ethos in the state-related imaginings of Kaokoland-connected people; it will reveal the extent to which the Namibian State and the political imaginary in Kaokoland are mutually constituting; and it will shows how Namibia’s apartheid history mediates contemporary political imagination and the State in Kaokoland.

Chapter 2

STATE IMAGININGS

Is there anything to be derived from the fact that, just as the term ‘state’ has two connotations in its noun form – the state, that is, as (i) political order, structure, institution and (ii) as a condition-of-being – so, as a verb, it denotes to ‘give voice’, to ‘articulate’, to ‘narrate’? — John Comaroff (2002: 108)

In approaching the State as an ethnographic object of study, we should indeed take cognisance of the grammatical and semantic nuances associated with ‘state’. A S/state is a structure and a condition, and an act of expression, all at once. With respect to its active verb form, the State is a ‘statement’, an assertion, an authoritative worldview backed by force (Comaroff 2002: 126). But what is the foundation upon which such statements rest? For the political scientist James Scott (1998), a State’s capacity to state is dependent upon its ability to see, and thus to know, its subjects. Without vision, States are limited in their ability to control population, and to carry out central functions such as taxation, conscription and planning. As Scott writes, ‘the premodern state was, in many crucial respects, partially blind; it knew precious little about its subjects, their wealth, their landholdings and yields, their location, their very identity.… As a result, its interventions were often crude and self-defeating’ (1998: 2). The quest for vision thus became a critical ingredient to enhanced statecraft, and a number of technologies were invented to achieve this end. The creation of permanent last names, for example, helped States trace and track people, not only geographically, but also temporally. States gained sight through the development of their very own science of statistics (Starr 1987), and through the taking of censuses (Kertzer and Arel 2002). Seeing like a State entails the use of maps, birth and death registers, identity cards and passports, tax numbers, travel visas, and land registers; and it requires standardised weights and measures, a national language, and sedentary peoples. However, an analysis of state knowledge that is fully dependent on sight and vision, that is, on sensory perceptions and the technologies that provide the means thereof, fails to capture an equally significant element

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of modern statecraft. The problem of legibility is also addressed through a body of state knowledge that is garnered through non-empirical means. Here, I refer again to the notion of imagination, this time from a philosophical perspective whereby the act of imagining entails thinking about something that is not perceived directly by the senses. As such, imagining retains ‘the liability to think something which the subject believes to be real, but which is not real’ (Stevenson 2003: 242). In other words, this is an understanding of imagination as a purely intellectual process; it can result in knowledge that may or may not be true. When States imagine, or rather when agents acting in the name of the State imagine, they come to know (and eventually to act upon) their subjects through non-visible means. Imagining, like seeing, is also a source of state power. Given the central argument of this book concerning the mutual constitutiveness of State and subject-citizen in Kaokoland, and the historical nature of that process, it is now helpful to introduce some of the imaginings that circulated in and through Namibia’s former colonial and apartheid States. In doing so, we are forced to recognise the dialectics of political imagination in the making of the (colonial) State. In other words, an ethnography of the Namibian State also requires attention to the imaginings and counter-imaginings of the State vis-à-vis its subject-citizens. The main focus here rests most squarely on the period of South African rule in Namibia. In particular, how did the former South African regime and its apartheid State imagine Kaokolanders? How was Kaokoland constructed as an object of colonial state knowledge? In what ways might these state imaginings have helped condition the contemporary state-related political imagination in the region? Such attention to the South African period mirrors Kaokolanders’ own historical narrations, for they rarely, if ever, referenced German colonial rule in the territory. This historical orientation reflects the fact that, first, none of the Kaokolanders I came to know were old enough to have had any direct memories of German rule; and second, even though Kaokoland was officially part of German South West Africa, the region never came under German colonial administration.1 In addition to this central thrust, the present chapter provides further context by introducing a couple of key observations relating to the state of the State in Namibia, both before and after the period of South African rule. In particular, I will highlight the distinctive nature of the history of state formation in the territory, and I will point towards some of the attributes that distinguish Namibia’s post-colonial2 S/state in its present manifestation. All of these considerations rightfully deserve a more exhaustive hearing, perhaps even an entire book. However, given the scope of this work, I offer only a more general overview so as to better condition the reader for this exploration into state-related imagination in contemporary Kaokoland.

30

Introduction

Towards a History of ‘Statishness’ in Namibia In working towards an ethnography of the State, this book aims to highlight the potential for a more significant anthropological contribution to a wider set of interdisciplinary debates on state processes in Africa. One of these far-reaching debates concerns the relationship between the past and the present, and internal and external forces, in analyses of the post-colonial African State. Thus, for Mahmood Mamdani (1996) the '[k]ey to understanding the state in contemporary Africa is the historical fact that it was forged in the course of a colonial occupation’ (1996: 62). According to him, we must comprehend the nature of indirect rule in order to contextualise the processes surrounding the contemporary African State, and, in particular, post-colonial state reform. Mamdani emphasises the determinative role of external historical forces for the formation and functioning of independent African States. In contrast, the historian John Lonsdale privileges the unique internal social processes that occur within African societies. He concerns himself with the ‘connections which govern processes, the connections between the institutionalization of power and the conflicting constituencies of class, community, and nation; between the exercise of force and the rule of law; between modes of domination and modes of production’ (1981: 139). Lonsdale’s analysis urges us to view the contemporary African State as a set of condensed historical social processes. Here, we find internal social and political forces of the utmost importance in shaping the dynamics of African statehood. In scrutinising the historical interplay between internal and external forces, Jean-François Bayart (1993) analyses the post-colonial African State in slightly different terms, as a dialectical product. He argues against viewing the African State as a purely exogenous structure, instead choosing to treat it as the outcome of a process of ‘syncretic articulation’ (1993: 24). In response to what he terms ‘the paradigm of the yoke’ – that is, the reluctance to recognise African societies as historical and political entities in their own right, and the inclination to view Africa as a historically isolated and manipulated continent – Bayart identifies the African State’s unique historical trajectory. For him, the longue durée of African politics and state process reveals a tendency for leading sub-Saharan actors to rely upon ‘the strategies of extraversion, mobilising resources derived from their (possibly unequal) relationship with the external environment’ (1993: 21–22). Here, then, the past and the present are both part and parcel of this trajectory of African statehood. Such strategies of extraversion were not initiated during the colonial era, though their use during that historical period did contribute to the making of the present. Bayart reveals the colonial period as having both constrained and enabled post-colonial state process. The colonial encounter also created ‘the emergence of major opportunities inherent in the state’ (1993: 204). Through such attempts to historicise state process in Africa, these scholars offer us a set of valuable methodological considerations for our study of

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the Namibian State. In particular, how are we to position a history of externality in relation to the contemporary post-apartheid State? Part of the answer rests in identifying the historical specificity of the Namibian State. But, in trying to do just that, we are immediately confronted by two central problems relating to the study of Namibian history and its existing historiography. First, there exists a dearth of both source materials and reliable historical accounts relating to Namibia prior to its colonisation. As Brigitte Lau (1988) has shown, the historical and anthropological literature relating to this period of Namibia’s past is dominated by apologetic works written from a colonial perspective. The second main problem confronting the study of Namibian history concerns the quality and quantity of historiography generated during the colonial period. Under the South Africans, Namibian historiography was marginalised, and historical research was hampered by the regime’s attempt to discourage research in the territory (Hayes 1992). The history and ethnography that did get written during the South African period often possessed instrumental and ideological intentions (Ranger 1988; Silvester et al. 1998).3 Today, scholars face a lack of pre-colonial historiography and an over-preponderance of tainted and dubious colonial material. Despite such a legacy, a new generation of Namibian historians has begun making substantial progress in addressing these constraints.4 With this newer material at hand, then, I wish to address a particularly relevant historical question: what tentative conclusions might we draw about the history of the State in Namibia? How can we think about the historical specificities of state formation in Namibia so that we are best able to situate colonial state history in the political imaginings of presentday, Kaokoland-connected Namibians? Here, I will suggest that the Namibian State is relatively specific in the sense that, unlike many places in East, Central and West Africa, its historical trajectory did not involve the incorporation and reconfiguration of pre-existing fields of highly centralised power and authority. Rather, the Namibian State finds its origins in a history of imperial expansion and contact across a thinly populated border zone. I have neither the space nor intention to undertake a detailed comparison between state formation in Namibia and that in other parts of Africa. I simply wish to draw attention to the existence of centralised and powerful pre-colonial States in these other regions of the continent. For example, we could point to the States of Buganda, Bunyoro, Asante, Oyo, Dahomey or the Sokoto Caliphate.5 Prior to European colonisation, these polities were highly centralised and maintained significant fields of political power in their own right. In building colonial States in these other parts of Africa, Britain and France were forced to acknowledge the authority and strength of these pre-existing polities. In doing so, they wove and incorporated these entities into the colonial fabric, thereby conceding certain powers to them. In many parts of Africa, I would argue, the colonial regimes did not impose ‘statishness’ – that is, political forms with state-

32

Introduction

like qualities – but rather drastically reformulated the highly centralised political systems that were already present. The Namibian case, however, reveals quite a different story. Today, Namibia contains a population of approximately two million inhabitants in a territory three and a half times the size of Great Britain; or by way of another comparison, Namibia possesses less than one-sixtieth of the population of Nigeria, a country with roughly the same sized territory. Sandwiched between the Namib and Kalahari deserts, Namibia has the driest climate south of the Sahara, an attribute that has always limited the number of inhabitants living within the territory. Most archaeologists and historians suggest that during the first millennium Namibia was populated only by small groups of hunter-gatherers (Angula 1988; Pfouts 1988; Bley 1971). Archaeological evidence of nomadic pastoralism dates to as early as AD 400 (Kinahan 1991). It is thus relatively safe to conclude that throughout the first millennium, the large area now constitutive of Namibia was sparsely populated, extremely spacious and devoid of anything vaguely resembling ‘statishness’. Namibia first became a mediating space between peoples in the period 1100–1550, when southern migrating Oshivambo-speakers6 reached the northern part of the territory (Pfouts 1988; Williams 1991). During approximately the same time-frame, Otjiherero-speaking pastoralists also migrated into Namibia (Gewald 1999; Williams 1991). From the south, migration into Namibia commenced with the arrival of the first Khoikhoi-speaking (Nama) peoples in the seventeenth century (Elphick and Giliomee, cited in Pfouts 1988: 126). Subsequently, beginning in the early nineteenth century, Oorlam commando groups entered southern Namibia. They were a mixed batch of people – including runaway slaves and Khoi servants – some of whom were baptised and spoke low Dutch through their relations with Cape settlers. Under growing pressure from Europeans and an expanding Cape economy, the Oorlams were forced northward across the Orange River (Lau 1987). As for northern Kaokoland, archaeological evidence suggests that the area remained uninhabited until the very end of the nineteenth century (Kinahan 2001), though oral historical accounts place the arrival of migrants approximately fifty years earlier (Bollig 1997b). Throughout the territory, then, these southward and northward movements populated sparsely inhabited space, eventually leading to progressively more contact and conflict between peoples. ‘The history of Namibia is the history of social interrelations between and within the Khoi-Khoi and San, then between and within the San-Khoi-Khoi and Damaras, and between and within the above and the Bantu peoples’ (Angula 1988: 102). Conflict was to occur in the form of warfare and cattle raiding between the Otjiherero-speaking people of central Namibia and the Nama/Oorlam groups of the south. Likewise, in this process of migration and movement, ‘Bushmen’ hunter-gatherers found themselves forced deeper into the marginal zones of the Kalahari Desert.

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But how were these pre-colonial Namibian societies organised politically? In what is now northern Namibia, where we find the most centralised of Namibia’s pre-colonial societies, Oshivambo-speaking people were organised into at least sixteen different kingships. It is estimated that in 1880 the total Oshivambo-speaking population was 120,000 inhabitants, with each of these sixteen kingships ranging in size from 1,500 to 8,000 individuals (Hayes 1992: 25). In central Namibia, Otjiherero-speaking people were living as highly decentralised pastoralists. Prior to German colonisation in 1884, these numerous Otjiherero-speaking groups competed with one another economically and politically (Gewald 1999: 8). Also in the central part of the territory, and throughout the south, numerous groups of Oorlam/Nama social formations – such as the Oorlam Afrikaners, the Red Nation, the Witboois, and the Swaartboois – lived under separate leadership within decentralised, kin-based political entities (Gewald 1999; Witbooi 1989; Lau 1987). Finally, ‘Bushmen’ huntergatherers lived in small, decentralised groups scattered across the more marginal areas of the territory’s landscape. It is important to highlight that during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries these various peoples of Namibia were not living in isolation, but rather in interdependent relationships with each other (Gordon 1992). In the pre-colonial period, the territory was but an indeterminate, transhumant and contested space of mediation and contact; and it was a space lacking in ‘statishness’. The colonial period, formally commencing with Germany’s occupation in 1884 and then South African rule in 1915, perpetuated Namibia as a contact space. Contact was certainly different in form and degree, as European governments and settlers confronted (often violently) local groups of inhabitants. In Kaokoland specifically, the onset of German rule generated unprecedented new contacts between peoples there. Even though the German authorities never maintained direct control in the region, their actions in the central and eastern parts of the country (especially with regard to the Herero-German War of 1904–08) forced many Otjihererospeaking refugees to flee into Kaokoland, and thus into contact and conflict with others who were already resident there. Although it would still take until the South African period before Kaokoland experienced the direct consequences of foreign rule, in most other parts of the territory the onset of German colonialism prompted a most significant break with earlier forms of political organisation. Obviously, international boundaries were demarcated for the first time in order to construct South West Africa in a geographical sense, and formalised bureaucratic structures were established to administer the new State. More importantly, though, colonial rule in Namibia imposed a State on what was to become the Namibian people (the territory became a space occupied by people sharing a common political destiny), and it catalysed the subsequent rise of state-like forms of authority within the territory’s decentralised polities. Herero society, for example, underwent a dramatic political transformation between the years

34

Introduction

1890 and 1923. ‘From being a society characterized by an endless series of loosely linked kinship groups centred around patri-clan heads’ (Gewald 1999: 28), Otjiherero-speakers went on to create ‘that which had not existed beforehand, a single Herero identity’ (Ibid.: 289). In a matter of only three decades, the Herero people established a centralised political entity within the context of the new colonial State of South West Africa. In just these ways, colonialism ‘created’ fields of centralised power in Namibia; it not only imposed statehood on the territory, but also ‘statishness’. For this reason, I argue, the colonisation process requires a certain degree of primacy when historicising the Namibian State.7

‘Knowing’ the Colonial Subject In colonial South West Africa, like elsewhere, the modern state-making process was dependent on knowledge about both territory and population (Foucault 1991a; Said 1978). Such ‘knowledge’ was garnered through means of both seeing and imagining, a process that began long before the territory’s formal colonisation by Germany in 1884. More than a century earlier, missionaries, traders, hunters and explorers began producing a body of knowledge about the territory, knowledge that was to be of service to the future colonial State. Since ‘to map was to know, and to know one had to map’ (Crais 2002: 74), these proto-colonial representatives began drawing and describing the spaces through which they moved. Often setting out on their treks from the Cape, the accounts of early travellers and traders such as Charles John Andersson (1827–1867), Francis Galton (1822–1911), James Chapman (1831–1872), and Thomas Baines (1820–1875) helped construct the territory as a frontier zone. As such, the vast area that was yet to be named German South West Africa became known as an exotic and adventurous space; one that was dangerous, unpredictable and untamed; and one that was in need of a civilising mission. As has been well documented by Dorian Haarhoff (1991), this frontier myth would go on to remain the defining metaphor in literary representations of the territory. More importantly, though, the distinctive spatial imagination became integrally implicated in the planning policies of the subsequent German and South African colonial States. In trying to tame the perceived dangers of the frontier, in attempting to bring civility and order to a geographical area that was deemed indeterminate, and, of course, as a means to exert political control over its subjects, colonial state officials gathered and deployed their spatial knowledge in politically instrumental ways. Towards the close of the nineteenth century, for example, the German administration mapped-out a ‘Red Line’ that extended across the entire breadth of the territory. Although the boundary was originally established as a veterinary control measure, it had more significant effects in simultaneously constituting a political bor-

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der between the so-called tribal areas to its north and the secured zone for White settlement to its south. Under the South African regime, the use of space as political technology reached new levels. Large swaths of land were cordoned-off as mining concessions and game reserves, while during the apartheid era ‘tribal homelands’ and ‘native reserves’ were established throughout the territory. But the South African colonial State’s use and control of space as a means to discipline its subjects also reached into the finer crevices of life in the colony. Cities and towns were spatially segregated along racial lines; Black townships were pried apart even further along ethnic lines; the interiors of public and private buildings were designed architecturally in relation to the skin colour of its intended user; even the space within individual human bodies was managed in ways that aimed to prevent transgressions (e.g., sexually). In South West Africa, then, knowledge about space figured prominently in the production and management of the colonial (and especially apartheid) State, and it served the task of governance in the territory.8 But, as previously mentioned, effective statecraft also requires knowledge about population, particularly in its relation to territory. In the case of South West Africa, the maps and journals produced by those early European travellers also helped to create the first body of knowledge about the territory’s inhabitants. The people they encountered and imagined during these treks also contributed to the construction of the frontier myth. However, it was the ethnographic accounts of early missionaries, in particular those associated with the London Missionary Society and the Rhenish Mission, that were to leave the most indelible imprint on colonial state imaginings vis-à-vis its future subjects. In a recent historical account, George Steinmetz (2007) argues that precolonial ethnographic representations comprised one of the main generative structures for the German colonial State. His detailed analysis shows how colonial administrators arrived with, and acted upon, a set of preexisting images about South West Africans, images that were originally cast by the missionaries who had preceded their arrival in the territory. This body of knowledge, and the imagination it evoked in colonial officials, thus proved central to the creation and implementation of ‘native policy’ in the territory. As Steinmetz asserts, ‘native policy was an attempt to identify a uniform cultural essence beneath the shimmering surface of indigenous practice and to restrict the colonized to this unitary identity. Native policy can thus be defined as any official intervention directed toward stabilizing a colonized group around a particular definition of its culture, character, and behaviour’ (2007: 43). But if missionaries laid the foundation that first enabled the German colonial State to imagine its subjects and form policy in relation to them, then the South Africans institutionalised that epistemology by integrating the ethnographic enterprise directly into the colonial state apparatus.9 In 1925, an ethnological section was formally established within South

36

Introduction

Africa’s Department of Native Affairs in order to help with the training of its officers, as well as to provide general guidance on ‘native matters’ (Rizzo 2000). In South West Africa as well, the Administration started ‘stabilising’ its subjects through the sponsorship of ethnographic expeditions and publications such as The Native Tribes of South West Africa (1928). During these early years of South Africa’s mandate, the work of three amateur ethnologists – Heinrich Vedder, C.H.L. Hahn and Louis Fourie – proved most influential in shaping knowledge about the territory’s population. Towards the middle of the century, however, the Administration began relying on the work of its own professional ethnologists. In 1950, for example, the post of Assistant Government Ethnologist for South West Africa was established. This official and his team of assistant state ethnologists went on to shape the findings of the influential Odendaal Commission (Gewald 2000b: 19), the government-appointed body that recommended the implementation of apartheid rule in South West Africa. Such commissions of inquiry were a common feature of South African governance during the twentieth century; and they too were an important means through which the State came to know its subject population (Ashforth 1990). Despite these changing institutional contexts, which also included in later years the South African Defence Force (Gordon 1988), ethnology continued to provide an important source of state knowledge until Namibia’s independence in 1990. Even though there was always a significant amount of contention surrounding the perceived value of ethnologists in colonial administration, there is little doubt that the ethnographic knowledge they did produce helped fuel the colonial State’s imaginings of its subjects. There was indeed a ‘direct relationship between ethnic constructions peddled by those with power and influence and state policies of divide and rule’ (Silvester et al. 1998: 46). But in more specific relation to the central geographical focus of this study, how did the colonial State come to ‘know’ Kaokoland and its inhabitants? Here, knowledge about territory and population came together in such a way as to produce a particularised and remarkably stable image of Kaokoland and its inhabitants. As with South West Africa more generally, it was the missionary ethnographers, merchants, explorers and later government officials who were most influential in fixing Kaokoland as an object of knowledge in the State’s imaginings. The region was first ‘seen’ by the colonial State in the last decade of the nineteenth century when representatives of the Kaoko Land and Mining Society (Kaoko Land und Minengesellschaft) produced the first detailed maps of the area. These depictions emphasised topographical features such as water sources, mountain ranges and mineral deposits. Subsequently, a number of Europeans (such as Hartmann, Franke, Kuntz and Toennissen) travelled through the region in their capacity as either explorers or mining agents. These men assigned names to the various geographical features along their paths, and they continued to produce knowledge that

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emphasised the natural landscape and its flora and fauna (Bollig and Heinemann 2002: 272–75). During the period of German colonial rule, Kaokoland offered a sort of tabula rasa on which the colonial State could project various fantasies. It was remote, beyond the government’s control, and demanded a great deal of personal hardship if one wished to travel through it. ‘Common to these fantasies was the fact that the inhabitants of Kaoko were hardly mentioned; rather the area was conceptualised as uninhabited’ (Miescher and Henrichsen 2000: 238). It was not until the first two decades of the twentieth century, particularly after South Africa began ruling the territory in 1915, that Kaokolanders themselves began taking their place alongside the State’s spatial imaginings of the region. Again, it was the ethnological knowledge produced by missionaries, colonial officers and government ethnologists that proved most central to the State’s construction of Kaokoland’s inhabitants. As from 1917, for example, government reports began offering extensive details about the region’s people, their social and political organisation, customs, conflicts and economic means. In addition, colonial officers working in the region began collecting census data on a regular basis, a process that also helped constitute the colonial subject. Through these documents and statistics, the colonial State classified, ordered and ranked Kaokoland’s peoples, the results of which continue to have serious social and political implications in the present era (see Chapter 9). So-called scientific publications also figured prominently in the construction of Kaokolanders. The missionary Vedder (1928) developed a migration thesis within which he argued that Kaokolanders offered a precolonial window into the cultural past of the Herero people. His influential (though dubious) position established a narrative that helped relegate the region’s inhabitants to a discursive state of purity, tradition, authenticity and wildness.10 Some years later, the government ethnologist N.J. van Warmelo (1951) produced the first professional publication devoted solely to the region. Given its scientific tone and building on the work of Vedder, Notes on the Kaokoveld had a tremendous impact on shaping the imaginings of people and territory, an influence that continues into the present.11 Van Warmelo’s work contributed to the further classification, ranking and spatial ordering of what he identified as the region’s three main groups. The ‘Himba’ were thus represented as self-sufficient, isolated and economically successful pastoralists; the ‘Tjimba’ were characterised as poor hunter-gatherers who lacked both political leaders and history; and the ‘Herero’, though ranking at the top of the local political hierarchy, were stereotyped as having succumbed to the influences of Western society (Rizzo 2000: 200–202). As late as the 1970s, various scientific expeditions were still being sent into Kaokoland. For example, one such group travelled throughout the region in order to locate, research and publish accounts of the ‘stone-working people’ who resided there (Hitzeroth

38

Introduction

1976). By the mid twentieth century, imaginings about territory and population in Kaokoland had merged into a single rendition. As Miescher and Henrichsen observe, ‘the region came to represent more and more a counter-world to the colonial society, with its everyday brutalities, inequalities and contradictions.… Representing a mythical counterworld, Kaoko came to stand for a pre-modern, pre-colonial “untamed old Africa”, with a nature that was undisturbed and sound and inhabitants who adapted themselves harmoniously to it’ (2000: 239). Photographs taken of the region’s landscape and people during the middle of the twentieth century further attest to this distinctive mode of imagining in and of Kaokoland (Hayes 2000b; Bollig 1998a). The colonial imagination of Kaokoland that was forged under Germany’s rule and then took more emphatic hold during the South African period was surprisingly stable, coherent and consistent in its depiction. This set of imaginings also went on to demonstrate its longevity and stubbornness, for it has outlasted that historical period and continues to reproduce itself in the present. As such, it is still implicated in everything from the contemporary fantasies of White, adventure-seeking Namibians (Henrichsen 2000) to the gaze of the tourist industry (Kangumu 2000); from the analyses of development workers (Friedman 2009) to the discourses of indigenous rights and environmental organisations (Friedman 2000); and from international press coverage on Kaokoland to the scholarly accounts of some social scientists currently active in the region (Miescher and Henrichsen 2000). And, of course, this dominant mode of ‘knowing’ Kaokoland and its residents continues to manifest itself in the assertions, policies and practices of those working on behalf of the Namibian State. Despite the steadfast grip and consistency of these imaginings, there has nevertheless been a simultaneous degree of uncertainty attached to them. When put into play by the State’s officials (both past and present), this rather consistent body of ‘knowledge’ about Kaokoland and its inhabitants (has) yielded a contradictory set of policies and practices. On the one hand, the construction of Kaokoland as a pure space complete with ‘untouched’ nature and ‘noble’ inhabitants (has) led officials to emphasise the vulnerability of people and nature in the face of a rapidly modernising world. Such concerns have produced state responses that aim to protect and preserve. On the other hand, however, these very same imaginings (have) evoked a sense moral failure. Formerly, it suggested the failures of the civilising mission, while in the present era it suggests a lack of development. From this perspective, then, Kaokolanders were (and still are) indicative of backwardness and the lack of social, political and economic progress, thus necessitating state interventions that could (then as well as now) uplift the conditions of life in this far corner of the territory. During the South African period in particular, however, a single discourse proved capable of accommodating, even transcending, these

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two contradictory sentiments and the countervailing prescriptions that resulted from them. Specifically, it was the principle of paternalism that offered the South African regime an effective instrument for governing the region and its inhabitants.

The S/state of Dependence in Colonial South West Africa The point is that to understand the project of colonial power at any given historical moment, one has to understand the character of the political rationality that constituted it. — David Scott (2005: 35)

From the onset, South Africa’s colonial domination of Namibia was saturated with – even premised upon – European principles of paternalism. At the close of the First World War, Germany’s colonial territories were distributed amongst the European victors, and South West Africa became an official protectorate of the Union of South Africa under a League of Nations Class C Mandate. The international legal framework set out in Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations stipulated that since South West Africa and other German colonies were ‘inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world, there should be applied the principle that the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilisation.’ This system of international trusteeship implied that certain States were more mature, more capable and more civilised than others. In overseeing the development and progress of the Namibian people and their country, South Africa was required to govern in a way that promoted the best interest and social progress of the territory and its inhabitants. Part of this process entailed an obligation to prepare Namibia for eventual self-government. The trusteeship embodied in the League of Nations mandate justified colonial rule in South West Africa by invoking the principles of ‘cooperative paternalism’ (Douglas 1983). In this particular form, paternalism is treated as an act of benevolence, as those who act paternally are sincere in their attempts to help the other become independently more competent, while the person or people towards whom the paternalism is directed view such acts in the very same light. As Douglas explains, ‘cooperative paternalism is grounded in a perceived mutuality of interests [emphasis in original]’ (1983: 174). An international community of modern States had thus entrusted South Africa to raise its territorial child to the status of a fully independent and sovereign adult. However, Article 22 and its idea of trusteeship was vague enough to generate multiple interpretations (Gill 1984; Hetherington 1978; Imishue 1965), a characteristic exploited to its fullest extent by the South African government. The ambiguous nature of the mandate afforded South Africa

40

Introduction

the opportunity to wrap its exploitative aims in a discourse of cooperative paternalism, a modus operandi that would continue throughout the period of South African rule. Here, I do not wish to detail extensively that which was in practice a form of ‘conflictual paternalism’ (Douglas 1983). It was already clear from the beginning that South Africa was unwilling to abide by the spirit of the mandate’s sacred trust, and, as the century would reveal, South Africa never intended Namibia or its inhabitants to achieve political independence.12 Policies and practices relating to the expropriation of natural resources, the contract labour system, separate development, racial segregation, educational advancement, and the denial of civil and human rights made it clear that South Africa aimed to create and perpetuate a S/state of dependence in Namibia. Such structural dependence was replicated through all levels of society. At the level of the national State and regional geo-political relations, the South African government worked to bind South West Africa economically, politically, administratively, bureaucratically and legally. Every aspect of South West Africa’s political economy orientated itself towards this dependent relationship, and it did so in such a way as to guarantee the continual reproduction of that dependence. South Africa’s laws created the legal framework through which Namibians were governed; its White bureaucrats oversaw the administration of all governmental departments; and South Africa’s industrial needs dictated the direction of economic development in the territory. Just as the territory and its economy maintained a dependent relationship with the South African State, so too did Black Namibians vis-à-vis the ruling South African regime. Traditional leaders, for example, were dependent upon the regime for the authority, status and powers they wielded within their own communities. In Kaokoland more specifically, the dependence of people on the Administration was most explicit with respect to wage employment. During most of the seventy-year occupation, Kaokolanders possessed only two employment options. They could either work directly for the regime in Kaokoland – as a government employee or soldier – or they could be placed elsewhere with a private (White) employer through the government’s system of contract labour. In this respect, the opening of Kaokoland’s first shop in 1954 is a relevant case in point. In an attempt to extract contract labourers from the region, the regime tried to cultivate a local taste for consumer goods. According to the manager responsible for labour recruitment in the region, the store was opened ‘with the object of interesting the natives in better clothing, luxuries and jewellery formerly practically inknown [sic] to them and enticing them to work in order to earn money with which to buy.’13 If the regime could develop a taste for consumer products among Kaokolanders, then it could also ensure a steady flow of workers who would have no other possibility of earning the cash required to purchase such goods. Despite these efforts, the Administration’s labour recruitment

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41

drive in Kaokoland failed and the shop was forced to close only six months after its original opening. But dependence on the State was not only limited to the territory’s Black inhabitants. Given Namibia’s limited rainfall and poor soil quality, White settler farmers throughout the territory were able to stay afloat only through extensive state land grants and agricultural subsidies. They too had no way of freeing themselves from the grip of the State’s paternalism. Finally, the dynamics of conflictual paternalism replicated itself in the relationships formed between individual White and Black people living within the territory. Headmen were dependent on the will and succour of the Native Affairs Commissioner. The official provided leaders with the ‘correct’ interpretation of their customary law; he was the source of their transport and their monthly income and, ultimately, the basis of their ‘traditional’ power. One misstep could turn the relatively comfortable life of a local leader upside down. In addition, all people looked to the Commissioner as the only one with the power to authorise a travel pass, or a visit to hospital. As the archival record indicates, Native Affairs officials were regulating the minutiae of people’s everyday lives, acts of governing that extended into the realm of the household and the family. As for those who were employed, the relationship between White baas (boss, in Afrikaans) and Black worker was similarly structured. The domestic worker, the mineworker and the farm worker were held in a cycle of paternal dependence with their employers.14 A person’s right to reside outside his or her ‘homeland’ was contingent on his or her employment status. Losing one’s job meant losing one’s right of residence. Workers also had little choice but to endure their often horrific treatment and working conditions. If an employee fled a physically abusive baas, for example, then he or she would be tracked down and either beaten again and forcibly returned to the employer,15 or sent back to their respective homeland without compensation for time already worked.16 Those that did flee a wretched employer had little prospect of attaining another contract. Dependence on the baas was also perpetuated in other ways. Many employers paid their workers in kind, while those working on isolated farms often received payment in the form of farm store credits. By encouraging his workers to run up debts at his store, a farmer could help guarantee continual employment. An indebted worker would have no means of meeting his or her repayment obligations other than to keep working for his creditor. Farmers also determined the quality of housing for their workers and the quality of education for their workers’ children, and they often had the final word on whether or not an employee or an employee’s family member was justified in requesting medical care. Such practices, I might add, have continued well into the present era (see Sylvain 2000; Suzman 1995, 2000; Devereux et al. 1996).

42

Introduction

On ‘Benevolence’ and Domination Despite the symbolic and material violence associated with South Africa’s paternalistic mode of rule, the colonial government represented itself and the essence of its paternalism in a very different light. The European ideals of cooperative paternalism – as originally laid down in the League of Nations mandate – continued to dominate its own representations of colonial and apartheid rule. This language of parental authority, of fatherly attention, of moral duty and tutelage, seeped down from the highest political echelons; it became a working language of the State’s bureaucracy, and of its functionaries in the field; and it filled the ears and minds of its colonial subjects. As Mary Jackman has stated so succinctly, ‘the agenda for dominant groups is to create an ideological cocoon whereby they can define their discriminatory actions as benevolent’ (1994: 14). To all, South Africa’s rule in Namibia was sold as just such a project. On the international stage, South Africa (like other colonial powers) defended its occupation of the territory as a civilising and progressive mission, and it did so throughout its entire period of rule in Namibia. In its submissions and presentations to the League of Nations, to the United Nations and to the International Court of Justice, as well as through less direct means,17 the South African government paraded the tenets of cooperative paternalism. In the early years of the mandate South Africa stressed the arduousness of its task, and it conveyed a sense of slow, though sometimes reluctant, progress. Within only a few years of having been granted authority over the territory, South Africa reported that ‘signs are not wanting which indicate that the mental outlook of the natives has undergone a change in this country.’18 Eight years later, they submitted that ‘civilization is a slow process, but with the spread of education, contact with Europeans and the efforts of the missionaries, marked progress is undoubtedly being made.’19 By the mid 1930s, and following publication of a critical report by the South West Africa Commission, the South Africans were on the defensive about their form of governing. In response, the Administration tried to emphasise ‘the problem of developing the native peoples’ by reminding the Mandates Commission that some ‘races’ were further developed than others. The maturation process took time, they emphasised, because there were ‘lessons that had to be brought home to the native population.’20 In its last published annual report on the administration of South West Africa, a review of the year 1946, the Administration emphasised its humanistic endeavours to date: When the Union troops took possession of South West Africa, they found the Native tribes in parts of the country scattered over the land in a state of poverty.… In parts of the Territory the Union Government had to design measures to uplift the native races and to turn them into useful inhabitants of

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the country with special regard to the restoration of tribal or traditional life and custom.… It was essential that these natives should be enabled, under European guidance and supervision, to regain a sense of independence on a higher level than that which they had previously enjoyed.21

The Administration lauded itself for having a ‘policy of permitting the Natives to participate in the management of their own affairs’,22 an approach that was building ‘greater confidence’ in its colonial subjects.23 The ruling regime had developed a ‘scheme of teaching the Natives to participate in the government of their own people’ and they were allowing ‘the Natives an opportunity to express their feelings.’24 As legal challenges at the International Court of Justice mounted against the regime during the 1960s,25 the Administration assembled a series of arguments in preparation for its defence. Among them, the South Africans suggested that inhabitants of the territory were ‘still so backward that the system suitable for civilized people is quite inappropriate for them and such system would only bring very detrimental results in its train if applied to them.’ The Administration believed that anything but a ‘gradual and patient evolution’ towards democratic government would lead to serious dislocation. Other materials in the dossier argued that it was unrealistic to expect those living in South West Africa to progress so quickly and ‘to have reached a stage now where they could participate with advantage in the political set-up provided for the civilized inhabitants of the Territory. At present they do not possess that sense of responsibility necessary to enable them to be trusted with extended representation.’ The South Africans acknowledged that some minor advances had indeed been made, but only because ‘the Union Government have [sic] endeavoured… to train and develop the Native population in the science of self-government.… The advancement of the Natives has been achieved as a result of their contact with Europeans and because of the latter’s goodwill towards and cooperation with the Native population.’26 A few years later, though, the document that laid the foundations for apartheid and separate development in Namibia, the Odendaal Commission report, supported a different assessment of South Africa’s colonial subjects. According to the report, Namibians were now equipped to begin a transition into self-rule, a process that was to coincide with the establishment of ethnic homelands within the territory. Under the proposed apartheid dispensation, however, it was still considered ‘of the utmost importance that the non-Whites should constantly, and to the highest possible degree, be guided towards self-help, technical skill and full responsibility in the process of developing their own homelands in every field.’27 The Commission members believed such a recommendation to be in line with the regime’s previous track record in the territory, one that had ‘consistently approached the administration of South West Africa in the spirit of a responsibility to promote to the utmost the material and moral well-being and the social progress of the inhabitants of the Territory.’28

44

Introduction

The paternalistic discourse was not reserved solely for international consumption. All the while a similar conversation was taking place throughout the ranks of the Administration and within the White settler community in general. Many Native Affairs officials, government bureaucrats and ordinary White Südwesters seemed earnest in their belief that colonial and apartheid rule was a benevolent project. One of the regime’s longest serving officials in Kaokoland construed South Africa’s interests in just such terms. During our discussions together, the retired official explained to me that the Administration was interested solely in settling disputes and overseeing the welfare of Kaokoland’s inhabitants. The regime wanted to ‘educate the people in modern thinking, but not fiddle much with their culture. We tried to keep them as happy as possible.’ Another former White resident of Kaokoland, a woman who had spent part of her youth in the region, told me that the South Africans colonised Kaokoland ‘to look after them. The people there couldn’t look after themselves. They were too primitive.’ The archival record is littered with references to the tenets of cooperative paternalism as the guiding principle of so-called native administration in South West Africa.29 In 1919, the military magistrate opined in a letter to the Secretary of the Protectorate that the Himba in Kaokoland were ‘a mild people and would respond to tactful guidance and discipline.’30 The Outjo magistrate promoted a more developed and revealing conception of paternal rule. In letters written to the Native Commissioner, the magistrate suggested that local complaints against a local leader were exaggerated, but: allowance must be made for the queer processes and ready obsession of the Native mind. These Natives I think have come to us in entire good faith to report a grievance real or imaginary, and it would hardly do to shatter their confidence in us. Whilst they are here pending investigation of their complaints they are entitled to enjoy the protection of a just and as they think paternal administration, and I should deplore any violation of that principle.31

The next month, the magistrate at Outjo shared another pearl of administrative wisdom, noting that ‘I regard it as a cardinal principle of Native administration that for those who come to us greatly believing we shall always be sure and sufficient.’32 Numerous other examples abound. In the early part of the 1930s the Administrator for South West Africa concluded that Kaokolanders were not doing enough to assist themselves. His office informed its representative in the field that the inhabitants of Kaokoland ‘lead a particularly lazy and carefree life and they must therefore as far as it lies in their power to do so look after themselves. This is a point which should be impressed upon them.’33 In perusing the archival record, one also locates the Native Commissioner who saw the aim of government as working to keep the colonial subject ‘a good native and to make him a real asset to the state.’34

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The job descriptions of Native Affairs officers are also indicative. Of the twenty-six instructions issued to Mr Barnard when he assumed duty as the first permanent Native Affairs official at Opuwo, the first one read: ‘You shall exercise general control over and supervision of the Native people… for their general and individual welfare.’ Other duties included exercising patience and sympathy in dealings with ‘natives’, and teaching ‘Tjimba’ people to cooperate with ‘Hereros’.35 If Mr Barnard had been in attendance at a gathering of all the territory’s Native Affairs officers twenty years later, he would have heard an experienced official offer another set of pointers. At that meeting, the speaker urged each of the officials to possess ‘an intense personal pride in his Reserve and the Natives under his charge.’ He compared Africans to children, and explained how they were unable to show gratitude or appreciation, or to understand what was told to them. ‘The more self respect you can give them the more they have to lose and the better you can control them,’ he advised.36 As Jackman has argued, dominant groups strengthen their control by expressing affection for those they dominate. ‘With affection comes the ability of those in command to shape the needs and aspirations of subordinates and to portray discriminatory arrangements as being in the best interests of all concerned. Conflict is obviated because those who must initiate it – the have-not’s – are bound emotionally and cognitively in a framework that is of the dominant group’s definition’ (1994: 15). In colonial South West Africa, peoples deemed ‘vulnerable’ elicited such feelings of affection from White colonial society. Most especially, it was the ‘Bushmen’ who proved most central to the paternalistic imagination of those occupying the dominant position. Partly fuelled by international concerns, but also by those of local academics and missionaries, debates over the fate of these ‘wild’ people brought calls for their ‘preservation’ and protection (see Gordon 1992). Considered on the verge of ‘extinction’, the ‘Bushmen’ were seen as living remnants of the human past, childlike people who were ill-equipped to cope with the onslaught of a changing world. For this reason, throughout much of the twentieth century the Administration maintained a special interest in the ‘Bushmen problem’, a concern that manifested itself in numerous ways. As from the 1930s, for example, standard administrative procedure dictated that all Native Affairs officials, no matter where they were stationed in the territory, devote a special section of their annual report to ‘Bushmen’.37 In 1949 the Administration established the Commission for the Preservation of the Bushmen in order to address the issue and make policy recommendations. Eventually, in 1960, a Bushman Reserve was established. If the White South African government maintained a sacred trust with respect to Namibia as a whole, then acting to ensure the survival of the ‘Bushmen’ represented the most powerfully symbolic component of that trust. But Kaokoland’s semi-nomadic pastoralists were also considered worthy of preservation and protection, though to a lesser degree because

46

Introduction

they remained mostly hidden from the international spotlight. Native Commissioner Hahn, for example, placed the ‘Tjimba’ people in the same category as ‘Bushmen’.38 But the paternalism displayed by the colonial regime in Kaokoland extended well beyond a discourse of protectionism. In 1936, for example, the Governor of South West Africa addressed Kaokolanders during one of his inspection tours. He urged those assembled to heed the advice of Native Commissioner Hahn, ‘my officer here in the Kaokoveld. His word is my word and I have appointed him over you to help you and be your friend. If you listen to him you will follow the right road.’ He continued: ‘My Government has always treated you well.… When the bad times came we helped you and sent help. But you cannot expect the white always to come and help you. You must help yourselves… You must go forward. Shongolo [Commissioner Hahn] can show you the way. Listen to him.’39 The paternalistic discourse in Kaokoland continued throughout the apartheid period, becoming most pronounced during the 1970s and 1980s. During that period, the South African government justified its militarisation of the region as an effort to protect the region’s inhabitants from SWAPO ‘terrorists’. Most of the Kaokolanders I met accepted this explanation of benevolence at face value. For example, one person recounted how the South African army had used a helicopter to evacuate people from areas of military engagement. Another person justified the former system of racial segregation as a way for the Administration to ensure the safety of Black people. PLAN fighters were only interested in attacking White people, she explained, and for this reason the town’s Black residents were asked to reside in separate locations. These two small examples only suggest that which will become more apparent throughout the course of this book: the South African regime’s discourse of cooperative paternalism reached deep into Kaokoland, and with effect. Furthermore, and as will also be argued, not only did such a discourse contribute to the construction of the colonial and apartheid State, but it conditioned Kaokolanders’ state-related political imagination in the process; and, as one of apartheid’s enduring legacies, such political imagination shapes present-day Kaokoland in its relation to the independent Namibian State. But before turning towards these contemporary imaginings, it is necessary first to contextualise briefly some important aspects of the post-apartheid Namibian S/state.

The Post-Colonial S/state of Namibia Over the years, scholars from outside the field of anthropology have paid a great deal of attention to problems relating to the nature and role of the post-colonial African State. ‘Africa’s impasse’ (Mamdani 1996) has led these academics, policy makers and development specialists to pose a series of important questions that address the ‘crisis of authority’

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(Lonsdale 1981) in the sub-Saharan African State. Since the early 1960s and the onset of decolonisation, two main themes have defined discussions surrounding the post-colonial State in Africa: questions pertaining to state power and capacity on the one hand, and national identity and unity on the other (Doornbos 1990). Within the confines of these dominant themes, global processes associated with neo-liberal ideologies have led to a dramatic shift away from viewing the African State as an agent of the collective good, and towards a focus on political formations in the nonstate realm. Today, we find the African State most often addressed as the problem rather than the solution, as the obstacle rather than the mover. ‘Civil society’ is viewed increasingly as central to both understanding and transforming the contemporary African political landscape (Bayart 1986; Harbeson et al. 1994; Lewis 2002). In dominating the contemporary study of the African State, the field of political science has had the greatest influence in shaping both academic and public policy debates. Political scientists have sought to explain the persistence of the continent’s ‘soft’ or ‘weak’ States (Jackson and Rosberg 1982, 1986; Clapham 1996); they have offered comparative country or regional analyses (du Toit 1995; Clapham et al. 2006), and they have assessed the challenges of state building and/or democratisation across the region (Mohan and Zack-Williams 2004; Herbst 2000; Bratton and van de Walle 1997). Given political science’s distinctive vantage point, however, these influential accounts of ‘the post-colonial State in Africa’ have the capacity to hide as much as they reveal. In relation to other academic disciplines, political scientific studies tend to yield normative accounts scaled at the level of high politics. Although some political scientists do work against these disciplinary trends – for example, by critically examining the foundations of Western thinking about power and politics in Africa (Bayart 2005; Chabal 1996; Chabal and Daloz 2006), or by attending to the State at the grassroots (Boone 1998), or by deploying ethnographic methods (Schatz 2009) – the preponderance of political scientific research offers top-down analyses of political institutions, regime change, electoral systems, parliamentary process, political parties, national leadership and the like. From a geographical perspective too, one soon comes to realise that almost all of these generalised accounts of ‘the post-colonial State in Africa’ are written with a very particularised ‘Africa’ in mind. As a result, the analyses presented therein tend to be grounded in conceptions of state process that seem ill-informed in relation to post-apartheid southern Africa. In fact, many of these accounts explicitly exclude South Africa and Namibia from their analyses.40 Instead, most of this scholarship extrapolates from the East, Central and/or West African experiences. Indeed, South Africa and Namibia possess some common attributes that distinguish them qualitatively from their African counterparts. Most significantly, the two countries share a history of colonial domination in the form of apartheid rule, as well as the long-standing existence (and influences) of

48

Introduction

a relatively large White settler population. Also, the rapid industrialisation that took place in South Africa, and the labour relations that resulted, left a unique stamp on the political economy of both countries. As the two States continue their transition towards democratic governance, this common history has helped to generate some parallel trajectories in the present era. Recently, some scholars have tried to isolate these processes by comparing the ‘limits to liberation’ in post-apartheid southern Africa (Robins 2005; Melber 2003c, 2003d). Here, we see similar transformations in the notion of citizenship, and the place of culture and identity in the political process; and we find comparable changes in relation to the role of elites, the media, traditional leaders and political parties in these two new democracies. In other respects, though, there remain significant differences between post-colonial Namibia and South Africa. As already detailed above, Namibia possesses quite a unique history of state formation, as well as the rise of centralised authority more generally. Furthermore, Namibia is the only modern nation in sub-Saharan Africa to have ever been colonised by another African country. For these reasons, as well as others, the postcolonial S/state of Namibia should be distinguished even further. In doing so, we will also move a bit closer to understanding why so many Africanists exclude the Namibian State from their analyses. In locating Namibia’s post-colonial distinctiveness, this section aims to lay an additional layer of context for our consideration of political imagination among Kaokoland-connected people. Thus, how might we characterise the current state of the post-colonial Namibian State?41 Beginning with its political economy, post-colonial Namibia remains one of the most economically polarised societies in the world. A White minority and an array of international mining interests continue to dominate the economy. At independence in 1990, White people comprised approximately 5 per cent of the country’s total population but maintained private ownership over 45 per cent of Namibia’s total land area, and 74 per cent of its potentially arable land. Furthermore, this minority group accounted for 71 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product, while the bottom 55 per cent of the population controlled only 3 per cent of the GDP (Tapscott 1993). Wishing to prevent the flight of capital and skills, the country’s first democratically elected government, led by SWAPO in 1990, decided to act with political pragmatism when it adopted its policy of national reconciliation. The policy continues to guarantee all Namibians equal protection under the law, despite past injustices. Although the country’s emphasis on reconciliation was successful in retaining domestic and foreign capital, and in helping to address the existing racial and ethnic tensions, the policy helped to entrench the colonial status quo by protecting a set of economic interests that were accrued under the former apartheid regime. Since independence, the ruling SWAPO party has been slow to address these structural inequalities. The economic reforms that have been implemented have yielded only limited gains. Most signifi-

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cantly, an analysis of present land policies suggests that an average of only 1 per cent of commercial land is being redistributed each year; at this rate it will take until 2045 before even half of the country’s land is in the hands of Black Namibians (Sherbourne 2004). The slow pace of commercial land reform is sharpening social differentiation and promoting polarisation between those who continue to benefit and those who become further disenfranchised and marginalised (Kaapama 2007; Werner 2001; Pankhurst 1995). For many scholars ‘land remains at the heart of the postcolonial processes of state consolidation’ (Kaapama 2007: 29); while for much of the general public, especially those who take their lead from neighbouring Zimbabwe, Namibia’s unresolved land issue represents a ticking time bomb. Another major economic trend since independence concerns the rise of a neo-liberal orientation within state institutions, and the extent to which it has come to dominate ongoing policy and reform initiatives. Perhaps not surprising in its own right, this development is particularly salient given that SWAPO fought its thirty-year liberation struggle with the aim of implementing a socialist economic platform. Today, however, the ruling party has shunned nearly all elements of these former guiding principles, opting instead for free-market-driven development. But in liberalising the economy, Namibia has only further exacerbated the economic legacies of colonialism (Winterfeldt 2007; Dobler 2007). As a case in point, the inroads that have been made since 1990 have accrued to the benefit of the country’s new economic and political elite (Kaapama 2007). In the meantime, resentment continues to increase among the country’s poor and former liberation-struggle combatants. As is the case with land reform, then, the economic data relating to the overall distribution of wealth and poverty reveals that ‘painfully little has changed since [independence] in terms of correcting the scandalous inequalities’ (Melber 2007b: 111). In addition to these persistent economic disparities, one cannot underestimate the post-colonial significance of Namibia’s macroeconomic vulnerability, something also attributable to the history of South African colonisation. Internally, Namibia’s economy lacks diversification, as it is dominated by the mining, fishing and government services sectors. Mining and fishing provide the greatest percentage of state revenue, but both are extremely sensitive to world commodity prices. Externally, the Namibian economy is utterly dependent on the South African market. South Africa is the source of nearly all manufactured goods found in the country, and is also the primary destination for Namibia’s export commodities. Namibia’s currency is also pegged to the South African Rand. Thus, after nearly two decades of independence, Namibia still possesses a very narrow economic base, and an economy that is dependent on primary production, susceptible to fluctuations in global trade, and highly integrated with the South African market (Dubresson and Graefe 2001). Although economic structures have changed little since independence, the political sphere has obviously been turned upside down. Most signif-

50

Introduction

icantly, all citizens are now considered equal under the law, sharing in the same sets of rights and protections regardless of race or ethnicity.42 By almost all accounts Namibia is a relatively well-functioning parliamentary democracy. As in the economic sphere, a liberal political orientation has helped shape the outlines of this new political dispensation. Namibia possesses one of the world’s most progressive constitutions; it promotes ‘civil society’; and it holds free and fair elections on a regular basis, maintains an independent judiciary and ombudsman, encourages widespread political participation, and continues to pursue a policy of decentralisation (Hopwood 2007). The existence of highly developed bureaucratic state structures attest to the fact that Namibia’s colonial legacy does not constrain post-colonial state processes in all ways. The South Africans administered the territory as one of its own provinces and thus invested in it by building a state bureaucracy with extensive administrative capacity. The new Namibian State inherited this set of governmental structures and continues to benefit from it. Although some governmental services had to be curtailed at independence due to the withdrawal of South African subsidies, the SWAPO government has been able to build on this inheritance through international donor support, especially during the early 1990s when development agencies considered Namibia a most favoured country for investment. Many new schools, hospitals and health clinics have been constructed. Agricultural services, educational opportunities and youth programmes have begun to reach the most neglected parts of the country. With such a relatively high level of state penetration, and few qualified Black civil servants at the time of independence, the government’s payroll also swelled. In 1994 the State’s bureaucracy constituted 35 per cent of the country’s total formal employment.43 In general, Namibia’s state bureaucracy has been performing in a way that is relatively autonomous and relatively unrestrained by narrow social interests; state reach is extensive due to a highly developed communication and transport infrastructure; and government institutions possess a high degree of bureaucratic rationality with a relative absence of corruption (Lodge 1998). For Max Weber (1964), state authority and the monopoly over the legitimate use of force are inextricably intertwined. In Africa, many States fail even to meet this empirical criteria (Jackson and Rosberg 1982, 1986). Under the South African regime, the State of South West Africa was legitimated primarily in its repressive capacities and its willingness to employ such measures within the territory. Today, state authority in Namibia also meets Weber’s condition, but it now firmly rests on broad democratic support as well. The twenty-five-year liberation struggle helped unify those that had been previously divided by creating a sense of common history and shared destiny. For many, the new Namibian State thus became a moral objectification of both the past and future; it was the fruition of a hard-fought struggle ‘to be born a nation’ (SWAPO of Namibia 1981). Such a promising trend

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was most evident between 1990 and 1998 when Namibia was hailed as the most successful democracy in sub-Saharan Africa. However, during the past decade the SWAPO-led government has tightened its grip on the State, while displaying an unprecedented willingness to deploy the state apparatus in a repressive manner.44 This and other recent developments have led some to begin questioning the extent to which democratic ideals retain their hold on the Namibian State (Melber 2003c). The former liberation movement’s ongoing consolidation of power through democratic means is a trend that is now often identified as the most significant political development since Namibia’s independence (Bauer 2001; Melber 2003a). During the period from 1989 to 2009, SWAPO increased its electoral support from approximately 57 per cent to 75 per cent. During the same period, the country’s opposition parties lost a significant amount of sway, not only through a loss of votes but also from party fracturing. In 1989, the country’s main opposition party won 28 per cent of the votes cast nationally, while the 2009 election results revealed that the main opposition party drew support from only 11 per cent of the electorate.45 For many, this trend towards a dominant party democracy is of serious concern. As Henning Melber has recently argued, ‘[t]he farreaching mandate encouraged the misperception that the government is supposed to serve the party and the state is the property of the government’ (2003c:18). This increase in power (and the growing willingness of SWAPO to assert repressive forms of rule) suggests that the basis of the State’s authority in Namibia might be undergoing a significant shift, though it is still too early to tell for certain. As it stands today, the State’s authority is still strongly rooted in both its ability to function as a relatively effective and fair bureaucracy, and in its legitimation through widespread democratic electoral support. Despite the existence of an independent media and other such autonomous bodies (trade unions, human rights organisations, etc.), the State’s authority is strengthened further by the fact that Namibia possesses what some refer to as a relatively weak civil society (Tapscott 2001; Kössler and Melber 2001). In noting other trends worthy of growing concern, some point towards the State’s continued inability to transcend the most significant structural aspect of its colonial legacy: state bifurcation. During the apartheid era, Black Namibians were forced to reside in one of eleven homelands, geographically demarcated areas founded upon ethnic or ‘tribal’ categorisations. These ‘Bantustans’, of which Kaokoland was one, were administered by ‘traditional’ leaders under the employ of the South African regime. The apartheid State relied on ‘custom’ as a way to legitimate these local leaders. A twelfth region, reserved for Europeans as the Police Zone, was established under a centralised system of governance that was founded in statutory law and civil rights. Thus two systems of authority – one premised upon custom and tradition, the other on Western concepts of civic rights and ‘civil society’ – existed simultaneously within a single apartheid State (cf. Mamdani 1996).

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The fact that Namibia gained its independence so late in the decolonisation process meant that the new government could benefit from the experience of post-colonial reform in other African States. In the ensuing years, the SWAPO government undertook a pragmatic attempt to fuse aspects of what Mamdani (1996) terms conservative and radical state reform options.46 To this end, the ruling party tried to eliminate the racial and ethnic basis of its bifurcation (Tötemeyer 1992; Sidaway and Simon 1993; Simon 1996; Forrest 1994, 1998), however, many divides still remain. In addition to the ongoing divisions between White and Black Namibians, more recent events (such as the Caprivi secessionist movement and the emergence of new ethnically identified political parties) suggest that a growing number of people see the ruling SWAPO party as representing the interests of Oshivambo-speaking people in particular. Furthermore, the rural–urban divide remains deeply entrenched. For example, rural Namibians will usually resort to local headmen and traditional courts in cases requiring dispute resolution, while urbanites press their claims through the police and state courts. Likewise, most rural people abide by the rules of traditional land tenure in the communal areas, while their urban counterparts stake their land claims in the free market through the use of state enforced titles and deeds. For those living in the communal areas’ peri-urban settlements, in places such as Opuwo, both traditional and state authority lie at their disposal. All of these lingering divisions – between rural and urban dwellers, between socio-economic classes, and between ethnic groups – continue to shape the relationship between Namibians and the independent State. Taken together, then, these initial attempts to characterise the state of the post-colonial Namibian State might best be captured by Ingolf Diener’s observation: It is as if the Namibian reality were a dual one: the foreground presents the observer with a constitutionally instituted reality which would appear to be functioning smoothly, while in the background, we can see a completely different social reality, having its own rules with an intermediate level marked by a certain ‘opaqueness’, a sense of ‘blurring’, a ‘vacuum’.… We have here a situation in which observers and actors alike ask themselves which of the two realities will finally emerge to shape the other (2001: 327).

As we will begin seeing in subsequent chapters, this dual reality must be apprehended in light of both the past and the present; in relation to both the global and local order of things; and as a dialectic of both social structure and human agency. The contemporary S/state of Namibia is a partial product of the wider processes associated with colonialism, the end of the Cold War, globalisation and political and economic liberalisation; but it also takes form in its distinctively local histories and cultures, and in the structures and practices they help to (re)produce.

PART I GOVERN-MENTALITY IN KAOKOLAND

Chapter 3

‘HOW DO YOU FEELING ABOUT FREEDOM’

I had been living in Opuwo only a short time when I noticed the house. It was tucked away in the Otuzemba neighbourhood, amidst the hodgepodge of other self-built residential structures. The one-room, windowless building was constructed of mud bricks; it possessed a corrugated iron roof; and in former days it seemed to have maintained a smart-looking exterior coat of plaster. The house was ordinary enough, apart from the remnants of a remarkable message that was still legible on a section of plaster that had yet to crack and fall away from its façade. Someone had obviously taken great care in stencilling and painting the large white letters. The words extended across the entire width of the building, just below the roofline, but then at the wall’s edge, in a manner suggesting that the communicator might have underestimated the full extent of his message, the few remaining letters aligned vertically, stacked one below the other:

I paused contemplatively. The message must have been written by a non-native English speaker, hence the grammatical error. But for whose consumption? Mine? It was, after all, my question, at least in a sense. And there was that provocative syntactical error. Had the communicator intended to write ‘How do you feel about freedom’ or ‘How are you feeling about freedom’? The former rendition would call for contemplation out of time, while the latter possibility would suggest the need for a his-

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torically situated reflection. Instead, in conflating the synchronic with the diachronic, the message as originally written pressed for deeper consideration. This information transmission was clearly signal, and not noise. I was intrigued, curious. I made an effort to pass the house almost daily, hoping to find and meet the author of the communication, but it appeared uninhabited. Finally, my persistence paid off. A middle-aged woman wearing a Herero long-dress sat comfortably on the stoep (veranda, in Afrikaans) sipping a cup of tea. I introduced myself, explained my fascination with her message, and asked if she could elaborate upon it. ‘What message?’ she replied. I pointed to the words framing her and her house. She looked confused, and as our conversation progressed it became evident that she was not an English-speaker, and thus had no idea that the accumulation of brush strokes was anything other than decoration. ‘I don’t even know how to write my name,’ she confessed. She had purchased the house two years before, and since that time no one had bothered to inform her that the noise was actually a signal. My research assistant translated the message into Otjiherero. I asked if she would answer the question posed by her own house. ‘You mean, how does it feel to live in a country without war?’ she asked. ‘For me, I am feeling okay, because we are not dying of war anymore.’ We chatted for a while longer, and before leaving, she directed us to the house’s former owner. The communicator turned out to be Willem, a 42-year-old unemployed Dhimba-speaker. He had built the house in 1985, shortly after taking up a job with the former government, but did not paint his message until 1990, the year Namibia gained its independence. ‘The reason why I wrote this,’ he eventually reported, ‘was just because there were people at that time who were not feeling good about freedom, from the White to Black. I would like to say that that is a question to the community, to the people, those that didn’t want the freedom. You know, most of the people were against the freedom. Therefore, I have asked, now that Namibia is free, “How do you feeling about freedom?”’ When I enquired as to why he thought so many people had opposed independence, Willem blamed politics: ‘One person can just be called by someone, “come to my [political] party”; and one can be called by the other side to come to that party; and another one can be paid, like the [South African] soldier who once told me that he was fighting PLAN just to get money from the government.’ As for himself, Willem said that he had not supported either party during the war because he did not know which side was going to free the country. But he told me that by the time he had painted his message so boldly across the front of his house, ‘I was feeling really okay, because the war was at the end, because we didn’t need to flee into the mountains anymore. I was feeling good about independence.’ We spoke for another hour or so, mostly about history and the independence war, before returning again to the topic of Willem’s message. As

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more than a decade had passed since Namibia had gained its independence, and since he had first challenged the community with his question, I asked whether or not he had come to feel any differently about freedom. ‘I would like to tell you the truth,’ he replied, and paused contemplatively for a moment. Then he went on: Now, my mind has been turned back again, because I thought that we would be getting everything so very good, and happiness, and a very good dwelling place. But now, I am surprised. The people told us that nobody would be jobless in Namibia after independence. SWAPO told us that. They said that no one would get lower than any other, that there would be equality. They have told us that no one would be stopped from settling anywhere in Namibia. But after independence, it is not like that.… For example, the hospital. At times it may come that someone is very seriously ill. The person who is in charge of helping these people, first he can even help his family – his brother or sister – than those who are really ill. The government doesn’t really help when it comes to these things. First they must help the one who is really in trouble. Only if I had my family working in the government, in the hospital, would I get help fast and for free. Before, it was equal level; for all people it was equal. We didn’t have this apartheid of saying that we will help this one but not that one. All had to be treated equal. There was not this kind of difference under the South Africans.… I think that this government, this government is only interested in one group.

‘That is why I came to the idea of selling the house,’ Willem concluded in a rather sombre tone. ‘I was not thinking of taking the words off the house. I just thought that it is better to sell it to someone who wants to come and live with those words. I didn’t want to be next to them anymore.’ The form of Willem’s painted communication appeared just as it had ten years earlier, but in the intervening period the information that it transmitted had changed. What had been intended first as a sign of anticolonial sentiment, as a public display of celebration and support for Namibia’s independence, and as a challenge to those who were feeling sceptical and apprehensive about the end of South African rule had been transformed into a critique of that which had originally inspired its genesis. In other words, Willem’s signifier had held steady, but the signified had become uncoupled. Willem’s words, ‘How do you feeling about freedom’, had originally signified how one could no longer ‘take a gun and shoot another person, or stab someone without being arrested, or force someone to work without pay.’ However, by the time we sat together and discussed the message it had come to signify ‘South Africa has left this land, and now we are in trouble.’ I followed Willem’s lead and began asking other people in and around Opuwo how they were feeling about freedom. Time and time again I was to hear similar accounts, and as my stay in Opuwo progressed, it became clear that Willem’s views reflected the dominant local discourse on such matters. Not only that, but most of those with whom I spoke offered a

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similarly particularistic mode of response. ‘How do you feeling about freedom’ evoked a referential critique of the present government and state dispensation. The replies offered by Kaokolanders tended to be relational in the sense that my questions about the present led people to cite the former government and its practices. Hence, the former South African regime and its mode of rule became a central point of reference during these conversations. My inquiries thus yielded not only critical views of the present, but also positive reviews of the past. In this way, I also came to know how people were feeling about colonialism and apartheid rule. Kaokolanders’ representations of the former South African regime, of the country’s independence, of apartheid, and of the Namibian government caught me off guard. My discussions about freedom with people in Opuwo would sometimes leave me de-centred, my political sensibilities turned upside down. How could a local majority express a sentimental longing, nostalgia, even a sense of loss, for South African rule? We all know that apartheid was brutal, oppressive and violent. Why, then, would the former subjects of apartheid rule reveal a preference for the former governmental dispensation that produced and disseminated such perniciousness? This personal sense of puzzlement, when translated into an anthropological problem, offered my fieldwork an initial point of reference. In this chapter, I present a comprehensive understanding of this dominant local viewpoint by embedding it in the post-apartheid circumstances of people’s everyday lives. I begin by offering important context to these local imaginings, both theoretical and historical. Following this, I expand upon what I term the ‘Kaokoland critique’ by exploring Kaokolanders’ dominant representations of government(s), development, national leadership, democracy and apartheid. My overall aim, both here and in the subsequent chapter, is to consider these discourses in light of Michel Foucault's notion of governmentality. While keeping in mind the paternalistic character of colonial rule in the former South West Africa (as discussed in the previous chapter), I turn now to reflect on the relationship between discourse and (political) imagination, especially as it relates to ‘the art of government’.

Discourse, Imagination and the Art of Government In a seminal article that prepared the ground for ethnographies of the State more generally, Akhil Gupta analyses discourses of corruption in India. According to him, such discourses ‘turn out to be a key arena through which the state, citizens, and other organizations and aggregations come to be imagined’ (1995: 376). In India, people engage the State most immediately through their everyday interactions with government bureaucracy. As Gupta explains, these local encounters shape a discourse of corruption, which, in turn, provides a critical ingredient in the con-

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struction of the Indian State. In his analysis, Gupta leads us from the everyday lives of villagers to the Indian State itself, and, in the process, charts new methodological territory in the anthropology of the State. Here, the State is actualised in the interaction between the transnational, national, regional and local contexts; it is constructed in the capital city, but also in the village, in the household, and in the public media. In making such a methodological leap, Gupta’s ethnography yields a set of broad conclusions about the State. Among other things, his analysis reveals the Indian State to be a disunified and non-cohesive whole, and it challenges the conventional dichotomy between State and civil society. In my attempts to highlight the modality by which the Namibian State comes to be imagined in Kaokoland, the analysis that takes shape in this and the subsequent chapter gains inspiration from Gupta’s research in India. However, it departs from that work in two ways. First, whereas Gupta focuses on a discourse of corruption, I direct my attention towards discourses of government more generally. Second, while Gupta’s work on corruption only makes implicit use of Foucauldian notions such as discourse, power, resistance and governmentality, I intend to engage these ideas in a more direct fashion. In particular, my aim in this section of the book is to introduce Foucauldian insights as a way to link discourse and imagination with the art of government in Kaokoland. Linguists and semioticians have long argued that representation through language is central to the making of meaning, and thus culture. ‘In part, we give things meaning by how we use them, or integrate them into our everyday practices.… In part, we give things meaning by how we represent them – the words we use about them, the stories we tell about them, the images of them we produce, the emotions we associate with them, the ways we classify and conceptualize them, the values we place on them’ (Hall 1997: 3). The work of Foucault, especially his notion of discourse, extended such observations in profoundly new ways. In particular, he demonstrated that systems of representation produce more than just meaning. For Foucault, ‘discourse’ refers to a group of statements that represent knowledge about a particular topic or practice. When such regulated statements extend across a range of sites, then they are said to constitute a discursive formation (Foucault 1972: 38). Clearly, discourse is associated with language and text (both written and spoken), but it also refers to the production of particular bodies of knowledge, as well as the procedures and conditions that regulate how those particular bodies of knowledge are used in specific historical periods. ‘Discourse does not simply translate reality into language; rather discourse should be seen as a system which structures the way that we perceive reality’ (Mills 2003: 55). Discourses thus provide us with ways of talking about things, but also with ways of thinking about them and – here is the most important point – acting on them. In constituting the mental and emotional life of the subjects they

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seek to govern (Weedon 1987: 108), discourses shape and regulate practice. A discursive approach thus allows us to focus ‘not only on how representation produces meaning, but also on how knowledge produced by discourses link with power – how they regulate conduct, construct identities and subjectivities, and define the ways things are spoken about, thought about, and acted upon’ (Hall 1997: 6). Here, a further implication needs to be made more explicit. If discourse constructs identities and subjectivities, then the subject itself is an effect of discourse. As Foucault observed in his reflections on 'the subject', this relates to a particular technique of power: This form of power applies itself to immediate everyday life which categorizes the individual, marks him by his own individuality, attaches him to his own identity, imposes a law of truth on him which he must recognize and which others have to recognize in him. It is a form of power which makes individuals subjects. There are two meanings of the word ‘subject’: subject to someone else by control and dependence; and tied to his own identity by a conscience or self-knowledge. Both meanings suggest a form of power which subjugates and makes subject to (Foucault 1982: 781).

This ‘subjectivation’ produces a paradox, a doubleness, for the subject. In other words, the subject is made autonomous through a process of subjection, that is, by becoming subject to, and thus radically dependent upon, power. ‘Subjection is, literally, the making of a subject, the principle of regulation according to which a subject is formulated or produced. Such subjection is a kind of power that not only unilaterally acts on a given individual as a form of domination, but also activates or forms the subject’ (Butler 1997a: 84). The subject, as an actor and agent, thus takes shape in a neverending process of subjectivation within specific contexts of power. In focusing so concertedly on the relationship between knowledge and power, Foucault also argued that knowledge, when linked to power, ‘not only assumes the authority of “the truth” but has the power to make itself true. All knowledge, once applied in the real world, has effects, and in that sense at least, “becomes true”’ (1977: 27). This was another attempt to show how discourse worked to regulate the social conduct of others, a project he described as trying ‘to define how, to what extent, at what level discourses, particularly scientific discourses, can be objects of political practice, and in what system of dependence they can exist in relation to it’ (Foucault 1991b: 69). As part of this effort, Foucault considered the problem of government. Foucault defined ‘government’ in a broader and more generalised sense than that which is commonly understood by our contemporary use of the term. For him, government is more than bureaucratic or administrative structure. Rather, government is ‘the conduct of conduct’ (C. Gordon 1991: 2). In other words, government entails activities and practices that aim to direct, shape, regulate and influence the conduct of a person or persons. In this formulation, government certainly applies to the

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management of State, but it also applies to the relationship between two groups, or between an individual and a collectivity, or between two private individuals. Even further, government concerns practices relating to the self, for example, the management of one’s own moral conduct. In this Foucauldian sense, then, we locate government not only at the social security office, but also in the confessional, in interpersonal relations, in the workplace, and in the family. The State governs its citizens; managers govern their employees; and parents govern their children. Foucault’s interest in government as a wide array of conducting practices and activities led him to explore the interconnections between these different forms and sites of governmental practice (C. Gordon 1991). Foucault’s thinking on government is best captured through his notion of ‘governmentality’. As detailed by Mitchell Dean (1999), Foucault understood governmentality in two different, albeit related, ways. On the one hand, governmentality signifies the emergence of a new way of exercising power, a transformation that began in sixteenth-century Europe. Specifically, modern governmentality is marked by a shift towards population as the object of government, as well as the State’s incorporation of disparate arenas of rule. In this process, knowledge becomes central to the act of governing. Furthermore, governmentality is characterised by new disciplinary forms of power and the rise of new ‘apparatuses of security’ that serve as government’s primary technical means. Governmentality thus marked the rise of a qualitatively new form of power, as well as a concomitant set of new strategies and techniques for modern rule. In its second sense, governmentality refers to the ways we think about governing and to the different mentalities associated with government. This rendition emphasises the extent to which ‘the activity of government is inextricably bound up with the activity of thought’ (Rose 1999: 8). Here, governmentality concerns the knowledge of what such practices and activities entail, and how they might be undertaken. This ‘art of government’, as Foucault often called it, suggests ‘a way or system of thinking about the nature of the practice of government (who can govern; what governing is; what or who is governed), capable of making some form of that activity thinkable and practicable both to its practitioners and to those upon whom it was [is] practised’ (C. Gordon 1991: 3). Such thoughts and knowledge about the practice of government are held collectively, and taken for granted; it draws heavily upon the ideas, philosophies and forms of knowledge that constitute a respective society and culture (Dean 1999: 16). For this reason, the art of government leads once again back to knowledge/power and to the relevance of discourse more generally. Foucault’s work on discourse and government offers us important insights for the study of state-related imagination in Kaokoland. First, discourses have a history; they emerge and reproduce themselves in relation to the complex of social relations that exist in particular historical moments. In Foucault’s own words, ‘discourses are limited practical

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domains which have their boundaries, their rules of formation, their conditions of existence’ (1991b: 61). Second, discourses are actualised in the constitution of the very subject him- or herself; and thus they are also actualised in what people say and write, as well as in how they think and act. As a result, discourse systematises and regulates conduct and social practice, thereby generating real effects. Finally, since discourse bridges meaning with practice, a discursive approach reveals the links between knowledge and power. But what are the links between discourse and political imagination as they relate to the art of government in Kaokoland? Recall my use of the concept: state-related imagination entails the ways people perceive and talk about, represent and construct, and experience the State. In this formulation, imagination, like discourse, retains its historical specificity; it manifests itself discursively, through verbal, written or visual methods of expression, but also in everyday acts and practices; and, like the allied notion of discourse, imagination is also intricately tied to power. In other ways, however, imagination gestures beyond discourse, for it suggests a capacity to break with the present. Imagination may invoke the past, but it also draws attention towards the future. Through its association with inventiveness and creativity, imagination implies a capacity to negotiate, contest, even transcend, hegemonic discourses. To state it in slightly different terms, imagination retains the structuring and reproductive capacities of discourse, but it also affords additional space for human agency in the making of social life. Foucault’s work reveals discourse as a critical ingredient in the reproduction of self, society and State, and while imagination may contribute to a similar outcome, it emphasises simultaneously that people (subjects) retain the ability to talk back, and thus to govern in return. Discourse and imagination are both intricately tied to the art of government. In what follows, then, I present and analyse a set of signifying practices of imagination in Kaokoland. Many such elements help constitute what I call the Kaokoland critique, while others do not. But embedded within these varying perspectives lies an underlying coherence that offers a window onto governmentality in northwest Namibia. With this theoretical background in mind, I begin by outlining a rationality of government in contemporary Kaokoland; in other words, what do Kaokoland-connected people know as the art of government?

Contextualising the Kaokoland Critique Before detailing the dominant Kaokoland perspective, it is important to pause again in recognition that contemporary discourses of government in the region (like all discourses) circulate as a historical product; they have a historicity in their own right. In this section, then, I wish to offer

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additional historical and political background as a way to better contextualise the Kaokoland critique. As was argued in Chapter 2, ‘statish’ authority did not manifest itself in Namibia until a relatively late date. It was only with the commencement of German colonial rule in the late nineteenth century that the territory began experiencing a widespread centralisation of governance.1 This process took the shape of a new colonial State and the formalisation of ‘traditional’ constituencies. However, these initial state formation processes had limited effect in the northern regions of the then-Deutsch Südwestafrika, as de facto German rule was never instituted there.2 In late nineteenth century Kaokoland, the population was not settled; dispersed sets of people lived a semi-nomadic pastoralist lifestyle under the respective authorities of numerous ovahona [big men, in Otjiherero] (Bollig 1997a; Wärnlöf 1998). In 1915, when South Africa wrested control of the country from Germany and began installing itself in these northern regions, Kaokoland’s political order was diffuse in nature. Since the region was home to a relatively small and transhumant population, the new South African Administration required relatively more time and effort to establish itself in Kaokoland than it did in the more populated areas of the north. The first permanent state installation in Kaokoland was established in 1926, a police post along the Angolan border at Tshimhaka (Swartbooisdrift), on the south bank of the Kunene River.3 Staffed by three White commanding officers and three Native Constables,4 the police spent most of their time patrolling the river in an effort to prevent cross-border movements and the spread of livestock diseases (Bollig 1998c).5 During the same year, the South African Administration had already been operating two longestablished Native Affairs offices in neighbouring Ovamboland. Colonial personnel in Ovamboland were busy constructing roads and other public works projects, providing medical services, supporting schools and other educational facilities, and recruiting contract labourers to meet the demands of the industrial and agricultural sectors to the south.6 In 1929, the government even began to collect taxes from Ovamboland’s inhabitants.7 By way of contrast, the South African Administration did not station a Native Affairs official in Kaokoland until 1939.8 The first medical officer posted to the region began her work in 1951.9 Labour recruitment in Kaokoland began in earnest in 1952,10 but due to dismal results, the drive to extract contract workers was abandoned two and a half years later.11 Furthermore, it was not until 1954 that the South African Administration imposed a system of taxation on Kaokolanders,12 the same year that saw the opening (and closing) of the region’s first shop.13 Finally, the government opened Kaokoland’s first school in 1962.14 By drawing out such a comparison between Kaokoland and Ovamboland,15 the point I wish to emphasise is that in relation to other similarly sized geographical areas in Namibia, the centralised (colonial) State established its authority in Kaokoland long after

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it had done so in most other parts of the country. Comparatively speaking, government, and the ‘statish’ authority it promulgated, reached Kaokoland late in Namibia’s state-building process. This temporal positioning vis-à-vis the colonial State in Namibia is a significant historical attribute of the region, and one that must be taken into account when examining the contemporary state-related political imaginings of its inhabitants. It is worth mentioning, too, that during the time of my fieldwork some Kaokolanders retained personal memories of these early state-making processes. A second point of discursive context also requires more detailed treatment. In order to better understand Kaokoland as one of the country’s few opposition party strongholds, it is necessary to situate the region historically in relation to the development of national politics, and, in particular, to Namibia’s liberation struggle. In comparison to those living in other parts of the country, especially the former Ovamboland, Kaoklanders had a more ambiguous relationship to the South African regime, and one that was much less politicized in nature. In the archival record and in conversations with older inhabitants, this ambiguity appears most evident prior to the onset of Namibia’s armed struggle for independence. Between 1920 and 1965, Kaokolanders granted the South Africans a large degree of legitimacy, and thus accommodated the regime to a great extent. Even still, on specific matters of more local significance, Kaokolanders did challenge the colonial government’s authority through both direct and indirect means (van Wolputte 2004, 2007). In the middle part of the century, for example, Kaokolanders sometimes voiced their opposition to the South African regime by accusing it of trying to steal young men for the war in Europe,16 or of wanting to steal their land17 and cattle.18 With the release of South Africa’s Odendaal Commission Report in 1964,19 and the commencement of SWAPO’s armed liberation struggle in 1966, more overtly politicised anti-colonial sentiments began filtering into Kaokoland. As was often the case, Kaoklanders tended to follow the political lead of the more nationally focused Herero leaders in central Namibia. Although he was neither affiliated to SWAPO nor active in the armed struggle, Herero Paramount Chief Clemens Kapuuo, for example, helped politicise Kaokolanders by organising meetings and briefing the region’s inhabitants on the national political situation.20 Many of the Kaokolanders to whom I spoke recalled some opposition to South African rule during this period, as well as local support for SWAPO and its independence movement. ‘In the 1970s, there was resistance in Opuwo, and around Opuwo, but not openly so,’ one person explained. ‘People played by the rules during the day, but at night we had meetings to discuss how to get off this administration, and we were listening to SWAPO’s broadcasts from Angola over the radio.’ In the late 1970s and the early 1980s, Kaokoland became more and more militarised and the political sentiment changed course, leading most of the population to turn staunchly against SWAPO in favour of the South

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African regime. Three main factors contributed to SWAPO’s loss of support in the region. First, the commencement of PLAN guerrilla operations in northern Kaokoland created a sense of terror among the region’s inhabitants. Since they had been receiving a salary from the Administration, local headmen were viewed by SWAPO as puppets and colonial collaborators, and were thus occasionally targeted for attack. Although the fighting in Kaokoland never escalated beyond hit-and-run guerrilla ambushes,21 almost all those who were old enough to remember the war recounted incidences of terror in their home village. Both PLAN fighters and South African soldiers often accused villagers of collaborating with the opposite side, sometimes within hours of each other. In their respective attempts to extract information and confessions, both parties applied excessive (sometimes brutal) force to the region’s inhabitants. Second, as the war progressed, the regime's propaganda campaign led Kaokolanders to fear PLAN to a much greater extent than their foreign occupiers. The South African Administration used a number of different methods to help turn the local population vehemently against SWAPO. For example, they helped generate a heightened sense of fear by depicting SWAPO as bloodthirsty ‘terrorists’, as Ovambos who were out to take control of the country so as to oppress and kill the Hereros. The South Africans went so far as to try and convince Kaokolanders that Sam Nujoma, SWAPO’s leader and Namibia’s first president, had a tail. In order to convey themselves as protectors and SWAPO as the enemy, the South Africans also provided weapons to loyal headmen, erected a chainlink fence around Opuwo in order to ‘protect’ its population, paraded the bodies of dead PLAN fighters through the town, and offered medals of honour and cattle as rewards to civilians brave enough to capture and/or kill a ‘terrorist’.22 The South Africans offered other incentives to their supporters, especially employment with the army at its local military bases. SWAPO, the Administration could argue, only brought violence and an uncertain future to Kaokolanders; while they themselves offered not only protection, but also employment, housing, education, food relief, boreholes, veterinary services, old age pensions, and other resources and opportunities for the region’s inhabitants. One final factor is important in contextualising discourses on government in contemporary Kaokoland. In the late 1970s, as Namibia’s independence appeared imminent under UN Security Council Resolution 435,23 national interest groups began vying for a place in the soon-to-beestablished post-colonial political order.24 As part of this process, Herero leaders and their organisations based in central Namibia, led by Paramount Chief Kapuuo and his National Unity Democratic Organisation (NUDO),25 began distancing themselves from SWAPO and its aims. The national Herero leadership eventually joined, and took up key positions within, the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA), a South Africa-backed coalition party established to contest the future of an inde-

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pendent Namibia. In the process of consolidating their power, these nationally-focussed Herero leaders drew on the support of Otjihererospeaking Kaokolanders, attracting most of them to the new party as well. With its strong Herero leadership and pro-South Africa position, the DTA resonated with the concerns of those in the region. The point I am trying to emphasise here is that national party politics, like ‘statish’ authority more generally, reached Kaokoland at a very late date, and when it did finally arrive, it took the form of the DTA. To this day, the vast majority of Kaokolanders have supported this opposition alliance party and/or one of its affiliate political organisations (such as NUDO).26 In turning now towards Kaokolanders and their discursive constructions of government in Namibia, it is important to keep in mind the three main points detailed above. First, centralised ‘statish’ authority infiltrated Kaokoland at a relatively late date, both in relation to the colonisation of Namibia more generally and with respect to the present historical moment. Many of those living in Kaokoland today experienced firsthand, and continue to remember, the arrival of the (colonial) State and the transformations that accompanied the introduction of its qualitatively new mode of government in the region. Second, for various historical and political reasons, the South African regime maintained a great deal of legitimacy in Kaokoland throughout its period of occupation. Conversely, SWAPO’s struggle for independence received little support from the region’s inhabitants. Finally, when national party politics gained access to Kaokoland in the transitional period of the 1980s, opposition parties (especially the DTA) were able to leverage ethnic loyalties and pro-South African sentiments as a means of attracting wide support. This has resulted in Kaokoland being to this day one of the country’s strongest opposition party strongholds.

A Rationality of Modern Government Having offered the necessary context, I return to Kaokolanders’ governmental critique with the specific aim to elaborate more fully on this dominant perspective. The majority of people who circulated in and through Opuwo during the course of my fieldwork expressed a set of intersecting governmental themes that, when taken together, constitute what I have termed the Kaokoland critique. Kaokolanders not only offered a high degree of thematic consistency, but they also presented the recurrent themes in a most predictable and linear fashion. Willem’s provocative communication inevitably requires intrapersonal reflection, and thus most people commenced their appraisal of independence at the level of their everyday existence. In discussing with me their feelings about freedom, people usually began by talking about the war, and, in particular, the sense of relief that they now felt in no longer having to live through it. First and foremost, ‘freedom’ symbolised liberation not from colonialism

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or apartheid rule, but rather from the death, violence and fear that had consumed two decades of Kaokolanders’ lives. However, people would turn quickly towards the topic of ohoromende (government, in Otjiherero), and their discontent over changes that had taken place in the provision of state services and entitlements. ‘One thing that I expected from this Black government is that this is our government,’ explained one traditionally dressed Himba man, a former South African soldier. ‘This government is against me in many ways. It is supposed to help with water shortages, but it doesn’t help. It also should give food, but it doesn’t do that. The government always comes to our village and does what it wants without our consent.’ During a visit to Opuwo from his outlying village, Johannes, a middle-aged man, voiced a set of related concerns. ‘The other government, under the South Africans, was looking after us,’ he said, and then continued: When the school was closed, the White people gave a truck for the students who stayed far away, to transport the learners back home; and then to take them back to school when it resumed. But today, the government doesn’t do that, and even six year olds have to walk very far. In the past, if you were seriously sick and needed to go to Windhoek, you would be taken in an aeroplane. Now, you are taken to Windhoek in an ambulance. In the past, school learners who couldn’t afford fees could still go to the school, but not today. Also, now we have to pay for water, and borehole maintenance. When you used to come to the police with a problem, they would try to help you at that moment. Today, if you go to the police station they will tell you that they don’t have a car, even though you see a car standing there.

Unlike Johannes, his twenty-year-old son was critical of the former South African regime for its apartheid practices; but, like his father, he too praised it for having offered better quality healthcare and education. As an unemployed secondary school graduate, Johannes’s son was certain that he would not have been jobless under the former dispensation. ‘We really don’t know why this government is different,’ another man explained to me at length. The former government looked really well after us, but not this one. We are so sad. Now we must pay for everything. We must always sell our animals. Before, headmen were given bags of maize by the government, for the community. This is how they [the former government] looked after us, and we saw that it was our mother and father.… It was looking so well after us. As a child born by your parents, your parents are the ones who can give you milk. This is the same with the former White government.

A much younger acquaintance was not nearly as supportive of the former South African regime, but nonetheless he referenced it for use as a yardstick with which to measure and judge the current government. While speaking about the difficulties involved in lifting his family out of

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poverty, he explained that ‘[t]he South African White government protected White people. They made sure that no White person had to be poor.… They gave poor Whites money to support themselves. So, the government today should do the same thing for its people and give them money or other forms of aid to make sure they don’t have to be poor.’ Local complaints about the present democratic government vis-à-vis its predecessor were persistent and extensive. Many people cited the fact that the South Africans used to provide free medical care, including hospitalisation, but under the new governmental dispensation people now have to pay for the service. In this respect Kaokolanders often complained to me about the length of time it took to be treated in the local clinic and hospital, and they questioned the effectiveness of the current government’s medication, believing that the South Africans had dispensed more potent pills. Fewer people were perceived to have died under the care of the South Africans, and when they did ‘the government would return the corpse from Windhoek to the family. The family didn’t have to organise transport. Now, they will take a sick person to the hospital in Windhoek, but when he dies, the government doesn’t return the corpse to us.’ Others recounted how the former government would not only transport the deceased’s body, but would also transport people to and from the funeral. Educational standards also surfaced in the critique, as one recent school graduate explained: ‘In the old government it was good because there was punishment. I learned very hard. Now, with this government, if you fail school you get a second chance. With the old government, if you failed you went home. That way was much better.’ Some months later, this graduate’s mother also spoke to me about the former educational system in the territory. For her, it was far superior not because of its strictness, but because it was offered to all children free of charge. Those living outside of Opuwo, in the more isolated settlements throughout the region, voiced frustrations relating to the lack of rural assistance. ‘We are making the dams for livestock ourselves, and even the fences to inject our livestock,’ one herder told me. ‘The government only comes to drop the poles, and we have to move the poles to the area where we make the fence. They should prepare water places for us, dams and wells, and also make fences for us.’ Many friends, such as Munikanawa, voiced a clear preference: ‘We want the Boers here because when the Boers were here, then they brought something for us, food, and everything. They gave many things.’ Some of those in Kaokoland – particularly headmen, husbands, and parents – regularly criticised the new government for having undermined their authority, either within the family or within the community. In the micro-contexts of everyday life, these village and domestic leaders perceived their power to be under threat. According to them, the new government had been interfering too much in the domestic sphere, and in the traditional realm. The village leaders were most vocal on this issue, for

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Figure 3.1: I called it ‘schools: all windows broken’. This is one of the local schools, Kameru. I took the photo because of the new government – the whole place is covered with grass, and all the windows are broken. It is a school, and no one bothers to fix them. If they did, they would be broken again. The government got this building for free, so they don’t care about it. The old regime tried to build as many schools as possible for the Black children. Because the current government didn’t pay for it, they don’t care for it. Some of the schools were built with money that came as gifts from other countries. — Isabelle, Age 55, Opuwo

they believed the new government to have encroached on their terrain. ‘The current government,’ one headman told me, ‘doesn’t recognise a leader as a leader, but the South Africans did.… The previous government did everything just as the community wanted. It accepted the leader selected by the community, even if he was different from the one they preferred.’ These men often told me that the South Africans had respected tradition, and traditional leaders. Not only had the headmen been formerly compensated, but they had also been authorised to imprison offenders, apply corporal punishment, and undertake other important duties and responsibilities. As for the position of parents and husbands, another man stated it most succinctly: In the South African era, children would obey their parents. Today, children don’t obey their parents because the government gives them too many rights. They have been told that it is their right to disobey their parents. If I beat my child today, that child can report me to the police, and the government will want to know why I have beaten that child. If a child does something wrong, the present government says that you must come to the police. The South Africans did nothing of the sort. They allowed parents to be par-

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ents. Back then, you had the right to beat your child, because it was your own child. Also, under the South Africans, if you wanted to sleep with your wife, and she didn’t want to, you could grab your wife and take her to the bed, force her to sleep with you. Under this government, if one does that, your wife can take you to the government and claim that you raped her. It is illegal. The wife can just go to report that I raped her. How can I rape her if she is my own wife?

It was, however, two main issues that anchored this ‘diminished entitlements and services’ aspect of the Kaokoland critique. First, Kaokolanders who voiced this dominant perspective almost always mentioned the independent government’s refusal to provide them with food. An old woman explained: The South Africans used to give us food, and many things for us to survive. And in the beginning of this government, we used to get the same living from the government. Then later, we didn’t get anything anymore. I think this change came about because the government started losing the mood to support people. In the beginning we thought that this government was okay, but it is not okay now. The government used to feed us, but then they stopped feeding us. When the people were in the army camp, soldiers and others used to get food from the government. Sometimes when they visited the soldiers’ camp, our children were given food. I was given food.… We used to say that they [the South Africans] were nice people because we used to get things from them. If you have eaten from someone, then you will say that that person is good.

Muhurua spoke in similar terms: For me who used to stay next to the mountains, the South African government would distribute food. Everyone would get food from the government. But our new president boss, I did not eat anything from him. I think that the people staying close to the government, the government likes them the most. But for me, a person living far away from the government, a person eating honey, the government does not like me. Maybe they don’t like me because of my stupidity, maybe because I’m not asking.… With this government, from this boss of mine, I am not getting anything to eat.

A young woman, like many other people in the region, also berated the present government for withholding food. ‘I was given food by the former government,’ she told me, ‘because my children had no father. This government doesn’t give to me. They say I am young, that I must work, and look for a job.’ Like in many other parts of Africa, such conversations about food are often conversations about politics (Bayart 1993). ‘Whether food is scarce or plentiful is a matter connected to the nuances of power between sexes and generations within households, as well as between localities, and between state and locality’ (Haugerud 1995: 121).

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Even more important than the withholding of food, people considered the current government’s ‘refusal’ to employ Kaokolanders en masse to be freedom’s greatest frustration. Under the South African regime, particularly during the war years, almost every family in Kaokoland had at least one member employed by the South African government, most of whom were absorbed into the military. The remuneration found its way into every household. One afternoon, the mother of Willem (the man who scribed that evocative question onto his house) gestured angrily towards a group of young people congregated outside a bar. ‘Look at our children here,’ she said. ‘During South African times they all worked at jobs in Opuwo. Now, after SWAPO came to power, they all lose their jobs. Our children are unemployed. They are losing their jobs.’ One such young man explained that ‘the [South African] government was good because no one was jobless. Everyone was getting a job.… Many jobs were given for being a soldier. In the previous government no one who finished school went unemployed.’ Even many of those who were lucky enough to have retained their civil servant’s post beyond the independence transition found reason to be critical of the new government on the employment issue. Leonard, for example, had been a police sergeant in Opuwo during the South African period. He complained bitterly, for not only did he lose his rank after independence, but the new government also withdrew his free housing and utilities, his weekly food rations and dining privileges in the police barracks, and the vehicle that had been assigned to him. They also reduced his salary and refused to grant him additional paid leave beyond his annual quota. Another long-term civil servant reflected not on the employment benefits, but on differences in the style of management between the two governments: Supervision as an employee under the South Africans was different, as were the inspections from the head office. The head office would come and inspect you and your work. But they would give you specific instructions, to do this and this, and then someone would check up on you. This was a good approach because I learned a lot. Now, though, there is very little supervision, and the work is much less varied.

Once the topic of government employment had surfaced within a respective conversation, most Kaokolanders would subsequently lead the discussion in one of two directions. Regardless of which dialogical turn they chose, both routes met at the same topic, that is, at apartheid. First, for many of those advancing the Kaokoland critique, the dramatic decrease in the region’s public sector employment was attributed to the new government’s generalised neglect of the region. This neglect was further evidenced by the lack of ‘development’ in Kaokoland. In support of this theme, Kaokolanders would cite a long list of underdevelopment credentials: the absence of banking facilities; the lack of tar roads; infrequent postal service;

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the impossibility of purchasing a newspaper in the region; limited rural electrification; few shops and no livestock markets; unhealthy drinking water; poor radio reception; and infrequent visits to the region by the President and other high-ranking government officials. For many Kaokolanders, ‘development’ is considered the government’s raison d’être, and thus the region’s poor infrastructure, its few businesses, the lack of employment opportunities and so forth could only be an intentional outcome. To emphasise their point, people offered comparisons between Kaokoland and its regional neighbours, the four regions comprising the former Ovamboland. ‘Many things go to Ovamboland,’ explained Munikanawa. ‘There are nice things from the government in Ovamboland, but not here.’ One man explained that ‘all the foreign donors are only given tours by the government to Ovamboland, and then the foreign money goes there.’ Another person asked: ‘What is here? Eleven years after independence, what changes have they brought us? And look at the amount of building that has taken place in the four O regions [the former Ovamboland]: a new UNAM [University of Namibia] campus, a high court. Look at [the state of] our magistrate’s court.’ Kephas explained even further: Other areas are getting electricity in the villages, but not here. And look at our tar road. It is damaged. Look where the good tar roads are; that is where all the development is taking place, not here. This is because the people who are leading this country, their homes are on that side. When they come here, we tell them what we need, but then they go back to Windhoek and nothing ever happens.… While we are all Blacks, they are treating people differently.

Such observations, it must be stated, are not completely groundless. As was already mentioned in the previous chapter, Kunene Region (of which Kaokoland is a part) receives the country’s second lowest per capita regional development budget. In comparison, the government spends approximately twice as much in three of the four regions which previously constituted the former Ovamboland.27 However, many Kaokolanders would probably be surprised to realise that the fourth of these regions, Omusati, receives the lowest per capita development budget in Namibia.28 In taking stock of Kaokoland’s lack of development, the people I spoke with rarely considered other economic, demographic, historical or geographical explanations for the region’s particular social and economic circumstances. For example, few people made the connection between rising unemployment and the demilitarisation of the region following independence; nor did they factor in the enormous differences between the number of people living in Kaokoland and the former Ovamboland when considering the flow of governmental resources to the two respective areas.29 Instead, Kaokolanders ascribed the region’s perceived neglect to presidential and/or political party partiality. As leader of the government, the roots of underdevelopment in Kaokoland were often attributed to the President, and, in particular, to his

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Figure 3.2: We were left behind. As you can see in this picture, we didn’t have enough shelter for each person to live in. So for the government to construct for us these kinds of buildings, this to me, this shows development also within our town. These houses weren’t there before. The reason we were left behind is because of the war.… But nowadays, there is no war, but still it’s a problem because of the party which has the majority here, which is DTA, and the party which is in government, which is SWAPO. This also might lead to some under-development in Opuwo. The people who are in power, the town counsellors, those kinds of people, they are mostly for the opposition, so I don’t think that it will be easy for the government to bring development here. — Nici, Age 24, Opuwo

refusal to redistribute resources to the region. Many people considered Sam Nujoma’s main presidential responsibility to be the canvassing of foreign aid. ‘The President’s job is to ask for donations from outside countries so Namibia won’t have hunger and so there is no shortage of medicine in the hospital. His job is to ask for donations of money so that the country won’t go bankrupt.’ Others traced the origin of development funds not to the President’s diplomatic efforts, but to his private coffers. In this sense, development assistance entailed the redistribution of the President’s personal wealth. ‘The President must take care of the people,’ one man insisted. ‘If the people are hungry, then he must feed them.’ Similarly, one woman asserted that ‘Sam [Nujoma] is a Black man, like me, but I don’t see him coming to feed me. Maybe he is poor like me.’ Another person complained bitterly, ‘the President has not given me anything.’ In trying to explain the flow of development assistance away from Kaokoland, a young man explained that ‘the President is from the north [the former Ovamboland], and most of his supporters are from there. The fact that most Ovambo people stay there is also the reason why they get

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so much development.’ Another person added that ‘ government leaders first try to benefit their own people; they only try to help Ovambo people. Kaoko is behind Ovamboland because there are no national leaders who come from this area.’ As Kephas went on to explain, the President ‘knows the problems of the people, but he doesn’t give his attention to the problems of the people. All of his attention goes to Ovamboland where he was born.… I would like a president who would build the nation from every corner of the country, not just some areas.’ According to a traditional counsellor in Kaokoland, a good leader must be ‘accepted as a parent to everyone’. However, his Windhoek-based son subtly accused Namibia’s President of quite the opposite. ‘When he [a father] loves someone better than another of his children, only he knows that. He doesn’t tell them. And Sam [Nujoma] should do the same.’ Many others attributed the perceived neglect not to the President himself, nor to other national leaders, but rather to party politics: The ruling party runs the central government, but this area is led by the DTA. So when the government makes its budget, it gives more money to areas where it has supporters, and less here because it is an opposition area. The government neglects this area because the government doesn’t have enough [SWAPO] members in this area. And the reasons that they don’t have enough members here is because this is a Herero place. And they don’t want to help the Herero.

With respect to the government neglect theme, Kaokolanders returned again and again to their empirical observations: ‘the four O regions [the former Ovamboland] are getting the most development, 90 per cent of people living there support SWAPO, and all are from the same tribe.’ Some of the time, however, the topic of government employment led people in a different direction, not towards the region’s lack of development, but rather towards its re-colonisation. Embedded in Kaokolanders’ critique was the idea that the new government promotes the ‘Ovamboisation’ of the region, especially through its employment hiring practices. ‘We were told that even me, a Himba, I would be given a job to work somewhere after independence,’ said one old woman. And what we were told, it is not what is happening. Now, the person who can be employed is the one who came from Ovambo[land]. A Himba can be just one, but mostly you must come from Ovambo to be employed. We wonder why this is so. Now, we think that our leader who told us these things, now he hates us.… Even our kids who have finished their education cannot get employed. It is only Ovambo people who get employed. We wonder why it is only the Ovambos, and not the Himbas and the others.

Many Kaokolanders observed that apparently unqualified Ovambo people, particularly those that had returned to the country from exile,

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received the majority of government jobs while qualified locals remained jobless. Others perceived the lack of government employment opportunities for non-Oshivambo-speakers as a challenge to their right of belonging in the region. Munikanawa’s experiences at the Opuwo state hospital, for example, helped formulate her perspective: When you go to a government office here, you only see Ovambo people working there, speaking Oshivambo. When I was at hospital I arrived first before an Ovambo person, but the Ovambo person gets called first. In former times, Herero people were helped at the hospital before the Ovambo people. Now they question whether or not you were actually born in Namibia, if you are even a Namibian. They ask where you come from, and where your parents come from, and their name. It is only Ovambo [people] in the offices.

In a moment of apparent frankness, even one of SWAPO’s employees remarked similarly: To be honest, it’s true. Those people are talking the reality.… There are some certain issues which I don’t support, you know, which I am not going along with SWAPO. Because some issues, they are making me pain whenever I am looking back to my nation. The issue of bringing Ovambo people from Ovamboland to Kaoko, giving them money, giving them jobs, for me it has made me very, very embarrassed in fact. I become cross. It is not fair treatment. Why not do the same to Hereros? Transporting Hereros from here even to Oshakati, or even to Outjo, or to other regions.… Because it is not only the Ovambos who fought for the liberation of this country. The Hereros too, they fought for the liberation. They contributed their part. But why should they just only give first priority to a certain nation or tribe.

In addition to the employment issue, people identified other governmental strategies which supposedly helped promote the ‘Ovamboisation’ of Kaokoland. ‘In every year we see an increase in the number of Ovambo [people] in our area,’ explained a leading figure in Opuwo. ‘They bring more cattle, and more farming. In 1998 the government cut the eastern part of Kaoko out of the Kunene Region, and moved it into Omusati Region. They did this restructuring to distribute Ovambo people.’ Another person complained that ‘the government forced forty-five learners from Oshakati [in the former Ovamboland] to attend Omureti school [in Opuwo], and this takes places away from local learners.’ On another occasion, an Otjiherero-speaking government employee threw up his hands in anger: ‘Is this a second colonisation, or what? Why don’t people of Kaoko get the opportunity?’ In trying to explain why the new government would operate in such a manner, Kaokolanders who held such an opinion offered three related reasons. ‘The GRN [Government of the Republic of Namibia] employs Ovambo people in Kaokoland to help reduce unemployment in that area,’

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one man surmised. ‘In the four Os, you won’t ever find a non-Ovambo working in a government office. The GRN is trying to increase employment in the four O regions by employing Ovambos in other parts of the country.… Their aim is to make all Namibians Oshivambo-speaking people, and even now, Oshivambo is used as the unofficial official language.’ Many others classified the strategy in more overtly political terms, as ‘the SWAPO government is trying to get Ovambo people to settle in the area since it is an opposition area. If there are more Ovambo people living here, then SWAPO will get more votes.’ Finally, many people suggested a link between government employment preferences and personal obligations to kinship networks. For example, Munikanawa explained that non-Oshivambo-speakers have difficulties securing a government job in Opuwo because they do not have family members who are already government employees, and who would thus be capable of offering them a post. Another person, responding to my inquiries about the region’s predominantly Oshivambo-speaking police force, suggested that ‘the leaders of the police are Ovambos, and when they first consider people for the job, it is their family, and their friends. If there is a vacancy, I will first try to fill it with a family member or friend, but this is not fair.’ According to another person, an increasing number of Ovambo people were making their way through the government ranks in Opuwo simply because ‘blood is thicker than water.’ After having assessed the loss of state entitlements and services following independence, and after having charged the new government with neglecting and/or re-colonising the region, most Kaokoland-connected people would conclude their critique on a similar note: the perceived disproportionate flow of governmental resources and employment to areas in the former Ovamboland and to Oshivambo-speakers in general indicated to them the existence of a new form of apartheid. ‘In the past, you were imagining persons did not like your colour,’ explained one man, a selfemployed tour guide in his late twenties. ‘Nowadays it is a big thing because we are all from the same colour. We were all fighting for independence. But because the President is Ovambo, everything goes to Ovamboland. If you are Ovambo it is okay to get jobs, but not if you are Herero. Now, the Ovambo people are like the former Whites to the Herero.’ Another person suggested that ‘Namibia is independent, but independent only on one side.… In former times there was not this type of apartheid. Today, it seems that only one tribe is getting all the jobs. We expected that we Blacks were getting independent. Later, I came to know that White apartheid is coming back with one tribe.’ Another Kaokolander, Kephas, attempted to highlight a distinction between the two different forms of apartheid: ‘The former apartheid existed because there was war, but now we are independent and there shouldn’t really be apartheid, but it still exists. You will see that other people get more from the government.’ In almost every case, those who experienced the presence of neoapartheid in democratic Namibia found the present dispensation more dis-

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criminatory than the past. Munikanawa, for example, was under the mistaken impression that ‘my mother receives a pension of N$200 every month, and a grandmother in Ovamboland gets N$500 per month from the government. It is different. I think it is because there is an Ovambo president. When the Boers were here, it was all equal.’ Similarly, Johannes noticed that ‘the other government, under the South Africans, was looking after all of the people. The former government treated everyone equally.’ Kaokolanders also found other reasons to cite a new form of apartheid. One man maintained the impression that the police were biased in their dealings with local people: ‘There was a quarrel over a car between a Herero and an Ovambo, and when they went to the police, the officers supported the Ovambo person without ever hearing the Herero’s side of the story.’ Others cited the absence of separate development policies, the former cornerstone of the South African apartheid system, as evidence of neo-apartheid. A woman in her mid-forties explained that ‘this apartheid which is with us, among us Blacks, is much greater than the apartheid of the White people. For example, today Black people are leading the government and they force everyone to speak English. The South Africans allowed everyone to speak his own language.’ Another woman accepted Sam Nujoma as president, but only for Ovambo people. In her opinion, Herero people should be allowed to have their own president, just as it had been under the South Africans. Still other Kaokolanders supported their position by emphasising perceived links between the present government, nepotistic practices and apartheid. One unemployed young man explained that ‘the ruling party has apartheid because they support only one family,’ while an older woman stressed the relative severity of neoapartheid ‘because in this government, the person can just give help only to the person of the same mother.’ As becomes evident, the majority of Kaokolanders breached the topic of apartheid in a most unexpected context, for the issue was applied not to the South African colonial regime, as one might have anticipated, but to the present independent and supposedly democratic dispensation. Furthermore, despite ample opportunity – as people often spoke to me about their personal biographies, and about history and the former government – only a few of those who had adopted the dominant Kaokoland critique ever referenced South Africa’s apartheid system without relating it to neo-apartheid, at least not on a voluntary basis. As a result I often had to ask the question directly: ‘But wasn’t there apartheid here in Opuwo?’ or ‘How did you experience apartheid under the South Africans?’ During apartheid, ‘the Whites didn’t allow us to buy white bread. It was only for White people.’ Person after person would begin their account of South Africa’s apartheid rule in just such a manner.30 This perception – for it was not a personal memory, as I only met one person who ever claimed to have had the experience – was often considered the most significant attribute of apartheid. If pressed further, though, people would

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Figure 3.3: This is a photo of my brother eating white bread. The important thing here is that it is a Black guy eating white bread. It is one of the changes. Now, a Black person can buy white bread any time. In the past, in places like Outjo, if one was caught eating white bread, you were in trouble. Now, today you can buy anything you want.… I think the reason why Blacks couldn’t buy white bread back then was because of the colour of the bread. It was just the racism of these South Africans. I tried to buy white bread once in 1988 in Outjo, on my way back to Opuwo. I walked in and bought a white bread from a Coloured person. On the way out of the store a White man took the bread out of my hands. I was already out of the shop when he took it. He was talking Afrikaans, and I didn’t speak that language back then. I don’t know what he was saying. I was just left there with my mouth open, not knowing what to do. I didn’t get my money back, and I didn’t even report it to the police because I knew they wouldn’t do anything. — Ndunge, Age 20, Windhoek

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also speak about Opuwo’s former White residential enclave, now referred to as Matutura. They would explain that Black people had not been allowed to live in the neighbourhood, nor could they walk there after nightfall. Some also referred to the segregating practices of apartheid in Kaokoland by noting the existence of the former Whites-only kindergarten and recreational club, or by explaining that White children from Opuwo had to attend school in Outjo, a town located within the former Police Zone. Still other people cited the apartheid system when they recounted the relative lack of scrutiny White people had faced when passing military checkpoints, or when they reflected on how important it had been to ensure physical distance between White and Black people. The much more prevalent view of South Africa’s apartheid practices in Kaokoland, however, centred on their absence. ‘There was no apartheid here,’ explained one woman. ‘[Headman] Kameru was in charge of the place. There was no apartheid because even these White people, they used to give us maize meal and fat. If you didn’t have anyone looking after you, they would help.’ By comparison to those residing in the Police Zone, Kaokolanders did not experience the full extent of South Africa’s discriminatory racial practices. Since only a handful of White people resided in Kaokoland at any given time, the Administration deemed it unnecessary and impracticable to implement segregatory policies to the same degree as they did elsewhere. In addition, few Kaokolanders ever served as contract labourers, and travel restrictions forced most people to remain in the region. As a result only a few were ever exposed to the brutal working and living conditions of the urban areas, the industrial workplaces and the commercial farms. For most Kaokolanders, then, South Africa’s apartheid system was experienced only indirectly, or in passing. The handful of Kaokolanders who did become contract labourers in the mines or on Whiteowned farms, and those who left Kaokoland for short periods of time in order to seek medical treatment or visit family members in central Namibia, would eventually return to recount their apartheid experiences to those who stayed behind. For the majority of Kaokolanders, apartheid was something that was to be experienced most profoundly elsewhere: Apartheid was against those who were closer to the White farmers. We were far from the Whites.… Because many of us stayed far from the government offices in Opuwo, because people stayed in the villages, there was not such big apartheid in the area. Outside Kaoko, when we went to Outjo, there, we suffered from apartheid. We had to pass the White police at Kamanjab. There, apartheid was big. But here, there was no apartheid here in Kaoko.

The Kaokoland critique must be viewed in relation to these historical circumstances, especially with respect to the implementation of apartheid policies in Kaokoland during the South African era. Apartheid did govern the relations between White and Black people in the region, but for most of those whom I came to know, the benefits offered by the then-South

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African regime, at least in hindsight, seemed to overshadow these former apartheid practices. As one middle-aged woman argued, ‘maybe this government is good for those who were formerly treated poorly, but not for us who were treated well under the South African government.’ In addition to history, language offers yet another level of context surrounding local conceptions of ‘apartheid’. The Otjiherero term ombangu can be defined as either ‘apartheid’ or ‘difference’, and thus the Otjiherero term, as well as its English translation, is capable of readily capturing almost any form of perceived discrimination or inequality. During my stay in Opuwo I often heard people invoke ‘apartheid’ or ombangu at seemingly odd times and circumstances. For example, one man charged the sales clerk at the Opuwo bakery with practising apartheid after she had refused to meet his surly demands for an immediate loaf of bread. Other people invoked apartheid to describe the special assistance that some government employees offer their friends and family; a young boy declared apartheid when his mother sent him to the shop, rather than his sister; and another person saw apartheid in a person’s decision to bewitch another. Still further, an Ovambo person charged a postal worker with apartheid because a Herero patron had been served first; while a White resident of Opuwo had no problem labelling the current government’s affirmative action policies ‘reverse apartheid’. In most instances, whether in the context of government or otherwise, people applied the term ‘apartheid’ with limited historical specificity. For most Kaokolanders apartheid did not necessarily refer to a particular period in Namibia’s history, or to a particular set of South African practices and policies. Instead, apartheid encapsulated an entire host of social relations and a particular mode of social behaviour, both in the past and present.

Chapter 4

THE ART OF BEING GOVERNED

Government exists in the medium of thought, of mentalities or rationalities of government. It is shot through with the multiple and heterogeneous ways of making the world thinkable and calculable. — Mitchell Dean and Barry Hindess (1998: 9)

As one of the most elusive concepts in the social sciences, ‘power’ remains a highly contested notion. For the sociologist Max Weber, power is defined as ‘the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance’ (1964: 152); while the American political scientist Robert Dahl argues that ‘A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do’ (1957: 202–3). In emphasising the ways action is influenced, these scholars highlight a notion of power-over. Another set of theorists asserts a broader understanding, instead focusing on abilities and capacities, and thus the power-to. In this sense, power is understood as a ‘present means… to obtain some future apparent Good’ (Hobbes 1968 [1641]: 150), or ‘the ability of individuals or groups to make their own interests count, even where others resist’ (Giddens 1991: 52). For Foucault, power is much more variegated and nuanced than either of the above approaches. In line with his analysis of discourse and knowledge, he offers a diffuse and totalising vision. [P]ower must be understood in the first instance as the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organization; as the process which, throughout ceaseless struggles and confrontations, transforms, strengthens, or reverses them; as the support which these force relations find in one another, thus forming a chain or a system, or on the contrary, the disjunctions and contradictions which isolate them from one another; and lastly, as the strategies in which they take effect, whose general design or institutional crystallization is

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embodied in the state apparatus, in the formulation of the law, in the various social hegemonies (Foucault 1978: 92–93).

Here, power is embedded in all relations and exercised from all points. Power is not acquired or controlled by identifiable agents, but is the product of a multiplicity of (often countervailing) forces. It is not a system of domination exerted by one group or person over another, but rather a total complex that results from a relation of relations. In other words, ‘power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society’ (Foucault 1978: 93). Being as such, power retains an inherent element of ambiguity, even contradiction. It is for this reason that Foucault situates resistance within the field of power itself: ‘Where there is power, there is resistance, and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power’ (Foucault 1978: 95). This understanding of power as a network of relations often at odds with one another cannot be dissociated from Foucault’s views on discourse and government. As discussed in the previous chapter, discourse is intricately woven into the fabric of government. ‘Power is exercised within discourses in the ways in which they constitute and govern individual subjects’ (Weedon 1987: 113). The complex of countervailing forces that comprises power is made operational through discourses that may themselves occupy and construct different subject positions. In Foucault’s framework, therefore, counter-discourses cannot be treated as lying outside the field of power or government. Since power is multiply constituted, then so too is government, and the mentalities and imaginations that help constitute it. ‘Govern-mentality’ must be approached as a product of its own internal multiplicities, incoherencies and contradictions. Keeping this observation on the inconsistent nature of discourse, power and ‘govern-mentality’ close at hand, I focus now on some of the other ‘feelings about freedom’ that circulated in and through Opuwo during my stay there. More specifically, in this chapter I highlight some of the less dominant aspects of post-apartheid ‘govern-mentality’ in Kaokoland, and I do so by drawing on the experiences of a limited number of individuals. My intention here is to expose a broader range of governmental discourses that emanate from within Kaokoland. During the latter part of the chapter, I then draw on the material as a way to analyse underlying points of congruence between these seemingly oppositional discourses and the more mainstream Kaokoland critique. These points of congruence, I argue, represent a broader discursive formation relating to the art of government, and the art of being governed, in Kaokoland. Among other things, we will see that in Kaokoland government is very much about the ability to manage the State in a manner befitting a parent in relation to his or her family.

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Other Imagined States As a way to help delimit the Kaokoland critique, it is useful to position demographically those who expressed one or another version of it. In general, and with the acknowledgement that exceptions certainly existed, the dominant critique was most likely voiced by male and female Kaokoland residents who were over the age of twenty-five and were Otjiherero- or Dhimba-speaking. Young people and older Oshivambo-speakers, as well as Angolan immigrants and White Namibians who were settled in Opuwo, were more likely to adopt different discourses; and so were children in comparison to their parents and grandparents. Although perhaps helpful in offering a gross generalisation about social categories vis-à-vis the dominant governmental discourse, these demographic indicators are only of secondary relevance when considering the position of any particular individual. At this micro-level of analysis, those who countered the Kaokoland critique generally maintained a wider weltanschauung than those who adopted it. In particular, these individuals possessed a worldview that extended beyond the confines of Kaokoland, an outlook that had been formed through a wide range of experiences. Some of them had lived a significant portion of their lives in areas of the former Ovamboland; or they had returned to Kaokoland after having lived in exile during the liberation struggle; or they had spent a period of employment in South Africa. Still others, despite having lived most of their lives in Kaokoland, considered themselves alien to the region. They identified themselves with their ‘homes’ and looked towards their extended family and/or ancestors in the Namibian towns of Oshakati, Okakarara or Windhoek. Some looked further afield to locations in Angola, South Africa and Germany. Those most likely to convey an other imagined State had fought as soldiers with PLAN, attended secondary school in Windhoek, or fled the civil war in Angola. But not all of those who discounted the Kaokoland critique had spent time, or even possessed kin networks, outside the region. Particularly among young Kaokolanders, a revised post-independence school curriculum has helped instil a wider and different weltanschauung. The people who positioned themselves outside the dominant critique were also more likely to invoke their national, rather than their ethnic, identity.

Paulina Paulina’s ‘govern-mentality’ began taking shape long before she was even born. Her father’s life story is the reference point for her own state-related imaginings. By Namibian standards, Paulina’s father, Petrus, lived quite an ordinary existence, especially for someone who was born and raised in the former Ovamboland. But it was indeed a life unknown by most of his Kaokoland-connected contemporaries. He grew up on his uncle’s farm,

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caring for livestock and the homestead. As a young man, he never received any formal education, and never came into contact with the State or any of its officials. At the age of eighteen he finally saw his first government official, a White labour recruiter who signed him up for a year-long contract as a hotel waiter in a central Namibian town. During the ensuing eight years Petrus worked a series of contracts for employers in four different towns, all within the food industry. After each contract he would return home to Ovamboland, report again to the labour recruitment office, then accept another one-year contract with either the previous employer or a new one. Subsequently, Petrus found longer-term work with the SWA government, this time as a road maintenance worker. For the next few years he lived at his various worksites, i.e., on the side of the road, though he slept every weekend in the nearest town. In 1974 Petrus moved to Opuwo for permanent stationing with the Department of Roads (where he had been employed ever since). While living in Opuwo, he became a member of SWAPO because ‘White people were beating the Blacks, like my son who was shot by his employer.’ Finally, fifteen years after moving to Opuwo, Petrus was joined by his wife and eldest daughter, Paulina, who moved to the town from their home in rural Ovamboland. At the time of our first meeting, Paulina was in her early thirties and had been living in Opuwo for more than thirteen years. She had a Grade 12 school certificate and was unemployed at the time of our acquaintance. With a portrait of Sam Nujoma and a SWAPO campaign poster adorning the wall of her living room, my first conversation inside Paulina’s home turned quickly towards matters of State. ‘President Nujoma’s work is to see how the community is, to listen to our problems, to ask for foreign assistance and aid, and to assist other countries like the DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo] and Angola.’ She explained that he was the one responsible for bringing independence to the country, and for all of the changes that had taken place since. I enquired about the nature of the change: Black people could not attend school with Whites. There were separate schools, and separate clinics and hospitals. Blacks got lower posts on the job, and they were always under Whites. Black people could not buy luxury automobiles.… During the South African time people did not have a chance to go to other parts of the country. Also, there were not enough schools or clinics. Today, there are many clinics all over Kaoko that did not exist under South Africa. During the South Africans, only rich people could send their children overseas. Now, anyone can do such a thing, and the government helps.… The present government does much more for the people than the South Africans ever did.

When I asked Paulina to elaborate on the work of the present government she explained that ‘the government is the one working for the community. They are taking responsibility so that everyone can have everything that they want.’ She reiterated its important role: the government

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determines what each community wants and needs. Like many others, Paulina acknowledged that Kaokoland is less developed than the former Ovamboland, but she attributed this relative deprivation not to government neglect or neo-apartheid, but to the region’s geographical marginality. ‘When things come from Windhoek, they are finished [consumed] by other towns along the way, like newspapers, before they reach us here in Opuwo. We are so far away.’ Paulina’s memories of the war were still vivid, and she narrated a story that many others in Opuwo had already recounted for me. At night, she said, soldiers from both PLAN and the SADF would pull them out of their beds, question them, and sometimes beat them. When I enquired as to how she nonetheless became such an avid SWAPO supporter she explained that her parents had instructed her from the age of ten onwards, and she came to believe that if she were to support another political party her parents would hate her, and force her to leave the household. When she became an adult, ‘I decided that it was not easy for me to move from my parents to another party. It sounded to me that if I left SWAPO, it was like leaving my mother and going to live with other people.’ I asked for clarification: ‘If you leave your mother and go to stay with another mother, she will not feel you as a child. I can’t leave my mother’s party to go to another mother’s party. That is bad. The SWAPO party is just like my mother. It is where I grew up, where I learned different things from.’ As a mother of two small children herself, Paulina had already begun telling her five-year-old daughter that she too must support the party. ‘I tell her all about SWAPO, all the things on the wall. That they were in exile fighting for the country; that this is the President and head of SWAPO. I tell her that there are many parties in Namibia, and that I grew up with this party, that they fought for the independence of this country, and that you must support it.… If my children ever leave SWAPO, I will chase them out of this house.’

Nahoni Nahoni, who was 30 years old when I first met him, was born and raised in the village of Kaoko Otavi. He completed his Grade 12 education in Otjiwarongo (central Namibia) before returning to take up an administrative position with a company in Opuwo. For him and some others who come of age in an independent Namibia, new models of government and politics are taking root. Take Nahoni’s mother, Ndapewa, as a point of generational contrast. One afternoon she recounted her life history for me, a narrative that began with her childhood in the village, a time when she milked cattle, collected firewood and smeared cow dung in the homestead. In 1986, after having lost much of her livestock holdings to drought, Ndapewa moved to Opuwo in search of an income to pay her children’s schooling. She took a

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job as a cleaner in one of the government offices, and, fifteen years on, she was still employed there. In reflecting on her past, Ndapewa characterised life with her parents as ‘free from problems.… But now the world has changed. It has become more difficult.’ Among other things, she believed that multi-party democracy was contributing to the disintegration of family life: Nowadays, because of different political parties, people are no longer families; one is now SWAPO and the other DTA. We wonder where this has come from. For us women who are not educated, we cannot understand. The people who come from the same mother and father, those close family relationships, they don’t exist anymore because of the different political parties. It pulls families apart.… People of the same mother and father used to belong to the same party, especially among us Hereros. There was only one party for us, the DTA.

Ndapewa pointed to her own family as a case in point. Since they all now support different parties, she said, ‘the family is not cooperating’. But the perception of family breakdown over political differences was experienced quite differently by one of her daughters, a girl still too young to vote. She explained that her mother, Nahoni and her other brothers argued over politics quite regularly, but that these differences did not cause any real problems within the family. As a government employee, Ndapewa’s sense of a deteriorating present also related to the new Namibian State, especially in its capacity as her employer. She continually emphasised how well she had been treated when she worked for the South African Administration, having, for example, received each year a thirteenth pay cheque in honour of her birthday. But whereas Nahoni’s mother spoke of the government in relation to such care and entitlement, he emphasised the reciprocal nature of governing. The Namibian government does bestow rights and privileges, and it does allow people to place demands on it, however, it also requires something in return. According to him, Namibians must also accept certain responsibilities: they must invest themselves in their government, and they must feel and practise a sense of duty towards it. ‘When I think about the government, I think about myself,’ Nahoni explained one evening as we sat together sipping beer on the veranda at Oreness Bar. ‘I belong to government and government belongs to me. For example, if you kill me the State will open a case against you, even if I have no family. I must take responsibility for government property, and report vandalism. It is my property, like my car. Even if I support a different party from the ruling party, it is still my property because the leaders fall under this government.’ Nahoni was also critical, though not towards the present government, which he said was ‘doing well at the moment’. Instead, he took aim at his fellow Kaokolanders:

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Most of the people speaking bad about the government are not employed. They expect the government to give them a job. They aren’t trying to do their own things. They think that a certain party or person coming to power will give them one, and they think that the current one won’t.… When you are having three children, every child expects you to give him the same as the other. Everyone in this country is looking for the government to give them something. I want this government to give me land, a fenced portion of the reserve.… It [the government] must make sure I am free, that I have a roof over my head; but I don’t expect government to give me a job.

Finally, in contrast to those who found evidence of neo-apartheid in the government’s hiring practices, Nahoni viewed the preponderance of Oshivambo-speaking civil servants in Kaokoland as a symptom of ‘corruption that will happen with any government. If you are working, and a post is free, you will tell and hire your unemployed brother for the job, not someone else. These people who make such a criticism, if they were to come to power, they would do the same thing.’

Teresa Teresa first introduced herself to me as having recently moved back to Opuwo after an absence of more than thirty-five years. As the daughter of a lifelong SWA colonial official, Teresa had spent her youth living in numerous settlements across the territory. During the early 1960s, she lived with her parents in Kaokoland. At the age of fifty, this native Afrikaansspeaker and self-identified Südwester (South West African) returned with her husband to live in one of the small towns of her childhood. Teresa loved to talk: about herself, about her family, about her past. She was also prone to excessive grandiosity and embellishment, to apologetic interpretations of history, and to racist rants; she was generous. Through her stories, Teresa was able to live in her past. She situated most of her narratives in South West Africa, and they almost always featured her father and/or sons as their main protagonist. She idolised and idealised the former, characterising him as the perfect parent, husband and ‘pioneer’; as for her sons, they were ‘willing to walk barefoot over burning coals for me.’ In part, that must have been true, as her eldest son, along with his pregnant wife and three children, moved to join her in Opuwo during the course of my fieldwork. When I first met Danie, he introduced himself as a ‘proud racist’. He planned to earn his riches trading alcohol for cattle, and then selling the livestock on at a profit. Teresa’s other son, Jani, did not quite match his brother’s maternal commitment, confessing that he did not care much for her. Jani lived in Windhoek where he worked as a private security guard, a job that offered him the opportunity ‘to have fun beating-up Black people for old time’s sake.’ It was quite a challenging family to work with, but, it has to be said, their political renditions were as much a product of Namibia as any other.

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In listening to Teresa’s many historical narratives about Opuwo and South West Africa, accounts that were expectedly Euro-centric in their telling, I was often cognizant of apartheid’s absence. As with so many other Kaokolanders, this aspect of Namibia’s history remained silent. Eventually, I asked directly, and Teresa spoke about the topic: Apartheid was a thing in the mind. There is still apartheid, it is just reversed apartheid now. I know that there were and are lots of White people who see Blacks as the minor people – not in quantity, but in brains. Like the Bible says, they are supposed to do the work, and the Whites must sit on top and order them.… White people during the apartheid era, some of them were very rude to Blacks. They kept them as slaves. They hardly paid them for what they did, and that was bad. I can understand that the people might want to rebel against that, but fighting was not the way. But now, with reverse apartheid, sometimes the Whites get the same type of treatment, but in another way, from the Blacks. For example, if you and a Black commit the same crime – say you kill a Black person – you, because you are a White, will get a worse punishment. The Black will get off by saying it was self-defence. For you, it will be considered a ruthless killing. It is a way for them to get the White people back. I mean, you can’t blame them. It is just reverse apartheid. Also, for example, if two people apply for a government job, the Black man will get the job. Affirmative action is still apartheid. Is it fair to discriminate against the others? You shouldn’t take one or the other simply because of his skin colour, but take the one that is qualified. Put them both through a test, and then take the best one.

Teresa’s comparison of apartheid’s past and present sounded remarkably similar to her sons’ accountings. For Danie, ‘the new government is only interested in getting legal revenge for Black people’s past suffering’; while Jani declared ‘affirmative action’ as another word for racism, adding that the government should also be helping him ‘like they help the Ovambos.’ Just as her own children, Teresa had never cast an election ballot in an independent Namibia. In her mind doing so would mean having to accept responsibility for helping to secure power for a particular candidate or party. Danie did not vote on the grounds that ‘it won’t change anything; it won’t bring Whites back in charge.’ And Jani refused to waste his time ‘because it is not my government’. Teresa attributed such voter apathy among White Namibians to fear more than anything else: ‘If you go against this government, then you will be in trouble,’ she said. ‘Many people are afraid.’ Life in the post-colony had obviously soured for Teresa (and her children); the social and political anchors that had previously held her life steady and certain were simply gone. During the time of our acquaintanceship her life passed in chaotic and episodic fashion. It seemed rudderless and alienated. Living in relative isolation, on the edge of town in a broken-down mobile home, Teresa found solace in the past, in the memories of those more predictable and coherent times. ‘Twenty years ago was

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the blooming time in my life. Personally, I was better off then. I had everything I wanted: a big house, a car. It was a wonderful, blooming time for most of the people I knew.’

Francisco and Maria ‘We hear people say that the government of Namibia is not going well. But for us, we see it is going well. For us, it is democratic here,’ explained Francisco, an unemployed 27-year-old Angolan refugee. In 1994, fearing military conscription, Francisco fled Angola and its civil war. Shortly after arriving in Opuwo he met Maria, also an Angolan by birth. Maria was only one year old when she and her mother came to Namibia in 1975. She lived in numerous places throughout the country, including refugee camps, until moving to Opuwo in 1986. When we first met each other, Maria was a Namibian citizen; and she was employed by a local guest lodge, though at a pitiful wage. According to the couple, the former South African Administration had treated the Angolans living in Kaokoland much better than the current government. They said that the South Africans encouraged Angolans to stay in Namibia, and even offered employment to them. Now, however, ‘the [Namibian] government wants Angolans to go back to Angola, and they are even forcing us.… We don’t know why. Do they just not like us?’ In fact, during the course of my stay Maria ceased being Namibian. One day while walking through town, a police officer stopped her, confiscated her Namibian identity card, and instructed her to report to the Home Affairs office. There, she was told that the South Africans had mistakenly given her Namibian citizenship, and that she now had to apply for temporary residence and a work permit. Suddenly, by the side of the road, she had been made instantly into an illegal alien in the only country she had ever really known. The issue was finally resolved when she was offered a permanent residency card a few months later. Maria appeared unfazed by the stripping of her national identity. In recounting her encounter with the Namibian State, she focused instead on the police interrogation, particularly the way the officials had questioned her about the whereabouts of other Angolans. Perhaps it was a product of such heightened immigration control measures at the time, but Francisco, Maria, and her mother and maternal uncle all tried to avoid the police and state justice system whenever possible. Maria’s mother resorted to the traditional court as a means to settle disputes, arguing that the police never follow-up on complaints. Traditional leaders, she said, were much more effective in not only settling disputes, but also in recovering a person’s stolen goods. Francisco had also had positive experiences with the traditional leaders. During my stay in Opuwo he also had immigration problems, having been arrested for allegedly working without a permit. After eight days in a police cell,

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the charges were dropped and he was released after a well-known traditional leader vouched for him. Maria’s uncle, however, was unimpressed with the workings of the traditional court: Twenty years ago, I had a cow stolen and reported it to the traditional court. And up until now, the traditional court has done nothing. Also last year, I had donkeys stolen, and I knew who stole them. I reported the case and still up to now, they’ve done nothing. The reason both cases have not been settled is just because I am an Angolan, and the offenders are Namibian.… I think that the headman doesn’t care because the offender in the cases are family to him. I then took these cases to the police, and the police have also done nothing up to this point.

Despite these experiences, both Maria and Francisco expressed views of the Namibian government that focused primarily on its relative functionality, lack of corruption and democratic underpinnings. Maria explained: In this country one can talk about politics openly and freely; one can criticise the government without anything happening to you. In Angola, they may kill you or put you in jail. In Namibia, the government thinks about the country – it tars roads, builds hospitals and schools. If you go to the hospital in Angola, they will only write you a prescription for medication, then you have to go and buy it yourself. Here, the hospital gives you medicine for free. In Angolan schools children have no pens or books. The government in Angola is not thinking of its own country. It is not taking care of the country.… There, the soldiers make road blocks every 5–10 kilometres so they can get money from those who want to pass. They give fines to people for no reason. This happens because soldiers don’t get paid enough by the government. In Namibia, these sorts of things don’t happen. You are found guilty only when you break the law.

Festus Under the shade of a tree, in the backyard of his Otuzemba house, I listened to Festus tell me the story of his life. It was very much the story of a man born sixty years ago in the former Ovamboland, a life overshadowed by migration and contract labour, at least in its telling. Festus spoke of the humiliation that he had felt at the age of eighteen when he was forced to stand naked before the medical examiner at the labour recruitment office in Ondangua. They determined him medically fit, tagged him with a coloured bracelet, and distributed him to a White farmer near Outjo. On that farm, ‘the Black worker’s hands were not allowed to touch the hands of the farmer’s wife,’ he recalled. ‘And that wife would drop things into the workers’ hands, instead of handing it to us.… We received twenty-five cents per month, and food. Us workers would get the leftover milk waste, after the cows were milked, the same food they would give to the pigs.’

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During that first contract, Festus was required to work seven days per week, from 4 A.M. to sunset. But his first experience in the contract labour system was a ‘lucky one’ because the farmer and his wife ‘were not very bad’. Festus knew many other workers who eventually escaped their cruel employers. In the best cases, the worker would lose out on the entire eighteen-months-worth of earnings, as they were only payable in full upon completion of the contract. In the worst cases, the farmer and/or police would chase down the escaped worker, beat him, and either lock him up or force his return to the farm. Festus spoke about some of his other contracts as well, and then explained that after having worked in such a capacity for almost ten years, a chance incident led him to move to Opuwo in 1966. In that year, Festus and his friend rode their bicycles for two days straight, covering the distance between the former Ovamboland and Opuwo. They had come to Kaokoland in the hope of buying donkeys on the cheap. Instead, they immediately accepted a short-term job from a White man. They completed their work, but the man left Opuwo without paying their wages. The two then hitch-hiked to Windhoek, located the man and negotiated their pay. They proceeded to buy horses, a donkey and a donkey cart with their recovered earnings, and then walked back to Opuwo. Ever since then, Festus had been making his living through a herd of livestock and a garden on the outskirts of Opuwo. Festus did not fully explain his reasons for eventually becoming a faithful SWAPO member sometime after having settled in Opuwo. Instead, he simply stated that ‘South Africa didn’t give me any problems, but I just knew that I was a SWAPO supporter.’ His loyalty to the party continued to the present, he said, because SWAPO’s leader was able to change the rules: In the past, Whites could kill you for no reason, just as a mistake. Blacks weren’t able to eat in the hotels. We couldn’t buy white bread. In the past, we ate milk that was given to the pigs. But now we don’t get these things because the President won’t allow it. I will always only vote for Sam [Nujoma]. If you marry a woman, you will stick with that woman for life. It is the same with the President.

Like her father, Ester was also an ardent SWAPO supporter. Having been born and raised in the region, she was fourteen years old when PLAN tried to attack Opuwo’s former army base. As a student in the mid1980s ‘I joined SWAPO not just to support a party, but because I heard from my parents about the way Whites were treating us. I thought, I am an African, and that is the real party; it was an African party.’ Throughout the late 1980s, Ester attended party meetings in Opuwo where ‘they spoke about promises, about how they were going to rule the country, about the change they would bring, about better education.’ Perhaps Festus’s daughter remained such a strong supporter of the ruling party because

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she became employed by the new government in the early 1990s. Nonetheless, she asserted that SWAPO had indeed fulfilled many of its earlier promises. ‘We have many schools now, electricity in the villages, and clinics also. Things have changed.’ SWAPO seemed to be making inroads into the next generation of Festus’s family as well. One afternoon, his fourteen-year-old granddaughter explained to me that ‘Sam’ was sending food such as beans, maize meal and cooking oil to the inhabitants of her village, a medium-sized settlement about thirty kilometres from Opuwo. Each and every month, she explained, a lorry arrived to distribute the goods. ‘Sam is a good president because he pays the old people their money, and gives food to everybody.… He is very rich.’

Governing the Post-Colonial State in Kaokoland If government involves various forms of thought about the nature of rule and knowledge of who and what are to be governed, and it employs particular techniques and tactics in achieving its goals, if government establishes definite identities for the governed and the governors, and if, above all, it involves a more or less subtle direction of the conduct of the governed, it can be called an art. — Mitchell Dean (1999: 18)

After having conveyed the broader range of governmental perspectives among those in the region, I now turn to reflect on this spectrum of discourse, including both the dominant critique and other govern-mentalities. In doing so, I intend to distil some of the central elements contributing to the art of government in Kaokoland. In other words, what notions of governing and government emerge out of these discourses? In moving from exposition to analysis, I establish a set of problems that carry throughout the book. Thus, my aim here is to chart territory, rather than conquer it. On the surface, the Kaokoland critique differs substantially from the other governmental discourses in the region. This dominant perspective on contemporary government is an extremely critical and oppositional one. It speaks of exclusivity, favouritism, neglectfulness, disownment and dysfunctionality; and its gaze remains rooted firmly in the past. By contrast, different elements resonate through the voices of those conveying other ‘States of mind’ in Kaokoland. In them, a discourse of endorsement, inclusiveness and belonging emerges; they are views orientated in the present and towards the future. But before delving below the surface of these discourses it will be helpful to return again to the art of government, this time by paying special attention to its emergence as a uniquely modern problematic. Foucault (1991a) traces the birth of this art to sixteenth-century Europe by analysing some of the political treatises written in critical reply to

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Figure 4.1: This is a guy selling things at the Epupa drinking tree. He is selling cooking oil, tinned beans and mayonnaise. In the past, these things were sold only in shops, but now you can buy them in a shop or from outside. Now, you can do what you want. A long time ago you were stopped from doing this. — Mathews, Age 42, Opuwo

Machiavelli’s The Prince (1532). According to him, it was during this period of European history that the general problem of government emerged in relation to the problem of sovereignty. For Machiavelli’s prince, the objective of the exercise of power is to maintain his territorial sovereignty, that is, to protect his position of strength and control. The anti-Machiavellian literature aimed to replace this purpose with something new, with an ‘art of government’. The art of government, as becomes apparent in this literature, is essentially concerned with answering the question of how to introduce economy – that is to say, the correct manner of managing individuals, goods and wealth within the family (which a good father is expected to do in relation to his wife, children and servants) and of making the family fortunes prosper – how to introduce this meticulous attention of the father towards his family into the management of the state (Foucault 1991a: 92).

Foucault explains further that ‘[t]o govern a state will therefore mean to apply economy, to set up an economy at the level of the entire state, which means exercising towards its inhabitants, and the wealth and behaviour of each and all, a form of surveillance and control as attentive as that of the head of family over his household and goods’ (Ibid: 92).

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In invoking Foucault’s genealogy, my intention is to once again dislodge government from its contemporary state moorings; to recall government and its art in its much broader sense, that is, as any activity that seeks to direct, regulate and/or influence conduct. In this way, government is integral to all social contexts. For my particular purposes, Foucault’s historical accounting becomes most relevant for its ability to awaken us to the possibility that government is as integral to the family as the family is to the State. Gabriel, a long-time Opuwo resident, directed me similarly when he explained: I heard from the radio that there is a kind of government fund for those who do not have a good living, to set up their own business. My responsibility is to write a report to the government. If I write such a thing, or come there, they ask if I have money in the bank, cattle, how many. But I don’t have those things, so I can’t be given that kind of help. It is just like when I used to look after my father’s animals, and he didn’t give me anything.… Now I am just like someone standing there without anything. It is like two different governments that don’t give help to me.

Foucault’s and Gabriel’s observations thereby prepare the ground for a closer examination of the interconnections between two governmental assemblages in Kaokoland: government in and of the family, and government in and of the post-apartheid Namibian State. In returning to what appear initially as vastly different and competing discourses on government in Kaokoland, one finds that they do, in fact, share some underlying similarity, a common thread that weaves its way through the Kaokoland critique and the other govern-mentalities alike. Specifically, the ethnographic material thus far presented reveals an overwhelming tendency among Kaokolanders to imagine the management of State through an art of governing the family. In other words, when Kaokolanders conceptualised an art of government they did so in such a way as to link the practices of government to the realm of the family and, in particular, to notions of paternal and/or parental care. They utilised idioms of kinship to elucidate governmental responsibilities and obligations, and they spoke of government by deploying a language filled with the moral imagery of family and the household. The parent–child relationship offered both method and model of government, while nurturance, care and proximity featured as central and defining images of such activities. Familial relations, I am thus suggesting, serve as a unifying trope through which the State comes to be imagined in Kaokoland. In this sense, consider the ways Kaokolanders conceive an art of government that entails a personalised, direct, immediate and proximate (if not fetishised) relationship with the State. The government and its political figureheads are literally expected to feed and nourish the individual directly – like a father does his child. ‘I don’t know what government is,’ explained one old woman. ‘We don’t know. All I know is the person, the

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people, they are getting something to live out of it.’ Like the head of household, the Namibian State is expected to go outside itself in order to acquire its resources – goods which are then meant to be distributed internally. Government secures resources such as development aid and then passes them down to Kaokolanders in a manner befitting a parent in relation to his/her dependents. In this sense, to govern in Kaokoland requires the distribution of mealie-meal and not the management of a relational complex that may or may not dispose Kaokolanders to feed themselves. Furthermore, Kaokolanders often projected a personalised relationship with the government when attributing human emotion and expression to it. In a characteristically reflexive manner, people would attest that the government viewed them as stupid, or did not like them, or was against them. Proximity (and/or a lack thereof) also featured as a recurring element in people’s personalised relationship to the State. One man mentioned that ‘the government used to be everywhere during the time of the Boers. It was all over.’ He and many others believed that the government had departed with the South Africans. Other people criticised Namibia’s independent government as being located ‘far away’ or ‘only in Windhoek’. In other words, many Kaokolanders were suggesting that the new government reflected a State that was physically distant, lacking in familiarity, and uninvolved in the mundanities of their everyday lives. The new State seemed to be focused elsewhere. But to what extent might we view such discourses as a political appraisal, that is, as a people’s critical review of governmentality in the post-apartheid Namibian State? From this perspective, the Kaokoland critique and the other govern-mentalities differ not with respect to how they constitute the art of government, but with the degree to which these discourses depict the independent Namibian government as having mastered that art. The region’s different governmental discourses might thus be read as a reply to two specific questions: 1) Is the independent government actually conducting itself and others in a familial manner?; and 2) Who is, in fact, a part of the family? For those maintaining a position within the dominant Kaokoland critique, the present Namibian government is selective in applying a standard of familial rule. ‘The President only helps his omuhoko’ and ‘the government only helps its omuhoko’ were two observations often cited by Otjiherero-speakers. In making such a connection between the President, the government and their respective omihoko, people were invoking the ambiguity inherent in this Otjiherero term. Omuhoko (pl. omihoko) is a context-based word that indicates a degree of relatedness, and, in this case, it was being used to denote both tribe and family. For an Ojtiherero-speaker to state or imply that one is not a part of the omuhoko is thus quite a powerful statement, and one with symbolic significance. Since many Otjiherero-speakers in Kaokoland categorise the President and the government as Ovambo, when these two organs of State ‘only help their omuhoko’

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as tribe, then development, employment and other national resources are seen to flow towards Oshivambo-speakers only; and when the President and government ‘only help their omuhoko’ as family, then government employment is supposedly only obtainable if one has a relative already working for the State. The example highlights once again the extent to which many Kaokolanders treat family and government as inextricably tied to one another. When it comes to one’s relation with the State, one’s exclusion from the omuhoko, in either or both senses of the word, is often perceived to have far-reaching material consequences. When reflecting on the past many Kaokolanders did express having once felt a part of the omuhoko during the period of South African rule, as they viewed the former government as having treated all (Black) people equally. Those who adhered to such a position conveyed a sense of now having been unfairly disowned, ejected from the family that had formerly guaranteed equal treatment and care. Since independence, the borders of the family seem to have constricted. One person passed such moral judgement by charging the current government with favouritism and then explained that ‘you can’t give a child one toy without giving your other child the same.’ Other people in Kaokoland made the suggestion by invoking a notion of descent: the new government had simply refused (and therefore chosen not) to take responsibility for them in a way befitting a Herero father who fails to formally bequeath his patriline to his newborn child (see discussion below and Chapter 5). Kaokolanders’ critical view of governmentality in the post-apartheid era might also be read as a moral indictment of neo-liberal democracy generally. Nikolas Rose has characterised advanced liberal strategies of government as ‘rationalities animated by a desire to “govern at a distance”’ (1996: 43). Accordingly, liberal strategies of government are dependent on devices that ‘promise to create individuals who do not need to be governed by others, but will govern themselves, master themselves, care for themselves’ (Rose 1996: 45). The individuated subjects of neo-liberal government are thus meant to take an active part in their own governing, something that many Kaokolanders deny. The dominant critique in Kaokoland might therefore be a case of two arts of government (and their resultant subjects) at variance with one another. The democratic Namibian government is indeed very modern in the sense that its art operates with population rather than family, and with the individual rather than the group, as its object. The new State of Namibia was born in an era dominated by neo-liberal re-alignment and ‘millennial capitalism’ (Comaroff and Comaroff 2000), and thus the contemporary Namibian government is very much a product of this global trend. What, however, might be said regarding those Kaokolanders who diverge from the dominant critique? Those who endorse the current governmental dispensation might be seen as offering a much more positive parental assessment. From their vantage point the Namibian government

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does apply a fatherly standard when it manages the State, and many of them do feel themselves to be a part of the family. Others, such as some of the White Kaokolanders I came to know, viewed the new government as ‘looking after its own’. No longer the government’s most beloved children, this group of people believed that today the country is being governed for the benefit of Black Namibians only. From their perspective, the Namibian government does indeed practise an art of familial rule, however, it is an art mastered for the benefit of others who are now inside, rather than outside, the gesin (family, in Afrikaans). My attempts to refract an art of government through a Kaokoland lens point towards one additional issue. Among other things, governmentality scholars have contributed to the study of power and politics for having shown that ‘the activity of governing is possible only within particular epistemological regimes of intelligibility – that all government positively depends on the elaboration of specific languages that represent and analyze reality in a manner that renders it amenable to political programming’ (Inda 2005: 8). In most cases, however, the view on governmentality that emerges out of this body of scholarship privileges the governing, rather than the governed. In this respect, Foucault and others usually approach the problem of government by analysing the dominant (or relatively dominant) texts, discourses and knowledges of a given time and place. Foucault’s (1991a) historical inventory on the question of government is a case in point. Here, Foucault’s analysis revolves around Machiavelli’s The Prince, a political treatise that espouses effective means of retaining control over the principality. This, then, is a focus on the governor, and the problems associated with governing his subjects. In their absence, the subjects themselves appear only as objects, lacking agency in relation to the governing process more generally. In addition, the historical sources that come under Foucault’s analysis are those that not only made themselves heard at their time of production, but also the ones that managed to survive into the present. The works that sprung up in critique of The Prince – those that Foucault asserts marked the new path towards governmentality – were written by those in a position of relative power. These were the ideas of political philosophers, leaders, intellectuals, politicians and the like. They were the voices that were capable of making themselves heard, and capable of preserving themselves in the historical record. The voices of the governed – for example, the ordinary masses and the subaltern, the peasants, the feudal subjects and the servants – remain hidden in this seminal genealogy of government. Thus, as originally formulated by Foucault, and as carried forth by many subsequent scholars, analyses of governmentality reply most directly to the problem of how to govern, and not to the problem of ‘how to be governed’. But there is also an interesting contradiction between Foucault’s method of analysis and his formulation of ‘power’ more generally. Recall that resistance does not exist outside the field of power; it is not in a posi-

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tion of exteriority. Critical discourses, other ‘knowledge’, and acts of defiance that may appear in an exterior relationship to power are in fact essential to governmentality itself. As Foucault himself asserts, ‘[p]ower comes from below; that is, there is no binary and all-encompassing opposition between rulers and ruled at the root of power relations.’ (1978: 94). In a later work he states the position a bit differently: ‘discoursing subjects form a part of the discursive field – they have their place within it (and their possibilities of displacements) and their function (and their possibilities of functional mutation)’ (1991b: 58). If we accept this understanding, then we need to make more space in our analyses for the agency of those who are the supposed objects of government. Towards the end of his career Foucault (1993) seemed to be heading in just this direction, while others have also critically revisited this aspect of his analysis. For example, Rose’s history of psychology suggests that ‘[i]ndividuals and organizations who have criticized and contested the government of madness, and the truths upon which it has rested, have played key roles in configuring the ways in which madness is governed today, and this includes, of course, the subjects of government themselves’ (1999: 278). In all places, the same must be said about the government of State. The distinction between the governors and the governed is a blurry one. The State is gov-

Figure 4.2: This country gained its independence according to the Constitution. This country does not belong to someone, but to all of us who are born here. This is a photo of a Himba, Zemba, Herero and Ovambo – all nations standing together.… It shows one nation because people of different tribes are together. They eat meat from the same pot. Today, there is one Namibia, as well as one nation. — Karumia, Age 24, Opuwo

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ernmentalised through the work of its leaders and functionaries and through the work of those subjects it purports to govern. In Kaokoland, then, the art of government is as much a problem for the governed as it is for the Namibian government. In 1990, the new Namibian State began a process that aimed to reconstitute the terms of government and its subjects in the post-apartheid era. Now, two decades on, a gross disjuncture exists between this new mode of government and the ways most people in Kaokoland imagine the ‘art of being governed’; it is a disjuncture between apartheid and post-apartheid subjectivities. The Kaokoland critique, and the paternalistic ethos that resonates in relation to government in the region, might attest then to an ongoing process of de-subjectification. Foucault explains it as such: And if governmentalization is really this movement concerned with subjugating individuals in the very reality of a social practice by mechanisms of power that appeal to truth, I will say that critique is the movement through which the subject gives itself the right to question truth concerning its power effects and to question power about its discourses of truth. Critique will be the art of voluntary inservitude, or reflective indocility. The essential function of critique would be that of desubjectification in the game of what one could call, in a word, the politics of truth (Foucault 1996: 386).

In slightly different terms, the Kaokoland critique emerges as a form of resistance to the process of post-apartheid re-subjectification in Namibia; it emerges as a refusal to submit to the logic of an individualising neo-liberal subjection. In a subtle act of liberation, many Kaokolanders are trying ‘to refuse what we are’ (Foucault 1982: 785), or, perhaps more accurately, what they are becoming. But, again, it is important to emphasise that the resistance surrounding the ‘art of being governed’ in Kaokoland does not lie outside the field of state power. Although the new governmental dispensation in Namibia works to create different kinds of subjects – post-apartheid, neo-liberal subjects – there is no reason to assume that this process has been, or will ever be, a complete success. Kaokolanders, like all Namibians, negotiate these governing processes for themselves; and in this and the previous chapter, we have seen discourse as a means through which they do just that. In deploying their political imaginations, ordinary people govern the Namibian State; they shape and regulate the conduct of the Namibian government. The paternalistic imaginings that surface so strongly in Kaokoland thus work as a culturally productive force that helps to constitute governmentality in the region. Through the Kaokoland critique and the other ‘States of mind’, Kaokolanders help to produce their object of knowledge, that is, the post-apartheid Namibian State. As I have tried to show, in Kaokoland the art of being governed is very much about the ability to manage the State in a manner befitting a parent in relation to his or her family. In order to make the most of this aspect of

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government, we will need to give additional attention to one particularly pivotal and contingent concept. Below, I thus begin a new sub-text on ‘families’, one that carries throughout the remaining chapters as a way to further enrich our understanding of the paternalistic imprints in Kaokoland. Following this, in Part II of the book, I look more closely at one specific arena wherein Kaokolanders’ state-related imaginings are put into play. I do this by shifting towards practice and focusing in on the ways conduct is conducted in and through Opuwo’s two competing and complementary systems of justice.



Paternalistic Imprint: On Patrilocal Families and Households Given the paternalistic ethos of state-related imaginings in Kaokoland, it is now useful to begin adding another layer to this ethnography of the Namibian State through a consideration of the nature of paternal and parental authority more generally. As Jean-François Bayart has suggested, ‘in Africa we need to understand the concrete procedures by which social actors simultaneously borrow from a range of discursive genres, intermix them and, as a result, are able to invent original cultures of the state’ (1993: 249). Thus, if so many Kaokolanders imagine the Namibian State by deploying a paternalistic framework and idioms of kinship, as is becoming evident, then it is important to understand more about paternalism (and parentalism) as it plays out in other related contexts. We can begin this process by tracing Kaokolanders’ imaginings back to paternalism’s narrowest domain, that is, to ‘the family’ – alongside fathers and mothers and children. However, given the heterogeneous social fabric of this study’s primary field site, conceptualising ‘the family’ in relation to Kaokoland as an eclectic whole remains problematic. With such a wide array of social and cultural groups in the area, and particularly in Opuwo, characterising the nature of ‘families in Kaokoland’ is a most difficult task indeed. Instead, the paternalistic imprints that follow throughout the remainder of the book address notions of ‘family’ among Otjiherero-speakers alone, a group comprising a majority of the region’s residents, and a group whose members were most likely to invoke paternalistic state imaginings. Within this more delimited socio-cultural context, we can highlight the ideological constructions of ‘family’, and also gesture towards some of the ways real kinship practices sometimes diverge from these normative renditions. A comparison between two words offers a starting point in unpacking some of the inherent ambiguities of family among Otjiherero-speakers. The terms omuhoko (as introduced above) and otjiwana contain overlapping con-

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Figure 4.3: This is a group of young people from the same family: two small twins, two sisters, and one younger brother. All are from the same extended family. I just wanted to show the structure of Namibian families. You see that the father and mother are not even here, which means that it is an extended family. In an extended family, you have to work overtime to get everything that is needed. The parents must work to meet the needs of the family. It’s always this way, especially with Black families. You find that when it comes to White people’s places you only find one or two children. The difference in these two family types is because of the beliefs of the two groups. Blacks think children are gifts from god, but Whites think about the money, and see children as a limiting factor.… Whites only regard the husband and wife and children as family. In the Black community, family means more than that – it also means cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. This is the traditional norm.

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notations and meanings. Although the former is often associated with matrilineal kinship structures (Bollig 2000; Ohta 2000; Crandall 1996; Malan 1973, 1974), and the latter with larger corporate entities (Wärnlöf 1998; Gibson 1956; M. Bollig, personal communication), both terms may be used to refer to ‘family’, ‘relatives’, ‘tribe’, and/or ‘nation’.1 With this small example, I want to emphasise that Otjiherero-speaking Kaokolanders can and do use terms that denote the family in reference to a broad range of corporate groupings. Omuhoko and otjiwana find application in the household and in the nation, in the realm of both kinship and politics. In bridging otjiwana and omuhoko it is possible to make some observations relating to the segmentary nature of corporate belonging and ‘families’ in Kaokoland, a sliding scale that runs from the domestic household to the political nation. Otjiherero-speaking Kaokolanders possess multiple intersecting layers of belonging. The patrilocal household is the foundation on which Kaokoland corporateness rests. From this collective entity other mutually non-exclusive forms of belonging emanate, each of which helps to construct an aspect of an individual’s identity. Otjiherero-speaking people in Kaokoland belong to matrilineages and patrilineages, matriclans and patriclans, as well as age groups; they associate themselves with a royal house and a respective traditional authority, with sub-ethnic groupings, and with a particular flag of the Herero nation; they claim an ethnic or ‘tribal’ identity, a regional identity and a national identity. Here, then, I begin offering some reflections on the nature of authority within these various corporate groupings, entities which Kaokolanders construct as ‘family’ or family-like, as a way to round out and deepen our understanding of a paternalistically inflected state-related political imagination. Like all normative structures everywhere, household practices in Kaokoland almost always fall short of the professed ideal. Generally, though, the ‘traditional’ rural patri-local residence is organised around the patrilineal extended family and serves as the main unit of production and consumption. The onganda (family homestead, in Otjiherero) is overseen by the household head, usually the eldest male of that particular patriline. This fenced-in homestead consists of numerous houses including one for the head, and one each for any additional wives, his married sons and other dependants – as well as various livestock enclosures and the ritual ancestral fire (okuruwo).2 As the oldest male of the household, the father is meant to have ultimate authority in relation to other members of the onganda. Kaokolanders often label him the omunane (leader) of the household, a term also reserved for chiefs, headmen, politicians and Namibia’s president. One man’s account of power relations within the household may be taken as representative: The father is the leader of a household. The house is not to be led by the mother, but the father. Even when we were in the household of my father, me and my mother used to be under my father. As the leader of the household, the father decides to sell or slaughter any one of the animals, even if that animal might

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belong to his wife. If people are hungry at our house, they wait for the father to decide. If there is a snake in the house, the father is the one to kill it. Even if there is a stick in the house, the mother will still run to the father to kill it. If the house is falling apart, or about to fall down, the mother will sleep outside. The father must repair it, and decide how to construct it. The father will decide when to move pastures. He will decide which children can attend school, and which must stay to look after the animals. Though the mother is looking after and caring for the children, it is like she is working for another person. The father is like the baas [boss, in Afrikaans], to tell her to do this and this. The father tells her what to do, and the father has the last word with the children.

A female acquaintance added a very similar explanation: The wife must go with her husband because the husband is the boss. He married you, and brought you into his house. Now he is the boss of you. My husband is my boss. Here in Namibia, a man is a man. If I want to go to Opuwo, or do something else, if he doesn’t want me to do it, then I don’t. If I disobey my husband, then maybe he comes to beat me. You must listen to him.

Within an Otjiherero-speaking household, a set of generally accepted normative obligations and responsibilities also help structure the relationship between parents and their children, and the negotiation of such relations. Parents must feed, educate and clothe their children; and children are expected always to obey and respect their parents, and complete the duties and chores that are requested of them. Fathers and mothers will socialise their respective sons and daughters into their appropriate gender roles. If children are disobedient or disrespectful to their parents, they should be disciplined through corporal punishment. According to this normative model of family relations, children are not individual or independent persons, distinctive and free from their parents, no matter what their age. ‘If you are a grown-up person you live by the instructions given by your father. You don’t look to the side,’ declared one middle-aged man. As children come of age, parents expect evergreater loyalty and patronage from them, rather than less. Parents aim to establish a relationship with their child that is not meant to dissipate with age or over time. Parents strive to tie their children to them in a lifelong and dependent relationship. A young woman explained that ‘every parent is expecting something in return. When I finish school and I am working, my mother is expecting me to support her. Even one day if she is having health problems, she will feel that I should look after her. It is something that I have to do.’ In this way, Otjiherero-speaking Kaokolanders are not meant to live for their children, as might be typical in the Euro-American context; instead, children are meant to live for their parents. One Windhoek-based Kaokolander explained it as such: I am living for my parents. I live here, but my heart is still on my parents, and the way they are living. I also am caring for them. I spend sixty days per

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year with my parents. In our culture, I must visit my parents, return to my ancestral fire. It makes me feel good. My deceased father will be looking for me if I don’t visit home.… If I didn’t live for my parents, then I wouldn’t feel good. They looked after me when I was young. I don’t feel good if it is only me in Windhoek with new clothes and shoes, and not them.

Especially with respect to one’s father, most Otjiherero-speaking people will never stop ‘living for him’, even long after his death. At the site of the ancestral fire (okuruwo), family members are required to make sacrificial offerings to their forefathers. In the presence of these deceased ancestors newborn babies will be named and accepted into the patrilineage, new brides will be similarly welcomed, and blessings will be sought in the hopes of healing ill family members.3 As David Crandall has noted, ‘[w]ithout the blessings of the ancestors it would not be possible to live. The living members of the okuruwo are utterly dependent upon the deceased members of the okuruwo’ (1991: 47). Accordingly, a son must venerate his deceased father or risk serious misfortune. The link between misfortune and the ancestors is so strongly felt that ‘no one in his right mind would knowingly violate his duties towards his deceased father’ (Crandall 1991: 49). In this way, the father–son relationship is projected into the spirit world, transformed into the realm of religious authority (Malan 1973: 97; cf. Fortes 1965). Such ancestor-related practices and beliefs extend paternal authority beyond the grave and help ensure that children remain tied to their fathers for generations to come.4 ‘According to traditional’, as many Kaokolanders are fond of saying, wives and children are meant to remain indefinitely under the paternal authority of husbands and fathers. However, this aspect of tradition, like all others, is not so seamless or ideal in practice. Recent changes accompanying the democratisation process in Namibia, as well as increasing rates of urbanisation, are challenging the normative models associated with paternal authority and the family. These tensions are most visible in urban areas such as Opuwo. Here, for example, the State’s new Ministry of Gender Affairs and Child Welfare has been promoting awareness around issues of gender equality. People in Opuwo, much more so than in the rural areas, are exposed to a changing and challenging set of messages relating to the place of women in society, marriage and the family. In terms of uptake, young townspeople embrace these messages to a far greater extent than their parents and grandparents. Mothers and fathers alike often treat such growing inter-generational tensions as evidence of a loss of culture. This also includes a concomitant perception of their diminished parental authority within the town setting specifically. Town youths are seen by their elders as disrespectful, and children as neglectful of their parents; while the option for parents to discipline their children corporally has been eroded because of the State’s ‘close’ proximity and its perceived ability to enforce the country’s ban on such punishment.

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As for fathers in particular, the aforementioned kinship ideals are further undermined by other aspects of town living. For example, men in Opuwo are twice as likely as their rural-based counterparts to ‘refuse responsibility’ for their children (see discussion in Chapter 5). In kinship terms, this means they refuse and/or fail to bestow their patrilineage and patriclan (oruzo) upon their sons and daughters. In more practical terms, such ritual neglect means that they do not care for their children in either economic or social terms. By forgoing this important obligation, a growing number of men repudiate their paternity, and thus lose authority and rights over their children. In other instances, fathers prove absent in a more physical sense. As circulatory sites that capture the ceaseless flow of people to and from ‘the village’, Opuwo’s households are fluid and varied, even ephemeral. Many of them are also female-headed, and thus final familial authority rests with such households’ mothers. In accommodating an ever-changing set of domestic social relations, the female-headed, urban household generates spaces for diverging forms of authority and anti-authority. Although the traditional ideals relating to paternalism and the family remain very much alive and present in Opuwo, the town’s residents are much more likely than those living in Kaoko’s rural villages to deviate from them in practice. As will also become more apparent in my subsequent detailing of a dispute between a young man and his maternal uncle (in Chapter 6), the ideology and practices of paternalism are not only reproduced, but also challenged, within some of Kaokoland’s families.

PART II COURTS, LAWS AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

Chapter 5

IN THE MATTER OF THE STATE V. CUSTOM

The art of being governed in Kaokoland is embedded in more than just discourse, for it also manifests itself in a set of social and cultural practices. Thus, as a way to explore state-related political imagination in action, I now turn my attention towards the administration of justice in Kaokoland. In shifting towards the anthropology of law,1 a subfield built upon the work of many Africanist scholars (e.g., Schapera 1938; Gluckman 1955; Bohannan 1957; Gulliver 1963; Moore 1986), I begin by emphasising one of its most significant contributions: this body of anthropological scholarship has helped blur the distinction between the jural and the political. As the legal historian Martin Chanock explains: The literature of legal anthropology has demonstrated most effectively that law and politics are not isolatable but permeable, and that while normative institutions are shot through with political behaviour, politics manipulates normative resources. It is an advance to have secured the understanding that legal and political behaviour are not easily separable and that the pretence that they are serves a particular political purpose (1985: 236).

This insight sets the backdrop for Part II of the book. In the present and subsequent two chapters, I will be focusing on one aspect of the so-called bifurcated State (Mamdani 1996) in post-apartheid Namibia. Specifically, I consider the relationship between state law and customary law in Kaokoland by exploring the processes surrounding the administration of justice in both magisterial and traditional courts, as well as the ways people perceive, construct and experience these apparently distinct judicial venues. The exposition and analysis presented herein will reveal the extent to which paternalistic imaginings shape state legal process in Kaokoland, and it will lead us to question the analytical value of the notion of legal pluralism more generally. After briefly introducing the concept of legal pluralism and the study of customary law in (post-apartheid) Africa, I offer a historical overview of juristic dualism in Namibia, paying special attention to Kaokoland during the period of South African rule. As part of this discussion I outline how the legacy of a two-tiered legal system manifests itself in the contem-

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porary period. At the national level, I review some of the legal complexities that have dominated law reform debates; while at the regional and local levels I offer some initial observations relating to the inter-workings of the state magistrate’s court and traditional courts in Kaokoland. In addition, I will also highlight the history of corporal punishment in the territory. Although the practice was banned in the early 1990s, it continues to hold sway among Kaokolanders as an appropriate and necessary form of punishment, in both courts and families alike. A focus on corporal punishment affords another space within which to analyse the link between paternalism, imagination and the post-apartheid State. The second half of this chapter will then focus on the period of my fieldwork by describing Opuwo’s two courts as observed personally. I detail each of their respective settings, personnel, caseloads, procedures and sentencing options. In describing these jural settings, I also begin presenting Kaokolanders’ perceptions and representations of the two venues, a strategy that serves to help link (in the subsequent two chapters) courts of laws to Kaokolanders’ state-related political imagination.

Legal Pluralism and the Study of Customary Law in (Post-Apartheid) Africa For nearly quarter of a century, leading socio-legal scholars have embraced the notion of legal pluralism. Such interest has generated an abundance of scholarly production in the fields of anthropology, law, history, sociology and political science.2 This relatively new approach to the study of law is best explained in relation to legal centralism, a viewpoint maintaining that States possess an exclusive monopoly over the production and distribution of law. For legal centralists, state law is the only law. In attacking legal centralism as an ideology of the modern nation-State, scholars worked to develop the alternative concept of legal pluralism, a notion that draws attention to the coexistence of multiple legal systems within a single political unit. Building on the idea of ‘the semi-autonomous social field’ (Moore 1973), John Griffiths thus defines legal pluralism as ‘the presence in a social field of more than one legal order’ (1986: 1). He continues: ‘A descriptive theory of legal pluralism deals with the fact that within any given field, laws of various provenance may be operative. It is when in a social field more than one source of ‘law’, more than one ‘legal order’, is observable, that the social order of that field can be said to exhibit legal pluralism’ (1986: 38). Sally Engle Merry (1988) elaborates further by distinguishing classic legal pluralism from new legal pluralism. The former addresses the relationship between indigenous and European law in colonial and postcolonial societies, while the latter extends the notion to advanced industrial countries by highlighting the existence of unofficial forms of legal ordering in Europe and North America.

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In the colonial African context, it is now widely recognised that socalled customary and state legal systems never occupied isolated spheres of authority and adjudication (Chanock 1985, 1989; Moore 1986); most of Africa’s colonies maintained plural legal systems that were all highly dependent upon the State. In South Africa and Namibia, plural legal systems and the State were mutually dependent in an even more profound way. The notion of pluralism – in its wider sense – helped justify the apartheid project more generally, having served as one of its most central ideological tenets. In this particular colonial context, the pluralistic ideal translated into a South African and Namibian legal system ‘overtly based upon the principle that differing cultural groups do in some way naturally “have” and require different laws’ (Chanock 1991: 55), but it also helped bolster policies of separate development, racial and ethnic segregation, and legalised racism. It is because of these wider ramifications that some scholars of post-apartheid Southern Africa assert that ‘the mere mention of the term “pluralism” sends a shiver down our spines’ (Sanders 1994: 71). In the post-apartheid era the plurality of the legal order remains. Both the Namibian and South African constitutions recognise, and make provisions for, customary law. In practice, this model of legal pluralism tends to reinforce a long-standing division between the rural countryside and the urban areas (cf. Mamdani 1996). In the former, customary law dominates the legal order of things, while those residing in cities and towns tend to adhere to the state legal system. The co-existence of these two legal systems also generates a host of struggles relating to a wider set of societal debates. In the post-apartheid context, legal pluralism poses a seemingly irreconcilable paradox for the nation-building and state-building projects. What is to be done with this legacy of legal dualism? On the one hand, the recognition and codification of customary bodies of law tends to favour the reproduction and perpetuation of apartheid-era divisions. A new Namibian and South African identity and national unity pays the price. Such developments also have the potential to undermine the hegemony and authority of the new State. On the other hand, the refusal to recognise and accept customary law and other ‘traditions’ could be seen as an infringement on cultural rights and individual freedoms. A move in this direction has the potential to undermine the legitimacy of the State and its liberal democratic ideals. Thus, as Richard Wilson has pointed out, an analysis of legal pluralism in the post-apartheid setting needs to consider how social actors contest the direction of change in the area of justice, and how such contestations affect state formation and the legitimation of new forms of authority. ‘This is a legal pluralism of action, movement, and interaction between legal orders in the context of state hegemonic projects’ (Wilson 2000: 78). Having thus framed the discussion, I turn now to begin detailing this system of so-called legal dualism as it manifests itself in Kaokoland, northwest Namibia.

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Legal Dualism in Namibia and Kaokoland: A Historical Outline3 During the period of German colonial rule (1884–1915), the territory of Deutsch Südwestafrika was demarcated geographically into two distinctive regions. The Police Zone, comprising the area south of the ‘Red Line’,4 included approximately 80 per cent of the country’s geographical expanse and marked the extent of de facto colonial rule. The vast majority of the indigenous population, however, resided outside the Police Zone, and thus outside the zone of German administration. In these northernmost parts of the territory – in areas such as Ovamboland, Kavango and Kaokoland – so-called traditional government and customary law applied. Immediately after South West Africa became an official protectorate of South Africa in 1919, the new colonial power imposed Roman-Dutch law and introduced magistrates’ courts to the territory.5 A year later, the South Africans established magisterial districts throughout the country and Kaokoland became part of the Outjo District.6 In districts lacking a Native Affairs official, the new magistrates were also responsible for ‘the control and supervision of natives’.7 Thus, throughout much of the territory, and particularly in the Police Zone, magistrates served the dual function of presiding judge and Native Affairs representative.8 In the case of Kaokoland, a Native Affairs officer did indeed administer the region, but from a distance in neighbouring Ovamboland. Since the official only visited the area infrequently, the magistrate at Outjo (400 kilometres south of Opuwo) retained some Native Affairs duties. In addition to his casework responsibilities, the Outjo magistrate also oversaw issues relating to intelligence gathering, ‘native unrest’, resettlement and tax collection in Kaokoland.9 The judicial cases that were heard by the magistrate at Outjo were few and far between. He only had jurisdiction over cases involving the crimes of treason, murder and rape. Since the archival evidence for the period reflects the cases that actually reached the Outjo magistrate, it is safe to assume that all other Kaokoland cases were disposed of via traditional means and/or under the guidance of the touring Native Affairs official.10 In the late 1920s an important and far-reaching piece of colonial legislation was implemented throughout the territory. Among other things, the Native Affairs Proclamation Number 15 of 1928 granted commissioners the power to act as magistrates on certain cases, and it provided for the constitution of Native Commissioners’ courts for the hearing of all civil cases ‘between Native and Native only’.11 The Native Commissioner’s court was to decide ‘such questions according to the native law applying to such customs except in so far as it shall have been repealed or modified: Provided that such native law shall not be opposed to the principles of public policy or natural justice: Provided further that it shall not be lawful for any court to declare that custom… repugnant to such principles.’12 All issues relating to traditional court procedure, times and places of hear-

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ings, record keeping, and associated costs and fees could be determined by the Administrator for South West Africa, though such decisions were usually left to the local Native Affairs Commissioner. As the commissioners in the territory gained power throughout the 1930s, the Outjo magistrate found his non-judicial duties in Kaokoland diminished, and he was left to deal only with the few serious criminal cases that reached his courtroom.13 Finally in 1939, the same year that marked the opening and permanent staffing of the first Native Affairs office in Kaokoland, the region was proclaimed an independent magisterial district and a periodic court was established at Opuwo.14 The new Officer in Charge of Native Affairs for Kaokoland was appointed acting magistrate of the district.15 As was the case for the magistrate at Outjo, the new official’s magisterial duties were restricted to cases of treason, murder and rape, while ‘all other cases, civil and criminal. are dealt with according to tribal law and custom.’16 Beginning in the 1940s, the South African Administration promoted a much more deliberate policy of indirect rule in Kaokoland. To this end a Native Commissioner’s court was formally constituted for the region,17 while the establishment of a Kaokoland Tribal Council (see Chapter 7) introduced a new ‘traditional’ judicial system. As the Native Commissioner explained: ‘Cases go firstly to the sub-headmen of the area. 2) If the litigants are not satisfied appeal lies to the headman. 3) Further appeal lies to the Council of Headmen. 4) Final appeal is to the Officer in Charge of the tribe at his office. with two or more headmen who have not previously participated in the trial.’18 Under the new system, local leaders and headmen heard most criminal and civil cases, applying customary law as the basis for their judgements. The majority of these cases involved stock theft, adultery, inheritance, assault and rape. Disputed or particularly complex cases were passed on to the Kaokoland Tribal Council for deliberation during their quarterly meetings. In 1942, for example, the tribal council adjudicated twenty-seven cases.19 During these occasions, the council always operated in the presence and under the authority of the Native Affairs official. During an interview with me, a former Native Affairs Commissioner in Kaokoland described this aspect of his role: ‘I would supervise the headmen as they judged cases using native law. If I believed the judgement to be too harsh, I could intervene in the matter. I was a sort of appeals judge.’ On rare occasions, though increasingly often by the early 1970s, the Native Affairs Officer in Kaokoland also sat as magistrate in order to judge those cases deemed serious under state law. Throughout the 1960s, for example, the Native Affairs official in Kaokoland devoted between 150 and 350 hours per year to traditional judicial matters, and less than 5 hours per year to his magisterial duties.20 The publication of the Odendaal Commission Report (1964)21 established the basis for apartheid rule in South West Africa; it also led to the introduction of a number of significant laws relating to the administration

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of justice throughout the territory. In particular, rules governing traditional courts were finally legislated;22 South African police officers were placed at the disposal of traditional leaders and their courts;23 and the structure of the apartheid State with its pseudo-independent homelands was re-organised.24 In practice, though, this set of important legislation had only a superficial effect on the everyday administration of justice in Kaokoland.25 The opening of a police station at Opuwo in the early 1960s also had limited impact on local jural practices.26 On the ground, Kaokoland’s judicial system translated into one in which the government’s Native Affairs official had final authority over the interpretation and application of both customary and state law.27 It was not until the mid-1980s, after Native Commissioners’ courts were abolished throughout the country and a permanent magistrate’s court was established at Opuwo,28 that a clearer delimitation of praxis began to emerge between the two spheres of judicial administration in Kaokoland. As we have begun to see, the South Africans had no clear-cut policy relating to the administration of justice in areas located beyond the former Police Zone, especially in Kaokoland. Policy simply slid into one of indirect rule (R. Gordon 1991: 89). This legalistic ambiguity was an effective political instrument that served Kaokoland’s ruling elite and the South African colonial regime alike. The former could easily manipulate customary law and their traditional powers for political and economic gain, while colonial officials could deploy jural uncertainty as a way to co-opt local leaders in the interest of the regime. Other Africanist scholars have made similar observations. In the colonial Kenyan context, for example, both Europeans and Africans preferred to keep customary law fluid, as a ‘crystallized, unalterable customary law would allow them little room to adjust the law in order to control local African courts and, by extension, African societies’ (Shadle 1999: 413). A non-codified African customary law also meant that district officers could retain power within the colonial administration because they were the only officials with first-hand knowledge about African legal matters. In other African contexts, colonial attempts to impose a rigid set of customary rules yielded something opposite of the intended effect; it provoked contests and debates over the meaning of custom (Berry 1992). As just mentioned, during the 1980s the two legal systems seemed to be evolving along trajectories that were starting to yield a greater degree of demarcation between them, at least in practice. However, in the period since independence, the trend seems to have begun reversing its course again, reverting back towards a more ambiguous relationship. Since many Namibianist scholars have already considered the relationship between contemporary state law and customary law (d’EngelbronnerKolff 1998; Hinz 1998, 2000, 2002; Gordon 2005), as well as the wider relationship between the Namibian State and traditional institutions more generally (Forrest 1994; Kössler 1998a; Keulder 2000a), I wish to offer here

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only a brief overview and a few preliminary comments relating to the interplay between these two so-called systems of law today.29 The Namibian Constitution sets the framework for the debate. In particular, Article 19 protects the right of every Namibian to practice and promote any culture and tradition that does not impinge on the rights of others; while Article 66 (1) stipulates that customary and common law are equally valid to the extent that they do not conflict with the Constitution or any other statutory law. A second piece of legislation is also of primary relevance to the discussion. The Traditional Authorities Act provides for the establishment of traditional authorities and the recognition of traditional leaders, and defines their powers, duties and functions.30 Among other things the Act authorises traditional authorities and leaders to make, administer and execute customary law. Like the Constitution, the Act stipulates that any custom or tradition that is discriminatory or that violates the constitutional rights of another person or any other statutory law ceases to apply. Finally, a third important piece of legislation, the Community Courts Act,31 was recently passed, but by mid-2011 it had not yet been implemented. Once it does come into effect, this newest piece of legislation will have far-reaching influence in shaping the future relationship between the two systems of justice. In particular, the Community Courts Act will provide for the recognition and establishment of traditional courts and their personnel; it will formalise the jurisdictional boundaries and procedures of such courts; and it will stipulate the application of customary law more generally. Given all of this important legislation, and without delving too deeply into the legal technicalities, suffice it to say that there exists a constitutional conflict of rule surrounding the relationship between state law and customary law in an independent Namibia (Hinz 1998). In other words, the Constitution conflicts with itself. If customary and common law are treated as constitutionally equivalent when neither contradicts the Constitution, then which body of law takes precedence when they come into conflict with one another? If customary law is accepted as part of culture and tradition, then which of the above two constitutional clauses takes precedence when customary law conflicts with statutory law? Thus, Article 19 contradicts Article 66 (1) by implying that customary and statutory law also stand on equal footing; any statute meant to override customary law thus retains an inherently unconstitutional potential. These conflicts of rule have become most evident in cases relating to marriage, inheritance, succession and land rights (Legal Assistance Centre 2005; Gordon 2005).32 From a purely legalistic perspective, then, it is clear that customary law, like all bodies of law in Namibia, is subordinate to the Constitution. However, the contradictory wording of the Constitution and the limited amount of relevant case law has produced a lack of clarity surrounding the ongoing relationship between state law and customary law more generally (Widlok 2008). The Traditional Authorities Act

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and (soon) the Community Courts Act can do little to eliminate these underlying constitutional contradictions. As it currently stands in Kaokoland, the magistrate’s court and traditional courts are still more clearly delimited than they were during the heyday of South African rule in the 1960s, at least on the surface and in their everyday appearances. Although the situation will surely change after the implementation of the Community Courts Act, at the moment there is no formal relationship between these two courts, and thus, for example, the Opuwo magistrate does not hear appeals from the traditional venue. Similarly, the magistrate maintains no supervisory control over adjudicating headmen and possesses no authority over non-judicial matters, as was the case in the past. Today, there are no mechanisms that allow a case to pass from one judicial system to the other.33 Other variables also contribute to the current contrast between the two courts. Not only are they noticeably dissimilar in their physical locations and premises, but the two venues also follow a different logic, utilise unique rules and procedures of performance, apply alternative burdens of proof, maintain distinctive liability codes, and choose from a different range of sentencing options. Finally, the two courts place different expectations and demands on those who appear before them, especially with respect to physical comportment and locution. This apparent administrative and legal distinctiveness, however, hides the more subtle flows and interchanges between the two forms of judicial administration in Opuwo. My observations of the two systems at work suggested that the competing legal venues informally coordinate their efforts, as well as borrow stylistically from one another. For example, sometimes the police urge complainants to file their cases with their respective headman and/or traditional court. The police maintain no clear-cut guidelines on the types of cases that should be referred, though such cases tend to involve minor incidents of assault, theft and family disputes. The decision to refer may even depend on the receiving officer’s momentary mood and inclinations. Referrals also work in reverse. The traditional court’s omupolise (court bailiff or police officer, in Otjiherero) occasionally finds reason to send his complainants to the police and the magistrate’s court, especially for serious cases involving murder, assault or rape. Similar observations surfaced during court trials, as the respective magistrate or headman often attempted to draw on and/or adapt the alternative court’s procedural characteristics. In threatening to send a guilty or uncooperative person to prison, for example, traditional leaders invoked the legal powers of magistrates, powers that they do not actually possess.34 Likewise, whenever possible the Opuwo magistrate imposed criminal sentencing conditions that included compensatory damages for the victim. The magistrate adopted this unusual approach after having met personally with a group of disgruntled headmen. The local traditional leaders had asked him to impose sentencing conditions that mir-

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rored the tenets of customary law, including a six-for-one repayment condition in cases of stock theft and parental liability in all guilty verdicts. Though the magistrate is not allowed to award punitive damages to the victim of a criminal case or hold an offender’s family criminally liable, the magistrate did seek to offer compensatory damages to the victims of such crimes. He often chose to attach an additional restorative measure to his sentencing conditions of a prison sentence and/or fine. A guilty livestock thief, for example, might be sentenced to a year in prison, but he would also be required to repay the victim on a one-for-one or equivalent-value basis. As another example of magisterial borrowing from customary procedure, I often observed the magistrate interrupt the usual formalities of court. When the interpreter had difficulty conveying his questions, the magistrate would address the witness directly in Otjiherero. In one case, when his efforts failed, he simply opened up the proceedings to any willing participant. As is usual in a traditional court, spectators rose and spoke from the gallery in an attempt to assist with the examination. Such cross-accommodation between courts in Opuwo is made possible, in part, by the ambiguity associated with the constitutional principles discussed above. However, other circumstances also contribute to the flexible, informal and pragmatic relationship that exists between the two legal venues in Opuwo. For example, I found that most traditional leaders in Kaokoland lacked familiarity with the Constitution and other recent legislation relating to customary law. This lack of knowledge leads most of these leaders to act in relation to the magistrate and the court just as they had under the former colonial dispensation. Lack of experience and knowledge at the magistrate’s court also contributes to the accommodative relationship. Since Opuwo is often the first court of call for many of its prosecutors and magistrates, the courtroom is staffed by a number of inexperienced legal professionals. When I first moved to the town the court’s only magistrate and public prosecutor had been practising their profession for only two months; while midway through my fieldwork, the prosecutor was transferred and replaced by another recent law school graduate. Towards the end of my main period of fieldwork yet a third freshly minted prosecutor arrived as a replacement in Opuwo, as did a new magistrate.35 This lack of experience within the courtroom meant that rules and procedures were sometimes inadvertently transgressed. On the other hand, these newly minted lawyers and judges were enthusiastic pursuers of justice, and they worked hard to create a user-friendly and personalised court. In trying to characterise the evolving relationship between these two legal sensibilities in Kaokoland, two post-independence trends appear most significant to me. First, the state judicial system, and thus its attendant magistrate’s court, continues to institutionalise itself throughout the region. In this sense the court’s presence is stronger than ever before, as are the legal messages that it disseminates. The recent inauguration (in

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2005) of a beautiful new court building on Opuwo’s main street attests to the growing centrality of the State’s legal ordering in Kaokoland. While the magistrate’s court becomes more deeply rooted, we are also seeing the traditional legal system lose some of its operational independence. This takes place through a number of informal practices at the local level, but also through the passage of national legislation (such as the yet to be implemented Community Courts Act). In subsequent years it will become more and more difficult to distinguish the traditional legal system from its state counterpart. On the one hand, then, as the state court further embeds itself in the region, a greater degree of ambiguity emerges between these two systems of law. One way in which these court systems may end up retaining some degree of distinctiveness in the future relates to the second main trend. Although certainly not by design, current practice seems to suggest a tendency towards a judicial division of labour in Kaokoland. Despite having jurisdiction over civil claims, the magistrate’s court captures only criminal cases. During my time in Opuwo, the State’s court did not hear even a single civil case. As for the local traditional courts, though they do often hear cases of a criminal nature, they do so only within a civil claims context. Since informal guidelines in Kaokoland dictate that a case should not be heard in both venues, victims of a crime choose whether to seek criminal punishment in the magistrate’s court or civil redress in a traditional court, but not both. The effect, then, is a sort of state outsourcing whereby civil cases end up being channelled through the traditional venue. What may initially appear as distinctive spheres of judicial practice and influence is thus yet another indication of the growing ambiguousness between State and tradition. Here, in the settling of civil disputes, the traditional courts come to do the work of the State, but from a distance.

Corporal Punishment and the Rule of Law(s) Before turning to describe Opuwo’s two courts in greater detail, I wish to narrow my historical focus even further in order to contextualise one particular issue that arose time and time again during my fieldwork in Kaokoland. During the course of my stay in Opuwo I often heard middleaged and older Kaokolanders voice their concerns over what they perceived as a negative change in people’s behaviour. According to many, the years since independence have been marked by a steady increase in crime, promiscuity, unruly behaviour, disrespectfulness, idleness and school truancy. On the occasions that I inquired further, many blamed such symptoms of societal breakdown on the banning of corporal punishment. The legal option to discipline children, students, wives and criminals through beating no longer exists in Namibia, and for this reason, they would argue, anti-social behaviour was on the rise.36 Within the scope of my research on local courts the subject of corporal punishment also sur-

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faced on a regular basis. For this reason, I also want to contextualise this former practice in relation to legal dualism and the administration of justice in Namibia and Kaokoland. As will become more apparent in the next chapter, local calls for the reintroduction of corporal punishment in the courts reflect upon the paternalistic nature of state-related political imagination in Kaokoland. It was during the period of German rule that corporal punishment was first introduced as one of the State’s sentencing options in the territory (Melber 1981: 28–49). Despite South Africa’s attempts to gain international political favour by propagandising Germany’s liberal use of this punitive measure,37 the subsequent colonial power was all too willing to employ corporal punishment itself. Between 1928 and 1933, for example, the number of judicial lashes applied annually throughout the territory steadily increased from 910 to 2,954.38 One Opuwo resident who had observed the procedure as a child in the 1960s recollected: My mother’s brother was the head of the prison in Swakopmund [within the former Police Zone]. He lived in the jail. As kids we used to go up to the store room in the roof. There was a little window there. We used to watch them as they gave the hidings to people. It was interesting, the way they did it. If you were sentenced to ten lashes, first they took the people’s clothes off. They fastened them to a table, and then packed pillows on their body, and just left the space open where they were supposed to take the lashes, on the behind. Then the person who was to give the lashes took out the cane. It is a type of wood. They leave it in salt water. It is very thin, and it gets flexible. Every time they hit you with that thing, it cuts open and then the salt goes into the wound, and it burns like hell. They have about ten of them lying in the water. The person giving the lashes tests the one he likes the most, usually the ones that are the softest, and bend the most, because it hurts the greatest. Then he starts giving the lashes. If he hits and the lash falls on the pillow, then it is one less. If only one falls on that person’s open strip, then he only gets that one.… The police officers enjoyed it. You could see it on their faces. To us, it seemed like they really enjoyed it.

In Kaokoland, the application of corporal punishment by state officials transpired with less formality. A Kaokoland police officer who had also served under the South Africans explained to me that in cases of shoplifting, the police would bring the parents of the thief and shopkeeper together to decide on a suitable punishment. If they were all in agreement, the officer would beat the child on the spot, and a case would never have to appear before a court. ‘They would just give him six or eight [lashes],’ he said, ‘and that would be the end of the matter.’ According to him, parents would also bring a disobedient child to the police station and request the officer to administer a specific number of lashes. In a 1975 case, the State’s right to administer corporal punishment to juveniles was upheld. In their written opinion the justices deliberately specified that ‘[t]he infliction of strokes by an official in the police cells is

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Figure 5.1: You can see police people and others – Himba people, others in western dress – standing in front of the police station. They have a case, and they have come there to report it to the police. I heard what was happening. A person sold a goat belonging to another person. I took the photo to show that the government is the one with the right and power to charge other people. I myself don’t have power or the right to arrest the person and put him in my jail. Only the government and police can do that. Sometimes the police abuse this power. Sometimes they use too much power; they step across the line. Maybe the police beat a person for no reason. I have never seen this, but I have heard about it from others. Some police you can trust, others not. Police are persons, and it depends on the person. — Name withheld, Opuwo

in no way to be compared with the administration of strokes by a father in the exercise of his parental duty.’ However, towards the end of the very same opinion the court undermined its attempt to distance the State from a notion of parental duty by implying that the State did have greater reason to administer strokes to a parentless offender, that is, to a juvenile lacking a father capable of fulfilling the punitive function.39 The Criminal Procedure Act40 continued to offer ‘whipping by means of a cane’ as a legal sentencing option until 1991, the year state-sponsored corporal punishment was deemed unconstitutional in Namibia.41 By comparison, the history of corporal punishment as a sentencing option under customary law is contested and poorly documented. In 1941 the Chief Native Commissioner in Windhoek expressed concern after having learned that Kaokoland’s traditional leaders were imposing lashes on guilty offenders. He dispatched a memorandum to the Native Commissioner of Ovamboland, the official who had overseen Kaokoland

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for two decades, to enquire whether ‘such punishment is known in Native law and custom, and whether the Ovamboland chiefs and councils ever inflict it.’42 Commissioner C.H.L. Hahn explained that Ovambo customary law ‘provides for the giving of lashes in certain cases, especially when the authority of the Chiefs or Councils of Headmen is openly defied.’43 He also noted that the Administration had once put a halt to corporal punishment in Ovamboland because it had deemed it a very cruel practice, but that it had recently been re-established following the request by local leaders. In conflict with Hahn’s explanation, though, an Ovambo pastor born in the late nineteenth century stated in an affidavit that: At no stage prior to the 1940s was flogging ever imposed as a punishment by the Tribal Court.… To the best of my knowledge and belief it was only during the reign of King Shihepo that flogging was meted out to persons convicted of crimes.… King Shihepo had received instruction from a government official by the name of Hahn to impose floggings on offenders.44

With respect to Kaokoland, my review of the archives yielded no documentary evidence relating to the existence of corporal punishment prior to 1941. This finding is particularly noteworthy not only because it parallels the Ovamboland case above, but also because the first archival reference to corporal punishment is made only a short while after two important local developments had come to pass: the permanent stationing of a Native Affairs official in the region, and the establishment of a Kaokoland Tribal Council. Perhaps Native Commissioner Hahn had indeed earned his local nickname, Shongola (the whip, in Oshivambo), for obvious reasons.45 The frequency with which corporal punishment was administered under customary law in Kaokoland is uncertain. No written records exist which detail its use at the village level. However, of the twenty-seven cases heard by the Kaokoland Tribal Council in 1942, three resulted in sentences that included the imposition of lashes.46 A decade later, the state ethnologist N.J. van Warmelo noted that the Kaokoland council used corporal punishment on rare occasions only, but particularly in cases of adultery and stock theft (1951: 26). By 1958 lashes could also be administered to those guilty of undermining a headman’s authority.47 In 1967 the South African Administration finally legislated on the use of corporal punishment by traditional leaders. The proclamation expressly noted that traditional leaders were not prohibited from using corporal punishment on unmarried males under the age of thirty years.48 During the intervening period leading up to independence, the Administration actively encouraged the use corporal punishment under customary law. As one long-serving Opuwo traditional counsellor recalled: The Office of Cases, a branch of the colonial government, gave us this policy on corporal punishment. The police provided me with a sjambok [whip, in Afrikaans] for the beatings, and a special type of clothing that was used

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to cover-up part of the person’s body. The police also trained us how to properly beat the people; how not to hit them in the groin area; and how to lay them out. We always administered the beating to the buttocks. They were forced to stand naked atop a drum, and then they were beaten on the buttocks. We would beat them in a public place. People gathered round to watch.… I would determine the number of lashes based on how the person was, how he was acting. If he was a nice person, then maybe I would allow him to pay a fine in place of the beating.

In 1993, two years after the Namibian Supreme Court ruled that corporal punishment by state organs was unconstitutional, the High Court extended the decision to include traditional authorities acting under customary law.49 A few years later, fifteen Namibian communities documented their customary laws, and not one of them listed corporal punishment as a sentencing option (Hinz 1995). One of these communities did, however, issue an emphatic statement relating to its use. Kaokoland’s traditional leaders called for a reinstatement of corporal punishment under their customary laws, ‘as this is the most effective punishment for those who are stubborn and recalcitrant. It does happen that a convicted thief will rely on his parents to pay the fine, and because in that case he does not feel anything, he is bound to steal again’ (quoted in Hinz 1995: 83).50 As mentioned above, traditional leaders and ordinary Kaokolanders also complained to me about the revocation of the corporal punishment sentencing option. One person denied that corporal punishment was a human rights violation because ‘if someone steals your property, that too is an act against your human rights.’ Another person explained that ‘today they [criminals] are taken to jail where they get to eat bread and chicken, and get fat, or they only have to pay a fine in the traditional court.… The country’s law has become weak.’ Such attitudes about corporal punishment will surface again in the next chapter when I analyse two specific court cases in greater detail. Before doing so, though, I now turn to describe Opuwo’s two competing judicial venues as they appeared to many Kaokolanders and me during the course of my fieldwork.

Holding Court(s) in Opuwo Though I spent much time researching the history of legal dualism in archives throughout the country, an even greater amount of my energy was spent observing court in Opuwo, discussing specific cases with their respective participants, and talking to Kaokolanders about issues relating to the administration of justice. In addition to my observations of court proceedings and its informal surroundings, I followed-up on cases by holding interviews and discussions with as many of its participants as possible: the complainant, the accused and their respective family mem-

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bers, as well as witnesses and ordinary spectators. Once a respective case had been finalised, I would also discuss it with the magistrate, prosecutor, interpreter, bailiff and clerks at the magistrate’s court, or with the omupolise, counsellors and headmen of the traditional court. I spent more time at the magistrate’s court than I did in the presence of a traditional court for the simple reason that the former was much more accessible than the latter. The magistrate’s court was in session almost daily, and it was always held in the same location. By contrast, traditional court was ephemeral and sporadic, and thus very difficult to observe. Cases were often tried in an impromptu manner and in no specific location. A headman might, for example, call his court to order on the sidelines of a funeral or other such gathering. Traditional court in Opuwo simply ‘broke out’, taking the form of an eruptive social event. In extending the discussion from the previous section, I now want to begin drawing on this aspect of my field research in order to delve deeper into each of these two judicial venues. Here, I pay special attention to such issues as setting, court personnel, caseloads, procedures and sentencing options, while simultaneously beginning to weave in the observations, representations and experiences of the ordinary Kaokolanders who press claims, defend charges, appear as witnesses, and observe proceedings at these two judicial sites.

The Magistrate, the Accused, his Prosecutor & her Witnesses: At State Court in Opuwo Outside the courthouse, on the steps or in the dust under the shade of a tree, beside parked Land Rovers and tethered donkeys, we wait for the proceedings to begin. Here, the atmosphere is always cordial and sociable. Many of us have business with the court; others are here to support family and friends; some have come for entertainment. Educated urban professionals and semi-nomadic pastoralists stand together discussing the likelihood of rain; a group of local congregants pray for their pastor who will appear today on an attempted murder charge; and eight young men, in transit from the police cells a few hundred metres up the road, are ushered past under the watchful eye of a heavily armed and cheerful police officer. The prisoners make requests for tobacco, money and food, and shout out instructions to their friends and family members: ‘I don’t know whether I am going to be found guilty or not. That means you have to come later and see what has happened. Then you will pay the bail when I am still in jail, or pay when I am found guilty.’ I hear fragments from the other conversations that surround me: ‘When is court going to begin?’; ‘Can the prosecutor judge the cases without the magistrate?’; ‘Just try to win the case with the witch doctor’; ‘Why have you been arrested?’; ‘Those five guys, they have stolen one hundred cattle, but they are saying it was only fifty’; ‘These policemen are very weak, I can

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tell you. When you come to them and say “I have been beaten, I want to open a case” the only thing they can do is take a pen and docket and start writing’; ‘We have to go home and make our garden because it has rained well’; ‘I am tired of this court of Opuwo. When you come sometimes you can be told that the magistrate is not here. Where is the magistrate?’ Behind the scenes, the court’s six officials, only two of whom hail from the region itself, prepare the day’s caseload. They are perhaps the most committed set of civil servants in all of Opuwo. The young public prosecutor, for example, meets privately with all those scheduled to appear. She calls the accused into her office, one by one, asking each how they intend to plead; then she describes for them what will happen once they reach the dock. In doing so, she disregards the instructions of her superiors. Such contact with an accused person outside the courtroom is unethical, they told her. But she feels otherwise: People in Opuwo and Kaoko need to be exposed more to their rights. People here have a long way to go in order to learn about their rights. The court procedures put expectations on them, and they don’t know how it all works. And the Himba are the most far behind of the Opuwo people. They don’t know what court is all about, or what they are supposed to do, and how they are supposed to act. They are used to a traditional court. They need to learn our procedures. And for this reason maybe the court needs to be more lenient and easy, not as harsh. We need to mitigate people’s lack of knowledge, their living standards, their level of education, as a way to regain some balance and fairness. We must adjust accordingly. The court should try to be more human.… If we were working at a court in Oshakati or Windhoek, we would not act the same way. We would be harsher there, less sensitive. The system allows flexibility depending on the conditions of the place and people. We are more relaxed here. We have more understanding

Contrary to the speculations of those who have gathered out front, the magistrate has indeed arrived. I have come to see him by request, for he wishes to enquire about furthering his studies in the United Kingdom. He, too, is interested in researching the relationship between customary and state law, or as he put it, ‘how both systems might be able to compromise for one another.’ Just this moment, however, he is talking on the telephone, and is obviously hot under the collar. Nonetheless, he gestures for me to come inside. While waiting, I overhear his conversation. He is chewing out a police official for having detained an Angolan boy for more than two months without ever having brought him to court. The boy had been trading without a permit, and, like all others, should have appeared within forty-eight hours of his initial arrest. The magistrate hangs up the receiver, irritated: ‘Who does he think he is? He thinks he can make his own laws.’ I ask about the frequency of such rights violations. According to him, the police are responsible for the majority of case postponements and dismissals at the court. They fail to investigate, or to investigate prop-

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erly, and they often break procedural laws during arrest and detainment. ‘They are not trained, not capable, and not knowledgeable about the law, and sometimes not even literate.’ Outside, people continue waiting and conversing. They are speaking Otjiherero, Dhimba, Afrikaans, Oshivambo and English: ‘In our case, if we are given a bail it is always 6,000 dollars, while the others are given 400 and 600’; ‘To be in jail is not a good life’; ‘If you have someone representing you, they will let you go out of jail’; ‘My case will be postponed again, and the money I used to travel is now finished. I will have to sell more animals’; ‘We are coming to court because someone stole our radio’; ‘We are likely to sit here up to eleven o’clock’. The sign insists that all must check their knobkerries and knives before entering the courtroom. We file in. When in session the scene inside the magistrate’s courtroom offers a concentrated glimpse at the richness, depth and complexity of Opuwo’s social fabric. In no other of the town’s social loci can one experience such a mingling and circulation of eclectic peoples, materials and ideas. Grounded in the common law of the Roman-Dutch legal tradition, the magistrate in this court must apply a body of law developed in the statutes of apartheid South Africa, later possibly amended or repealed by the Namibian Constitution or an act of parliament, and then perhaps further expanded upon through Namibian, South African and even British case law to a community of people whose everyday lives are also shaped by the tenets of customary law. Inside this sweaty room wafts of aftershave mix with the smell of rancid butterfat; leather briefcases rest on the cement floor beside mopane walking sticks; European tailored suits rub against animal skins and bare upper bodies on the benches of the spectators’ gallery; and the flowing black gowns of court officials, just like the courtroom’s off-white walls, collect one ochre stain after another. The Opuwo Magistrate’s Court has jurisdiction over all of Kaokoland, a large area stretching from Sesfontein in the south to Epupa in the north. As a result, the court maintains a relatively full caseload. During the course of my stay in Opuwo the magistrate’s court processed an average of 130 cases per month. Of these, nearly 60 per cent involved a charge of either stock theft (22 per cent), assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm (16 per cent), theft (13 per cent) or housebreaking (8 per cent).51 With only one magistrate, one public prosecutor and one interpreter, court personnel have to be flexible and occasionally lax with the rules in order to meet the demands of a relatively full caseload. If the prosecutor is ill or out of town, for example, the court interpreter might postpone and reschedule the day’s cases; or if the interpreter does not speak one of the many languages that eventually surfaces in the courtroom, then a police officer or the office clerk or even any other person might be asked to assist; and since there is no stenographer or recording device available, the magistrate must transcribe by hand all court proceedings. Finally, the

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court’s financial resources are also stretched. The vast amount of time, distance and expenses involved in investigating and prosecuting a case of theft in Kaokoland often means that judicial-related costs soar well beyond the actual value of any property loss.

The Headman, the Victim, her Accused & his Parents: At Traditional Court in Opuwo It feels more like a social event than a judicial one. The old men slowly gather, arriving one by one, in dribs and drabs, toting folding chairs and hidden caches of tobacco. It takes nearly two hours until all the requisite people arrive. In the meantime, we sit together here in one of Opuwo’s informal settlements, behind the headman’s house, assembled under the shade of his big tree. To our left, a high pile of discarded bottles and other household waste; to the right, an old bakkie (pick-up truck, in Afrikaans), stripped bare and rusting atop cinder blocks. The semi-circle finally forms: folding chairs and old men up front; younger men, a few women, children and the anthropologist behind. Those without a chair rest themselves on stacked bricks, downed tree branches or upside-down cola bottles. Children run to and fro; adults swap sticks of sugarcane; elders confirm details of tomorrow’s pension distribution. One young man announces his arrival with greetings and an explanation: ‘I am here just to see what is going on.’ In the Otuzemba neighbourhood there are no strict guidelines as to who can and cannot convene a traditional court.52 As long as both parties to the dispute accept and recognise the venue, then any number of individuals may oversee the judicial process. Traditional counsellors, community leaders and/or other respected persons may offer their judicial services, as might a visiting village headman. This court is being administered by three long-term residents of the location. Two of the men, both in their mid-60s, sometimes refer to themselves as ‘headman of the location’, or they might use the term ‘counsellor’ to describe their role. The third convenor, a septuagenarian, alternates his title between omupolise and ‘secretary’. When court is in session, the men’s roles appear rather indistinguishable. The omupolise, however, does seem to wield the most influence and authority; and he also spends the greatest amount of time organising and scheduling the court’s calendar and following-up on case administration. As for the actual law, in this mixed location the traditional court takes its lead from the legal customs of Herero and Himba people, but it is by no means a strict application of an ethnically defined body of law. If asked, the three leaders of this court will explain that they apply the laws and legal customs of Okaoko. Sitting among the assembled, it is difficult to distinguish if and when traditional court is actually in session, at least formally so. There is no call to order, no pomp, no ritualised beginning. At some point the palaver

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begins focusing on the case at hand, and the headman, who is currently busy repairing the sole of an old shoe, directs the complainant to begin speaking. All of those involved will offer their testimony, respond to questions, and submit their evidence. They will speak about the case in Otjiherero, Dhimba, Oshimbundu and Portuguese. But then, unexpectedly, lulls will emerge. A key person is absent. Where is she? Has anyone seen her today? Or the court notebook has gone missing, and no one has a pen. The headman sends his omupolise to hunt down the absent witness, or a writing implement. The discussion drifts away from the case, settling onto other matters. A half hour passes before the omupolise returns, witness in tow, or notebook in hand. More testimony. More questions. The headman still attends to his sole. More procedural wrangling. A jet aeroplane flies high overhead. ‘Where is that plane going?’ one man interrupts. ‘Maybe to Mr John’s country,’ someone answers, leading an unfamiliar spectator to enquire about my presence, my interests, my incessant note taking. The headman asks me why I have not brought him a pack of coffee; he says our friendship depends upon it. A spectator asks whether I would like to purchase one of his self-made baskets. The witness sits silently through the digression. Those assembled soon refocus on the stolen goat, or the quarrel between lovers, or last weekend’s drunken fistfight. More questions; more explaining to be done. An old man mocks the witness. People laugh. Along these fluid lines the traditional court proceeds, ebbing and flowing, oscillating between judicial inquiry and convivial conversation. In this back-and-forth rhythm the venue is constituted as neither judicial nor social, but both. The traditional court is a complex social exchange, and out of it a dispute resolution will be reached on the basis of consensus. Or at least that is how most of the region’s leaders represent the court’s decision-making process. One counsellor to the traditional authority, a middle-aged man who assists with traditional courts throughout the region, explained it as such: A discussion takes place in order to reach a decision on the case. All people who have come to the case share their views: the etambo rotjiwana [the ‘backbones of the community’, i.e., male elders, in Otjiherero], the traditional leader and the spectators, though the witnesses cannot contribute to this discussion. Through this discussion all of the participants come to an agreement. There is no raising of hands or voting. The decision is made by consensus. In my experience, everyone always has the same opinion. The only exception comes from the family of the offender. The division is always through the offender’s family. The ‘backbones of the community’, if they find the person guilty, will then refer their decision to the traditional leader who is present. They will tell the traditional leader that they find the accused guilty. The traditional leader is asked for his opinion, and he always agrees with the backbones.

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Opuwo, however, might be an exception. Here, in the town, ‘authoritative consensus’ seems a more accurate description of the process. Perhaps it is the influence of the magistrate just down the road, but in this traditional court venue the decision-making process is more concentrated. All of those attending a particular case will have the opportunity to contribute to it. They will question witnesses, offer insights and suggestions, and even challenge the authority of the traditional leaders. In this sense, the judicial process is open, participatory and democratic. But in the end there will not be much group deliberation, for it is the court’s convenors – these three leaders – who will determine and announce mutual consensus, even if it does not exist. ‘We [the three of us] can see if the person is guilty or not,’ one of them explained. ‘We can see from someone’s face if he is telling the truth or lying.’ In private, some of the participants will disagree with the verdict, but they will give their consent to it nonetheless.



Paternalistic Imprint: On Matrilineal and Patrilineal Families Otjiherero-speaking people are well known in kinship studies for their system of double or dual descent (Gibson 1956; Malan 1973; Crandall 1992b), a form of social organisation found in few parts of the world.53 In tracing their descent through both mother and father, Otjiherero-speaking Kaokolanders establish central components of their identity and corporate senses of belonging. An individual’s matriclan (eanda; pl. omaanda) and patriclan (oruzo; pl. otuzo) membership is derived from his or her matrilineage and patrilineage respectively; these govern different spheres of life, thus yielding functionally distinctive descent groups. In addition, these corporate alignments create networks of relations with Otjihererospeaking people across Namibia, and into Angola and Botswana. Mothers confer their eanda membership on their children. The seven exogamous matriclans,54 segmented into matrilineages, govern issues relating to material resources, marriage and material well-being. One inherits property (especially cattle), but also responsibility over wives and children, through the matriline. Property and responsibility over persons pass from senior brother to junior brother, and then on to his senior sister’s eldest son. Due to patrilocal residency, the different matrilineages emerge as highly dispersed corporate groupings. Upon first meeting, two Otjiherero-speakers will introduce themselves and then quickly enquire as to one another’s eanda. If they do share an eanda, they are considered ‘family’ and are meant to afford each other a greater degree of hospitality. In general, it is one’s matrilineal kin that provide networks of support during times of individual need and hardship.

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Figure 5.2: It is a man sitting on the stoep [veranda]. I wanted to take a photo of a man at the ancestral fire because it is where the man is having the power. This is an important person because he has got his ancestral fire, even though he is not standing at it. The ancestral fire can help. It is where you go if you get ill. It heals you. It allows you to meet your ancestors. It is the omurangere who is the one who gets the power from the ancestral fire.… The ancestral fire only works with men, and not women. The ancestral fire only passes through men.… When you go to the ancestral fire, first you call all the men, and then you tell them to tell the women. The man is the first thing. The man of the household is the one who represents the whole household. The men are always greeted before the women. The man is more important than the woman; the most important. — Uahongora, Age 28, Opuwo

At birth, custom dictates that fathers confer their oruzo upon their children. In order for such affiliation to take place, a father must name his child before his ancestors at the okuruwo (ancestral fire) and offer livestock to the child’s maternal grandfather. In fulfilling these ritual obligations the father admits the newborn baby into his patrilineage and oruzo, and, in exchange, receives certain rights in that child. A father who takes ‘responsibility for’ or ‘control over’ his child, as some people put it, is then entitled to sole authority over that child. The child will ‘belong’ to the father. A male will maintain a lifetime affiliation to his oruzo, but women, upon marriage, will shift from the patriclan of their father to that of their husband. Equal in status, each of Kaokoland’s thirteen otuzo55 maintains a set of attached prohibitions, preferences and taboos, most of which relate to dietary restrictions and livestock traits. The oruzo patriclan – subdivided into patrilineal segments (patrilineages) – governs the political and sacred

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realms. Patrilineages are centred on their respective okuruwo, the hearth that serves as a patri-ancestral shrine and links a person with his or her deceased ancestors and Mukuru (God). In addition, the patrilineage regulates the inheritance of sacred cattle. Used only for ritual purposes, some of these cattle serve as living representations of ties to specific male ancestors. Politically, the patrilineage governs succession to office – whether to the position of chief, headman or keeper of the lineage’s ancestral fire. Finally, as was mentioned previously, the patriline serves as the basis for household units. Authority in the family is organised along patrilineal principles, as are rights in land, grazing and water. In comparison to its matrilineal counterpart, patrilineal descent is more limiting and exclusive in its scope. Patrilineages maintain a much narrower membership, and due to patrilocal residency, members of a patrilineage tend to live in one geographical area. Ironically, despite the dominance of patrilineal and paternal authority within the household, a biological father is not considered part of ‘the family’, or even a relative – neither to his wife nor to his children. Otjiherero-speaking Kaokolanders explain that one inherits property from a family member, but not from a father; and one has sexual relations with a husband, but not with a relative. In similar fashion, a man will not recognise his biological children as ‘family’, but rather only his sister’s children as such. In this context, the construction of family and relatedness remains focused on the matrilineage and its rules of inheritance. Though a biological father will not consider his son or daughter a relative, he is supposed to legitimate his offspring as his children. As mentioned above, such acknowledgement is meant to take place through conferral of his oruzo at the site of his ancestral fire. In reality, however, such normative kinship practices may not apply. As was alluded to in the previous chapter’s paternalistic imprint, fathers often refuse to legitimate their biological children, either because they do not want responsibility for them or because they cannot afford to make the required payment of livestock. Under such circumstances a child will acquire his or her oruzo from the maternal grandfather instead. In Kaokoland, this non-traditional method of oruzo acquisition is quite common, a potentially significant fact overlooked by scholars of Otjiherero-speakers and their system of double descent. In fact, 35 per cent of Kaokolanders acquired their (original) oruzo in just such an untraditional fashion.56 My survey findings also indicated a correlation between patriclan acquisition and the parental site of primary residence (village or town), as well as age. Respondents were more than twice as likely to affiliate at birth with their maternal grandfather’s patriclan, rather than their own father’s, if their biological parents (had) maintained their primary residence in Opuwo instead of a rural village. In addition, while only 18 per cent of Kaokolanders over the age of sixty became members of their mother’s father’s oruzo at birth, 50 per cent of

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respondents under the age of twenty had done so.57 An increase in urbanisation and its associated lifestyles – including fathers’ unwillingness or inability to ‘take responsibility’ for their children and falling marriage rates – may be the cause of this shifting pattern of dual descent reckoning. Whatever the reason, such a shift challenges the normative principles surrounding paternalism and the family, and it suggests a rising prominence for the matriline. Today, an Otjiherero-speaking child in Kaokoland is just as likely to have acquired both eanda and oruzo from his/her mother.58 Given this observed trend, it is important to consider the longer-term implications for patrilineal dependent spheres of life, for example, with respect to chiefship and headmanship succession, oversight of ancestral fires, and the inheritance of sacred cattle. These findings not only contradict Crandall’s (1991) argument relating to the relative strength of the patriline, but they also suggest the possibility that patrilineages are being assimilated by the matriline. Are omaanda consuming otuzo? And might this apparent slackening of paternal and patrilineal authority – within both the household and descent groups – resonate with Kaokolanders’ perceptions of their changing State?

Chapter 6

JUDICIAL STATEMENTS

Legal thought is constructive in nature. In this respect, laws and legal practices do much more than just regulate behaviour or reflect social life. They also have an imaginative power, a capacity to construct social realities. This constructional role of law raises important questions about the future, about Namibian society, and about the type of society Namibians want to create for themselves. In an effort to develop the link between the courts and imagination in and of the post-apartheid Namibian State, I now extend the discussion by centring my attention on the particularities of two specific cases. The two cases were heard before the magistrate’s court and a local traditional court respectively during the course of my main stay in Opuwo. I choose to highlight them in much greater detail not because they are necessarily representative of all cases, but because they help illustrate a number of relevant points relating to legal process in Kaokoland, and because they exemplify some of the local imaginings that circulate in and through the region's two so-called competing systems of justice. In the subsequent chapter, these two main cases will then be further drawn upon in order to consider again state-related political imagination in Kaokoland, as well as the dialectical relation between such imaginings and the administration of justice.

Imagination, Law and the Courts I begin by drawing on two related jural observations. The first proposition, offered by the well-known anthropologist Clifford Geertz, postulates a conception of ‘law as a species of the social imagination’ (1983: 232). In formulating such a view, Geertz shifts deliberately away from the functionalist approach to law by distancing himself from a (Western) universalistic legal logic. Instead, he relies on hermeneutic thinking so as to give ‘particular sense to particular things in particular places’ (Ibid.). For Geertz, law is local knowledge with a unique accent, or what he describes as ‘vernacular characterizations of what happens connected to vernacular imaginings of what can’; and ‘[i]t is this complex of characterizations and imaginings, stories about events

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Figure 6.1: He is looking for the stolen things. I took this picture in the open market there in Outuzemba. And I took it because one young boy who is coming from the village, he is coming here into the town. Because he didn’t have anything to eat, he stole some maize meal and some other stuff and then he was selling it at the open market. And you see this man here? He heard of this young man who sold something there, and now he is looking for that young man. And I wanted to show that this young man, he didn’t steal anything while still living in the village. He was not a thief; but after coming here he started to steal somebody’s things because he has changed. — Mathews, Age 42, Opuwo

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cast in imagery about principles’, that he labels ‘a legal sensibility’ (Ibid.: 215). Different cultures maintain different legal sensibilities, thereby applying distinctive methods of judicial representation in terms of symbols deployed, stories told and visions projected. From Geertz, then, I want to borrow the idea that a legal system is not a clear-cut set of norms, rules, principles and values from which jural responses can be extracted, but ‘a part of a distinctive manner of imagining the real’ (Ibid.: 173). In tandem, a second observation is to be considered. By challenging the legal centralist paradigm, the American legal scholar Marc Galanter attempts to enlarge our notion of ‘court’ and regain consciousness of indigenous law. Within this context he proposes that ‘[c]ourts produce not only decisions, but messages’ (1981: 158). Such messages, Galanter argues, serve as resources for people to envisage, construct, pursue and negotiate claims. These messages are never monolithic, as actors draw on them in disparate fashion, and always in relation to their respective culture, capabilities and social relationships. For Galanter, ‘[l]aw is more capacious as a system of cultural and symbolic meanings than as a set of operative controls’, for it ‘affects us primarily through communication of symbols’ (Ibid.: 159). In conjoining these two propositions – that is, that law is a species of the social imagination, and courts produce messages in reference to the law’s communication of symbols – my intention is to highlight an important link between imagination on the one hand, and the judicial venue on the other. Taken together, the two premises suggest that imagination is linked inexorably to law; and that the judicial setting, as a vehicle of juralsymbolic communication, helps lay that imagination bare. To state it in a more deductive mode: if imagination is linked to law, and if law communicates some of its messages through the courts, then imagination is also exposed at the site of the judicial venue. But even further, these two propositions create the space to consider imagination and the courts in dialectical relation. In what ways do judicial venues condition the political imaginations of disputants, court functionaries, witnesses, representatives and court spectators; and, conversely, how might the imaginations of such actors affect the judicial process? Geertz and Galanter share an additional point of convergence: both aim to pave the way for a comparative legal approach. For Geertz, comparative law offers the opportunity to illuminate cultural differences in relation to ‘meaning… not machinery’ (1983: 232). ‘A comparative approach to law’, he writes, ‘becomes an attempt… to formulate the presuppositions, the preoccupations, and the frames of action characteristic of one sort of legal sensibility in terms of those characteristic of another’ (Ibid.: 218). In Geertz’s sense, then, law affords the basis for comparison between cultures. Galanter’s approach considers legal comparison at a slightly different level. For him, attempts which aim to expand people’s access to justice require a commitment to research that can illuminate not necessarily cultural differences, but rather the relation between official forums and indigenous law within a particular society

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(Galanter 1981: 181). Galanter thus retains a Geertzian emphasis on law as a system of cultural and symbolically contextualised meanings, but he does so without going so far afield. In other words, Galanter does not require such a wide variety of exotic settings, each replete with a unique legal tradition, to cast his comparative net. We learn from him that any and all societies are, to a greater or lesser extent, legally pluralistic. Taking my lead from these two legal scholars, I consider below Namibia’s state judicial system and the local traditional court system as two coexisting legal sensibilities within the town of Opuwo. In this manner I compare them and their respective symbols and messages without leaving my primary field site; and I do so through an access to justice framework that reflects upon both official and indigenous judicial forums. How do these two legal systems, these two legal options, compare from the perspective of those who are accountable to them? How might these disparate judicial experiences construct and/or reflect state-related imaginings in Kaokoland?

The Cases In what follows I adopt a case method approach as a way to detail and analyse two specific court cases as I observed them, and as local actors experienced them, during the course of my fieldwork in the urban setting of Opuwo. One of the cases I describe played out in the State’s judicial system and involved the application of state law and codified legal procedure. The Opuwo Magistrate’s Court served as the judicial venue. The second case I detail was heard and settled in a local traditional court through the application of customary law and procedure. In explicating these particular cases, I intend to apply (and sometimes juxtapose) three sets of data as a way to illustrate my argument. Trial transcripts will anchor much of my exposition. In addition, I will interweave my own personal observations of the court as originally noted at that particular time. Finally, a third layer will be offered through the personal reflections and recollections of those who participated in the respective cases. In limiting my own immediate commentary on the cases, I aim to create more ethnographic space for actual court actors to present their own analyses and interpretations of the legal process. Such a strategy also offers perspective on some of the ways Kaokolanders imagine the judicial processes that transpire in each of the court settings.

‘It would be appropriate to remove him from society’: The State v. Ephram Shipinge When his case finally came to trial at the Opuwo Magistrate’s Court, Ephram Shipinge (E) was being held in custody at the local police station.1 Charged with two counts of stock theft and two counts of forgery, Ephram had been incarcerated for more than eight months. We discussed his case

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together under police guard inside the station. The female constable sat quietly beside us, doodling on a piece of paper, fiddling with her cell phone, intermittently leaving the room to retrieve another cup of tea. Ephram wore an old t-shirt, a pair of shorts and no shoes; and from time to time he removed the miniature-sized New Testament from his pocket, fondled it, and then returned it to his trousers. It is not the same thing, of staying in custody like this. If you go to the traditional court case, they discuss it. And even if I don’t have anything to pay back, I can even go around to look for the things to pay back. It is not the same thing with the government. Sometimes the traditional court can look much closer into the cases, and they can really see the truth. Information can come from one person through another, and from this information they can see that it is really you who did it. But in the magistrate’s court you can be told that it was this and this way; the information is not going through the people. And in the government court, if you are not a well-educated person sometimes the questions they pose to you make you confused, and you don’t even know what you are answering. And in that way it is a bit tough. I would prefer to have my case in the traditional court, but it has already happened, and there is nothing I can do about it.

In fact, Ephram had tried to appear in a traditional court of law. He had asked the complainants to change the venue, but one of them had refused. Nongapara (N), the unwilling complainant, explained her reluctance: If it was a person from this area, with a house, animals and a family, then I would have taken him to a traditional court case. Even if he does not possess any animals, then I can still get something from his family. But in this case, because Shipinge is not from the area and since he has no family or livestock or home here, it was much better for me to take the case to the police and the government court.… With the government, the person will usually only go to prison, and the person who lost won’t get anything.

At the time of his arrest, the police confiscated Ephram’s goats and a significant amount of cash. ‘Even they found me with eight hundred dollars,’ he explained, ‘and they took that money, and then they will just keep that money. I don’t know where that money will go. They said it will be for the government.’ Since his arrest Ephram had appeared briefly before the magistrate (M) on eight separate occasions, and each time his case was remanded. Lucia (L), one of the State’s key witnesses in the case, appeared in the courtroom almost as many times. She explained that the court kept postponing the case because one of the other witnesses was out of town. ‘Sometimes I was angry about it, because maybe you are ill, and you have to go up and down [back and forth].’ On Ephram’s ninth appearance the magistrate finally explained that as an accused person he had rights to legal representation. Ephram declared that he would conduct his own defence. The charges were read aloud in the courtroom: the accused, the

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State asserted, had stolen a total of twenty-one goats and had forged a Ministry of Agriculture permit authorising the movement of animals. Ephram pleaded not guilty to each of the four related counts. On the first day of the trial the state prosecutor (P) called three witnesses (W) to the dock. The first witness testified that six of his goats had been stolen, and after having traced them to a village in the former Ovamboland, he was able to recover five of the animals. The second witness explained that his goats had also been stolen, and he accused Ephram of having committed the crime. Finally, a third person testified to the effect that he had assisted Ephram in loading the goats onto a vehicle. Following all three of these testimonies, Ephram was offered the opportunity to cross-examine the State’s witnesses. He chose to ask only one question, and that was to the third witness: E: W3: E:

Do you remember what I asked you when I came to the shed? You didn’t ask me anything. I don’t have other questions.

During our post-trial discussions Ephram conceded that he knew very little about his legal rights. He did not ask for a lawyer because he could not afford one, and he did not know the rules of the court, or how the trial would proceed once it got underway. ‘I only knew that it was all about the case, my reason for being in custody, but I didn’t know anything about what was going to be asked by the magistrate.’ As scheduled, the case resumed three weeks later: [P calls L to the witness dock. M asks L to state name and age. She is thirtyeight years old.] M: Do you know the accused? L: Yes. M: How? L: He used to stay in [name of settlement]. M: How can you link him to the incident that occurred on 19 February, relating to the goats? L: In the afternoon, from 17h00, Ephram came to our house asking for a lift. He came to me asking if we have a car going to Ovamboland. I said ‘yes, we have a car going tomorrow’. He asked for a lift. I said okay. He said, ‘but I have goats’. I asked ‘how many goats do you have’. He said fifteen. M: [asking for clarification] All 15 goats, he wanted to take along? L: Yes. I asked ‘where are the goats?’ He said ‘at my house’. I asked if he had a permit [to transport livestock]. He said ‘yes’. I asked him to bring it. When he brought the permit it was getting a bit dark. I was at the cuca shop [informal liquor store and bar]. My hands were wet, so I did not hold the permit. He

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only unfolded it for me. And when I had a look at it I saw the figure of fifteen. I told him that I would talk to the driver so that they could discuss.. [E stands at attention, listening attentively, arms clasped behind his back.] M: Did you ask where he got them? L: Yes. He said that he made business in a Himba village. M: Did he say where he wanted to be dropped? L: Yes. [L gives name of village.] M: [to E] Do you have any questions for the witness? E: No questions. [E does not understand what is expected from him procedurally. M explains the court process of cross-examination.] Later, Lucia recalled that Ephram had had the right to ask her questions, but that he had chosen to stay quiet ‘because what I said was correct, or maybe it was just a confusion in his head.’ When I spoke to Ephram he also mentioned his failure to cross-examine during the previous few weeks of proceedings: ‘I was even given a chance to ask questions during the trial, and I said “no” because I didn’t know what I was supposed to ask. I don’t have any experience about the court.’ In our conversations about the case Lucia also pointed towards a difference in style between the magistrate’s court and the traditional court. ‘If there is a case of your child getting into someone’s house, then the headman will just come and say, “you did steal”. In the White court, the magistrate doesn’t say what you did, but asks questions.’ She continued: Or if I got a lift from you, and there was a bag of maize meal in the car. And if I was the last to get out of the car, with three other [hitch]hikers, if I was the last person out of the car, and the Black court doesn’t know that person, then I, the one the Black court knows, will be the one who pays for the bag. But the police will look and find exactly the one who did this. Or, if you went with someone to sell their cattle in Opuwo but you did not know that they were stolen, then in the White court you would not be found guilty because you didn’t know it, but in the Black court you would.

In addition, she observed that people show more respect to the ‘White court’, and that if Ephram had been speaking to a ‘Black court’, then he would have spoken in a rude manner. [M excuses L; P calls next witness to the dock. The witness is not present in the courtroom. The bailiff leaves courtroom and calls for N. Woman enters and takes position in witness dock. M asks N to state her name and age. N does not know her age.] M: [to interpreter (I)] Please administer her oath. I: [to N] Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Raise your right hand and say ‘so help me God’.

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So help me God. [to N] In your own words, explain what happened with your goats.

Nongapara explained to the court that she had followed the spoor of her stolen goats to the house of Lucia, and then after having reported her case to the police, she accompanied an officer to Ovamboland. There, she recovered some of her animals. Those who were in possession of the goats told her that they had purchased them from the accused. [An old man who is seated beside me has fallen asleep.] M: [to E] You can question the witness. E: [to N] Where were your goats stolen from? N: They were stolen from the grazing area IV. They had no shepherd. E: How did you know they were the tracks of your goats? N: Some goats came back home and I followed them back. E: You said that a paper was produced bearing the name Shipinge, but I know for sure that I did not sell the goats under the name Shipinge. N: The papers were produced to the police officer. I did not know who Shipinge was until the boy pointed you out to us. [M has noticed that the old man has fallen asleep. M instructs B to remove him from the courtroom. M excuses N. W6, the investigating police officer, is called to testify.] The police constable was a convincing and confident witness. He detailed the investigations that had led him to conclude that Ephram had indeed stolen the goats, and that he had forged a veterinary services permit authorising the movement of livestock before transporting them to the former Ovamboland and selling them to an unwitting buyer. His testimony was clear, and neither the prosecutor nor Ephram asked any further questions. Following a recess for lunch, the State called an additional two witnesses, the veterinary services officer and the headman from Ovamboland. Both witnesses supported the police constable’s testimony. During the questioning two spectators fell asleep in the courtroom. The magistrate barked, ‘now what seems to be the problem’, and then evicted both transgressors. Ephram tried to cross-examine one of the witnesses; however, he was sharply rebuked by the magistrate for posing irrelevant questions. The prosecutor rested the State’s case, and Ephram was given the opportunity to call his own witnesses. E: I have no witnesses, but I have something to say. [E moves across the courtroom and enters the witness dock. M asks E to state his name and age. E is 34 years old. M asks I to administer the oath. I

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requests court recess due to fatigue. M agrees. All rise. M leaves courtroom. E remains standing in witness dock throughout recess. Fifteen minutes later, M re-enters courtroom. All stand. M takes seat.] P: I recommend that the Shipinge case should stand down in order to process the other cases that are still waiting. [M agrees. E leaves witness dock and takes seat in the spectator gallery.] During the ensuing fifteen minutes the prosecutor called three accused persons to the dock. Each had a pending case with the court. She requested, and was granted, three successive postponements. [P recalls E. E returns to the witness dock.] M: [to E] Now you can explain. E: On that Friday, I was paid and I went to the Epupa market. I found two men at Epupa. I don’t know their names, but I can recognise them. I found these two men selling livestock. M: What kind? E: [taking a long time to reply] Goats. M: [losing patience with E] Why don’t you just say that: ‘They were selling goats’. Yes, go on. E: I asked them, ‘are you selling all these goats?’ They said yes. I told them that I want to buy as many of the goats as how much money I have. I had six hundred dollars on me. I went home to get the rest of my money and came back to Epupa and found the men again. We were agreeing upon and discussing the price. I selected eight of them, out of those 15 that they had. And this man said that now since you are our customer you can just give us the thousand that you have now. You can give us the thousand for the whole fifteen of the goats, and pay the seven hundred later. They gave me all the fifteen, and I gave them the thousand dollars, and I could pay the seven hundred later. When I got these goats I drove them to the police station. A police officer, he was light in complexion, counted these goats. I went with the permit. M: Where did you get the permit now? E: I got it from [states name]. M: After counting these goats what did the policeman do? E: I gave him the permit. He counted the goats, put a stamp on it, and signed. So after this I drove my goats to [name of place]. I met one man who used to come here from Ovamboland.… I asked him, ‘are you going to Ovamboland?’ He said he was going tomorrow, but that he had to buy some livestock first. Then I came to Lucia’s place. I asked about this man, had he come for me. She asked why I was asking. I said I had met this man, and that we agreed on a lift to take my goats to Ovamboland. Lucia said to me that she had a car that was going

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to Ovamboland tomorrow. She said if she had room she could give me a lift. She asked if I had a permit. I said yes. She asked to see it. I did not look at it myself, but I showed it to her. The next day I came back to her place, and we drove to Ovamboland. That was on a Saturday. On Monday, I drove these goats to [name of place]. I sold all the goats and I proceeded to Oshakati.… After five days, I came with my wife and small brother. At the entrance of Opuwo I left my wife and brother. I told them I was just going to the bakery to get a loaf of bread, and around the corner I saw the police officer.… He told me that the goats I went with from here are stolen goats and that now I am under arrest. I said that’s okay, but let’s go to my wife and tell her. We did, and then they took me to the police station and locked me up, until this day when I stand in court. That’s all. [M asks P to examine the witness.] P: [to E] Did you ask the people that you bought the goats from for a permit? E: No. P: Why not? E: I just didn’t think about it. P: Don’t you know that someone needs a permit to sell livestock? E: I know about it, but the thought did not come into my head. P: If you didn’t have such a thought, then why did you bother yourself to go and get a permit? E: I got the permit because I know that it is difficult to move livestock from here to Ovamboland. P: Did you ask the sellers from where they got or bought these goats? E: I asked them whose goats they were; they answered that some belonged to their mother and some to themselves. But I did not follow it up further. P: Can you tell the court how many goats were listed on that permit? E: I don’t know how many goats were put on the permit because I don’t know how to read or write. All I know is that I had fifteen goats. P: I put it to you that you know that the number on that document was originally ‘1’. E: I know of fifteen goats. The prosecutor continued to question Ephram aggressively, accusing him of being literate, and thus able to read the permit. The accused asserted vehemently that he was indeed illiterate, and then fired a question back at the prosecutor.

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I am not here to answer your questions. [to E in a reprimanding tone] You are here to answer questions only, and not to ask them.… I think you are not telling the truth. I need not remind you that you are still under oath. [In fact, E is not under oath, as the court officials have forgotten to swear him in.]

P: M:

‘The questions that I was asked during the case from the magistrate and the prosecutor were like forcing me,’ Ephram recalled. ‘The way that they were asking was the way I was answering, but then they said I was doing it wrong. He was asking the same thing twice, to see if I say the same thing, or change my story. I will not feel good if I am forced to take something I do not want.’ The following morning the interpreter, the bailiff, the prosecutor and I were the only people present when the magistrate entered the courtroom. Nonetheless, the interpreter asked us all to rise. The bailiff retrieved those waiting outside, the prosecutor remanded two assault cases, and the court again turned its attention to Ephram. [M asks P for summation.] P: … The State therefore will submit that it has proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt. I request the court to find the accused guilty as charged. M: [to E] You can now submit your final summation before the court hands down its verdict. E: I cannot allow myself to be guilty, to confess to stealing those goats. I lost my money by buying those goats. I have to put it in the hands of the court and the State. M: [offers his interpretation of the facts, and reviews evidence and testimony of the witnesses.] … The evidence against the accused is solid. If he is innocent, then why didn’t he challenge the evidence? Why didn’t he tear it apart? He chose to ask not a single question to the police constable. The evidence is so solid. The court arrives at only one conclusion. On count 1, the accused is guilty of theft of five goats. On count 2, the accused is found guilty of theft of five goats. On count 3, on the charge of forgery, why did he not call the police officer as his witness, the one who was light in complexion, the one who supposedly counted and confirmed his fifteen goats? This raises doubts in my mind. This important witness would have been very easy for him to call. Why did he not do so? Why didn’t he bring the supposed original sellers of the goats as witnesses? This is mysterious to me. Who might have forged the document other than the accused? The accused has not explained this satisfactorily to the court. The court thus finds the accused guilty of forgery on count 3.

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And on count 4, he took this document, knowing it to be forged, and presented it to the police for authentication. That constitutes a crime. The accused is thus found guilty on count 4. P: Your worship, the accused has previous convictions. [I and M consult in a hushed voice at the bench.] M: [to E] In 1986, on 8 March you were convicted of housebreaking with intent to steal and theft. You stole clothes from a shop to the amount of 1,600 Rand. You were sentenced on 14 May 1986 and you were given six lashes with a light cane under Section 294(1) of Act 51 of 1977 – when that statute was in force before independence. Is that correct? E: Yes, it is correct. M: Again in Oshakati, on 25 of August 1994, you were convicted of entering Namibia illegally. On the same day, you were warned and discharged. Is that information correct? E: Correct. M: Next case, in Uutapi: on 22 February 1996 you were convicted of the theft of two donkeys valued at N$900. And on the same day you were sentenced to 16 months imprisonment, 8 months suspended for five years on the condition that you were not convicted of stock theft during that period. Is that information correct? E: The information is true that I was convicted of stock theft, and two donkeys were involved. I was imprisoned for 16 months, but these 8 months were not explained to me, that they would be added if I was convicted again within five years. M: You confirm the information on that report. Please sign that. [M hands previous records report to E for his signature. E presses right thumb in ink, then stamps thumbprint on report.] ‘I understood what was happening during that court case,’ Ephram explained in response to my enquiries about his pre-independence court appearance. He described his experience before a South African magistrate: They asked me if I was guilty, and I said no, because I didn’t know about those stolen things. They said that since the things were found in my house I was guilty; and because my friends gave me a battery from the radio and I didn’t ask them where they got it. So I just said: ‘okay, I can just accept what you are saying against me.’ And then they gave me a punishment.… I was given eight months at first, and then they said okay, we will forgive the eight months and beat you for six. I was brought to the doctor to see if I was well enough for that. The doctor said yes, and so I was beaten. The policeman did the beating. I was hit on the buttocks, and they put a blanket over my head and I had to bend down. I was beaten with a kind of stick. But before they beat me they put it in water so that it would get a bit wet, so that it wouldn’t break. I was bleeding, and for about one week I couldn’t walk. And then I left.

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Even though the witness Lucia had never been in a magistrate’s court prior to independence, she knew that corporal punishment had been a common practice during the South African era; and she was supportive of the practice’s revocation after independence. ‘I don’t think that it [corporal punishment] will stop a person from doing a crime. The South Africans just did it hoping that it would change the person’s attitude, of doing things in that way. Beating is a lighter sentence than going to prison.’ Nongapara, one of Ephram’s victims, felt otherwise. In fact, she attributed Namibia’s rising crime rate to the banning of corporal punishment, both in the courts and in the home. ‘It is important to beat your children in order to keep them from stealing,’ she said. As for adult criminals, ‘if you are beaten, then at least you are hurt. You do something to that person.’ P: M:

E: M: E: M: E: M: E: M: E: M: E: M: E:

P:

Those are the only previous convictions your worship. Now, you have been found guilty on all the charges. What is left now is for you to be given punishment. Now we want to hear from you. What do you want this court to take into consideration before punishment is meted out? And remember, these are very serious offences that you are charged with. Is there anything else I need to take into consideration before passing sentence? How old are you? Thirty-four. And you said that you were married? Yes, and I have six children. Are you employed? No. Do you have livestock on your own? Yes. How many? Only five goats. How do you make a living then? I’m a sole breadwinner. In the rainy season I do casual work cultivating. What else do you want the court to take into consideration in mitigating the sentence? I want the court to give me an appropriate sentence. I am the only person looking after people at home. My mother is at home and she is old. I don’t have a father. And my mother is looking after two children, both of them are also unemployed. I am responsible for them too. This offence is common in this district of Opuwo. By passing legislation in 1990 on stock theft, Parliament has indicated the seriousness of the offence. Mitigating factors put before this court should be considered. But also the court must consider that this is not a first offence. And further consider that the

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accused did not comply with the sentence handed down in Uutapi.… If taken together, the mitigating factors are outweighed. It is clear from his criminal record that the accused has a tendency to steal other people’s property. This convict should be denied the right to liberty because he is a threat to other people’s property. It would be appropriate to remove him from society for a while and find a suitable place – he should be placed in prison. M: [to E] You have listened to that submission. Do you have any comment? E: I have nothing to say. M: Now, I don’t need to go back to the facts once more. The prosecutor has summarised the situation as is. All I can add is that you don’t have any respect for other people’s property. And I agree with the prosecutor that you are a danger to other people’s property. [E stands deferentially, head hanging low, eyes to the ground.] Now, we know that livestock is the livelihood of the people, especially in this area because people rely on subsistence farming. If you take as much as one goat, or one head of cattle, you have adversely affected that person’s livelihood. For this reason, the most appropriate sentence on count 1 and 2 – count 1 and 2 will be taken together for purposes of sentencing – and you will be sentenced to 3 years imprisonment. Counts 3 and 4 are also taken together for purposes of sentencing. And you are sentenced to 2 years imprisonment. These sentences will run in succession. This case will be sent to the High Court for review. If you have any comments, or anything for the High Court judges to consider in reviewing this record, you have seven days to submit your comments to the court. You can go. You must step down. [E is escorted out of courtroom by police officer. P calls next case.] In considering the magistrate’s sentence, the witness Lucia focused her attention on the court’s ability to prevent Ephram from stealing again. ‘If he goes to prison for five years, when he gets out he will not commit the crime again,’ she said. But if he had been sentenced in a ‘Black court’ then ‘his family just pays you, and he will just come back and steal from you again. He will think, ‘if I get caught again, my mother will just pay.’ But his mother did not send him out to steal.’ As a victim of the crime, Nongapara’s first experience of a magistrate’s court had been a positive one. She had felt unrestrained in giving her testimony, and she believed that the court had reached the correct verdict and handed down an appropriate sentence. ‘If Shipinge were my own child I would think the five year sentence was nice because it would teach him some other knowledge and thoughts.’ She wondered, however,

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whether Ephram considered his sentence a light one, given the fact that he was going to be fed for the next five years. Nongapara’s only criticism of the State’s court concerned the magistrate’s inability to authorise corporal punishment, for ‘at least it would have hurt him a bit.’ Had I spoken with Nongapara two days earlier, though, she might have offered a less positive opinion. She explained her surprise in having been called to the police station and handed N$800 compensation for the loss of her goats. The cash had been taken off Ephram at the time of his arrest. ‘It is very rare for the police to do that,’ she said. ‘I didn’t expect any money from the government. The police said that the magistrate had told them to give me the money. Maybe now the law has changed.’ Finally, Ephram asked me how he was supposed to care for his wife and mother, and his children, now that he was being sent off to prison for five years. He reflected on the probability that three of his children would have to leave school. ‘I have six children, and these years to be in the prison is too much. Nobody will look after my family. For these years no one will look after them.’ He asked me whether it had been the police or the magistrate who had determined his sentence, and on what criteria that decision had been based. They think that by being here you will learn not to steal. While I am there thinking about not doing this again, someone else comes into custody and then they tell me about their crime, about how to steal a car. He will tell me that I am just doing bullshit things. And now, from here, I will start stealing cars. It is just like getting advice from the others. That is why it causes people to get a bit confused and steal again. If you are just beaten, then it happens and you just go. With the South Africans, punishment was much, much better. I was beaten, and then I could get on with my other business. It would have been better for them to beat me, then I would just go to the hospital.

Ephram’s mother-in-law also lamented the outcome. ‘The traditional court would have been better because then we would still have him with us.… We could still live together. If I am ill, he could take me to the hospital. With this government court, he will be taken for a certain period, and I will just die without seeing him again.’

‘Our law doesn’t break friendship between people’: Ferndo Kovere v. Theo Musya Ferndo Kovere brought a case of theft against his sister’s son, Theo Musya, in a traditional court at Opuwo.2 Ferndo shared a house with his ailing elderly father and the accused. The case arose when Ferndo, after being released from police custody on an unrelated charge, returned to Opuwo and discovered that Theo had sold some of his household property. Ferndo decided to open a case with the court in the hope that ‘it will bring back my things; and then tell my nephew to leave me, to go find his own father,

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a wife; to leave my home and leave me alone.’ In opting for custom over State, Ferndo disregarded the advice of his own accused nephew: Before my uncle took our case to the traditional court, I told him to take me to the government police. I told my uncle that the government police are better because in traditional court people have to spend a lot of money. The traditional court is a waste of money because I have seen others’ experiences. They ask a lot of money only to just sit there.

But many spectators at the court affirmed Ferndo’s decision to pursue his nephew through a traditional legal route. As one woman explained: The government court is not as good as the traditional court because if he makes a case in the government court, then they will put him in prison, and the penalty that he pays will belong to the government. In traditional court the penalty will go to Ferndo. Both courts judge in the same way. They ask the same questions. The only difference between them concerns who will get the penalty.

Another court spectator pointed to the efficacy of the traditional leaders, and their ability and willingness to act: ‘If you loan something to someone, and they don’t pay you back, the police won’t investigate the case. The traditional court will go to that person and ask them for your money. The police only wait and wait.’ In addition to the presiding headmen (H1 and H2) and the omupolise (O), more than fifteen spectators (S) attended the case. Since their father/grandfather was too frail, and because they had no other relatives residing in Opuwo, Ferndo (F) and Theo (T) appeared in court without other family members being present. The two disputants were the last to arrive. Throughout the proceedings the buyers (B) of the property were sought out in the 'location' (neighbourhood), and, if found, they were brought before the court. Before we start the case, I say that Ferndo is guilty for coming to the court late. Am I right or not? You came too late. We called you at this time, and you came late. You will pay N$30 for arriving late, and from there the court will proceed with your case. [Obviously annoyed, F pays N$10 as a deposit on his fine, and then offers an explanation for his tardiness.] S1: Does the law ever forgive? H1: Yes, the law can forgive. S1: Just leave him then. H1: [to F] Okay, we forgive you for being late. You don’t have to pay the remainder of the fine. O:

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A few days later, the omupolise explained why he had imposed the fine on Ferndo, and then took the opportunity to elaborate on the extent of his own powers: ‘We told him it would start at 8, but he came at 10. If anyone comes late to an appointment they must pay a penalty, and if they don’t pay the penalty, then we can take him to the police so that they will put him in jail. The government has given us all these permissions, so that we can keep the peace in the location.’ The omupolise also claimed other unfounded powers: the right to receive information from the police about pending cases, the power to release a person from police custody, and the right to shift a case from the magistrate’s court to his own. After having settled the contempt of court issue the omupolise instructed Theo to sit away from the proceedings, and Ferndo to explain why he had brought the case against his nephew. [after having moved to sit in the centre of the semi-circle] The police took me to jail in Ruacana. I was there from December to February.… While I was in jail I wrote a letter saying that I was hungry, and to send me some money. I sent the key to my house with instructions for Theo to look after his grandfather, to take care of him. In my home there were two beds, one single and one double. And Theo sold my double bed. There is also a car that belongs to me, and Theo sold all the tools from the car. He also sold many things in the house, all so that he could drink. And also, Theo didn’t take care of my father. O: [reprimanding F] You must come to the point. We are not working overtime with this story. You must tell us what was stolen, nothing else. F: A double bed, mattress, single bed, tools of the car. [H1 leaves to get a piece of paper, then returns with a notepad.] F: [beginning again] One single bed and one double bed. One mattress. One car battery. All the tools of my car. An empty drum. Two pipes for water. O: Did you tell Theo to take care of all these things? F: No. O: Did you discuss with anyone to sell these things? F: No. O: And now, for what reason did you come to us, because of these things that were stolen from you? F: Yes. O: [to all assembled] If someone wants to ask anything, you are welcome. Our law says you can steal nothing that belongs to someone. F:

As no one wished to ask a question, the omupolise dismissed Ferndo and called Theo to the court. Ferndo removed himself to the shade of a distant tree and the proceedings continued:

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[to T] We think that you are guilty. You will be guilty if you don’t tell us the real truth. Your uncle is talking about your name. Do you know anything about something that you did wrong? If so, can you discuss a bit? T: [T is under the influence of alcohol] Before I started to sell things at home, my uncle was in the prison. And before I started to sell, someone brought me a letter from the prison written by Ferndo. The letter said that I should sell all the things at home, and put the money in the post office account. O: And where is the letter from Ferndo? T: There were three letters, but two of them are gone. I only have one here. [T gives letter to S2. S2 reads the letter aloud. In it, Ferndo requests Theo to send him cigarettes and shoes.] O: Where are the other letters that instructed you to sell the things? T: They are gone. They are not there where they were put. O: And if the law asks for the letters, how can you not have them? T: I am in big trouble because of this, for not having the letters. O: It is okay. Did you sell the things? T: Yes, it is true. O: Do you remember who you sold them to? T: [in a disrespectful and loud voice] You are not asking me correct questions. You must first ask me ‘why did you sell it’, not ‘to whom’. O: We will put you in jail. T: No. You must ask me the right questions first. You can put me in jail. I don’t care. O: We are the law. We know which questions to ask. Don’t teach the court how to judge. [Numerous spectators urge T to answer the question.] T: The first thing was the single bed. I sold it to Sonia [B1]. O: How much did you sell it for? T: Sixty dollars. The second thing I sold was a single mattress for twenty dollars. Godwin [B2] is the one who bought it. S3: For twenty dollars? That’s not selling. That’s borrowing. [T and others try to control their laughter.] T: The third thing I sold is the three-quarter bed for thirty dollars, to Louisa [B3]. For this bed I only received half the money. The rest was supposed to go to my uncle when he came out of jail. O: Anything else? T: These are the only three things that I sold. O: The law says that all of things you say you didn’t sell, we put guilt on you because you are the one who said that you stole some of these things. We will not look elsewhere. O:

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S4: T: O: T: S5: T: O: T:

[to T] You should tell the truth about the other things. Your uncle wouldn’t let you stay in the jail. Okay, I will tell you. I come to the truth. I sold the battery for sixty dollars to Ritjombo [B4]. [T laughs, as do the others.] [in disbelief] For only sixty dollars? Where does Ritjombo live? I don’t know. Come on, don’t you know where he lives? Okay. He lives up there [T gestures up the hill]. What about the drum, and the two pipes? I don’t know anything about those two things.

One of the spectators later complained to me that he didn’t think the traditional leaders had asked appropriate questions, especially when interrogating Theo. He also felt that Theo had not been given the space to explain his side of the story, and he believed that it had been incorrect to separate the two parties during their respective testimonies. ‘They should all be together,’ he said, ‘because there is a judgement, and the accused person must hear what is being said about him.’ Theo did not know why he had been separated from his uncle, though Ferndo believed the procedure had been an attempt to limit feelings of fear and shame, and to help guarantee a truthful testimony. After a ten-minute lull in the proceedings, the omupolise spoke again: We want to talk to the people who bought the things from Theo. It is better to call all those who bought the stuff. But there is only one buyer here, Sonia. Can we solve the problem with Sonia, because she must go to sell her things at the market? H1: While the court goes to call those who have bought, we can finish with the one who is here. It is best to do it now with Sonia, and we will call the others and schedule another date in the future for them. S6: You cannot solve this problem without the others here. You must have them all here to solve all problems. H1: You cannot say this. You are teaching people bad ways. We know how to deal with this. We must deal with Sonia now. [The proceedings come to a halt. The procedural matter is debated.] T: My uncle went to those people who I sold these things to after he got out of jail. My uncle went to these people and said I sold the things for too little money. He asked them for more money. That way you can see that my uncle sent me to sell these things. H1: All the people who bought these things must be sent for now, and told to bring those things here now. The omupolise must call the buyers. [O writes the name of the buyers down on a piece of paper. The assembled discuss where to find each of the buyers.] O:

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[to T, who looks quite drunk] If you talk too much we can put you in jail, and come back tomorrow to get you. [O leaves to call the other buyers; T smokes a cigarette; people chat with one another, waiting for the case to resume.]

O:

The omupolise returned without having located any of the other buyers. The case resumed with Ferndo confirming Theo’s earlier accusation. He had, in fact, requested additional money from each of the buyers. ‘I told them to give me more money, and that if not, they would be contributing to theft.’ He also confirmed that some of the buyers had made an additional payment for the ‘stolen’ goods. [to F] Why is it that you went to ask the buyers for more money? If you know that someone stole your things, how can you ask them for more money, and then come and bring a case here? When you know someone has stolen your things, you must first come to the authorities, not first ask for more money, and then come to the authorities. This is the wrong way. O: Ferndo went about this incorrectly. It is not okay that he went first to ask for more money from the buyers, and then made the case. This is the wrong way. We will hear this case, but with our eyes open. [to F] You bring us your case, and this kind of case is very strong. So you must pay eighty dollars or a male goat for this case, for us to hear this case. F: I have lost my things. Now again, you want me to pay again? T: [to F] Now you got what you want. Where will you get eighty dollars? O: [to F] Do you have the money to pay or not? F: Now, I don’t have. O: Okay, you can go home. You have no money now, so the case will not be solved now. You can go home, and when you get the money, you can come back and we will continue with the case. [Most of those present leave the venue, folding their chairs and dispersing into the location. Off to one side, F mutters to himself: ‘I have already lost all of my things, and now they want more money. Are they crazy? They are insulting me.’ He storms over to O, demanding a refund. When it is not forthcoming, he attempts to convince one of the spectators to loan him the added court fees, offering his portable radio as collateral.]

S6:

The few people who remained behind continued to discuss the proceedings. Many of them defended the leaders’ request for additional payment because they believed that the case was a complicated one, or because it was consuming a great deal of their time. During private conversations away from the headman’s house, however, many of the court participants were sceptical and critical of what they perceived as excessive

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court costs. One spectator claimed that the leaders try to charge higher court fees to wealthier people in an attempt to get as much money as possible; another suggested that the wealthier party to the dispute will always be found guilty; another simply said, ‘asking eighty dollars is like stealing.’ As for Ferndo himself, he maintained that ‘the traditional leaders are only selfish.’ He explained: ‘If you have money, they will only try to get your money before they make the judgement. If you have no money, then you won’t get a judgement. I don’t know what kind of philosophy or judgement the traditional leaders have. I see that they are not so smart, that they don’t really know how to judge, but that they only do it for the money.’ When I asked the omupolise directly, he defended his actions and the court fees. The three leaders had not imposed excessive costs on Ferndo, he said, as N$80 was the standard payment for ‘the very hard cases’. He claimed (incorrectly) that the ‘payment to sit’ had been established by the government, and was now written into law. ‘It was determined by the government as a salary for the traditional leaders. We take this money and put it into an account for personal use, or we eat it. It is divided equally between [the three of] us because we are the headmen of this location.’ Almost two weeks later, after Ferndo had secured half the court fees, the case between him and his nephew resumed. The assembly of people, including some of the original buyers, watched as Ferndo meticulously counted out forty N$1 coins, and then stacked them before the omupolise. The leader re-counted the coins and then deposited them in the side pocket of his soiled blazer. O: There are still forty dollars left for Ferndo to pay. F: No. I will not pay more. [F and O laugh.] H1: [to B1] What did you buy from Theo, and how much did it cost? B1: A single bed. It cost sixty dollars. H1: Where is that bed? B1: At home. H1: You must bring back the bed and return it. And Theo must give you your money back, because he is a thief. Everyone who bought something from Theo must return it, and he must give back their money, because it is our law. You know that Theo has nothing – no house, and he is not working. You should not buy anything from him because he has nothing. B1: I won’t give that bed back before I get my money. H1: No. You must first return the bed. It is our law. You must bring that bed back. You can’t be afraid that maybe you will lose your money because the traditional court never lets someone lose their things. The government court would just come and take the things from the house. And they would take the person who sold it to prison. You can never say that Theo should

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pay you first. You are playing with the law. If you don’t return the things first, we can even take you to prison. You must bring back the bed, then we will send Theo to give you your money back. [to H2] I want you to give your opinion. H2: Yes. You are talking the truth. The bed must be here. No one can buy something from a thief. We will save you because the traditional authority is not like the government. Your money will come back. O: If someone sells something that is worth a lot of money for so cheap, how can the buyer not realise that it is stolen? H1: Everyone who bought things from Theo should bring things back here so that we can judge him. But don’t hesitate. The law will save you. Your money will be returned by the traditional authority. Theo, go and bring the bed here in front of the traditional court, so that we can judge it. [O sends T and B1 to retrieve the bed for the court.] H1: [to B4] Theo is like an animal in the bush. How can you buy something from him? You must return the battery and he will give you your money back. One thing we want to tell you, when someone buys something that is stolen you are a little bit guilty. B4: One of these days I found Theo with a paper from Ferndo. The note said that he would not be coming out of prison, and that Theo should sell the things and take his father to Angola. How come that I will be guilty while I have read that note? H1: But now there is nothing we can do because the paper no longer exists. B4: What kind of court is this? What kind of law is this? I bought something from someone who stole it. How was I supposed to know that it was stolen? And now you say that I am guilty. O: Don’t say this. Watch yourself. I can take you and Theo to jail right now, at the police station. What you are talking is no good, my child. When I take you to the police you will be put in prison. B4: I just want to know how that comes. I’m not arguing. I just want to know. S7: I have something to say. If you find someone who you know has nothing and doesn’t work, and who is selling something very cheap that is expensive, how can you buy these things? That is the mistake you made. B4: I saw the paper Ferndo sent, saying Theo should sell everything at home. B2: It is true. I heard this story around the location. I know the story too. People were talking about it, that Ferndo had sent a letter to sell things.

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The traditional authority cares with you. It will try its best to bring all your money back. We are not like the government. When you go to the government law, they will only give the thief a penalty, but you will come crying because you will never get your things. Our law is different. [T and B1 return with the bed.] B4: I don’t have the battery right now. It doesn’t belong to me. Someone gave me the money to go and look for a battery. H1: We will now ask Ferndo. The guy has no battery. Now we will ask Ferndo what he thinks. S7: [to H1 and O] No, this is the law, and the law is the law. I don’t think that you are handling it correctly. H1: No, the traditional court and our law doesn’t break friendship between people. B4: I think that Ferndo thinks that I came to Theo and forced him to sell the battery to me. F: No. I don’t think like that. I only want my battery back. O: [to F] You can’t say anything. You must be quiet. You gave us the money to solve your problem. S7: Yes, it’s true. You must be quiet. You can only speak when the law asks you a question. H1:

The omupolise later complained to me that Ferndo had not been ‘working well together with us.… He was judging the traditional leaders. It is not him who should judge us, or ask the questions. That is our job. If you bring a case to us you must only be quiet and hear what we are going to say.’ Later in our discussions, when I confessed my inability to distinguish any specific court functions for each of these three leaders, the omupolise explained that the second headman (H2) had been very ill at the time of the case, and thus did not participate because he was only there to observe. Then, he outlined the difference between his and the other headman’s (H1) role: In the government court there is a magistrate and a prosecutor, both of whom wear black gowns. In this traditional court, I am the prosecutor, and [H1] is the magistrate. I will advise [H1] as to the guilt in the case. And then he has the final word on the decision. And I must also see to it that [H1] is giving the correct penalty. If I think that he gives the wrong penalty, I will refuse to accept it. We both have to agree on the penalty. It can’t happen that [H1] and I reach different decisions. I advise him as to the guilt, but if I say the accused is guilty, he cannot say that he is not guilty. This is so because I am the one who reviews the case. If [H1] disagrees with me on the judgement, I will see that the person has bribed him, to put him on his side. To prevent corruption, [H1] cannot disagree with my guilty verdict. It is our way of preventing corruption.

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The case continued, disposing with another buyer in similar fashion. The court briefly turned its attention to the few unaccountable items, and then the traditional leaders handed down their sentences. O:

H1: S7: F:

O: F: H1:

T: H1:

T: H1: T: F:

S7:

Now we are finished with the case. Is there punishment to the thief or not? We must now give Theo a penalty, or should we forgive him because they are family? We must give him a small punishment because he accepted that he sold these things. He did not deny. Yes, we must give him a penalty so that we can get a little something, and so Ferndo can get a little something. I am Theo’s uncle, his mother, his father, his everything. But he wakes up, washes his face and leaves to the location. He only returns drunk to sleep. And then he never cared for my father when I was in jail. My father was suffering. My father said that he asked Theo for food, that he was hungry, and Theo only told him that he, too, was hungry. I don’t want Theo at my home anymore. Let him move please. We can’t allow Theo to leave your house. Theo doesn’t collect water, or cook. He doesn’t do anything at home. [to T] Why don’t you go and collect firewood? Why don’t you help your grandfather when he walks by holding his arm? Why don’t you help? Every job at home, we help each other. [to T] Which of you, between you and Ferndo, was born first, because you have no respect. Why don’t you do the things Ferndo asks of you? Do you have respect for him? Yes. Who is your father? Ferndo. [with anger in his voice] One day I told Theo that we had no water, and he should go and get it. And Theo said to me, ‘am I your wife? I am not your wife.’ How could he say that to me? I am his father. When your son is disrespectful, there is the police. You must take him to the police, and they will beat him a little on the buttocks.

I asked Theo to consider this possible outcome. He replied: ‘I have no money, so the traditional court must decide what to do with me. Maybe they will put me in jail. But if they try to beat me, I will fight. If they wanted to beat me, I would just run away. But if I was guilty, I would allow the government police to beat me.’

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We are finished. But I want to tell something to Theo. The mattress and bed are here. Ferndo you can take these things back to your house. And the money from these things will come from you, Theo. H2: Yes, we are finished. O: [to H1] Did you give him a payment? H1: No. When things are stolen forever you should pay six for each thing. But now all of the things are back. How will the payment be? O: The law is known that you have brought all things back. You will pay every item twice. Do you understand that? T: Yes. O: [to B2] We have a different law with the government because we don’t have prison, and now because you buy stolen things, you have punishment also. And this punishment is ten dollars. If I am wrong, you have to correct it. H1: Yes, you are right. When you buy stolen things, you are also a thief. Therefore, it is right for him to pay ten dollars. B2: [with anger in his voice] Yes, I will give you ten dollars. I will waste my money at this court, and I won’t ever get it back from Theo. [B2 storms away to get N$10 for payment.] O: And Sonia [B1] must pay the court thirty dollars as a penalty for buying the stolen bed from Theo for so cheap. She should have known better. And Ritjombo [B4] will also pay thirty dollars to the court for buying the battery. F: I don’t want to sleep in one house with Theo anymore. H1: You will stay together as a family. He will sleep in the kitchen. And from the coming week the traditional court will employ Theo to make bricks, and I will pay over his earnings to these people who bought the items from him. And then the traditional court will sell the bricks and keep the money to replace what we paid out for Theo’s work. This is how Theo will pay back the people who lost their money. Our law is that Theo must pay one extra of everything he stole to Ferndo. But because he has nothing, and because they are family, he does not have to pay back the extra items to Ferndo. The court will forgive him on this part of the penalty. [Court ends. All people leave. H1 begins giving S7 a haircut.] H1:

A few days later, the omupolise explained to me the court’s sentencing rationale: ‘We judge, judge, judge, and bring peace and help them join hands. And then we tell them that they must remain that way. This is how we put peace between people. We make them to join hands.’ Theo, though still angry about the incident and the leaders’ judgement, told me that his

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first experience in the traditional court had been a relatively positive one. ‘Without the court I might have made a fight,’ he said. And despite all of his earlier complaints, Ferndo was also content with the outcome of the case. ‘I feel a little bit happy with the verdict,’ he said, ‘because I got some of my property back.’ He also believed that the leaders had made the correct judgements and issued fair punishment, especially with respect to those who had purchased his property unwittingly: ‘It is like a family, you see one family in a house, parents, sons and daughters. If one of them steals something and all in the family eat what was stolen, then the father must beat them all, because they all ate the stolen food. He cannot just beat the one that stole it.’ In the end, Ferndo did not regret the court’s refusal to remove Theo from his household. At the time of our last meeting, Ferndo told me that ‘we are now together again, and my nephew is allowed to remain in this household, together with me and my father.’



Paternalistic Imprint: On the Anthropologist-to-be In trying to link the imaginative flows of Kaokolanders with those of the State, it is the anthropologist himself who builds that bridge. This meeting of imaginations is mediated by and through the anthropologist who serves both as a conduit through which imaginations flow and a constructor of text. As such, the reflexive awareness of a White, male anthropologist researching the State in a post-apartheid setting generates its own set of ethnographic data. *

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In 1995, after already having worked two years for the Namibian government, the future anthropologist accepted a new assignment to help establish a rural development centre near the Angolan border. The site where he was to live and work during the ensuing months was inhabited by its veteran caretaker of more than fifteen years. In the mid-1980s the South African regime had stopped using the camp, but it continued to employ Isaac despite the fact that there was no infrastructure or equipment to care for. By the time the future anthropologist arrived, Isaac had been drawing a full-time monthly salary for more than eight years – first from the former government, then from the present – but without having to perform any duties whatsoever. He had been earning his living from a ghost State; a State that manifested itself by its absence, in only a monthly bank ledger entry. The anthropologist-to-be pitched-up in a ‘GRN’ bakkie, a brand new government-owned 4x4 pick-up truck loaded with all the extras. He was an ener-

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getic and idealistic young man, full of enthusiasm and eager to contribute to the remaking of Africa’s youngest independent country. He viewed the Namibian nation-building project as a progressive one, and as a government employee he felt himself a part of it. Although he did not think about it at the time, the arrival of a White man in a well-equipped and goods-laden government vehicle might have signalled the return of the State. The ambitious young man was responsible for directing Isaac’s work. As the weeks and months at the site wore on, Isaac and his new colleague, Isaac and the new Namibian State, came into conflict with one another. From Isaac’s perspective something was amiss. He could no longer count on using the government vehicle for private purposes. His new supervisor would not loan him project funds, or give him new fence poles for his homestead. Isaac would sometimes get angry, and then murmur a remark to the effect that his former baas used to do all these things for him. What had become of Isaac’s State? Perhaps it was a mere oversight, or maybe an institutionalised policy, that had enabled Isaac to remain on the government payroll in that capacity during all those years. In having slipped unnoticed into a bureaucratic crevasse, Isaac had become the subject of a sort of State-time compression. When the State finally re-appeared – in the form of the future anthropologist’s total presence – Isaac’s conception of the State had not budged far from its former rendition. For Isaac, the State was still that which had existed in the heyday of apartheid; just because it had vanished did not imply that it should have also changed. Isaac’s State was a remembered S/state; and for both him and the anthropologist-to-be, it was an imagined State.

Chapter 7

LEGAL STATES OF IMAGINATION AND THEIR EFFECT

The previous chapter’s cases exemplify effectively the social dynamics surrounding the legal process as it so often transpires within the context of Opuwo’s magistrate and traditional court venues. In transposing the reflections and experiences of the central actors involved in the proceedings, my detailing of these the two cases has pointed towards some of the most dominant and widely shared jural perspectives among those in Kaokoland, as well as towards some of the central principles that help to distinguish these two so-called legal sensibilities. In this chapter, I further distil this ‘complex of characterizations and imaginings’(Geertz 1983: 215) in order to argue that notions of paternalism and the family also resound in the ways Kaokolanders conceptualise legal processes; and I suggest that the state and traditional legal systems in Kaokoland are mutually constituting, together forming a single legal complex.

Opuwo’s Jural Sensibilities In comparison to the traditional court, Kaokolanders are most likely to view the Opuwo Magistrate’s Court as the less attractive judicial venue. In most cases, people’s main sense of aversion relates to the State’s emphasis on a punitive model of justice, rather than a restorative or compensatory one. As one person explained, ‘in the traditional court someone who is found guilty of stealing is forced to pay you back, and those things come back to you. In the magistrate’s court the person is kept in jail, or pays not to stay in jail. The fine goes to the government and you lose.’ Similarly, another person explained, ‘if someone is beaten, then he will get paid for that at the traditional court. If he goes to the police, then he won’t get anything.’ But other reasons also contribute to the preferences of victims and potential victims. For example, the magistrate once explained to me that the shelf-life of court personnel in Opuwo was short-lived, as lengthy stays in the small town lead to a loss of impartiality. ‘After coming to

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know the people living in such a place,’ he said, ‘he [the local magistrate] has to withdraw from so many cases that it is no longer efficient for him to sit in that town any longer. That’s why I keep to myself.’ A number of Kaokolanders, though, suggested that the magistrate is easily duped for that very same reason. Since he does not maintain personal relationships with those who appear before him, he cannot distinguish truths from lies. Such a critique challenges the State’s principles which stress the importance of an impartial and independent judiciary, as well as a disinterested and unrelated adjudicator. Many of those who reside outside Opuwo tendered another criticism. According to them, the State’s judicial system – that is, both the court and the police – is simply too far away, too inaccessible, and as a result, prohibitively expensive. While for those within easy reach of the police, many cited a general sense of mistrust for the people who are meant to enforce the law. Police officers were often viewed as corrupt, inefficient, ethnically biased and ineffective, or they were viewed as criminals themselves. Still other victims shunned the state legal system because they perceived prison not as a punishment, but rather as a ticket for free room and board. The State’s judicial system was also viewed critically by offenders and potential offenders. They argued that imprisonment severs social relations and prohibits a person from fulfilling obligations to kin. If the family’s main breadwinner is imprisoned, for example, then many other people are also punished, but indirectly so. One young man made the point most succinctly: In jail you don’t have any hope of doing anything, because you are just there. If you are out and have a case you can still do other things, like looking after your animals, see your children and your mother. And that is why people don’t like the jail. You are just staying there looking at the policemen’s cars, but you don’t do anything to help your family.

As already mentioned, prior to independence almost all cases in Kaokoland were channelled through the traditional courts, and few people ever came into formal contact with the State’s judicial system. In the years since 1990, however, the magistrate’s court has begun processing an increasing number of cases, many of which would have never formerly reached the venue. For most Kaokolanders, exposure to the magistrate’s court is a relatively new experience, and very much a product of Namibia’s independence. The court is still an unknown legal variable, and, as a result, many people do not fully understand its procedures. Though few Kaokolanders were willing to admit it, my observations and discussions at the magistrate’s court indicated that some people’s aversion to this venue might also be a product of personal inexperience, discomfort and insecurity with state legal processes. For those who are much more accustomed to village-level dispute settlement, the magistrate’s court is a mystified space. The traditional court

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is a familiar setting, a well-integrated component of community life; it is held outside and within public view, and is open to anyone wishing to attend or participate. The magistrate’s court, however, remains tucked away, hidden behind closed doors, out of sight from those who do not have immediate business with it. Once inside the courtroom, a person finds additional reasons to feel alienated from its processes. Since English is the court’s official language, most of those appearing are disadvantaged linguistically. Even with the interpreter, time pressures and laxness result in incomplete translations on matters not directly put to the accused. The non-English speaker must rely on the interpreter, and, as a result, is also forced to address the magistrate indirectly. The distance between adjudicator and adjudicated is widened even further when the magistrate reprimands the unknowing accused for failing to act and appear appropriately. But even more significantly, most Kaokolanders are poorly versed in the State’s law, and thus do not know their legal rights under it. For example, and as was seen in Ephram Shipinge’s case, despite the fact that almost all accused persons submit a not-guilty plea, nearly all defendants in the Opuwo Magistrate’s Court waive their rights to an attorney, even though one can be obtained without charge. Similarly, few guilty offenders ever appeal their verdict. For many of those standing in the dock before the Opuwo magistrate, there can be a sense of alienation and helplessness attached to the court proceedings. In further support of this general observation, I want to offer an example by highlighting another case that appeared in the Opuwo Magistrate’s Court during the course of my fieldwork. I focus on the experiences of Mrs H in order to illustrate the confusion and misunderstandings that often arise when people engage with the State’s judicial system. Mrs H initiated a case of stock theft when she laid a charge against her younger brother at the Opuwo police station. In order to do so, she had to spend a full day travelling from her village to the regional capital. Mrs H decided to file the case with the police, and not with her local headman, because ‘had I gone to him he would have told me to forget about the cattle because it was taken by someone in my family.’ In addition, she explained that ‘if you report a case to the traditional authority you will have a meeting under the tree, and then another and another, until my animals go forever.’ The police, she believed, would rectify the matter quickly by forcing her brother to return the cattle. Though more than a year had passed since the incident, Mrs H had yet to recover her animals. Mrs H’s brother, however, had been arrested and was being held in police custody at the time of the trial.1 [Interpreter (I) enters courtroom.] I: All rise. [The State’s main witness, Mrs H (H), remains seated. She does not understand courtroom etiquette. All others in the courtroom rise, including the prosecutor (P), bailiff (B) and accused (A). Magistrate (M) enters court-

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room and takes his seat. All persons in the courtroom are seated, though A must remain standing throughout the duration of the trial.] P: Your worship, for plea and trial. The accused is currently in custody. M: [to A] You are charged with stock theft. Your case is coming up for plea and trial. Will you take a defence lawyer, or do you intend to conduct your own defence? A: I will do it myself. P: On the 7th of August 2000, in Opuwo, the accused did steal stock, 1 cow and 1 calf, valued at N$1,400. The State submits that he knowingly and with intent stole the stock. M: What is your plea? A: Not guilty. M: Can you tell the court why you plead not guilty? Though you are not obliged to do so, you could choose to remain silent and let witnesses be called. A: I have nothing to say. P: The State calls its first witness, the complainant, Mrs H. [H does not know what to do. Someone directs her to the witness dock.] M: Can you state your name for the court? H: Mrs H. M: How old are you? H: I don’t know. I am ignorant. M: Do you have an I.D.? H: It’s at home. P: [looking at case docket.] She is 56 years old, your worship. M: [to I] Administer the oath. [I administers oath.] P: [to H] Do you know the accused? H: Yes. P: How do you know the accused? H: He is my brother. P: Can you tell the court what took place on 7 August 2000? H: The cattle were taken from this side to a place, the name I forget, from Omazipu village. M: So, now who took the cattle there? H: My brother. M: How many cattle were originally taken to this spot? H: 2 cattle. M: Go on. H: And then from there the cattle were stolen, and eaten. And it was from there that I went to report it to the police. I have nothing further to say. P: Can you tell the court the total value of the stolen cattle? [H does not understand the question; long exchange ensues before H finally understands.]

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I have never sold cattle, so I wouldn’t know. Did you recover your stolen cattle? Nothing. I am still trying to recover. Did you give anyone the right or permission to take these cattle from your herd? [H does not understand the question; long exchange ensues before H finally understands.] H: I never gave permission to anyone. M: Now, how many of your cattle were stolen? H: Two cattle, and one was expecting. M: What were their markings? H: [Laughs, but says nothing.] [H does not understand the question; police officer attempts to clarify question; P appears frustrated, slightly piqued, disbelieving; B attempts to explain question; M begins speaking directly to H in Otjiherero; B attempts question again; I attempts to clarify the question.] H: P: H: P:

After ten minutes, Mrs H finally grasped the nature of the magistrate’s question. She drew her cattle’s ear markings for the court, was excused by the prosecutor, and returned to her seat in the spectators’ gallery. Three days later, Mrs H described for me her first experience as a witness in the magistrate’s court: When I entered the court, I entered this box. They asked me the colour of the cattle. I explained they were black and white with some marks on the ear. They asked me what I wanted them to do. I said that I didn’t want him [my brother] to sell my animals.… I want them back. Then they asked him. They asked what he did with the animals, and he said that he sold them because they were his sister’s animals. I understood all of the questions they asked me, because it was about my cattle.

As for the court officials, ‘they are all part of the police,’ she explained, ‘an arm of the police, all of the people working there, and the one who decides is the big police officer.’ Following Mrs H’s testimony the court heard from two additional witnesses. Once they had been fully examined the magistrate requested summations from the prosecutor and the accused, and then, without great deliberation, delivered his verdict: P: M: A: M:

It is clear from the witnesses that the accused should be found guilty as charged. I leave sentencing to the court’s discretion. [to A] Do you have anything to say? I will not stand against that. I have nothing to say. The court finds you guilty of stealing two head of cattle. Now you are found guilty and all that is left now is to be sentenced.

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Before that happens, you are allowed to address the court in mitigation of the sentence. After attempting to ascertain the financial circumstances of the accused, the magistrate handed down his sentence: M:

A: M: P: M: I:

So, your sentence is this: two years imprisonment, in which one year is suspended for five years on the condition that you are not found guilty of stock theft during that period. And further, the next condition is that you pay back the money to Mr M who you sold the stolen cattle to, because he is going to give the calf back to the rightful owner. And you must pay back the other person you sold the other cattle to, so that that cattle can be returned to the complainant.… You will have 30 days to fulfil these conditions. If you don’t, I’m telling you, you will sit for two years. Do you understand? Yes, I understand. I have nothing to do. I just sit and listen to what is being said. [to P] Do you have another case? [to A] Yes, you can go. No, your worship. Court is adjourned. Rise in court.

During our discussion about the case, I also asked Mrs H to comment on the court’s verdict and on her brother’s sentence. ‘He was found guilty, and they decided to take the animals back,’ she said. ‘My animals will come back, my animals will come back.’ According to her, within a few days the police would return her cattle and her brother would reimburse his unsuspecting buyers. Though her brother was sentenced to serve a minimum of one year in prison, Mrs H was under the impression that ‘the only reason he is still in the jail is because they have not found the second animal yet. As soon as they do, then he will be let out.’ Finally, Mrs H was also mistaken in her belief that she could have claimed twelve head of cattle from her brother through the magistrate’s court, just as she could under customary law. However, because ‘it is my own person [family], that is why I don’t charge him like that. If he had not been my own person then I would have told the police to charge him the extra cattle.’ Like Mrs H, other people in Kaokoland do sometimes choose State over custom. Most of those who opt to report their case to the police do so because the offender is unable to compensate them as victim. The offender may be destitute, but more importantly, he or she may ‘come from the outside’. An impoverished offender from Kaokoland does not necessitate the State’s judicial intervention because the offender’s family is expected to accept liability for the crime. However, familial liability claims cannot be extended to cases involving offenders from other regions. If compensation

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Figure 7.1: This is the High Court of Namibia. The High Court is the central body of Namibia’s independent legal system as stipulated in the Constitution. The court has the power and authority to give judgement as long as it is in line with the Constitution. The Supreme Court has the ultimate power and authority in Namibia, even more than the President. That is obvious when talking about democracy. That’s how it should be. If I was in Opuwo, and not Windhoek, I would have taken a photo of the magistrate’s court. And in [my village of] Etanga, I would have taken a photo of the Ovahimba chief Tjambiru. He has more power than the police in Etanga because they just carry out their orders. The police don’t have the right to judge. The chief is the ruler of his own people, and the police are there just to help. — Ndunge, Age 20, Windhoek

from either the offender or the offender’s family seems unlikely, then Kaokolanders will turn to the state judicial system. Some victims of crime who feel themselves outsiders in the region are also more likely to choose State over custom. Though all people are entitled to bring a case in the local traditional court, some non-native Kaokolanders fear an unfair trial at the hands of a local headman, while others shun ‘foreign’ customary law. Lastly, there are also those in Kaokoland who place greater trust and faith in the State’s judicial system. As was the case with Mrs H, some argue that the police are more efficient and effective than traditional leaders, and the magistrate more just; others simply dismiss the traditional court and their adjudicating headmen as corrupt. But such general discontent with the traditional means of justice is quite rare. More often, Kaokolanders who criticise traditional court direct their concerns at individuals overseeing the legal process, rather than the institution itself. Such was the case during the course of my fieldwork

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when a group of location residents attempted to organise the dismissal of the three court convenors featured in the traditional case above. This longstanding court had lost its legitimacy for them, not because of disagreeable or inept rulings, but because of poor administration and management. Some of these people claimed that the three men did not follow-through and enforce their rulings. Others accused them of being too slow, charging inconsistent court fees, and requiring up-front payment before agreeing to sit for a case. As one of these critics explained, ‘if a person has been robbed of everything, maybe he cannot afford to pay for the case at that time. The leader must allow him to pay it at a later date. They must be flexible.… If a person cannot pay now, then they must have understanding.’ Despite these stirrings and the growing movement to elect a new set of leaders during my time in Opuwo, the traditional court continued to hear a regular flow of cases: theft and stock theft, personal insult and defamation, conjugal disputes, quarrels within families and between neighbours, minor assaults, housebreaking, and other nonSchedule 1 offences. It is important to emphasise again that the above accusations were levelled against a specific group of traditional leaders and not the traditional court per se. Within the location the institution itself went mostly unchallenged, and, in comparison to the State’s system, it remained the preferred judicial option. As has already been mentioned, most people who favour the traditional court do so primarily because it manifests a set of compensatory and restorative legal principles. As one location resident explained: If I know who stole my goat, I will take him to the leader so that I can get paid, maybe two or three. The person would have to pay me for stealing the goat. It is punishment, and it is better than the police’s way of punishing. If I go to the police I can’t get my money. He won’t pay me; he will just be in jail, and I will lose. It’s better to go to the local leader. He will know where his [the offender’s] home is, and go there. It just needs a leader who will follow it up.

Kaokolanders also prefer the traditional court for other reasons. According to some, the traditional authority, unlike the magistrate’s court, is not constrained or impeded by excessive legal procedure. In not having to adhere to a specific set of rules and guidelines, traditional courts are more likely to ascertain the truth, and then enforce its ruling. In this sense the traditional court is seen as more efficacious than its state counterpart. One man explained, for example, that the traditional authority has more coercive power than the State: ‘I go to the traditional leader because the power of the traditional leader is more powerful than the police.… The police just follow the rules according to human rights, so they can’t do anything. The traditional leaders know how to truly treat people. The traditional leader can force you, but not the police.’ Another person, a young man, asserted that ‘in the magistrate’s court if you are

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smart and a good talker, then you can make some tricks and get off. But in the traditional authority you can’t get away with such things.’ There are, of course, those in Opuwo and throughout Kaokoland who do challenge the traditional court as an institution in its own right. In doing so, they usually target traditional leaders for putting personal interests ahead of the community. In some cases these interests are seen to revolve around political affiliation: When one is a headman, he is leader of all people in that area. He is supposed to help everyone. But when he favours his own [political] party, and their supporters, then he hurts the others living in his area. The headmen in Kaoko make decisions based on politics. The headman won’t look at a case in truth, but he will look at the political party of those involved.

Others believed the presiding leaders to take stock of family alliances and kinship relations when determining the guilt and/or sentencing of an accused person. One Windhoek-based Kaokolander explained: ‘The traditional authorities are not really fair. It depends who is your family.… I am [M’s] child. If the traditional leader finds me guilty, they will be afraid that my father won’t help them if they are in need. If you come from a strong family the judgement will often go in your favour.’ The same young man who praised the traditional leaders for being so difficult to outwit suggested that they might be more likely to discriminate against him as a young person, as a person without status: They may treat a bottle [liquor] store owner and myself differently. They might pay attention to the bottle store owner more than me, because he [the traditional leader] can get help from that person in the future, maybe ask that person to help him collect water. But from me, because I am young and not rich, I can’t help him. So he will be biased against me. In this way the headman can be like the police.

According to some, the potential for headman partiality is checked by a procedural requirement common to traditional courts in the region. Under customary law, and as became apparent in the traditional case detailed above, the parents and family of litigants are central and essential to the traditional court and its dispute settlement processes. The parents or family representative of both parties to a dispute must be present in order for proceedings to commence. The procedural requirement allows the offender’s family to authenticate and accept the fairness of the court ruling, and ensures that the offender’s family comes to know the actions of its child. As one headman explained, the rule exists ‘so the parents can know correctly who is to be blamed, and who is not to be blamed.’ Parental and familial presence grants the traditional court an added degree of legitimacy. Another very important reason for this procedural stipulation concerns the legal principle of collective liability. Under customary law an

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offender’s parents are held liable by the court. If a guilty person cannot pay the fine personally, the victim is entitled to collect compensation from the offender’s parents or other family member. Regardless of age, a parent is responsible for the actions of his/her children, and a case against one’s child is a case against oneself. In the language of state law, then, children always remain legal minors and ever under the guardianship of their parents. As far as the traditional court is concerned, normative kinship principles apply: there is no age of majority. One of the leaders presiding in the Opuwo court explained it as such: ‘The parents are held responsible because they gave birth to the criminal – the child comes from them – and it is their responsibility to teach the child how to behave properly. If their child commits a crime, they must repay the loss.’2 In an even wider sense, collective liability under customary law extends beyond an individual’s parents. When a Herero or Himba mother accepts liability for her wayward child, she is also doing so on behalf of her matrilineage and her eanda (matriclan). In this way, the principles and procedures of a traditional court work to reinforce the notion of de-individuality. Court procedure recognises that an offender cannot be disembedded from his or her social context, as the individual is but a manifestation of a larger corporate grouping – the family, the lineage, the clan, the community, and thus society as a whole.3 Having just stated the rule, though, there are certainly instances when a parent or family refuses to accept responsibility under the customary rules of collective liability. Especially in cases involving repeat offenders, parents become less and less willing to carry the economic burden of compensating others for the deleterious actions of their delinquent child. In such instances parents instruct the traditional leaders and/or victim to turn the case over to the police for prosecution in the state system. The act of forcing one’s child from the traditional to the state judicial system in just such a manner has deep symbolic significance. The change of venue is, in a very real sense, a disownment, a disavowal, a forced individuation made possible through the mechanisms of State. One additional point relating to traditional court procedure requires brief comment. A guilty offender who appears before the Opuwo magistrate will most likely possess little knowledge about the range of sentencing options relevant to his or her offence. Whether or not he or she is to receive a mere reprimand, a fine, a suspended sentence or a term of imprisonment is made evident only after the magistrate issues his ruling. In contrast, most people in Kaokoland do know what sentences to expect if found guilty before a traditional court, as well as what compensation they will be entitled to if they become a victim of crime. People are aware, for example, that if an assault leads to their injury they will be entitled to eight head of cattle in compensation; or if they insult someone’s mother or father they will pay N$500. A man knows that if he sleeps with another man’s wife he will have to pay her husband six cattle; and it will come as

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no surprise that for every head of livestock he steals, he will have to return the stolen beast and an additional six animals to the victim. Given the existence of these standardised customary sentencing guidelines in Kaokoland, and given the extent of people’s widespread knowledge about them, one might also expect traditional court procedure to be equally well formulated and uncontested. To the contrary, and as illustrated above, the Opuwo traditional court allocated a substantial amount of time to debates over procedure. As was also evidenced in that case, the rules of the court were under constant scrutiny and revision by those in attendance. A witness might challenge the rationale behind a particular question; or the accused person might complain bitterly about the headman’s procedural failures; or a spectator might raise a query as to proper court etiquette. Those who had come to hear and participate in the case would debate such issues as they surfaced, and the proceedings would not progress until resolved. Traditional court procedure, at least in Opuwo, is very much a negotiated process.

Imagining Justice in Okaoko At the beginning of the previous chapter I adopted two important observations: first, law is a species of the social imagination (Geertz 1983); and second, law communicates symbols and messages through the courts (Galanter 1981). I then suggested the value of synthesising these two propositions in consideration of Opuwo's judicial venues. Taken together, I argued, courts serve as a window onto state-related political imagination in post-apartheid Kaokoland. Here, I now want to consolidate the major elements of that imagination, and then turn to reflect on that imagination as a dialectical component of the Namibian State. Thus far, the notion of a legal sensibility has allowed me to present an exposition of Opuwo’s judicial venues in a relatively straightforward manner. I have detailed the State’s legal system, its magistrate’s court, and some of its laws. I followed a similar route with respect to the customary system, its traditional court, and some of its legal principles. However, and here is one of the main points, the construction of two legal sensibilities in Kaokoland is little more than a heuristic device in the service of analysis and description. With that task now complete, I wish to do away with the idea that two competing legal sensibilities operate in Kaokoland. Instead, I want to suggest that the State and the traditional authority, the magistrate’s court and the traditional court, and state law and customary law all contribute to a single legal complex. From this vantage point a number of related elements emerge out of the above exposition, elements that help link imagination and the administration of justice in northwest Namibia. First, in Kaokoland the administration of justice is imagined as a social process, and not simply a legal

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one. The application of impersonal laws by impartial adjudicators to individuals disembedded from their social contexts does not best serve the interests of society. Rather, justice requires grounding in the everyday facts of social relations. In this respect the magistrate’s court and state law aim to individuate the person, while the traditional court and customary law affirms the corporate grouping and networks of social relatedness. Kaokolanders also extend the social embeddedness principle to their judges – whether traditional leaders or magistrates. Even though such entanglements can and do generate judicial abuses, they argue that effective adjudicators need to be entwined in the same set of social relations in order for them to assess truth and issue correct judgements. For the purposes of the judicial process, a socially embedded Kaokolander is first and foremost a child, that is, he or she is imagined not as an isolated individual being, but as a socially created person who is forever connected intrinsically to his or her parents. By extension, the offender is linked through his or her parents to a wider social field – to the household and family, to matri- and patrilineages, to the matriclan and patriclan, to the village and community, and to society as a whole. The law transgressor’s parents embody his or her connection to the wider society. It is for this reason that most Kaokolanders accept and defend a legal principle of collective liability; it is why traditional court proceedings cannot commence without the presence of the disputant’s parental or familial representatives; it is why many Kaokolanders urge the Opuwo magistrate to hold parents responsible for the crimes of their children; and it is why one young man asserted that when he takes a person to traditional court, ‘I am not taking him to the traditional authority, but to his parents. It is more or less the same thing.’ The administration of justice in Kaokoland reflects ‘struggles against the “government of individualisation”’ (Foucault 1982: 781). It is about recognising and negotiating social context, and, even more importantly, preserving it. Just verdicts and sentences address the offender, the victims, and the offender’s family, as well as the social relatedness between them. The ideal judicial process is restorative rather than punitive. In the end the offender is punished in such a way as to highlight the direct consequences of action and prevent future transgressions; the victim receives compensation for his or her loss; the family members of the offender are not unduly burdened by the sentence; and social relations between offenders and victims, disputants and their family members, are restored. In contrast, imprisonment achieves the opposite effect: it increases the division between people – victim from offender, offender from family – instead of bringing them back together. In a sense, then, the ideal judicial process is based on a parental or familial model of justice. The son will not be disowned from the family simply because he taunts his sister, or steals her money. All attempts will be made at restoring the relationship between siblings, at preserving the family unit, and the corporate unit.

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State imprisonment, when otherwise avoidable, is equivalent to familial disownment. Kaokoland-connected people do acknowledge that punitive measures are sometimes necessary and deserved. In such instances corporal punishment is the appropriate response precisely because it, too, corresponds with a parental model of justice. The state functionary or headman imposes lashes with a cane to the buttocks of a criminal offender just as a parent punishes its child. Strokes imposed by a court of law convey the same powerful message as those imposed by a parent, and once administered, social relatedness remains intact. Few other punitive measures offer such an effective combination, and it is for this reason that many Kaokolanders call for the reinstatement of corporal punishment. In Part I of this book we saw how Kaokolanders imagine governmental practices through idioms of parental care. The parent–child relationship serves as a model and method of government, and nurturance and nourishment figured as central images. With respect to courts and bodies of law in Kaokoland, a similar parentalistic imagination emerges. Paternalism and the family also resound in the ways Kaokolanders conceptualise the judicial process. Here, the parent, the child, and the relationships and practices that form around this social nexus condition notions of justice. In favouring the traditional judicial venue and customary law, Kaokolanders assert a discourse about society (Humphreys 1985), and an image of the State vis-à-vis its judicial practices and legal principles. In its crudest form, the Opuwo Magistrate’s Court manifests itself as a-parental: it will not impose corporal punishment, it divides families through the use of punitive rather than restorative measures, and it refuses to recognise collective familial responsibility. Implicit in this view, I would argue, is a longing and desire for a more paternalistic and morally conscious State.

Legal Pluralism as State Effect In what sense are these paternalistic (and parentalisitic) imaginings about the administration of justice in Kaokoland helping to constitute the Opuwo Magistrate’s Court; and, conversely, in what ways are messages disseminated by the State’s court and its laws constitutive of the traditional court? In first having offered a historical outline of so-called legal dualism in Namibia, I have tried to show the extent to which these judicial apparatuses were interwoven throughout the period of colonial and apartheid rule. During most of the twentieth century there was a great amount of overlap between the state court and the traditional court in Kaokoland. In fact, it was often very difficult to distinguish between them. Since independence, however, there have been attempts to pry apart these two judicial systems, and with some success. On the surface

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the two courts and their respective laws have become more clearly demarcated. But despite recent legislation to this effect, a significant amount of relational ambiguity remains. We have seen, for example, the ways in which the magistrate and other government officials sometimes bent and/or relaxed court procedures (and even laws) so as to accommodate customary notions of judicial practice. The magistrate borrowed stylistically from the traditional court when suitable, and he attempted to incorporate a compensatory element to his judicial sentences when possible. In customising the State, the magistrate’s court gains a greater degree of legitimacy and credibility among Kaokolanders, not to mention power. Furthermore, we have also seen how traditional leaders adopt magisterial postures. For example, they threaten to incarcerate uncooperative witnesses and offenders even though they do not actually possess such powers. By invoking the State, the traditional court in Opuwo gains a greater degree of credibility and authority for itself. Through such mutual conversions of legitimacy, traditional leaders and state officials reinforce each other’s functions, thereby bolstering the power of both the State and traditional authority (cf. Buur and Kyed 2007b). From a more theoretical position, then, the analysis presented herein aims to assert a dialectics of so-called legal dualism, in the past and in the present. State and customary legal orders are dynamic in nature; both continue to evolve, and to evolve in relation to one another. But the two perceived legal orders are also quite porous. In their mutual cross-fertilization, a legal hybridity begins to emerge (de Sousa Santos 2006). In recognition of this state process, we are being led back to our notion of legal pluralism, and, in particular, to its limits.4 Here, the pivotal concept used initially to frame the discussion begins losing its analytical value. How can we suggest that any given social field contains more than one legal order when those very same ‘legal orders’ help to constitute one another? In Namibia, as in all modern States, what initially appears as uniquely separate and distinctive legal orders are revealed as contributing elements to a much more singular, though internally incoherent, national legal complex. In these modern times, we need to acknowledge that national legal complexes emerge as the prerogative of the State. In Namibia, the study of the traditional court is indeed a study of state process precisely because it is the State that authenticates and legitimises customary law. For this reason, and despite appearances to the contrary, States do have a monopoly over the legitimation of a country’s given legal complex, even when that ordering contains a significant degree of contradiction and disunity. If legal pluralism is but an appearance, then what are we to make of it? I argue that the appearance of legal pluralism in Namibia is but a state effect. Recently, scholars have begun exploring such effects in their efforts to both re-conceptualise and de-centre the State as an object of study, both inside and outside the field of anthropology. As Michel-Rolph Trouillot has recently argued:

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If the state has no institutional or geographical fixity, its presence becomes more deceptive than otherwise thought, and we need to theorize the state beyond the empirically obvious. Yet this removal of empirical boundaries also means that the state becomes more open to ethnographic strategies that take its fluidity into account. I suggest such a strategy here, one that goes beyond governmental or national institutions to focus on the multiple sites in which state processes and practices are recognizable through their effects (2001: 126).

Trouillot recommends that we try to capture these state effects through the subjects they help to produce. His suggestion is, undoubtedly, a fruitful way to ethnographise the State. However, in proposing legal pluralism as a state effect, I take my lead from a political scientist. Timothy Mitchell’s (1999) work has unmasked both ‘civil society’ and ‘the economy’ as two such similar state effects. According to him, the State-society and State-economy distinctions are not simply divisions between two independent domains, as is so often observed. Rather, the appearance of such a distinction is a structural effect arising out of the ‘mundane processes of spatial organisation, temporal arrangement, functional specification, supervision and surveillance, and representation that create the appearance of a world fundamentally divided into state and society or state and economy’ (1999: 95). The ability to have internal distinctions appear as if they were external boundaries between separate objects is, for Mitchell, a central technique of the modern political order. In Kaokoland, the appearance of legal dualism results from a number of such mundane processes. Consider how the magistrate’s court reproduces the apparent distinction between State and custom through its spatial and ritual practices. The court is a space all to its own, set apart physically from the rest of society. It speaks its own language, demands a specific comportment, and de-personifies those in its employ. Unlike the experience of being present in a traditional court, when one is inside the magistrate’s court one feels set apart from society. Maintaining such distinctions – between State and society, the magistrate’s court and traditional court, state law and customary law – helps to generate a specific effect: the Namibian State (and its court) appears an independent entity all its own, rather than a composite process. Emanating out of laws and courts, this particular state effect is a resource of power, and one that helps to maintain and reproduce the social and political order in Kaokoland, and in post-apartheid Namibia.



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Paternalistic Imprint: On the Anthropologist Ethnology is like fishing; all you need is a net to swing, and you can be sure that you’ll catch something. Marcel Mauss Mauss’s words capture something of the open-endedness and possibilities for surprise that anthropological research usually raises.… But Mauss’s observation also, I have come to appreciate, implies an absence of control that may not be so pleasurable. The researcher is not in charge and cannot choose what strange or terrible creature may turn up in the net. And when it comes time to inspect the haul, it is not always so clear: did you catch it, or did it catch you? — James Ferguson (1999: 17–18)

Racial (self-)consciousness permeates Namibian society; apartheid remains a pervasive feature of the ideational landscape; and the anthropologist’s own Whiteness implicates him in his object of study. It infiltrates almost every social interaction and exchange. He becomes irritated at his own tendencies to overcompensate for his own imaginings, an imagined awareness that people perceive him first and foremost as a racist Boer. Working against this fear, this suspicion, he compensates by trying to show and reveal himself as not ‘one of those Whites’. He fights against the imagination of his informants, the stereotyping, the categorisations. He is otjirumbu (white person, but literally ‘white thing’, in Otjiherero); he is rich; he is a racist; he is exploitative. An awkward and uncomfortable sense of racial awareness is stirred within him. This contagious racial consciousness, this racial self-consciousness, drains him, fatigues him. The straw that nearly broke the anthropologist’s back came out of the mouth of one of his research assistants, a person he had already been working with for a couple of months, a person who he felt had come to understand a bit about him. They were returning home from a traditional court case when the assistant popped the brutal question: ‘Do you think apartheid was good or bad?’ The anthropologist’s heart sinks to the ground. He is devastated. How could his assistant not know the answer? Why does such a question need to be asked? ‘Why do you ask such a question?’ the anthropologist replies, crushed. The assistant explains. He has heard about a racist killing in Europe, and thinks that foreigners might want to come to Namibia to learn about apartheid, to learn from apartheid, to learn how to create such a society in their own country. Of all people, why cannot this Namibian position the anthropologist, his attitudes, his humanity? The anthropologist is being misjudged, misunderstood; he cannot be seen through his Whiteness. But the anthropologist’s Whiteness does not only shadow him in his relationships with dark-skinned Opuwans. For some of the Afrikaners living in town, a shared skin hue yields instantaneous brotherhood. They con-

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Figure 7.2: Here, there are different people exchanging things at a vehicle in front of the Opuwo supermarket. You can see John, a traditional Himba woman, and Black people wearing western clothes. They are exchanging their crafts. These people represent the nation, the people we see in Namibia. After independence the people have become united into one nation. They stand together as one nation. Some people are really together, but others don’t want to be together in one nation. Not all Whites are able to be in one home with Black people, which means we are not one nation.… The home is like our country. We need to live in our country together in the same way we live in a house. — Mukuene, Age 23, Opuwo I did not know that this photo was being taken of me. I only realised it once the film was developed. However, I do remember vividly the conversation that was underway. I was not buying crafts, as Mukuene imagined. I recall so clearly because I wrote about it that evening in my field notes: ‘In town this afternoon, outside the Opuwo supermarket, I was approached by [Mrs N]. She was accompanied by a younger relative. I expected her to ask me for money, food, cool drink or to purchase one of her wares, as she usually does. This time, though, she asked me for help. She wanted me to help one of her relatives deal with government’s bureaucracy.’ When this photo was taken, Mrs N was busy explaining to me that the government had recently turned down her relative’s application for a disability pension. She was under the impression that I could convince the government to change its decision. I explained to Mrs N that I didn’t have any power to change that decision, but that I would be willing to help her write a letter to the ministry. — John, Age 32, Cambridge

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nect with the anthropologist through an imagined bond, a connection that brings with it immediate acceptance, friendship, camaraderie, generosity, and a tendency towards intimacy. They too are blinded by his Whiteness, for they cannot read the anthropologist’s repulsion, his contempt, the disgust that wells up inside him every time he hears their racial ranting. But there are other constructions of the anthropologist, or so he imagines. The Namibian State constructs him as a potential threat. Sometimes the anthropologist feels intimidated, under surveillance. He fears the Special Field Force officers, their machine guns and their sense of impunity. A member of the Civic Affairs Division questions him. ‘Why are you here? What are you researching? Why?’ The State sends the anthropologist coded messages, and at such times he comes to fear his very object of study. And then, of course, there are those who view the anthropologist as having come to Opuwo in order to help people, to give them things. Even from a distance, from across the road, the relationship is anticipated. ‘Give me my money. Give me my mealie-meal. Give me my job.’ The anthropologist is a giver, a provider, a father of sorts. He is part and parcel of the state-related political imagination, for he is the former Native Affairs Commissioner; he is the government; he is the parent. The anthropologist is what the apartheid State was, a White man in a pick-up truck; and he is expected to act as such.

PART III CHIEFSHIP AND THE POST-APARTHEID STATE

Chapter 8

MAKING POLITICS, MAKING HISTORY

Throughout much of the past century politics in northern Kaokoland have been influenced by a factional dynamic that has dominated and overshadowed nearly every other political consideration in the region. The conflict has conditioned not only local internal political processes, but also the relationship between Kaokolanders and the State. The dispute plays out between two factions – so-called traditional groupings – of primarily Otjiherero-speaking people. Although Kaokolanders, government officials and scholars alike tend to delimit these two groups on ethnic grounds, they do in fact share a common set of cultural attributes, and this makes such categorisations extremely problematic. Instead, history offers a safer means of differentiation. In this respect, most members subject to the authority of what is currently termed the Otjikaoko Traditional Authority claim to be descendants of Kaokoland’s first and original inhabitants. The second group, the much smaller Vita Royal House Traditional Authority (as it is currently termed), comprises descendants of those Otjiherero-speaking people who entered and/or re-entered Kaokoland during the first three decades of the twentieth century, and their followers. This latter grouping started to coalesce in the 1920s under the leadership of Vita Oorlog Thom, a ‘big man’ and sometime-warlord who was eventually made ‘Chief of Kaokoland’ by the then-South African regime. Today, many Otjikaoko group members feel dominated politically and economically by the minority Thom group. Given that a significant number of the original returnees and immigrants – and especially their leader Vita Thom himself – were born in central Namibia, and given that many of those within the Thom group today trace their family origins to the central part of the country, members of the Otjikaoko faction view their perceived domination as having come at the hands of foreigners. Kaokoland’s factional dispute is like a spider’s web. Not only do the numerous threads, if traced far enough, eventually weave themselves together but, also like a web, the dispute has the tendency to entrap. At the anchor points of this complex entanglement we find threads that have also woven themselves through some of the recent scholarly literature on Africa. For example, the Kaokoland dispute is tethered to the traditional

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authorities and the institution of chiefship, a topic that has drawn a great deal of recent attention (Buur and Kyed 2007a; Oomen 2005; Williams 2004; Nyamnjoh 2003; Rathbone 2000; van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal and van Dijk 1999). Such current academic focus reflects the remarkable dynamism, staying power, and even resurgence of African chiefship in the present era of globalisation, democratisation and liberalisation (Englebert 2002). The factional conflict that I detail below is also anchored to localised notions of tradition (Sanders 2003; Gable 2000), notions that are constructed and re-constructed, and/or deployed with instrumental political intention (Kodesh 2001; Oomen 2000; Guyer 1996; Ranger 1983). The Kaokoland case challenges us to consider the political work that ‘history’ and ‘tradition’ do in the service of power. A third main strand permeating the Kaokoland case concerns the relationship between politics and ethnic identity on the one hand (Bayart 1993; Cohen 1969), and death, burial and belonging on the other (Cohen and Odhiambo 1992). Here, we will be forced to take seriously political conceptions of ethnicity, as well as some recent observations linking Africa’s democratisation processes to an obsession with autochthonous forms of belonging (Geschiere and Nyamnjoh 2000). Finally, Kaokoland’s factional dispute challenges recent scholarship relating to post-colonial state bifurcation in Africa. Most significantly, Mahmood Mamdani (1996) has suggested that the apartheid State, although usually treated as an exceptional case on the continent, was in fact the generic form of the colonial State in Africa, a state form epitomised by ‘decentralised despotism’. Since it was organised differently for Europeans and Africans, he describes the colonial State as Janus-faced, as having contained a duality. Mamdani thus proposes a model of the postcolonial African State plagued by the legacy of its own bifurcation, that is, by the coexistence of two forms of power – civil and traditional – under a single hegemonic authority. According to him, in the post-colonial era state bifurcation remains intact, though in a de-racialised form; today, the divide separates the rural peasant from the urban dweller. Mamdani’s account has generated a great deal of scholarly debate, and it has established a valuable framework within which to think through the post-colonial State in Africa. However, and as the Kaokoland case will show, his model does not adequately capture nuance and specificity, that is, state texture and ‘thickness’. When subjected to an ethnographic gaze, Namibian state bifurcation does not appear nearly so rigid. Kaokoland’s factional dispute reveals quite clearly how the State’s two supposedly bifurcated elements mutually infuse one another. In Part III of this book, then, I will be exploring the dynamics in and around the Kaokoland factional dispute by tracing a historical trajectory that begins with the onset of colonial rule in the early twentieth century and ends at the present day. In doing so, I will reflect on a number of these issues in an attempt to make the web-like interconnections more legible. I

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will also try to open up some of the analytical spaces between these multiple points of connection; for example, between traditional authorities and history, between discursive representations of local group membership and everyday practice, and between funerary rites, tradition and national politics. But not all of the issues that surface out of the dispute are unique to Kaokoland, for many of them also resonate in other localities throughout the country, and throughout Namibia’s national political landscape. In highlighting these intersections my overarching aim is thus to consider the rooting of power in Kaokoland and in the post-apartheid Namibian State. But I should emphasise, as I have done previously, that the ensuing exposition might at times appear unconventional, at least stylistically so. This is due to a number of factors relating to the processual nature of the subject. In Kaokoland, like elsewhere, the State has not held steady for any significant period of time. In other words, we are addressing ‘not a “thing” but a “happening”’ (Fox quoted in Gupta 1995: 398); and for this reason, one cannot definitively capture it. Likewise, the institution of chiefship in Africa must be characterised similarly; it too is a dynamic process over time, and it too escapes definitive capture. Our case in Kaokoland is further complicated by the fact that both of these ‘happenings’ – chiefship and the State – are (and have been) intricately shaped by one another. We are forced to navigate our way through complex dialectical processes, ones that are also in dialectical relation with one another. Finally, in Kaokoland both chieftaincy and the State are pitted with contradictions, incoherencies and ambiguities. It is impossible to escape the contested nature of the subjects or the narratives, and thus the only effective means to approach this aspect of the ethnography is to embrace, and even highlight, these tensions. For all of these reasons, then, the task of writing this history is a difficult one. In narrating Kaokoland’s chieftaincy dispute and the two States that have been party to it, I will be attempting to write across dimensions, in multiple layers rather than only linearly, so as to more accurately reflect the processual nature of power and the State in Namibia.

History and/of ‘Traditional’ Leadership in Kaokoland The history of traditional leadership in Kaokoland is extremely contested, for ‘history’ has been – and as I will detail, continues to be – at the centre of traditional leadership claims in the region. As a result, I choose only to identify situated histories (cf. Haraway 1988), that is, historical narratives associated with particular interests at particular points in time. The histories that I bring together, and sometimes even juxtapose, generate a sort of conversation between positioned subjects. The strategy emphasises the multiplicity of interpretations that exist within this story, but also the ‘interpenetrations’ of the different accounts. In this respect, I follow the lead of Henrietta Moore and Megan Vaughan who utilise a ‘particular

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method of contextualization which seeks to demonstrate degrees of autonomy and interdependence between different discursive frames and strategic practices’ (1994: xvi). The narratives that I draw upon in this section of the book originate in colonial government archival sources, official publications, colonial historiography and ethnography, oral histories, personal testimonies and recent academic publications on the region. This is a set of contradicting sources, but we are able to approach them from a privileged historical position; and it is from this position that I am able to analyse the long-standing factional dynamic that has been so intricately connected to political and historical process in Kaokoland. *

*

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The Kaokoland factional dispute that has played out for nearly a century, and that I will detail below, was set in motion by a distant and catastrophic event that unfolded at the turn of the twentieth century in German South West Africa. Specifically, it was the infamous HereroGerman War (1904–1908)1 and its displacement of Otjiherero-speaking people from the central part of the territory that established the predisposition for conflict in Kaokoland. During the four-year campaign, many of the war’s refugees fled north with their livestock and firearms, seeking security in the areas beyond German control. Those that found a safe haven in Kaokoland utilised their relative wealth, weapons and pre-existing trade networks to begin establishing dominance over the pastoralists and hunter-gatherers already present there, most of whom spoke Otjiherero as well (Gewald 1999: 207). Those who fled further afield into southern Angola gathered around the leader Vita Thom, an influential Otjiherero-speaker who was originally from central Namibia, but who had already been living, trading, raiding and fighting in Angola for a number of years (Stals and Otto-Reiner 1999). But it was not until after Germany had lost control of its colony that the conflict in Kaokoland began to surface in a recognisable form. In 1917, two very important events transpired for the people of the region, events that would intricately shape Kaokoland’s socio-political landscape for decades to come. First, in that momentous year Vita Thom left Angola to settle permanently in northern Kaokoland. Thom arrived in the region with cattle, weapons, and military experience; and with an eclectic group of followers, a chiefly pedigree, and a social network that linked him to central Namibia. Vita Thom was quick to deploy these resources in the region, and he immediately established himself as Kaokoland’s most influential (and feared) leader. In fact, only a short time after his resettlement, in June 1917, Thom voluntarily reported himself to Colonel de Jager at the Office of the Commanding Troops in Windhoek. Vita wished to meet in person the new South African rulers in order to deny the complaints that had

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already been lodged against him in Kaokoland. The meeting was perhaps the first official encounter between the South African colonial government and Kaokoland’s rapidly evolving political order. During the meeting Colonel de Jager and others questioned the deferential Vita Thom about the pending accusations, and, once satisfied with his version of events, proceeded to assert the government’s strength and willingness to ‘quiet’ anyone who caused trouble. De Jager then offered Vita Thom the option of either accepting government protection or returning to Angola. Vita chose the former, and De Jager, with a tone of grandiloquence, announced that ‘[t]he Government has now met Oorlog and looks to him.’ Before the meeting was concluded De Jager offered Vita a pair of boots and clothing, and informed him that a South African government patrol would soon be sent to ‘look around’ Kaokoland.2 The second major event of 1917 occurred less than two months following this historic meeting. As promised, Major C.N. Manning, on behalf of the newly installed South African government, set out on a three-month tour of Kaokoland, covering over 1,200 miles on horseback and foot. Manning had two primary tasks. He was to investigate and address a ‘hostile dispute between two armed native sections in Northern Kaokoveld’, as well as report back to the Administrator on the inhabitants and general conditions of the region.3 Even though at the time the South Africans had control over the entire country, having wrestled it away from the Germans in 1915, they had yet to begin administering Kaokoland. Manning’s journey thus marked the beginning of de facto colonial rule in the region.4 The ‘native dispute’ that occupied so much of Manning’s attention during this and a subsequent tour5 concerned two Otjiherero-speaking leaders, Vita Thom and Muhona Katiti. For a number of years prior, the two leaders had lived side by side in southern Angola, and peacefully so.6 Major Manning reported that Vita Thom had even given protection and assistance to Muhona Katiti. After having gained strength and wealth of his own, though, Katiti fell out with his former patron.7 He returned to Kaokoland some years prior to Vita Thom (van Warmelo 1951: 15; Otjikaoko oral historian Muniombara, in Bollig 1997b: 56–58; Stals and Otto-Reiner 1999: 43), possibly in 1910;8 or, as Vita Thom’s elderly grandson and one of the Thom group’s most influential traditional leaders told me, some years after Vita Thom. Major Manning’s two tours of Kaokoland and the observations that he made there resulted in the implementation of colonial policies that would contribute to Kaokoland’s contemporary chiefship dispute. Significantly, Manning could find no evidence of ‘distinct communities or tribes’.9 In the northern part of the region Manning noted that the whole of the population was of the ‘Herero type’, but divided into three ‘sections’ of people.10 Vita Thom’s section included ex-Damaraland Hereros, ‘wild’ Tjimbas and Himbas, and Oorlams; and Muhona Katiti’s and Kasupi’s sections comprised Tjimbas and Himbas alone.11

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Here, it is useful to flag the fact that the labels ‘Himba’ and ‘Tjimba’ were, at that time, of very recent origin. The first known written reference to any such ‘Himba’ people appeared only three years earlier when Heinrich Vedder, a missionary and colonial ethnologist, penned the term in one of his travel reports (Bollig 1997a).12 Since the Himbas and Tjimbas shared every major cultural attribute with the Hereros (including language), these labels were not meant to denote distinctive ethnic categories, but rather socio-economic ones. They were, plainly and simply, indicators of class. Both Himba and Tjimba people lived as semi-nomadic pastoralists, but Himba people were wealthier as a result of their large cattle holdings. According to Major Manning, ‘Tjimba’ was considered a derogatory term and was applied to those people who were ‘obtaining [a] precarious living in mountains without stock or any fixed abodes.’13 Even as late as 1951, a South African government ethnologist explained the difference between Himba and Tjimba as ‘largely that between a well-dressed, well-fed, wellto-do farmer and his poorer, dirtier, neglected and underfed bywoner-type cousin’ (van Warmelo 1951: 11). As we will see, these terms and their changing connotations at various historical moments throughout the twentieth century have been instrumental in shaping Kaokoland’s political and ethnic landscape. But we should also dwell a moment on Major Manning’s use of the term ‘section’, rather than ‘tribe’, for it too is quite instructive. As Michael Bollig (1997a) has also noted, the society did not present the bounded tribal ordering that the colonial official had been conditioned to find. As a result Manning set about to establish more familiar and workable structures through which the South African Administration could rule in Kaokoland; and it was their man in the region, Vita Thom, to whom he turned. In Vita, Manning saw a leader of ‘enlightened character and influence’.14 He was ‘a highly intelligent native’15 who wore western-style clothing, lived a relatively settled life, and could speak European languages. Muhona Katiti, though, was ‘a real savage in sundry metal ornaments, grease, skin girdle, wool or hair bunched and bound with fine leather behind [his] head.’16 Before concluding his tour of the region in 1917, Manning appointed Vita as chief over northern Kaokoland, believing that he would have ‘a beneficial effect in [the] preservation of order and be very useful for Administrative [sic] purposes in that distant locality.’17 In doing so, Manning allowed Vita and his followers to retain some firearms because ‘it seemed inadvisable for political reasons to weaken Oorlog too much just then.’18 Manning also reported that he had negotiated successfully a settlement in the dispute between the two leaders. Katiti, he wrote, had agreed to surrender his firearms and subsume his leadership under that of Vita Thom. Otjikaoko and Vita Royal House oral historical sources recounted different versions of this seminal agreement to me.19 The then-current chief of the Vita Royal House (Vita Thom’s son), along with one of his senior counsellors, asserted that there were no leaders in Kaokoland when Vita

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arrived from Angola. Another senior counsellor explained that Muhona Katiti had been one of many headmen under Vita Thom. However, a prominent Otjikaoko group member narrated a version of history whereby Katiti had served as the overarching chief of Kaokoland. These inconsistent contemporary accounts of the relationship between the two leaders are reflective, in part, of the colonial authorities’ own lack of consistency during the 1920s and 1930s. Manning, for example, sometimes referred to both leaders as equals;20 and when Thom’s and Katiti’s reserves were officially proclaimed in 1923, the respective Government Notice cited both leaders as ‘chiefs’, but Katiti only inconsistently so.21 Eight years later, the government referred to ‘Chief’ Muhona Katiti with a qualification: he ‘is not a chief in the sense of the word as understood by native tribes generally’ because ‘he has no royal blood in his veins.’22 The colonial archives and the oral historical record indicate that Muhona Katiti and Vita Thom remained arch rivals until at least the late 1920s. Both leaders often sought the assistance of the colonial administration, hoping to secure government support and favour (Bollig 1997a: 28, 1998a: 167). As two Otjikaoko oral sources explained, ‘[w]hen the Boers went out to destroy other tribes, Harunga [Vita Thom] went with them in order to help them’ (Mutambo and Rutjindo, in Bollig 1997b: 250). As for Muhona Katiti and his followers, they filed numerous complaints against Vita, including charges of encroachment, cattle raiding, woman and child thievery, and murder. Colonial officials concluded that such charges were exaggerated,23 though contemporary Otjikaoko group oral historians, leaders and ordinary members still assert the validity of these claims. ‘Vita Thom was a robber and a killer,’ one Otjikaoko Traditional Authority counsellor told me. ‘He was killing people. He stole people’s animals, and that is how he became a so-called chief.’ A Thom group member acknowledged to me that Vita was a cattle thief, but one who raided only so he could redistribute the booty to his poorer followers. Muhona Katiti’s death in 1931 did not help quell the divisions in Kaokoland politics. In his annual report for the year 1936, the Native Commissioner responsible for Kaokoland, C.H.L. Hahn, noted his growing dissatisfaction with ‘tribal affairs’ in the region: leaders were unable to create a sense of unity, rival sections and separatist leanings made administrative work difficult, and even Vita Thom was failing to meet the Administration’s expectations.24 After a ‘big representative meeting of all the Kaokoveld natives’ held in July 1936, Hahn reported that: They agreed unanimously that the council system which exists in Ovamboland should be introduced into the Kaokoveld. The old systems whereby their cases and affairs were tried and settled by their respective chiefs were discarded. Now headmen and leaders were chosen who, with their respective chiefs, would meet once every two months at Okorosave to attend native courts where cases are tried, etc.25

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Hahn was himself a strong supporter of such tribal councils. Six months earlier, in January of 1936, he had written a letter to his head office in Windhoek arguing for the introduction of such a system throughout all of South West Africa: it would afford the Administration the opportunity to consolidate its control by giving it ‘a much closer hold over the various native communities than it possesses today.’26 Despite Hahn’s enthusiasm and the July decision, no such plans were implemented until after Vita Thom’s death. Vita died while in transit from Windhoek in August 1937; he was subsequently buried at Ukualuthi in the former Ovamboland. A few months later, the new system was up and running,27 and by late 1938, a tribal council – consisting of seven ‘Herero’ members28 – was overseeing Vita’s former constituency (renamed the ‘Herero section’) to the Commissioner’s approval.29 At around the same time the Administration reclassified Kaokoland’s other ‘sections’, now referring to them as the Tjimba and Himba sections (see Figure 8.2). Both of these groups were overseen by headmen who were not officially a part of the new Kaokoland Tribal Council,30 but who were expected to cooperate with it. In contrast to the ‘Hereros’, Hahn was not satisfied with the workings of these two latter sections. He found ‘their so-called “Chiefs”’ ineffective, and, furthermore, they refused to work together with the Herero tribal council.31 The Herero headmen also complained about their Himba counterparts, as well as the new tribal council system in general. Moses Ndjai, the most senior leader on the council, stated that ‘[t]he Ovahimbas are very cheeky and an impossible people to deal with. Working with them is like trying to shift a mountain.’32 Another leader, George Hartley, described the tribal council as a ‘heavy yoke on our necks’ that was giving them all grey hairs. ‘The Government gave us authority to try cases,’ he said, ‘but the people insult, defy and swear at us and we have no power.’33 Others complained similarly. As with the written sources, contemporary oral accounts of this important transition from illusory chiefship to ineffective tribal council are lacking. Historical narratives from the region tend to gloss over these crucial events. Yet direct enquiries indicate a telling difference of opinion as to their significance. One Otjikaoko group member told me that the South Africans had implemented the council in order to reintroduce traditional rule in Kaokoland. ‘That [tribal council] system was the traditional system, the system that was born with the people,’ he explained. A similar account was offered to me by one of Kaokoland’s former Native Affairs Commissioners. By contrast, when I posed the question to two ranking members of the Vita Royal House, they replied that the South African Administration had introduced the tribal council as a way to dilute local power, and thereby strengthen the government’s own influence in the region. In 1939, after the council system had been up and running for a year, the Administration decided to station its first permanent Native Affairs official in Kaokoland, at Opuwo. When he assumed his duties, the Officer

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Figure 8.1: This photo is about our heroines and heroes who were killed on 10 December 1959 [in Windhoek]. There are 11 people buried in this single grave, including Kakurukaze Mungunda who was the first lady to be involved in political issues. She was a hero.… The people were forced to move from Windhoek’s Old Location to Katutura. They didn’t want to shift from that place. Then Major Snyman, who was working for the Municipality, called a last meeting to force their removal. They had to move but didn’t want to, so they started fighting with stones. And then the South African regime started to fight them with weapons and the people were killed. I don’t know exactly why they were forced to move. The Municipality said there was no water, that it was not hygienic, but that was not true. I took this photo because it was interesting to me because most of our Herero history is not recognised. People are not concentrating on these things that we feel in our heart from the past. Today we are enjoying our freedom because of these people. These were our forefathers and foremothers, so we have to remember them always.… Herero history is not recognised because we are few in population, because we died during a war of the past. Today when the government asks about ex-fighters who fought for liberation, we are not included. They make it seem like us Hereros did not fight for independence, which is not true. Maybe they do this because of a political issue. Most of the Hereros, we are not from SWAPO, and because of this, the government ignores the Hereros. There are some in government, but generally us Hereros are not recognised. Hereros fought first, before the South African regime, against the Germans… We were not taught in school about the Herero contribution to history. — Matjandjara, Age 25, Windhoek

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in Charge was given a detailed description of his responsibilities, one of which was to administer the area under the tenets of indirect rule: The system of administration to be followed by you in dealing with the Hereros is that at present in vogue in Ovamboland and the Kaokoveld, viz. indirect rule in a modified form working through the HeadmenCouncillors.… The line of action you should take with the Ovatshimbas [Tjimbas] is to educate them up to indirect rule and teach them to co-operate with the Hereros. Their Headmen and leaders should be encouraged to attend the monthly meetings of the Hereros.34

Between 1939 and 1948, the South African Administration looked effectively towards the Herero section’s newly instituted tribal council – a body that was being referred to as the Kaokoland Tribal Council – to serve as appointed rulers over all people in northern Kaokoland. This strategy came at the expense of the so-called Tjimba and Himba sections, just as it had under the chiefship of Vita Thom. As far as the South Africans were now concerned, there were no longer any chiefs in Kaokoland, but only leaders who were appointed and/or recognised by the Administration.35 However, the recognition process was handled differently depending on the respective leader’s sectional affiliation. Individual ‘Herero’ leaders – that is, those who had previously fallen under the leadership of Vita Thom – required the approval of the territory’s highest ranking government official, the Administrator for South West Africa; while those representing the Himba section – those who would today most probably fall under the Otjikaoko grouping – were appointed by Native Affairs Officers and department officials.36 By 1948, seven ‘councillor headmen’, all of whom were considered Herero, and seven Himba representatives, hitherto variously termed ‘headman’, ‘leader’, or ‘native’, but never ‘councillor’, were all expected to participate in Kaokoland’s tribal council meetings.37 The Herero leaders were certainly members of the council, but whether or not their Himba counterparts were also considered members, and by whom, remains unclear. As for the ‘Tjimba’ section during this decade of indirect rule in Kaokoland, the colonial record falls remarkably quiet: few references to this group of people or their leaders can be located in the archives. *

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In applying its policy of indirect (divide and) rule in Kaokoland, the Administration and its functionaries cultivated ambiguity with respect to the status of both the tribal council and its members. As has already been shown, the status of Himba leaders was unclear. No one – including the colonial officials themselves – seemed certain whether they were ‘chiefs’, ‘headmen’ or just ‘leaders’; and whether or not they were to be considered members of the tribal council. In addition, the South African

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Administration often presented contradictory assertions to their chosen leaders in Kaokoland. On the one hand, the government recognised them as leaders ‘because they were looked upon as such by the people’,38 that is, because their authority was legitimated ‘traditionally’. On the other hand, many leaders were often warned that ‘unless they carry out instructions issued to them by officials of the Administration and do everything possible to assist these officials in future, the Administration, much as it will dislike to have to do so, will be forced to consider whether they should not be deprived of their status and removed from the Kaokoveld.’39 Such ambiguity kept Kaokoland’s leaders on a tightrope; when dealing with the Administration they were never certain about the basis and boundaries of their own authority. In fact, by the late 1940s officials within the Administration were not so sure either. ‘I beg to inform you,’ wrote the Native Commissioner of Ovamboland, ‘that it appears… that the members of the Kaokoveld Council of Headmen do derive their status and power from recognition of them as Headmen by His Honour the Administrator.’40 The Chief Native Commissioner asserted, however, that there is ‘nothing to indicate that members of the Council of Headmen derive their status and power from the fact that they are recognised by the Administrator.’ He continued: ‘[I]t is generally recognised with all primitive tribes, in which category the Ovahimba tribe falls, that the leaders thereof derive their status and power from their own tribal law and from the tribesmen who select them for qualities and attributes which make a particular appeal to the tribe.’41 Eventually the officials seemed to resolve the issue, at least for the purposes of internal administration: The authority of the Himba-Headman ist [sic] partly derived from their own tribal law or tradition, partly from frm [sic] the power of the Administrator, wo [sic] is by law the paramount chief of all natives living in this country within and outside the Police Zone. The tribal authority of the said headmen is therefore confined and can only come into action after the legal act of recognition by the Administrator, who, therefore, has the uppermost control upon all native authorities. This act of recognition certainly implies the condition that the elected headman always fulfil their duties but the Administrator can, therefore, repeal his recognition if there are heavy cases against the native leader.42

In implementing indirect rule colonial officials were supposed to ‘uphold the influence and status’ of traditional leaders because ‘[w]ithout their aid and co-operation it would be impossible to carry out the policy of Administration satisfactorily.’43 They were also supposed to ensure that the recognised leaders ‘should never be given cause to think that the establishment of Government offices in their midst, means the overthrow of their own native institutions and social order and that their status and authority will be taken from them.’44 It was most certainly a difficult line

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for any Native Affairs official to maintain. He had to convey to the region’s recognised leaders that they were powerful in their own right, yet simultaneously at the will of the Administration. South Africa’s mode of colonial rule in Kaokoland disseminated ambiguity into other administrative realms as well. Steven van Wolputte has shown the extent to which ambiguity conditioned colonial policies relating to livestock, labour recruitment, weaponry, and development initiatives more generally. ‘Contrary to the myth it had created itself, colonising discourse [in Kaokoland] was characterised by division, paradox and ambiguity, by a profound uncertainty’ (2007: 120). The ambiguity generated and disseminated from within the South African Administration – whether intentional or not – was an effective component of indirect rule in Kaokoland. The cultivation of ambiguity produced both government loyalty and intra-regional divisiveness.45

The Politics of Ethnicity Colonial records and reports indicate that by the early 1950s that which had hitherto been a de facto Herero tribal council with Himba participation began to look and sound like a more inclusive political body. The status of the Himba leaders, all ten of whom were now also being referred to as ‘Councillor Headmen’,46 was represented less ambiguously. They were now full-fledged members of the Kaokoland Tribal Council, at least in theory. In practice, the Officer in Charge at Opuwo complained that the Himba headmen rarely attended meetings, had no exceptional status within their own communities, and ‘in all cases the Ovahimba headmen have no control over their subjects.’47 Tribal council meeting minutes from this period show that Herero leaders continued to dominate discussions. Interestingly, the complete absence of archival references to the Tjimba section and its leaders in relation to the tribal council system continued into the first few years of the new decade. Furthermore, up until this time the different ‘native communities’ were usually characterised as being ‘well disposed’ towards each other, and ‘inter-tribal relations’ were often reported as ‘progressing satisfactorily’. But at the close of a meeting held in Opuwo in April 1952, a person by the name of Kakoho came forward and declared: I am an Ovatjimba and reside at Okorosave.… We are being chased away from areas where we used to live.… We now want to know whether we Ovatjimbas or the Hereros have the right to live here. We have been here always whereas the Hereros entered the Kaokoveld from Angola only after the German troops surrendered to the South African troops.48

The Officer in Charge replied by stating that ‘[y]ou both have the right to live here. The Government knows that originally you were one tribe and

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recognises no distinction between the Ovatjimba and the Herero.49 A Herero headmen agreed that ‘[t]he Hereros and Ovatjimbas are one tribe,’ and offered proof to the claim by reminding the assembled members of the way the two groups come together during funerals.50 Another Herero leader took issue with the Tjimba version of history. He explained that their Herero forefathers had actually been born in Kaokoland, and not in the central part of the territory. ‘During the Ovambo-Hottentot war many of them migrated south [from their home in Kaokoland]. When the Herero-German war broke out they again fled… to Angola eventually returning to the Kaokoveld.’51 Kameru, another self-identified Tjimba man, demanded that the Administration appoint Tjimba headmen to the tribal council, as ‘[t]he Ovahimba have their Headmen and I feel that we also should have ours.’52 But this was not the only reason for Kameru’s demands, as some of the recognised Herero leaders had been put in charge of areas populated almost exclusively by those now identifying themselves as ‘Tjimbas’. The Officer in Charge noted that if Tjimba headmen were to be appointed, then the respective Herero leaders would be required to resign.53 The Opuwo meeting was most significant for the fact that, perhaps for the first time, Tjimbas had collectively and publicly ‘objected to being dominated by the Hereros any longer.’54 One Otjikaoko group member explained to me that the event marked the rooting of a political consciousness, an awareness of oppression, a realisation by the ‘Tjimbas’ that they were subjects in their own native Kaokoland. It was a ‘fight for our rights, for our independence,’ he said. In the months to come Native Affairs officials exchanged a series of memoranda relating to the ‘newly’ surfaced dispute. The hitherto positively assessed ‘inter-tribal relations’ were now suddenly re-described as if they had always been in a state of ‘continual friction between the different groups of the same Race [sic] in the Kaokoveld.’55 The Officer in Charge at Opuwo reported that Tjimba people objected to Herero headmen because they forced the Tjimbas to labour for the government while Herero sons stayed at home.56 The Tjimbas also felt that they were being treated unfairly by the Administration, believing that the government only allowed ‘outsiders’ to become headmen.57 As for the Hereros, they looked down on both Tjimbas and Himbas, viewing them as primitive and uncivilised (van Warmelo 1951: 25; Wärnlöf 1998: 57). The friction led the Native Commissioner to propose a permanent separation between the two groups, but until that became possible the Tjimbas would ‘have to continue to submit to the present system of administration – a Council of Herero and Ovahimba Headmen.’58 In 1953, under this increased pressure, the Administration finally appointed six Tjimba headmen to the tribal council.59 *

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How did the so-called Tjimbas, those who had hitherto been considered a small and inconsequential group of ‘wild’, marginalised and impoverished ‘Herero’ dependants and/or isolated mountain dwellers, suddenly emerge as a political force in northern Kaokoland? Michael Bollig (1997a) has suggested that the Tjimba population shrunk in the early part of the twentieth century due to ‘ethnic shifting’, as newly ‘cattled’ Tjimba – in a possible move to distance themselves from the label’s derogatory implications – began identifying themselves as Himba. This is quite plausible, especially given the fact that the Himba/Tjimba distinction rested on a socio-economic, rather than cultural or linguistic, difference. If the Tjimba population decreased so significantly in the beginning of the last century, then the region witnessed an apparent ethnic shift in the exact opposite direction during the 1930s and 1940s. In 1927, Kaokoland’s first census classified 63 per cent of the population ‘Himba’, and only 18 per cent ‘Tjimba’.60 But by the time the Tjimbas first protested their political marginality at the 1952 Opuwo meeting, they had come to comprise 47 per cent of Kaokoland’s population, while the number of Himbas had fallen to only 34 per cent of the total.61 Based on these census figures, and given the continued fluidity and malleability of ethnic categories in Kaokoland today,62 it seems that Himba people were becoming Tjimba yet again. This (second) shift was made possible, I believe, because of yet another changing connotation of the ‘Tjimba’ label. What had previously been considered a disparaging ethnic classification – for the name was derived from ondjimba-ndjimba, an Otjiherero word meaning ‘aardvark’, and thus one that must dig for its food – had become the foundation for a new form of political consciousness. By the early 1950s, I argue, the ‘Tjimba’ ethnic categorisation was rapidly becoming a clearing house for those who considered themselves indigenous to Kaokoland (see Figure 8.2). As a product of specific historical forces, this newly evolving and informal political formation, this new basis of belonging in Kaokoland, was eventually to evolve into what is today’s Otjikaoko grouping. Throughout the ensuing two decades the new Tjimba grouping continued to solidify. The period was marked by growing tensions between the Hereros on the one side, and the Tjimbas (now an alliance between the former Himba and Tjimba sections) on the other. Occasional demands for the appointment of an additional village headman to represent the interests of Himbas and Tjimbas,63 as well as issues relating to animal disease control campaigns, the distribution of food aid, traditional court case verdicts, and grazing and water rights instigated flare-ups between the two groups. In 1960, for example, the Herero headman Willem Hartley sent desperate pleas for assistance to the Bantu Affairs Commissioner in Opuwo. A conflict between the groups over the distribution of famine relief led Hartley to describe the situation as ‘a very big thing which is likely to cause my death.’64 In another letter to the Commissioner he explained that: ‘[t]here is a war at Kaoko Otavi and it is upon my heart as

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well as upon the Commissioner’s and the Government’s. The people there are saying you, I, and the Government are stealing other people’s land. Please do come as soon as possible, before the big trouble starts.’65 The following year, the officer at Opuwo reported that the Tjimba community had demanded the removal of Hereros from Kaoko Otavi. According to him, the Hereros also feared being squeezed out of Okorosave and Oukongo, and they believed that the Tjimbas were preparing to appoint their own headmen in the two villages.66 In the mid-1960s the Tjimba grouping was making a more concerted argument: Kaokoland belonged to them, and local Hereros, if they wished to remain in the region, should be subordinate to their rule.67 By the end of the decade the situation had deteriorated to the point that the Administration was holding two sets of tribal council meetings to accommodate the two groups.68 In addition, new identifying labels emerged as a way to indicate corporate belonging. The Tjimba grouping, that which had become synonymous with native Kaokolanders, became known simply as otjimbumba (big group, in Otjiherero), a reference to their majority status in Kaokoland. In contrast, the ‘Herero’ label was replaced with the name okambumba (small group, in Otjiherero), though sometimes the term Ndamuranda (in reference to the area known as Damaraland) was also used to refer to those people who would eventually come under the traditional authority of the Vita Royal House in an independent Namibia (see Figure 8.2).69 During this ‘cold war’ period, as one Otjikaoko member called it, the two groups occasionally found common ground, most particularly in their growing suspicions and distrust towards the South African regime. In their mutual suspicion that the government was out to steal their land,70 and in their joint opposition to the Administration’s attempts to construct a hospital at Kaoko Otavi71 and collect census data,72 members of the Big Group and the Small Group could stand together. Similarly, throughout much of the twentieth century the South African Administration’s ongoing attempts to introduce livestock disease control measures in Kaokoland were met with apprehension, even defiance, by Big Group and Small Group members alike.73 The government’s efforts focused on inoculation campaigns, branding, and restrictions on the movement and sale of cattle (Bollig 1998c).74 It was just such a government campaign that triggered an escalation in the dispute between the two groups, bringing it to new heights, and out into the open.75 In 1964, the South African Administration introduced its latest plans for a livestock disease control programme in Kaokoland.76 All leaders in the region initially opposed the campaign, though two headmen from the Small Group did eventually agree to inoculate their cattle. Within a few years other Small Group headmen began submitting to the government’s programme, drawing an even clearer division between the two groups and destroying the few remaining vestiges of unity. According to the

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Figure 8.2: Genealogy of factions in the Kaokoland chieftaincy dispute.

then-Bantu Affairs Commissioner, members of the Big Group did not want to associate with members of the Small Group. ‘They [Small Group members] are being regarded as traitors,’ he wrote, ‘because they work together with the Whites and have also presented their cattle and small stock for tests and inoculations.’77 In 1974 the split spiralled out of control, and, according to members of both groups, ‘it was like a war’. A number of Big Group women forced the closure of Small Group owned shops, meetings turned aggressive, and eventually violence erupted, ending with two Big Group members being shot dead and numerous others injured. At about the same time, the death of a wealthy Big Group headman in Kaoko Otavi resulted in a fierce and drawn out legal battle. Two

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matrilineal descendants – one a Big Group member, the other a Small Group member – each claimed a right to his estate under Herero traditional law.78 These events of the mid-1970s sharpened a dynamic that had hitherto remained understated, transforming intra-regional group antagonisms into a full-blown factional conflict.

‘The Confusion Began with the Politics’: Towards a New Political Order In the late 1970s two main factors brought Kaoko’s chieftaincy dispute out of the regional closet and into the sphere of Namibia’s national politics. First, the commencement of PLAN guerrilla operations in northern Kaokoland generated a sense of terror among the region’s inhabitants. This violence, in conjunction with a vigorous South African propaganda campaign, destroyed what had hitherto been a significant level of regional support for SWAPO and its liberation movement. As the political sentiments of local leaders shifted more decisively in favour of the South African regime, both Big and Small Group headmen began fearing PLAN reprisal attacks (pro-South African headmen were indeed targeted by PLAN on a number of occasions), and thus looked towards the South Africans for protection. In doing so they further embraced the apartheid regime’s political order. Second, sensing the inevitability of Namibia’s independence, the apartheid government and those Namibians willing to work alongside it drew on Kaokoland’s political order as part of a strategy to retain South African influence in the territory. This process began in 1975 when a delegation of Kaokoland’s leaders participated in the ethnically constituted Turnhalle Conference, a South Africa-initiated constitutional convention that professed to mark the way towards multi-party democracy (but not independence). SWAPO refused to participate because they saw the body as yet another attempt by South Africa to retain control over Namibia, but Herero Paramount Chief Clemens Kapuuo and his all-Herero NUDO party endorsed the conference. Kaokoland’s leaders followed suit and sent a delegation to the convention. The Turnhalle Conference dissolved two years later but its principles were resurrected as the political programme of the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA), a coalition party backed by the South African government. The new DTA party meshed politically with the interests of both Big Group and Small Group leaders in Kaokoland, for it maintained a pro-South Africa and anti-SWAPO stance. Furthermore, not only did NUDO become a founding member of the alliance, but Kapuuo was elected the DTA’s first president. In this way, and in classic segmentary mode, Kaokoland’s two opposing groups were able to share national political space within the DTA. In 1980 the South Africans introduced a new governmental structure for Namibia: the hitherto geographically demarcated homelands were

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Figure 8.3: Before independence, what is now Putuavanga School was a South African army base. This monument used to be engraved with the names of South African soldiers who died during the war against SWAPO. The army erected the monument around 1985. It originally had about 25 names engraved on its side. The original names included mostly Namibians who died in service to the South African army. But those names no longer appear on the monument. In 1989 the names were removed from the tombstone. I do not know who removed the names; maybe the departing South African soldiers did it. I have no idea why someone would have wanted to scratch-out those names.… The engraving reads: ‘the heroes that fought for their country’. Our friends who were fighting the SWAPO guerrillas were heroes. They did not know what was going on. They were just fighting because they needed money and a job. They were people who thought that the Whites would be here forever. They were doing what they were told. They are heroes because they took part in the struggle. The heroes are the Namibians who died in the struggle, regardless of what side they were fighting on. — Kapandu, Age 29, Opuwo

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replaced by eleven ‘self-governing’ ethnic administrations, the so-called second tier authorities. This new system of government established a form of administration based on ethnic, rather than geographical, constituencies. All Herero people – whether they resided in Kaokoland, Hereroland or Hereroland East – were now to be ‘represented’ and administered by a single governing body rather than multiple homeland governments.79 Institutionally, the second tier authorities were political puppets, as the South African government maintained a veto power over any and all of their decisions. Furthermore, ‘these “representative” governments were hardly representative. A handful of elections were held, but these were carefully manipulated (by South Africa) to assure that only chiefs and headman [sic] favoured by Pretoria assumed positions in the ethnic governments’ (Forrest 1998: 37). In the case of Kaokoland, both the Big Group and the Small Group sent delegates to the legislative assembly of the new Herero Representative Authority. Within a few years, though, the Kaoko factional dispute was seeping directly into the Herero Representative Authority and the DTA party. As a very well-informed Otjikaoko member explained it, after having been appointed to the Authority’s Executive Committee, two Small Group delegates used the power of the new administrative body to appoint their own headmen in Kaokoland villages that already possessed Big Group leaders. These political machinations, he said, brought the Big Group into conflict with the Herero Representative Authority, forcing delegates of the assembly (especially the then-DTA President and successor Herero Paramount Chief Kuaima Riruako) to choose sides in the dispute. Despite having paternal kinship links to the Small Group, during his visits to Kaokoland Riruako emphasised his maternal kinship ties, and thus his familial connections and loyalties to the Big Group. The Small Group interpreted these signs as tacit support for their adversaries in the ongoing intra-regional dispute. As the process unfolded, the then-recognised Paramount Chief Riruako and Kaokoland’s Big Group delegates began isolating their Small Group counterparts within the Herero Representative Authority. Eventually they proved successful in forcing them from the governing body, paving the way for their complete withdrawal from the DTA party. ‘You need to understand the hatred that developed,’ one man explained. ‘It was such that those two groups were finding it very difficult to belong to one political party.’ In 1989, Kaokoland’s Small Group leaders, with their local supporters in tow, joined the National Patriotic Front (NPF) party and began challenging the legitimacy of Riruako’s paramount chieftaincy. According to a Thom member, after the Herero Representative Authority had been purged of its Small Group delegates, Riruako and the remaining Big Group assembly delegates began appointing DTA Big Group headmen in villages already possessing Small Group leaders. Whether the additional headman appointments in Kaokoland were made

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before or after the purge, and whether or not they were made by Big Group and/or Small Group delegates, is difficult to determine based on the oral testimonies of those involved. However, the end result was the same: villages in Kaokoland – such as Okanguati, Oukongo, Kaoko Otavi and Ombombo – became even more polarised under the leadership of two competing headmen. With the DTA’s interest in maximising their voter base in preparation for the country’s first free elections in 1989, the then-recognised Herero Paramount Chief Riruako acted in a politically expedient manner by siding with Kaokoland’s Big Group. In essence, he and the DTA had to sacrifice the Small Group so as not to lose the support of the much larger Big Group. The political party split that emerged in Kaokoland in the run-up to independence did more than just widen the local chiefship dispute. The conflation of local traditional chiefship with national party politics, or rather the crossfertilisation that transpired between these two spheres of political power and authority, was to spur the development of a symbiotic relationship between State and Kaokoland chiefship in an independent Namibia.



Paternalistic Imprint: On National Families During my stays in Opuwo I rarely heard Otjiherero-speaking Kaokolanders invoke ‘Namibia’, the idea of the Namibian nation, or a strong sense of national identity, especially among those who had spent most of their life in the region. There are many reasons not to expect otherwise. Apartheid conditioned people to think in terms of pre-defined ethnic categorisations, and forced them to live within those confines. Furthermore, and as has been touched upon previously, Kaokoland was not politicised during the nationalist struggle, and the inroads that the liberation movement did make in the region were eventually rolled back by the South Africans and their aggressive anti-SWAPO propaganda campaigns. Even today, two decades after independence, those in Kaokoland have limited means through which to imagine ‘Namibia’. In this sense, the fact that one cannot purchase a newspaper in the regional capital is particularly significant. As Benedict Anderson has argued, a shared newspaper readership is central to the imagining of community, for it creates an ‘idea of steady, solid simultaneity through time’ (1983: 63). But how did ‘Namibia’ and Namibian-ness appear to those in Kaokoland during the course of my stay there? Most commonly, people associated ‘Namibia’ with ehi (the land, in Otjiherero), and as such, the concept denoted little more than a geographically delimited area. Many people argued that it is impossible for someone to be Namibian because ‘Namibia’

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references a place, not people. ‘I am a Herero, and not a Namibian,’ explained one young person. ‘Namibia is a country, and Herero are people.’ Others expressed a similar understanding when they suggested that if they were in fact Namibian, then they would have known it all along, even prior to independence in 1990. For many of the old Otjiherero-speaking people in the region, ‘Namibia’ manifested itself as a vacuous and confounding notion, a term that was of such recent origin that it had yet to acquire signification. ‘I don’t know anything about that, but it is now on my identity card,’ one woman declared. ‘Being Namibian is something that I have just come to hear.’ At the opposite end of the age spectrum, young children were more likely to find application for the concept in their everyday lives. They often described ‘Namibia’ as ‘the flag’, or ‘singing the national anthem’, or ‘celebrating in the name of Sam [former President Nujoma, now officially re-titled Founding Father of the Namibian Nation]’. For them, ‘Namibia’ was practised everyday in the schoolyard or during national holidays. But the town of Opuwo did, of course, contain some ‘Namibians’. Those who expressed a strong sense of national belonging were usually either secondary school children, or government civil servants who had moved to the region because of their work. As many scholars have shown (Borneman 1992; McClintock 1993; Delaney 1995), leaders and citizens often draw upon the emotive power of the family in their national discourses, and even conflate the nation with the family. However, the Otjiherero-speaking Kaokolanders that I

Figure 8.4: This is for the Dhemba-speaking, as they form a group. It is the family of Zembas. The Zemba women on the left are the mothers of the others. It is a family of Namibian people, the Zemba people. — Leonard, Age 37, Opuwo

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met almost never drew upon or promoted such images in direct relation to the Namibian nation. Even though they readily invoked the family as a metaphor, I hardly ever heard anybody suggest that the Namibian nation was ‘like a family’, or that it even had the capacity to become one. Kaokolanders were more likely to treat the Namibian nation as a collectivity of families. In this conception, numerous ethnic groups were considered united in their sharing of a single geographical space, and nothing more, not even a common history. In relation to the Namibian nation writ large, Otjiherero-speakers in Kaokoland were much more likely to root themselves in the Herero nation, a ‘community’ that extends from southern Angola, through central and eastern Namibia, and into Botswana. Ethnic self-consciousness almost always trumped a national one. The ‘nation-as-a-family’ discourse was thus reserved for use in relation to nations that people constructed on the basis of ethnic, and sometimes racial, categorisations. It was when one of Namibia’s component groups was put into discursive play vis-à-vis other such groups that the family idiom surfaced. Issues relating to the policy of national reconciliation, for example, often sparked such imagery. In this respect, one woman equated the independence war with a struggle between two families, one White and one Black, each fighting to inherit a deceased person’s wealthy estate; while a young boy explained that White people were not fulfilling their obligations under the new policy because they refused to treat their fellow Black citizens as they would a member of their own family: ‘A White can just possess something without giving it to the Black person. It happens with things such as food and clothes. Whites are supposed to give these things to Black people. They must give, and if they don’t, then there is apartheid. Whites and Blacks are people from the same house because now they are staying together.’ As was seen in Chapter 3, a similar language is often deployed by Otjiherero-speaking Kaokolanders when they reflect on relations between Herero and Ovambo ‘families’ vis-à-vis the new independent government. In addition to the Namibian nation and the Herero nation, a third national ‘family’ is now coming into discursive play throughout Kaokoland. Some of the region’s more progressive leaders are working to transcend the ongoing factional dispute between the Otjikaoko and Thom houses by promoting a regional based identity, or what is being termed the Kaoko nation (cf. Miescher 2000). ‘I want to say this: When are we going to be one people who are going to work for the Kaoko nation?’ asked a local headman during an annual chief’s commemoration ritual in Opuwo. We teach this [division] to our children, the ones that are being born. Until when? They are going to regard us as different nations, which is not like that at all. We are not different people. No, we are just the same people. Now we have to find the thing that divided the people, so that we can be what we used to be from far back.… For how long is it going to be like this? Who is going to build this nation if it is like this? You are the same people;

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then you divided yourselves into groups, which is not necessary. Please try to come together and make an agreement.

The Kaoko nation construct is a relatively new political development, and for some, a most welcome one, particularly because it offers a model based on something other than the notion of shared substance. In trying to bridge the factional dispute, though, the idea of a Kaoko nation does indeed generate another layer of political segmentation. Who will be part of the Kaoko nation, and who will be excluded from it? What will be the relationship between members of the Kaoko nation and the ever-fragmenting Herero nation? Will new regionally based ‘nations’ serve as repackaged versions of the tribal identities that were constructed and inculcated during the apartheid era?80 The question remains, then, as to whether or not such a healing strategy will generate a different set of tensions in its wake.

Chapter 9

‘TRADITION’, AUTHORITY AND THE STATE IN NORTHERN KAOKOLAND

As in other parts of Africa,1 Namibia’s traditional leaders have had to adapt to the changing social and political circumstances that have accompanied the end of colonial/apartheid rule; and all within an even wider set of global processes relating to democratisation and liberalisation more generally. In this chapter I continue tracing the threads of chiefship in Kaokoland by paying special attention to the period following Namibia’s independence in 1990. By focusing on some of the interrelated issues that have consumed much of the political energy in the region during the past two decades, I hope to convey a sense of historical continuity in state process. In the first section, I highlight some of the intricacies surrounding the new Namibian government’s recognition of traditional authorities. In Kaokoland, both the Otjikaoko and Vita Royal House groupings eventually secured the legal status of ‘traditional community’,2 a position that afforded each constituency the right to establish a traditional authority under the leadership of a chief. In detailing this process I will be tracing the factional dispute up to and through my periods of fieldwork in northern Kaokoland. Subsequently, I shift towards an analysis of contemporary Kaokolanders’ discursive representations of the factional dynamic. In comparing these representations with my own observations, I aim to explore more closely the make-up of the two groupings, some of the cross-cutting ties in the dispute, and the (a)political nature of traditional authority more generally. Finally, I conclude the chapter by reflecting on Kaokoland’s factional dispute as a refractor of four key post-apartheid state problematics: chiefship and traditional authority; ‘history’ and ‘tradition’; identity and forms of belonging; and post-colonial state bifurcation.

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On the Reclamation and Recognition of ‘Ancestral’ Leadership The traditional authority was there before the colonial government, so the new government is just respecting these old ways, and that’s why we continue to recognise them. We just inherited the system that was introduced by the colonial government. Traditionally, we didn’t have governments, only kings and chiefs. The purpose back then [during the colonial period] was to keep the people divided. Now, the government is not about dividing or promoting conflicts, but rather about respecting and recognising our culture and customs. — Namibian Government Official Ministry of Regional and Local Government and Housing

The political developments that have transpired in northern Kaokoland since Namibia’s independence need to be placed within the broader contexts of an ongoing national debate.3 Deliberations within government over the future of traditional leadership in a democratic Namibia have coincided with a nationwide process whereby traditional leaders have had to seek official government recognition for themselves and their communities.4 Originally laid out in Act No. 17 of 1995, the institution of traditional authority and the procedures surrounding the recognition thereof were more clearly defined in the Traditional Authorities Act of 2000. The drafting of new legislation and policy has, however, done little to diminish contests over traditional leadership in Namibia or clarify fully the place and/or role of traditional authority in the post-apartheid State.5 As a result, the years since independence in 1990 have been marked by a sense of shared insecurity among the country’s traditional leaders. Facing an ambiguous future, these leaders continue to manoeuvre in ways that allow them to exploit and/or mitigate the country’s new and changing political landscape (Taylor 2008; Zeller 2007; Felton 2002; Keulder 2000b; Kössler 1997, 1998b; Forrest 1994).6 It is equally important to situate Kaokoland’s politics in relation to a wider Herero political field, as I began doing in the previous chapter. The political party split and the ensuing challenges to the Herero paramount chieftaincy that took place in Kaokoland during the late 1980s and early 1990s also played out in some Otjiherero-speaking communities of central Namibia. With the Herero paramount chieftaincy cracking under these political pressures, and with the new government’s refusal to recognise any paramount Herero chief whatsoever (a decision that prevails to this day), numerous Otjiherero-speaking leaders across the country began (and continue) to reclaim their so-called ancestral leadership rights by (re)constituting ‘traditional communities’ under independent royal houses. In doing so, these leaders have hoped to gain official government recognition for themselves and their constituents. According to officials who oversee the recognition process at the Ministry of Regional and Local Government and Housing, the Namibian

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Figure 9.1: This man is a headman of Okaruu. It was taken here in Opuwo. This man has power and authority over his village. He tells farmers where to graze livestock. It is his power to say that. If you disobey him you will pay something because you are a member of the community. He is the ruler of that village. — Karumia, Age 24, Opuwo

government relies on ‘the history’ as the determining factor in deciding whether or not to recognise a contested applicant. ‘It is easy to determine the history,’ one of the officials told me, ‘because we interview people who are for, against and neutral. When we go there and talk to the people, they know their history. We accept oral history.’ The Namibian government’s recognition application process is relatively straightforward, and, if uncontested, the respective leader and community will receive its official status as a matter of formality. For most, the process is tantamount to re-certification. Not surprisingly, though, in northern Kaokoland the issue of recognition became intertwined with, and complicated by, the ongoing dispute and each respective group’s claims and aspirations to political supremacy in the region. With such an enormous amount of symbolic capital on the line, both factions – but especially their leaders – dreaded the possibility of being made subject to the traditional rule of their adversary. *

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‘People whose fathers do not have the history of chiefs are not recognised as chiefs by the government,’ Chief Kapuka Thom, the then-leader of the Vita Royal House, explained to me. ‘After independence, the government came up with the suggestion to recognise Vita’s House, and their sons as

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chief. The government asked the sons of Vita Thom to give histories to verify the truth. The government did not decide it [the history], they only found the truth.’ Already in the early 1980s Small Group members, with the assistance of their representatives in the Herero Legislative Assembly, began their drive to ‘revive’ the Vita Royal House. An Otjikaoko oral historian explained that ‘Kazonguindi was brought to Otjijandjasemo in order to establish his father’s [Vita Thom’s] chief’s chair for the first time in that place. This was meant to force the Ovahimba into the position in which they had been during the time of Harunga [Vita], when they had been slaves and worthless people’ (Muniombara, in Bollig 1997b: 69). The intention remains debatable, but nevertheless a Vita Royal House was indeed ‘revived’ under a new Chief Thom, and shortly thereafter, Vita Thom’s remains were exhumed from his grave in the former Ovamboland, transported to Kaokoland, and re-interred in a nondescript cemetery at Opuwo. ‘They dug him out there and brought him here,’ another Otjikaoko oral historian recounted. ‘If they really brought him or if they just brought earth, we do not know, these things are being told’ (Muharukua, in Bollig 1997b: 140). A granite obelisk of monumental proportions, engraved in three languages, was erected at the site. The headstone describes the deceased Vita Thom as having been an ‘omuhona [big man]’, ‘Captain’ and ‘leader’ of Kaokoland, but not a ‘chief’. *

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But ‘I have the history,’ asserted Chief Uziruapi Tjavara, head of the Otjikaoko Traditional Authority, during one of our meetings. ‘Kaokoland was named after a person by the name of Kaoko, and he was my father.’ Tjavara instructed one of his senior counsellors to elaborate: Kaoko was a real person, not a tree or a stone or a plant. He was the first person in this area. You know the Mopane trees that extend all the way down, ten kilometres before Outjo and Omaruru. And that is the reason for the name Kaokoland. This whole area belonged to Kaoko. That was a long, long time ago, before the South African times. The people started moving from Ondangua into Kaokoland, and from there, that’s where they started to have different matriclans and patriclans. Kaoko gave his land to his children, and Chief Tjavara has replaced Mr Kaoko’s children.

I scribbled in my notebook: ‘invention?’ Another Counsellor removed a paper from his folder, a crumpled photocopy of the historical evidence that had been submitted to the ministerial commission investigating Kaokoland’s chieftaincy claims. He read directly from it: Here follows the genealogy of the Otjikaoko royal house (leaders): Kaoko was the first traditional leader in Kaokoland. When he died he was suc-

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ceeded by Tjavara. When Tjavara died, his successor was Nambi who was succeeded by Ndjara. After Ndjara came Kaupangua. When Kaupangua died he was succeeded by Mureti who was succeeded by Rutjindo. The next in line was Nguezeongo, followed by Koujeko. When Koujeko died he was succeeded by Tjondjou. Tjondjou was succeeded by Chief Mbumbiyaza Muharukua and he was succeeded by Chief Uziruapi Tjavara.7

According to a knowledgeable Thom group member, though, until at least 1975 Otjikaoko existed only as one of Kaokoland’s many ozonganda (patrilineages, in Otjiherero), and had no special prominence in the region: You see, it transformed itself after the shootings of the mid-1970s. Afterwards, everybody who was taken as an Ovatjimba [as a Big Group member] could be accommodated under Otjikaoko. People found a common bond, a refuge, under this name. Mureti used to be the head of the Otjikaoko onganda [sing.], that’s true, and Tjavara is also from that onganda. But now other ozonganda have subsumed themselves under Otjikaoko for political reasons. Otjikaoko has taken in many other ozonganda because of a common enemy, and because it has a connotation with Kaokoland. It was the strongest, most prominent name that could be used to unite a group into one.… When Chief Tjavara recounts the history of the Otjikaoko Traditional Authority, or of its so-called royal house, he is recalling the ancestors of his original onganda. But Otjikaoko was, and is, just one of many ozonganda in Kaokoland.

The Otjiherero term onganda has multiple meanings, and is thus context specific. Most often it is used to denote the family homestead. In this case, however, my friend was referencing a patrilineal segment, and thus a specific patrilineage. When I asked for additional clarity, he was more explicit: in referencing his onganda, he said, he is tracing his father’s line back to the person who, after first establishing a new homestead in about 1800, founded the lineage that now includes him and many others. If he shares his onganda with another person, then their fathers’ lines meet at this original homestead. However, an equally erudite Otjikaoko group member denied the existence of any such Otjikaoko onganda, and even denied the Thom member’s contextual framing of the term. ‘Otjikaoko doesn’t belong to a particular lineage,’ he said, ‘but to a group of people who have lived together for a long time. When Tjavara traces the lineage of Otjikaoko back to Chief Kaoko, he is tracing the leaders of this Big Group through time.’ He continued: ‘After the death of Mureti, this idea of Otjikaoko didn’t exist. It didn’t exist [for the century] between the time of Mureti and Muharukua. But the idea of Otjikaoko did exist prior to the colonial period.’ Numerous Kaokolanders informed me that they had first heard the term ‘Otjikaoko’ uttered in reference to the Big Group in the early 1980s. At that time, DTA politicians and village headmen – that is, local Big Group leaders – began promoting the idea of Otjikaoko ‘for socio-politi-

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cal reasons’, as one Kaokolander explained, ‘because the Thom group was also promoting its side.’ In 1981, Big Group headmen came together and elected Mbumbijazo Muharukua ‘chief of Kaokoland’ and leader of the Otjikaoko group. *

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In (re)claiming Otjikaoko as an independent royal house, Big Group leaders emphasised and historicised their lineal relations with the longdeceased Mureti Kaupangua.8 Born in the mid nineteenth century, Mureti was indeed Kaokoland-connected, an omuhona (big man, in Ojtiherero) and leader in the region.9 According to Otjikaoko members, he was a former chief of Kaokoland, though this assertion was contested by those in the Vita Royal House, especially the counsellor who explained to me that chiefs eat from the cattle of others. ‘And when Mureti arrived in central Namibia, he was forced to feed the Maharero house. The cattle was slaughtered for Maharero. It was not the other way round. I’m not saying Mureti was not a leader.’ Eventually Mureti migrated south, leaving Kaokoland and settling at Otjipaue in central Namibia. There, he reportedly assisted other Otjiherero-speaking groups in their fights with the Nama. Never to return to his native Kaokoland, Mureti died in 1887. Nearly a century later in 1982, a year after the Otjikaoko group had been inaugurated under the leadership of Chief Muharukua, Mureti’s unmarked grave was ‘discovered’ by three Otjikaoko leaders who had travelled to Otjipaue especially with the purpose in mind (Ohta 2000). After having located the site, the men returned to Kaokoland to raise funds towards the purchase of a gravestone. Approximately two years later, the leader Mureti – a supposed direct descendent of the ‘half-mythical, half-historical’ [Chief] Kaoko (Bollig 1998d: 263) – was commemorated for the first time. At the ceremony, his grave’s headstone was unveiled with the engraved inscription, ‘imba pa suva ombara jotjikaoko [here rests the Chief of Kaokoland]’ (Ohta 2000). *

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Numerous scholars have discussed the significance of death, funerals, annual commemorations and graves among Otjiherero-speakers living in both Kaokoland (Bollig 1997c; Wärnlöf 2000a) and central Namibia (Krüger and Henrichsen 1998; Hartmann 1998; Gewald 1998). For my purposes here, it is ‘the politics of death’ (Wärnlöf 2000a) that I wish to flag, and, in particular, some of the very relevant ways it intersects with the Kaokoland chieftaincy dispute. First, communal land tenure in northern Kaokoland is founded upon a historical relationship between one’s ancestors and a given tract of land.

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Those having the greatest influence and authority over the respective area, and thus its resources, are those who are able to legitimate their historical relation to it. In this way the graves of deceased ancestors constitute the most important and credible evidence in the establishment of a person’s, family’s and/or lineage’s authority within a given area. Graves also offer a source of legitimation for even larger corporate groupings. ‘From the fact that their graves are older than the graves of the competing group [the Thom grouping], the Himba derive their claim for political dominance in the area’ (Bollig 1997c: 46). As an Otjikaoko oral historian asked rhetorically: ‘… until the grave of his father [Vita] is [sic] shifted, where did they bury their dead?’ (Muharukua, in Bollig 1997b: 140). Furthermore, recurrent rituals of commemoration held at the graves of leaders and ancestors are an instrument through which such authority is expressed, reinforced, and thus ‘remembered’ (Connerton 1989) by those maintaining an ongoing interest in the place. Through ritual, Kaokoland’s leaders express the quest for political power and territorial control (Bollig 2006: 355). But when the ritual is directed at a wider audience, such as Mureti’s commemoration, the ‘traditional’ event does more than just remind the respective community of its own identity. It also affords the opportunity for the group to make its claims, to publicly define itself in relation to others, and to demarcate lines of difference. Annual commemorations of deceased leaders are also important for their ability to create and emphasise ‘tradition’. As another form of symbolic capital, such tradition is a valued and effective political resource for Kaokolanders. In the institutionalisation of commemorative ceremonies, political wealth is thereby generated and stored; ombazu (custom, in Otjiherero) is put to political use (Bollig 2006: 355). Also, commemorations always entail the telling and re-telling of history at a public venue. Speakers at such events may offer their historical renditions in an explicit manner, or the history may lie buried in praise songs and poems. In both cases, such speeches and their ‘mythical-historical content’ (Bollig 2006: 355) help propagate a particularised version of Kaokoland’s history. As Johannes Fabian notes, ‘calling up the past is also about “remembering the present”. Diverging opinions and interests, conflicts that arise from the present situation of the group, including the dynamics that characterize any collective and creative effort, irrespective of the themes and tasks at hand, always mediate the finished product’ (2001: 197). Finally, in Kaokoland annual commemorations beside the graves of deceased leaders should be seen as covert political events. Though the gathering is always assembled under the pretext of ‘tradition’, and while the masters of ceremony usually remind participants to refrain from political commentary, speakers do address political issues, and often directly so. In fact, many of the more important commemorations feature addresses by local political party representatives, members of parliament and other national office holders.

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‘Today we are here to honour those who have gone as leaders, role models for us,’ reverberated the amplified voice of the local Congress of Democrats (COD) party representative. We were all assembled under an old army tent, at the base of the hill. Perhaps a hundred of us attended this traditional gathering, an annual ritual to commemorate Chief Muharukua and another deceased Otjikaoko leader. The speaker continued: ‘We are here to say, we are grateful for what you have done for us, and we will follow their example, and be exemplary in our communities, and be leaders like they have been for the interest of our people. Master of ceremony, I just briefly wish to speak about a bill that has been introduced in the National Assembly.’ At that moment I turned to the old man beside me. He was in attendance this year, like every year, to help keep these men from being forgotten. ‘Why is Chief Muharukua buried here?’ I asked. ‘Wasn’t he supposed to be buried in the village, at the onganda?’ The old man paused. ‘Yes, of course. The community wanted him here because it is a central place for all to reach. People suffer when they go too far for Mureti’s commemoration.’ I thought to myself, and then asked hesitatingly: ‘And why was Vita Thom buried in Opuwo, and not in his village,?’ The old man responded: ‘He was brought here by politics. That was politics. This is tradition.’ In October 1995 this first chief of the revived Otjikaoko group died. In contrast to the unremarkable positioning of Vita’s grave – at the time, it was significant enough that he was buried in Opuwo rather than in his home village, as custom would have dictated – Chief Muharukua was laid to rest alone, atop this high hill just outside the town. In death, Chief Muharukua also forsook the customary burial site. In exchange, though, he acquired a politically symbolic eternity, a sweeping view over the regional capital, and a claim to all of Kaokoland. His obelisk headstone, adorned by etchings of a rifle and the head of an ox, reads ‘imba pa suva ombara jotjikaoko [here rests the chief of Kaokoland]’. *

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‘The Otjikaoko Traditional Authority has the history, but not on Tjavara’s side,’ explained the ministerial official working closely with the Council of Traditional Leaders in Windhoek. Other Hereros around the country say that no one ever existed by the name of Kaoko. The royal family of these people was Mureti. His children went to live in the Okakarara side [in central Namibia]. They did not go to Kaoko. So the Otjikaoko people started making up that chiefship. You cannot have a tribe without a leader. There was no leader there, so they had to find a leader.

It was an unintended outcome. Not the death of Chief Muharukua, of course, but rather the Otjikaoko chiefship succession dispute that erupted

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afterwards. Tjavara must have been identified as successor long before Muharukua’s death. The Otjikaoko council told me that Tjavara’s successor is also already known, and the current Chief has plenty of good years left in him. In tracing their line of descent from Mureti, in finding their historical inspiration and legitimation in this great father of theirs, the Otjikaoko royal house only expected to ‘re-establish’ itself, but not to open up an internal squabble. How could they have known that Uemutonda Mureti, a classificatory son of their late hero, would move from his home in Botswana, settle in central Namibia, and then file an application for government recognition as head of the Otjikaoko royal house, as chief of Kaokoland. He had never even lived in Kaokoland. Five years later, during the course of my main period of fieldwork, the issue was still brewing. An Otjikaoko group election, a handful of government investigative committees, countless meetings, and a hearing at the Council of Traditional Leaders in Windhoek were all incapable of putting the issue to rest. ‘While Mureti was in the Omaruru area [central Namibia] he fathered the son Mbaratjo by an unknown woman who was not from Okaoko,’ explained Otjikaoko’s authorised oral historian. He continued: Mbaratjo later fathered a son, Tjembo, also from an unknown woman who was not from Okaoko. He, in turn, fathered Uemutonda, but also from an unknown, non-Okaoko woman. It is Uemutonda who returned from Botswana in 1995. All three of these male descendants of Mureti stayed with their mothers, first near Omaruru, and then in Botswana after fleeing the German-Herero war [1904–1907]. The fathers of this line not only fathered children with non-Okaoko women, but they also never married these women. The mothers of these sons are thus considered foreigners, and they are not known by people in the area. We do not recognise this line of descendants as members of the Otjikaoko royal house. In our tradition, an illegitimate child is not recognised as a son to its father.

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The leaders from both groups seemed a bit too insistent, too diligent in their historical accountings, in their sense of urgency, as if ‘the history’ was just too heavy to carry around. It felt almost confessional to me, the way they would show up at my house, on my doorstep, unannounced, on weekends or at night, willing, ready, anxious to tell me ‘the history’, to lift the heavy veil. I only had to make my historical inclinations and curiosities available, just utter a few words: ‘I would be interested to hear the history one of these days.’ Suddenly, unexpectedly, people identifying themselves as oral historians would materialise effortlessly, out of thin air. Chief’s councils were rapidly assembled as members arrived in Opuwo from across the region, meetings were scheduled for me, and then even held, in all formality, with opening prayers and rounds of cool drinks; and all very punctual, very official. Never the usual ‘Africa time’, or the req-

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uisite five or six cancelled appointments without forewarning, the noshows later attributed to ‘some little bit of a transport problem I am having’; and no post-interview demands of mealie-meal, money or ‘my gift’. It was just pure, unadulterated ‘history’. We often do the work for those that we come to study, for that that we wish to understand. In my relations with leaders from both groups, I could not help but feel that I too was being made complicit in contests over histories, in history-making (cf. Rekdal 1998). Was I being caught in my own ethnological net? It hit me especially during a conversation with Otjikaoko’s authorised oral historian, a middle-aged man who had inherited his knowledge from his father. After an impressive narration he reached into his hardbacked, black leather briefcase and retrieved a set of tattered and soiled photocopies. ‘It’s all in here,’ he said. ‘You can read the history yourself.’ I looked at the papers, apprehensively. ‘What book did you photocopy this from?’ I asked. ‘I didn’t copy it myself. It was given to me by a White man, a foreigner.’ One of the last anthropologists in the region had also been caught in that net. He, too, was doing the work of others. For the leaders of such oral cultures living within a broader written society, I and the other foreign visitors to Kaokoland who explain themselves under the pretence of having come to write one of those omambo (‘books’, in Otjiherero; but also, quite interestingly, a term meaning ‘it is true’) are viewed as purveyors of a more powerful and politically acceptable form of truth. After all, most of the praise songs sung at commemorations are beyond almost anyone’s ability to translate; they are often indecipherable and incomprehensible even for the teller. In some ways, then, what we write becomes truth; it becomes ‘the history’. Kaoko’s factional dispute takes root in the State. It takes root in graves; and in anthropologists. I authorised it. In allowing myself to become an instrument of historical construction, am I doing the work of Chief Tjavara, of Chief Thom, of the Otjikaoko Traditional Authority or of the Vita Royal House? Or, might it be that I am actually doing the work of the State? State-work practised through an oblivious form of statecraft? When the threads become so entangled it is impossible to distinguish, at least with any degree of clarity, the producer from the consumer. *

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In 1996, with the death of the first chief of the ‘revived’ Vita Royal House, the Thom grouping was able to offer a funerary rejoinder in Kaokoland’s politics of death. Another obelisk pierced the sky in Opuwo. It towered just beside the grave of Vita Thom, the deceased’s father. Boldly engraved on the black granite headstone, without any sense of irony or self-consciousness, just below the name ‘Chief John K. Vemuura Thom’, stands the revision: ‘Chief Thom succeeded his father as chief of Kaokoland after the throne has [sic] been vacant for a long time during the colonial era’ (emphasis added).

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For the Thom grouping the chance to update ‘the history’ came at a most opportune time. In that same year the debate over the proposed construction of the Epupa dam in the northern part of the region began drawing a great deal of international attention. The SWAPO government’s plan to construct the Lower Kunene Hydropower Scheme proved highly controversial, as numerous interest groups lined up on the issue (Friedman 2000, 2006a). Publicly, the Namibian government and the supporting Thom group linked their interest in the project to modernisation, the economy, and national development goals; while those opposing the dam – the Otjikaoko group and a number of national and international advocacy organisations – relied upon indigenous rights and environmental discourses. Reflecting a growing trend throughout southern Africa (Bollig and Berzborn 2004), the project’s adversaries bolstered their position by emphasising the authenticity of Himba (and thus Otjikaoko group) culture and traditions. I have reflected extensively on ‘the history’ (and my understandings of it) in relation to various aspects of the Epupa development process elsewhere (Friedman 2006b, 2009). Here, I wish only to consider some of the ways in which the controversy surrounding the proposed dam fused with Kaokoland’s factional dispute. Most importantly, throughout the course of the Epupa debate both groups attempted to secure the (legitimate) field of representation by positioning their stance as the ‘local’ perspective on the proposed project. The burial of chiefs in Opuwo and the (re)presentation of histories were just two of the strategies that aimed to establish such a position of authority in the region, an authority which would hopefully come to be officially recognised by the new government. During this period the local factional dispute and the Epupa debate fuelled one another. ‘It is difficult for the Himba communities to accept construction of the dam,’ explained an Otjikaoko representative. The Otjikaoko Traditional Authority opposed the project because the people who would be employed there would not be from Okaoko, but from Ovamboland. Also, people would have to move from thirteen areas along the river, and there is no place to resettle them. And 160 graves would have to be moved, and this is not in line with the culture or tradition. We found the dam unnecessary and could not support it. The only people in Kaoko who supported Epupa were members of the Thom Royal House.

A Thom group member who participated in the Epupa debate from his home in Windhoek drew the attention elsewhere. ‘Whoever said “yes” first, the other party said “no” from the start,’ he explained. ‘The Thoms immediately supported the project because the Otjikaoko Traditional Authority opposed it, even without having arguments in favour of the project. Later on, both sides gave reasons for supporting or opposing it, reasons which were immaterial.’ Another Windoek-based Kaokolander,

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this time an Otjikaoko group member, offered a similar analysis but pointed towards an even wider political field: ‘This is a political situation,’ he said, ‘because the Thoms support SWAPO, and SWAPO heads the government which wants to build Epupa. And the Otjikaoko Traditional Authority is DTA, and DTA is the opposition party, so they must oppose everything in parliament.’ He continued: In those days the Thoms were not SWAPO, but NPF – when the debate started. They supported Epupa back then for reasons relating to development. The leaders and people in the Thom Royal House own bottle shops [liquor stores] in Okanguati, and they thought that if the project starts, they will get richer because Okanguati is close to Epupa. Because the Thom house and the Otjikaoko house are always in conflict, when one supports, the other opposes. Otjikaoko first hesitated in taking a position, while the Thoms supported Epupa from the beginning. But after the Thoms supported it publicly, then Otjikaoko opposed it publicly. This was one reason for their eventual opposition to the project. Another reason was because the local chief has a share in the tourist camps at Epupa Falls. But also because the DTA was against the project. With respect to the graves, land and grazing issues as the reason for Himba opposition to the project, that all came from the feasibility study, not from the people. The graves wouldn’t have been a problem if they wanted the dam built. The graves could have been moved. To the big people at Epupa, the graves were not a main reason for their opposition. They were only the visual things that they could point a finger toward.

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In the late 1990s the Vita Royal House did change their political allegiances in favour of the ruling SWAPO party. ‘Are you here to ask about tradition or politics?’ barked Chief Thom when I breached the topic of political party affiliation. I only go for voting. The party that I vote for is only for me to know. It is my secret because I must be out of politics. A traditional leader should not have a party because he leads people from all parties. If I judge a case between people of two parties, they will say I did not judge fairly, that I was only in favour of my own party.

Despite the Chief’s refusal to discuss the issue, the alliances formed between political parties and traditional leaders in Kaokoland are common knowledge. Thom group members mostly attributed their Chief’s change of party support to shortcomings associated with the NPF. However, a few Thom members suggested that a return to the DTA was beyond their group’s consideration because it was ‘Otjikaoko’s party’. On the other side, Otjikaoko representatives and members hinted at something politically more sophisticated, an argument that has also been made

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in the South African context: ‘chiefs often align themselves, whether wholeheartedly or for tactical reasons, with the powers that seem to offer the best chances of safeguarding their positions’ (van Kessel and Oomen 1997: 562). The Thom group, they implied, had earned government recognition as a Kaokoland traditional authority in exchange for their political support to both the SWAPO party and its prized Epupa project. ‘The Thom’s support [for Epupa] came at the same time that they were leaving NPF to join SWAPO. It was roughly the same time that their chief was recognised by the government. It all happened at around the same time,’ an Otjikaoko Counsellor explained during our meeting inside the Traditional Authority office. ‘But that is another issue, that is politics. We do not want to discuss politics in this office. Politics and the Traditional Authority are two separate issues, two totally different things. We can talk about politics outside if you want, under the tree.’ *

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In 1998 the Namibian government officially recognised both the Otjikaoko Traditional Authority and the Vita Royal House Traditional Authority.10 Uziruapi Tjavara and Kapuka Thom were both granted the title of ombara (Chief). Government recognition of a traditional authority brings with it state-funded remuneration for its chief and twelve of his counsellors, as well as an annual administrative operating budget, including per diem and travel allowances. In addition, recognition entitles each traditional authority to two seats in the national Council of Traditional Leaders. Established in 1997, the Council meets in Windhoek once or twice annually and serves as an advisory body to the President. Strictly speaking, these are the only formal benefits of government recognition. Ideally positioned in that ‘legible space between state and community’ (Buur and Kyed 2007c), the recognised traditional leader can deploy his symbolic capital as a means to access the resources of both the Namibian State and the neo-liberal leaning international development and advocacy sectors. At the national level, a traditional leader is politically significant because he holds the key to a large block of party votes. He is also administratively significant because he serves as the government’s point of entry into the respective community (cf. Zeller 2007). Here in the margins of the Namibian State, traditional leaders living in small, outlying settlements receive visits from the President via helicopter, and four-wheeldrive vehicles as gifts from government ministers.11 Likewise, recognised chiefs and counsellors attract the attention of international development agencies which, in their present attempts to bypass the ‘inefficient’ and ‘corrupt’ African State, require their own points of entry into ‘the community’. Traditional leaders lubricate the development process through ‘participation’ and the channelling of international resources. In Kaokoland, such leaders establish their own development foundations in order to

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attract funding for local projects,12 and they ‘recommend’ qualified community members for employment with development organisations. Furthermore, international environmental and indigenous rights advocacy groups often desire a ‘traditional’ chief to personify the respective organisation’s struggle. Such globally minded movements afford Kaokoland’s traditional leaders yet another opportunity to reap fourwheel-drive vehicles,13 but also all-expenses-paid trips to Europe where they meet with German parliamentarians, European Union ministers and heads of international financial institutions (Sveijer 1997). Government recognition is thus a most coveted political resource in Kaokoland. In his apparent ability to straddle so-called civil society and the State, the recognised traditional leader acquires multiple points of access to a much wider range of political and economic opportunities. *

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During the course of my fieldwork in 2000–2001 there was little to indicate that the recognition of both Tjavara and Thom as chiefs of Kaokoland was helping to knit together the division that had first materialised under the South African regime. Headmen disputes and so-called illegal headman appointments continued unabated across the region, and villages continued to split under the competition of opposing leaders. In the village of Okanguati, for example, plans to construct a health clinic, a skills training centre and tourist facilities were blocked by Vita Royal House members who claimed that local Otjikaoko leaders did not have the right to authorise such projects. Also during my stay, the Otjikaoko Traditional Authority charged the highest-ranking government bureaucrat in the region with favouritism. According to their ‘Motion of No Confidence’, the Regional Executive Officer was excluding Otjikaoko leaders from official gatherings and attending only Thom group funerals and commemorations.14 Additionally, Otjikaoko members charged the central government with unfair employment practices, claiming that members of the SWAPO-supporting Thom group receive preferential treatment. The two factions even quarrelled over the naming of streets in Opuwo, while a modest Windhoek-based Kaoko funeral fund, set up to assist any Kaokolander with onerous transport and burial expenses, collapsed under accusations that its manager favoured his own group. These recent contests over chiefship in Kaokoland helped fuel outside political interests as well. Most significantly, unrecognised Herero Paramount Chief and DTA Member of Parliament Kuaima Riruako tried to leverage Kaokoland’s political (dis)order from his base in central Namibia, hoping in the process to regain his former status as the recognised Herero Paramount Chief. In response to the government’s decision to reject the applications of forty-six headmen who had applied (under Riruako’s tutelage) for recognition as chiefs of their own independent tra-

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ditional authorities,15 Riruako filed suit in Namibia’s High Court. In Riruako and 46 Others vs. the Minister of Regional, Local Government and Housing and the President of the Republic of Namibia (2001), the applicants charged the SWAPO-led government with refusing to recognise them on political grounds. Of the ‘46 others’, the vast majority were Kaokoland headmen who were subject to Chief Tjavara and the Ojtikaoko Traditional Authority; the remaining few represented communities in central and eastern Namibia. All forty-six applicants to the case were, however, DTA loyalists, and all supported the re-establishment of a national Herero paramount chieftaincy under the leadership of Riruako himself. In his affidavit to the court, Riruako argued that the Namibian government only recognised SWAPO-supporting traditional leaders: The Herero people are now officially represented by four Chiefs [Thom and Tjavara in Kaokoland, and two others in central Namibia], two of whom were recognised solely on the basis of their ties with the ruling party whereas the reality is the exact opposite, namely that at least two thirds of the Herero people do not support the ruling party. The hasty recognition of these pro government ‘Chiefs’ and undue delay to recognise any other Herero Chiefs is clearly nothing but intimidatory [sic] tactics by Government to indicate that its patronage is there for their supporters and to intimidate opposition and to avoid recognising the real Herero Chiefs.16

What his testimony did not convey was that those SWAPO-supporting Herero chiefs did not share Riruako’s interest in formally re-establishing the Herero Paramount Chieftaincy. In its decision on the matter, the High Court ruled that the government had made procedural mistakes in its initial deliberations, and it ordered a reconsideration (but not recognition) of the forty-six applications. Ten years on (in 2011), though, a ministerial decision on nearly all of these applications was still pending, and Kuaima Riruako was continuing to shore up support for the re-recognition of a Herero Paramount Chieftaincy (see below). In this light, then, the recent High Court case has had little to do with traditional leadership in Kaokoland per se, though it has had a great impact on it. Instead, Riruako’s attempt to secure official recognition for this group of Kaoko leaders is part of a larger countrywide strategy to help re-unify the Herero nation under the guidance of his own paramount leadership. If Riruako can prove successful in his bid to gain recognition for the forty-six traditional leaders who support both him and his political party, then at least forty-six out of the country’s fifty recognised Herero chiefs will, in turn, press for a reclamation of the Herero Paramount Chieftaincy as it existed under the former colonial and apartheid regimes. These recent political machinations have not only alienated Chief Tjavara from his former patron Riruako, but they have also generated yet another layer of tension that fragments traditional leadership in Kaokoland even further.

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In late 2003 Riruako withdrew his Herero National Unity Democratic Organisation (NUDO) from the alliance that constitutes the DTA party. Some of Otjikaoko's traditional leaders joined him, taking a number of voters with them, and thus splitting Kaokoland’s political opposition into yet another segment. Subsequently, Riruako filed an application for his own recognition as Chief of the ‘Herero Traditional Authority'; and, in late-2008, it was approved by the Namibian government.17 Even though this newest of chieftaincies is headquartered in central Namibia, Riruako’s appointed counsellors comprise a set of nationally dispersed Otjiherero-speaking leaders, including a number of those Otjikaoko headmen who had been trying to win their recognition in Namibia’s High Court. Despite the wide geographical distribution of his counsellors, the official recognition of Riruako places him on an equal legal footing with Chief Tjavara and Chief Thom, among others. In recognising Riruako as chief of the ‘Herero Traditional Authority’, the government has not acknowledged his claim to a paramount Herero chieftaincy, although many people certainly view it as such. *

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‘The political situation in Kaokoland has changed,’ explained one of my previous Otjikaoko house informants during my most recent field trip to Namibia. ‘Now, at present, the Tjimba group, most of them went to NUDO; and most of the Himbas stayed with DTA.’ It was not my Windhoek-based informant’s update on the most recent political party realignments in the region that caught my interest, or even Riruako’s further attempts to reclaim a recognised Herero Paramount Chieftaincy, though both are pertinent. ‘The Ovatjimbas?’ I asked with astonishment. ‘Where did they come from? A few years ago, no one was speaking of the Tjimbas; no one self-identified themselves as an Omutjimba.’ I referred my knowledgeable friend back to ‘the history’ by detailing the construction of ‘the Tjimba’ during the past century, and especially their disappearance in 1969 following the Big Group’s emergence. He concurred: ‘Actually, during those early days the Tjimba and Himba became as one group, and they had been fighting the Ovandamuranda (Small Group). And now, they have split since NUDO left the DTA’ (see Figure 8.2). I suddenly realised that I was no longer speaking with an Otjikaoko group member, as I had originally thought. ‘Me and my people, we are Tjimbas,’ he declared. But just seven years earlier my friend had asserted something so very different: Tjimba means the poor one. It is a derogatory label or term. The term is dying out because the people are not poor anymore, like in those days. When people of Thom came in from the south and Angola, they employed

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the people living in Kaoko.… The Ovatjimba became like slaves to the newcomers. It is similar to how the White man referred to the Blacks as kaffirs.

Here I was in the midst of, even at the forefront of, an ethnic (re)invention. My first-ever Tjimba friend continued his rendition. He geographically situated his new-found ethnic group in the areas south of Opuwo, and then detailed efforts to establish a new traditional authority in Kaokoland. We [recently] had a meeting there, in the same place where our forefathers were gathered in 1953 or 1954.… We went there and had our meeting. We talked about the history of our forefathers. What they did; what they did not like; what they decided. Then we spoke to the elders, and they told us the history.… And then we said that we should stand together and appoint our Chief for whom we will apply for recognition by the government. We will call it the Ovatjimba Traditional Authority.… We are completing the forms, but it has not been submitted yet. I will give you a copy of the appendix that will be attached to the application.

A few days later, after having settled down for an extended stay in Opuwo, I began meeting other ‘Tjimbas’, especially inside the town’s new NUDO office. When I showed up at a pre-scheduled meeting with party representatives, I also found delegates from the self-declared Ovatjimba Traditional Authority awaiting my arrival. The assembled group explained NUDO’s presence in Kaokoland as a response to people’s disaffection with the DTA and its ineffectual leadership. I enquired about the party’s supporters in Kaokoland: ‘I can say that most of the Tjimbas are supporting NUDO,’ one of them replied. When I asked them to clarify the nature of the alignment, another colleague asserted the importance of ethnicity in party politics: ‘A political party in Namibia that doesn’t have an ethnical basis is likely to die a natural death.’ I was back in the realm of ethnic politics and ‘tradition’, and so I decided to breach the question of the lost Tjimba generation. One of them responded: ‘You see, it is true, back then up to independence, there were not royal houses. But we were there. Now, the law came in to let the people know they have to come up with the royal houses.… We were there but the law did not allow [us] to come up. There was no provision to organise.’ The men explained (mistakenly) that Riruako’s High Court case had led the government to amend the Traditional Authorities Act so that ‘now for you to become a chief you need to be the head of a certain ethnic group.’ They claimed further, but again incorrectly, that the government had decided to modify their recognition of the Otjikaoko Traditional Authority, establishing it as a Himba-only chieftaincy. According to them, this was the reason for establishing a new Tjimba traditional authority, not party politics. During this most recent stay in Kaokoland I spent a significant amount of time with those connected to the above processes. In my attempts to

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understand the causes of such continued internal fracturing, almost all of my informants – whether members of NUDO or DTA, or of the Otjikaoko, Thom or new Tjimba house – eventually pointed me towards the Namibian government itself. Some highlighted the government’s recent policy of identifying highly marginalised groups (such as the Ovatwa), and then providing them with added levels of development assistance. To them, this was a clear attempt by the ruling SWAPO party to win over additional support in this opposition-party region. More often though, leading Kaokolanders spoke of ‘the confusion’ that the government, SWAPO and/or national politicians were spreading throughout Kaokoland. ‘Let me just say that the government is confusing the community,’ one person declared when he could not reconcile the contradictions within his own narrative. Another informant, a NUDO member, reached a similar conclusion: ‘The Traditional [Authorities] Act, it is a bit complicated. And people are being misled. Sometimes you might find, I mean, I do not know what to say, but it is very much complicated. The problem is that politics plays a major role there. It confuses everybody in the system.’ While a local DTA leader explained that ‘these things with the splitting of NUDO and Riruako has confused a lot of people.… They cannot understand the difference between traditional leadership and political leadership. A lot of confusion has been created among the Otjiherero-speaking people in Kaokoland.’ *

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Upon returning home, I finally read the appendix to the application for recognition of the Ovatjimba Traditional Authority. Entitled Ovatjimba: The Historically Marginalized and Disadvantaged Group in Kaokoland, the document evokes, in a most ironic way, the former colonial officer’s report of that historic meeting in 1952. Recall that back then a group of Tjimbas had burst onto the political scene by demanding recognition from the South African regime. But within two decades of that first public protest the Tjimbas had once again disappeared. And now, thirty-five years on from that, the lost Tjimba generation had resurfaced in a most familiar way: [A]t meetings held at Outjandja on 10–11 January 2007 and at Ondora (Alpha) on 23 March 2007 and at Otuzemba on 18 May 2007 we, the Ovatjimba, realized that enough was enough, and we are united and reorganised ourselves and re-established our own traditional authority under the leadership of one chief.… This traditional authority from now onwards will be known as Ovatjimba Traditional Authority and its vision and mission is to represent, protect and promote our rights, customs and cultural practices that are different from the other related groups as explained above.

But there is yet another irony at hand, a very personal one. In its efforts to bolster the legitimacy of its claims, the Ovatjimba Traditional

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Authority’s application to the government relies heavily on scholarly literature and archival sources. In fact, ‘my history’ (Friedman 2005) figures prominently in the document, direct extracts of which appear throughout the text. In re-reading these lengthy quotes, excerpts that have been taken out of context, I realise the validity of that which I had only sensed some years before: I did indeed get caught-up in my own ethnographic net. I have inadvertently done the work of the chiefs, and of the Namibian State.

At the Limits of the Imagined Traditional Community The Otjikaoko and Thom house groupings are imagined traditional communities. Like their national counterparts (Anderson 1983), these more localised corporate imaginings contain essential contradictions. The ambiguous social tissue that lies between practice and representation can offer added texture to our understanding of this specific social and political morphology. Thus I now pause for a moment to consider Kaokolanders’ representations of the factions in relation to my own observations of them. As part of this process I reflect on some of the circumstances that bring Otjikaoko and Thom group members together. Where are the cross-cutting ties in Kaokoland’s chiefship dispute? Let me begin, though, by first making an important qualification regarding the ways Kaokolanders imagine these communities. In fact, it was generally men, middle-aged and old men, knowledgeable men, wealthy men, male leaders and the power elite that generated discourses on the two opposing groups and the dispute, and not ‘Kaokolanders’ per se. Kaokoland’s political order is a patriarchal political order. Succession to office, for example, usually follows a patrilineal line of descent; the leadership chair is almost always inherited by brothers and sons. Furthermore, patrilocal residency entails not only the physical movement of married women, but also a swapping of their father’s oruzo (patriclan) for that of their husband’s. In shifting these patrilineal affiliations, most married women adopt their husband’s political loyalties and his senses of political belonging, including his traditional authority affiliation. However, and here is where women are most directly implicated in the dispute, unstated marriage prohibitions against royal house exogamy make such an occurrence the exception. Since the Kaoko factional dispute is just another manifestation of the local male-dominated political order, most Kaokoland women neither actively engaged in, nor even possessed knowledge about, the conflict. Most women did not know which traditional authority they were subject to, nor had most of them ever heard of Chief Tjavara or Chief Thom, although usually they were familiar with their village headman. My attempts to discuss the dispute and the traditional authorities with women were often met with a chuckle, and then an immediate referral to their husband or father. ‘We don’t know about such things,’ they would often say.

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In addition, it is also necessary to mention that the young Kaokolanders whom I came to know rarely occupied themselves with the dispute or the two groupings. They usually lacked interest in these political matters because they had yet to gain enough authority themselves – either through wealth, marriage or leadership – or because they were enticed by newer and nationally focused forms of political participation and expression. ‘I fall under the traditional leadership of anyone that helps,’ one young man told me. At the most basic level, then, the Kaokolanders who did possess knowledge of the dispute usually represented the two groupings along ethnic lines. During commemoration ceremonies, at public events, in the recounting of oral history and in political conversation, they tended to construct the two constituencies as reified social entities, with respect to both the present and the past. Thom constituents were categorised as Hereros, as non-indigenous Kaokoland residents, and as ‘visitors’; while Otjikaoko members were represented as indigenous and Himba. During my stays in Kaokoland, however, I observed a significant degree of social heterogeneity within each of the two groups, as well as crossover between them. Based on ‘the history’, one would have no reason to expect the two houses to be as clearly demarcated as their respective members suggested, for the two groupings were never so precisely delimited or rigid, not even in the early part of the twentieth century. Vita Thom returned from Angola with Herero refugees from central Namibia, and with so-called Oorlams and Bushmen, but also with a large contingent of Himba and Tjimba people who were returning to their native Kaokoland (van Warmelo 1951: 17–18; Bollig 1997a: 19–20). Later, he married into some of these families as a way to create and solidify political alliances (Gaerdes 1970: 10). By 1927, just ten years after Vita had settled in Kaokoland, nearly 80 per cent of those residing under his authority were classified as Himba or Tjimba.18 Today, as then, people from these various ethnic categories do not maintain separate and distinctive sets of consanguineal relations. Herero families may possess Himba members, and vice versa. We should also not overlook the fact that, in addition to Himba and Herero people (and the nascent effects of a re-emerging ‘Tjimba’ ethnic categorisation), leaders from both houses exert authority over Zemba, Nkumbi, Mbundu, Hakaona and Ovambo people who live within their respective areas, as well as over some of the Angolan refugees and Portuguese-speaking Coloured people who mostly reside in and around the town of Opuwo. Kin relations aside, then, many ‘non-Herero’ people are constituents of the supposedly Herero traditional authority. Even many of Muhona Katiti's descendants – those who identify themselves as Himba and native Kaokolanders – find refuge under the Vita Royal House. Although chiefly commemorations fail to reveal that many people possess kin from the rival royal house, for Kaokolanders usually fail to attend the other groups’ commemorative rituals, funerals do bring out these con-

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nections clearly. Among other things, funerals serve as a venue for matrilineal relatives to establish and negotiate claims to the deceased’s estate. At such events a deceased Thom member’s assets are often distributed to living Otjikaoko group relatives, and vice versa. In this way funerals offer the opportunity for structural reprieve in Kaokoland’s factional rivalry; and this is also why over the years Kaokolanders have invoked funerals whenever they wished to emphasise unity and/or negate boundaries between the two groups.19 In a Turnerian sense, then, funerary events in northern Kaokoland generate structural ambiguity and a limited and demarcated sense of communitas (Turner 1969). But as was evidenced earlier in the chapter, funerary rites in Kaokoland also have the tendency to emphasise and intensify structure. Matters of death are central to both uniting and dividing the two factions. I have already mentioned that throughout the past century Kaokoland’s two factions sporadically shared common political ground. During these rare occasions the common space opened up in relation to another, larger corporate entity. Recall how the two groups (initially) stood together in opposition to the South African regime’s animal disease control programmes, and in their mutual suspicions of SWAPO. During my time in Kaokoland certain public interest issues did bring these groups together in a unified stance, and like in earlier times, the issues revealed the segmentary nature of politics in Kaokoland. For example, Thom and Otjikaoko group members stood together in their concern over the lack of cattle marketing opportunities in the region, and in their mutual suspicions that they were being under-compensated when selling commercial livestock through the only available channel. Both groups also found common ground in their mutual assertions that the Namibian government neglects Kaokoland and intentionally bypasses the region in their development efforts. But as opposition party members, Otjikaoko group leaders were a bit more vociferous in confronting the government on developmentrelated issues. Otjiherero-speaking Kaokolanders from both houses also united in their attempts to promote regional employment preferences for Kaokolanders. People from both groups, but especially DTA supporting Otjikaoko members, often charged the government with attempting to colonise the region with (SWAPO-supporting) Oshivambo-speakers, and in particular, channelling ministerial positions to ‘outsiders’. The government’s appointment of a non-Kaokolander (a Caprivian) to the position of District Education Circuit Inspector, for example, led leaders from both houses to write an official letter of complaint under the heading of a hitherto unheard of entity, the ‘Kunene North Traditional Authority’.20 Finally, the new movement to establish an Ovatjimba Traditional Authority also seems to be bringing the two formally recognised houses closer together.

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Customising Politics Given the nature of the factional dispute in Kaokoland, I now want to turn towards one particularly remarkable representation that continually surfaced during my research on the conflict, a discursive position adopted by traditional leaders and their followers from both houses. Why do Kaokoland’s chiefs and counsellors and ordinary people vehemently deny any overlap whatsoever between the institution of traditional authority – whether their own or not – and the practice of politics? How could traditional leaders, especially those under the Otjikaoko house, recurrently link the government’s recognition process to political patronage, while at the same time refusing to acknowledge the political nature of traditional leadership more generally? Why was I breaking a taboo when I uttered the name of a political party inside the traditional authority office, or when I openly asserted what everyone already knew, that is, that traditional authorities in Kaokoland align themselves to a respective political party? Namibia’s Traditional Authorities Act forbids a traditional leader from simultaneously holding political office; if elected or appointed to such a position, he is required to take a leave of absence from his traditional role. Officials at the Ministry of Regional and Local Government and Housing often reference this clause when denying the political nature of the government’s recognition process. As for Kaokoland’s local leaders, they too invoked this juridical requisite when trying to explain the relationship between the traditional authority and politics, but they did so in order to highlight a much broader distinction between two opposing spheres: ‘the political’ and ‘the traditional’. ‘Traditional authorities and politics have nothing at all to do with one another, whatsoever, not at all’ a Vita Royal House counsellor stressed to me while seated together under a tree. Traditional authority is about tradition, and tradition is a permanent thing, it is not moving. Politics is always moving. Tradition also has to do with everyone living in the area, while politics only has to do with certain people supporting your political party. Tradition itself means the place where you are from, how you behave yourself. Politics is the new thing, it is something that has come in the independence countries.

This strict compartmentalisation is not only unique to those Kaokolanders with a vested interest in their own leadership status. Ordinary Kaokolanders also drew a very clear line between the traditional authorities and the practice of politics. ‘Traditional leaders should look after their communities,’ explained a middle-aged man. ‘Being a traditional leader is coming out of our blood. To become a politician you campaign.’ Among so many Kaokolanders – leaders and followers, men and women, young and old – two main perceptions dominate the concept of opolitika (politics, in Otjiherero). First, politics is associated strictly with the practices of political parties in relation to Namibia’s national govern-

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Figure 9.2: It is a person standing near his car. It is a young person, not an elder. He is a young boy having his own car. The person is a teacher from the mobile school. I took the photo to demonstrate that if you have power you can do anything you want. Because this boy has power he can buy a car, even though he is so young. His power comes from working, and from having self-confidence to do whatever he puts his mind to doing. — Mukuene, Age 23, Opuwo

ment. Kaokolanders identify opolitika as material form, and as specific practice, but not as a generalised notion of power. Politics remains contained within strict boundaries. In Kaokoland, opolitika is a political party meeting, election campaigning, voting, a SWAPO t-shirt, DTA colours, party flags and the President, but it is not land reform policy, legislation, apartheid, gender inequality, patron–client networks, bridewealth negotiations or Chief Tjavara. ‘There are different political parties, and some of the people don’t like each other if they are in different parties,’ explained a young woman. ‘Each person thinks his party is the best. That is politics.’ In addition, Kaokolanders overwhelmingly identify politics with divisiveness, conflict, violence, death and war. Ndele told me that she had chosen religion over politics: When I got a job, I was just praying through the church, not through politics. Politics could never help me. It is a bad thing because people are fighting and die. In the church people don’t fight, they just sing and pray. Churches don’t fight amongst themselves like political parties. The fighting in Namibia, even today, is only because of politics.

A White Afrikaans-speaking Kaokolander, roughly the same age as Ndele, also essentialised Namibian politics as violent. She attributed the

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violence not to the qualities of political parties, but rather to the nature of Black people in general. ‘Fighting is the cultural way of proving that you’re better. For them, it is the right way. They still have that in their blood, that they have to fight to be superior. It goes back to Shaka Zulu’s time. From the early days, they wanted to fight for power.’ Raphael, a precocious thirteen year old, had recently decided ‘to be on my own’. He explained: ‘I don’t want to have a party because that brings fighting in the country. If I vote for a person and he wins, maybe he will bring bad things to our country. Then later I will say: look what I have done.’ For others who live in Kaokoland politics is less deadly, but confrontational nonetheless. People often referred to politics as a derivative of problems, or as a form of criticism, or as the act of quarrelling. Many traditional leaders in northern Kaokoland assert themselves in accordance with these attitudes and viewpoints. In refusing to talk ‘politics’ – and that is in the narrow opolitika form of the term – traditional leaders acknowledge that politics separates people. But this acknowledgement is political in its own right, for in refusing to sever relationships through politics, traditional leaders and authorities secure greater support. They come to be seen as unifiers, peacemakers, relationship maintainers. ‘Tradition’ in Kaokoland is thus a type of anti-politics machine (cf. Ferguson 1990). In discursively segregating ‘tradition’ from politics, leaders cleanse tradition of conflict, divisiveness, terror and violence. The dark side of power is transformed into community, unity, peace and harmony. In this way, ‘tradition’ proves an effective instrument of authority, for it helps to entrench and expand the power of traditional leaders at the local level. But de-politicised tradition does more than just bolster the authority of Kaokoland’s leaders from below, for it also roots them in the Namibian State above. In winning official status, the successful Kaokoland chief manages to formally (and quite ironically) insert himself and his ‘apolitical’ traditional authority into a political body of the Namibian State. Not only does he earn a seat in the national Council of Traditional Leaders, but he also gains political influence in relation to the government of the day. Simultaneously, de-politicised tradition serves as a compost for the Namibian State, and the expansion and rooting of its power in Kaokoland. Political parties, national politicians and ministerial institutions, for example, utilise the traditional authorities to cleanse their own respective political interests. These individuals and groups need only court Kaokoland’s traditional leaders in order to gain local support on issues of importance. Like in South Africa, Kaokoland’s chiefs are ‘no longer relics of a feudal past, but strategic allies in the conquest of state power’ (van Kessel and Oomen 1997: 571). Once courted, the traditional leaders do the work of the State and other national interests by customising politics – lacquering politics with a coat or two of ‘tradition’ – and then easily delivering democratic support to their individual and institu-

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tional patrons. In maintaining the apolitical façade of traditional leadership – whether it be through legislative enactment or ministerial pronouncement, or through the everyday discursive representations of traditional leaders – state functionaries and traditional leaders reciprocally assimilate (Bayart 1993) the roots of power and authority.

The Rooting of Power in the Post-Apartheid State Chiefship in Kaokoland leads us to reflect on a wide array of issues relating to politics, power and the State in Africa, both past and present. As a growing body of recent scholarship attests, ‘history’ is an important instrument of political transformation in the post-apartheid era (Stolten 2007; Coombes 2004). In this respect, Kaokoland’s factional dispute highlights some of the ways history mediates politics and chiefship. Here, as elsewhere, history becomes a site of fierce contestation precisely because it has such important political ramifications for the present, and for the future. I would surmise that Kaokoland’s traditional leaders have never been more historically minded. With government recognition often hinging on ‘the history’, leaders of the Thom group and the Otjikaoko group have become keenly aware of the importance that history plays in the political process. As a result, both traditional authorities work to disseminate, legitimate and institutionalise their version of the past, and in the process they often utilise inventive techniques to achieve this end. These techniques do not preclude the strategic deployment of colonial-era ethnographies or contemporary foreign researchers such as myself. In this respect, Kaokoland’s contemporary oral historians offer a particularly interesting vantage point between the historical past and the political present. In their narratives the past takes shape around new problems, and new problems take shape around past histories. Here, a dialectical synthesis unfolds between past and present, a synthesis that allows us the ability to sense the very weighty and lived presentness of history in Namibia. But it is also in the narratives of state functionaries – former colonial administrators and present-day Namibian government officials – that one witnesses constructions and deployments of history. For the colonial administrators, Kaokolanders were imagined as people without history, and, as a result, the regime set out to historicise them through the construction of ethnic groups, political constituencies, and traditional leaders and chiefs. As for the independent Namibian State, we have seen an almost overvaluing of history in its deliberations on the recognition of traditional authorities. From a state-centred perspective, history is unproblematic, even when contested through oral accounts. History is a positivistic pursuit; it is ascertainable, easily decipherable, and ultimately authenticating. For all of these reasons, the Kaokoland case forces us to pause and once again consider the political work that ‘history’ and ‘tradition’ have done, and continue to do, in the service of power.

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In addition, the factional dynamic that consumed so much of Kaokoland’s political energies during the twentieth century illuminates how the South African regime constructed ethnic groups in Kaokoland, and then contributed towards generating animosity between them. The case also reveals the ways Kaokolanders contribute(d) to their own ‘ethnic’ constructions. These mutable and circumstantial ethnic imaginings allow(ed) Kaokolanders to position and re-position themselves politically vis-à-vis their rival faction and the ruling regime of the day. As one Otjikaoko group member admitted, ‘I am not a real Ovatjimba. I am really a pure Ovaherero, but because of the division I am a Tjimba.’ In his classic monograph on Hausa urban migrants in Nigeria, Abner Cohen (1969) was the first to propose that ethnicity was essentially a political phenomenon, and that ethnic categories were informal political organisations. More recently, Jean-François Bayart has argued that in Africa ‘[t]he ethnonyms used to describe a modern political situation in fact are usually applied to pluri-ethnic power constructions’ (1993: 48). In Kaokoland one must take seriously these political conceptions of ethnicity. As in the past, contemporary constructions of ethnicity continue to revolve around political moments (such as NUDO’s recent withdrawal from the DTA); local historical and political specificities continue to interact dialectically with the national (re)order of things. But perhaps the construction of belonging in Kaokoland, especially since Namibia’s independence in 1990, is also a product of the global (re)order of things. Peter Geschiere and Francis Nyamnjoh have linked an increase in autochthonous discourses with recent trends towards democratisation in Africa: A striking aspect of recent developments in Africa is that democratisation seems to trigger a general obsession with autochthony and ethnic citizenship invariably defined against ‘strangers’ – that is, against all those who ‘do not really belong’. Thus political liberalisation leads, somewhat paradoxically, to an intensification of the politics of belonging: fierce debates on who belongs where, violent exclusion of ‘strangers’ (even if this refers to people with the same nationality who have lived for generations in the area), and a general affirmation of roots and origins as the basic criteria of citizenship and belonging (2000: 423).

In Geschiere and Nyamnjoh’s account of Cameroon, this dynamic manifests itself in the proliferation of regional elite associations and NGOs that claim to promote culture and development, but that are in fact highly political in nature. The existence and promotion of such associations splits the political opposition and thus helps the ruling party maintain control of the State. In the Kaokoland case we have also seen how a central issue in the dispute concerns autochthony, the extent to which the Otjikaoko and Thom groups have manoeuvred in order to occupy that position, and how such

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claims link with global processes surrounding democratisation, development and advocacy. Indeed, the dispute has led the political opposition in the region to split, and then split again. Furthermore, and just as Geschiere and Nyamnjoh have observed, the place of burial also feeds local autochthonous claims and the politics of death in the region. Here, though, in the absence of community-based organisations and elite associations, the autochthonous discourses emerge out of traditional authorities themselves. The autochthonous associations of Kaokoland are state-recognised and state-sanctioned, and for this reason they penetrate national politics at a more immediate point of access. In Namibia, the State colludes in the generation and production of an autochthonous movement, thereby (inadvertently) stimulating an intensification of the politics of belonging. This lived presentness of Namibia’s history and the political nature of death, funerals and graveside commemorations are in no way unique attributes of Kaokoland or its inhabitants alone. In other parts of Namibia too, struggles over public memory and the memorialisation of people and past events form an active part of the political landscape. Such localised memory-work takes many forms: demands for the repatriation of the remains of former leaders, the conversion of graves into memorials, and the transformation of local headmen into national heroes, to name but a few.21 The politics of remembrance also takes place on a national stage, working to generate a dominant national narrative (Kössler 2003). The current SWAPO government, for example, has selectively glorified a history of warfare for liberation through the establishment of public holidays and the recent construction of the Heroes’ Acre national monument (Melber 2002). Henning Melber calls this memorialising of a violent past ‘an obvious symptom in Namibian society today. It plays a relevant role in the current symbolism and ritual of the post-colonial political culture’ (2003b: 321). In other ways, national memory-work in Namibia involves something quite different: the suppression of public memory (Groth 1995; Saul and Leys 2003). Such attempts to forget Namibian history (or parts thereof) stand in stark contrast to South Africa’s recent approach to truth and reconciliation. In Namibia, like elsewhere, a hegemonic national narrative is thus constructed through state processes of both remembering and forgetting. But the communal memory-work undertaken in the State’s margins, in places such as Kaokoland, also makes a contribution, even when such work tries to rewrite or challenge the dominant national narrative (Kössler 2007). Finally, for Mahmood Mamdani it is bifurcation that is indicative of the post-colonial State in Africa. According to him: the divided world is inhabited by subjects on one side and citizens on the other; their life is regulated by customary law on one side and modern law on the other; their beliefs are dismissed as pagan on this side but bear the status of religion on the other; the stylised moments in their day-to-day lives are considered ritual on this side and culture on the other; their creative activity is considered crafts on this side and glorified as the arts on the

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other; their verbal communication is demeaned as vernacular chatter on this side but elevated as linguistic discourse on the other; in sum, the world of the ‘savages’ barricaded, in deed as in word, from the world of the ‘civilised’ (1996: 61).

Mamdani’s approach is valuable for its ability to focus our attention on the mode of colonial rule, and, in particular, on how the colonial State incorporated, rather than excluded, its subjects. But his analysis is agentless (note his seductive use of the passive voice), and, as a result, it meets its limits at everyday practice, in its inability to capture the subtle ways the State is imagined, lived and acted upon by individuals and groups. Here I do not wish to suggest that Mamdani’s shortcoming reflects poorly on his scholarship, for it is rather a question of method and scale. I am once again simply making a case for anthropology, and its potential to illuminate the State in ways that the disciplines of history and political science cannot.

Figure 9.3: This is a photo of a statue [in Windhoek] all covered up. It stands in front of Parliament. This is a statue of a Namibian hero, of Hosea Kutako. There was a dispute over the placement of this statue. The government was going to put it at the airport, and then they changed their mind and put it in town. The opposition DTA party wants this statue at the airport so that the tourists can see it. The government didn’t disclose the reason for their change of mind. But it has remained covered for many years. Maybe this is a political issue. This is a Herero man, and most Hereros are DTA. This man was not a SWAPO member, but Hosea Kutako is the one who gave a letter to Sam Nujoma to deliver to the United Nations before independence. Herero people have been complaining. They say that it should be placed anywhere, but that it should not remain covered. They should just uncover it. I find it offensive that it is covered. — Kenneth, Age 26, Windhoek

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My ethnographic analysis of the Namibian State has retained Mamdani’s important emphasis on incorporation, but it has also attempted to include the inverse perspective. Thus, I have tried to show how and in what ways Kaokoland’s traditional leaders and authorities have incorporated the State into their own fields of power. From an ethnographically situated view, state bifurcation in the post-colonial Namibian State does not appear nearly as rigid as Mamdani’s model suggests. The factional conflict in northern Kaokoland reveals how local and national power constellations infuse one another, and the extent to which traditional authorities and the State are mutually constituting. The State penetrates Kaokoland’s traditional authorities, but such local power constellations also penetrate the State. In practice, Namibian state bifurcation is very blurry, and thus it might be worthwhile to consider the extent to which Kaokolanders have colonised the contemporary Namibian State.



Paternalistic Imprint: On Political Families Otjiherero-speaking Kaokolanders are segmented into yet other so-called families. The extent to which people consider their traditional authority and political party affiliations as a familial tie varies with the individual. However, a significant number of people did classify these two groupings as ‘families’ and, in doing so, drew on the language of kinship as a way to elucidate their relationship to them. Most particularly, one’s affiliation to a traditional authority or political party was often viewed as an inheritable attribute passed on through the patriline, and therefore through fathers. I first considered the possibility that Kaokoland’s two traditional authorities – what are now the Otjikaoko and Thom constituencies – might constitute families in their own right when an acquaintance explained the factional dispute by comparing the two groups to the Capulets and the Montagues. The reference to English literature suggested that each of these traditional political entities might constitute an extended family, and that each individual within one or the other house could trace a line of patrilineal descent back to the respective royal family. Furthermore, the comment elicited the possibility that Kaokoland’s factional dispute might just be a family feud. In my attempts to grasp the basis of traditional leadership in Kaokoland – including whether a particular leader had authority over people or place – one specific set of questions drew laughter time and time again: ‘How do you know whether you fall under the authority of Chief Tjavara or Chief Thom? How do you know which traditional authority is your traditional authority?’ Amazed at my inability to grasp

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the naïveté of my own question, people replied in an emphatic manner. ‘There is no child that doesn’t know his parents,’ one Otjikaoko headman declared. ‘Chief Tjavara is my father, my mother.’ When I asked a young Thom group member why he was a supporter of Chief Thom, he hastily replied, ‘I am not a supporter of Chief Thom. He is my chief. It is a fact.’ In Kaokoland the two chieftaincies overlap spatially; they are not demarcated geographically and are thus deterritorialised. As a result, one does not know one’s leader by birthplace or place of residence alone. In their efforts to educate me, Kaokolanders explained the basis of their traditional authority affiliation with one of three explanations. First, many would explain that they know their chief through their father, or through their husband. As a child/wife, one’s father’s/husband’s chief becomes one’s own chief. One man explained that he belonged with the Thom house because ‘I was born by my father, and my father was under the leadership of Vita Thom, who was the leader of Kaoko.’ Other people explained that Chief Tjavara or Chief Thom was their relative, their blood, and for that reason they were a constituent of one or the other traditional authority. Finally, some would locate themselves in relation to historical circumstance. One person explained that Vita Thom had fought for his grandparents, and therefore he belonged under the Thom house. Others would situate themselves by tracing the migrations of their ancestors who had been under the authority of a predecessor to one or the other chief. In almost all cases, then, belonging to a traditional authority, to a particular chief, is grounded in social facts, and particularly in the facts of birth and patrilineal descent. But a familial model of traditional authority is further complicated by the double descent system of Otjiherero-speakers. This aspect of kinship structure, accompanied by the occasional exogamous marriage arrangement (that is, between people affiliated at birth to different traditional authorities), yields an inheritance process that can cross-cut these traditional political structures. As was made evident in the discussion above, it is possible for a Thom group member to inherit from an Otjikaoko group relative precisely because wealth is transmitted through the matriline. Clearly, those subject to a specific traditional authority do not share a single eanda (matriclan). But might constituents of a particular traditional authority be more likely to share a common set of patrilineal descent segments and/or otuzo? Might each royal house constitute a distinctive patrilineage? In writing about the Herero of Ngamiland, Gibson (1956) indicates the possibility: Matrilineal ties bridge gaps not only between patri-lineages but also between chiefdoms based on patri-clans and (formerly, at least) headed by patri-clan priests. A man may expect to find patrilineal relatives in only one or two chiefdoms outside his own, but he is sure to find members of his matri-clan in the other chiefdoms of his tribe and in the other tribes of the Herero nation (1956: 135–36, emphasis added).

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Malan (1973) also leans in such a direction, finding a close relationship between political structure and descent groupings in Kaokoland. He postulates that a segmentary political system was adopted to coincide with the development of full double descent. According to him, the principle of the non-centralised political organisation ‘directly conforms to the segmentary structure of descent groups in society’ (1973: 91). On numerous occasions Kaokolanders also spoke about their political party as if it too were a family, or at least an element of their own family. When I asked people about their reasons for supporting one party over another they hardly ever explained their support in terms of specific political platforms or party ideologies. Instead, most Kaokolanders accounted for their political party support by suggesting that it was an inheritable attribute. For the most part, a person supports a political party in the same way he or she affiliates with a traditional authority, based on the circumstances of his/her birth (or marriage). Kaokolanders thus explained their individual political leanings as an offshoot of their loyalty to either their ‘tribe’ or their parents. As a legacy of the apartheid era, many people still associate political parties with particular ethnic groups. ‘My parents told me that I should support DTA because SWAPO was the Ovambo party,’ recounted one young man. ‘They told me that if I joined SWAPO the people there would not like me because I am Herero.’ Dorothy offered another common explanation: ‘When I grew up to be old enough my parents told me that I had to belong to a certain party. They told me that our political party was this one, and that I had to support it, that it was the party of the family.’ Finally, Frans explained his ‘choice’ of political party as such: When I grew up I came to know the political party that I am now, and I have not changed. We Himba do not change. We stick to things. That has become our oruzo [patriclan], that party has become part of our oruzo. From my birth I belonged to the kudu oruzo. I will not change from that oruzo. Just like that, from my birth I became that party, so I will not change. I found that party with my father. Just as I got my oruzo from my father, I also got my father’s party. My children have my oruzo, and they also should have my party.… Nowadays, the children can choose their own party. But I still tell them that this is their party, that they can choose another party if they want, but that this is not good for us. When a child is changing from one party to another, it is like my child is leaving me and going out to find another father. It is not good for a father and a child to have different parties because these two parties could have a fight together. Then what will happen? A father and a son may have to fight each other, to shoot and kill each other.

Frans’s account returns us once again to Kaokolanders’ notions of opolitika, and, in particular, to its destructive and divisive nature. Politics fuels wars between nations and between members of families, and, for this reason, many Kaokolanders hesitate to stray from their parents’ political party. Just as party loyalties are associated with a child’s responsibilities and duties towards his or her parents, so too are a father’s party loyalties

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linked to his obligations as a ‘child’ of his headman or chief. Otjihererospeaking Kaokolanders often construct the relationship between themselves and their leaders in a paternal format. Headmen, chiefs and even national politicians are addressed as ‘father’ (tate) and ‘parent’ (omunene; literally ‘big person’), while leaders refer to their followers as ‘my children’ (ovanatje wandje). But these relationships entail more than just respectful forms of address. Like a biological father, political leaders are not necessarily relatives or family, but they do maintain a duty of care. In return, and among other things, a villager is expected to cast his or her ballot in accordance with the political wishes of the local headman. A paternal line of political descent thus runs from fathers to children, passing from the chief to his headmen, and then on to household heads and their dependants. An employee of one of the national parties, a political organiser who works throughout the region, reaffirmed this understanding of the political process when he detailed unabashedly his approach to winning over new party members. He explained to me that the party offers to ‘look after’ certain individuals in exchange for their support. When I asked for clarification he said that individuals with ‘supporters behind them’, such as headmen and other influential members of a community, are sometimes offered a monthly allowance if they agree to shift their political loyalties. The process by which the majority of traditional authority constituents change political parties en masse begins when the chief calls his headmen together for a consultative meeting. After lengthy discussions a decision will be taken, though not necessarily by consensus. With or without unanimity, all headmen will shift their political loyalties to the same party. Each returns to his respective village, calls a meeting with his community’s household heads, and reports on the decision. He will not instruct others to switch their party support, but people will understand the expectation. ‘In our area there are headmen all over,’ an old man on a visit to Opuwo explained. The people of a certain area are supporting their headman, and the headman supports a certain party. So we support the party of our headman. We don’t have power, so we just follow our headman.… No one told me to support the party of my headman. No one has to tell me that I am supposed to support the party of my headman. That, I know myself.

A young man offered a similar explanation: ‘The chief will not tell you directly, but in a way you will see what he is saying. You will see from the way that he supports the person or party, how he loans his car, or gives food and cattle. You can see what he wants.’ The strength of such loyalties is exemplified powerfully by the case of Leonard, a leading member of the Thom Royal House, and his family. In the early 1980s, during the period when he and the other Thom members supported the South Africa-backed DTA party, Leonard’s homestead was

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attacked by PLAN fighters. The group of thirty combatants targeted Leonard because he was on the South African regime’s payroll, and for that they considered him a traitor. The incident left Leonard with a nearfatal bullet wound in the back, and his brother dead. ‘They came into my homestead and wanted to kill me,’ he said. ‘SWAPO was my enemy.’ A decade and a half later, though, Leonard, his family and the rest of the Thom House constituency joined the SWAPO party. I asked how he was able to support a party that had tried to kill him and his family. ‘What am I to do,’ he replied. ‘They are the government now.’ Leonard’s wife, who also became a SWAPO supporter, explained her move as a wife’s duty and a way to keep the family together. If members of the family belong to different parties, she said, then it will cause people to fight, and then they will not work well together. One of their unmarried daughters told me that she had become a SWAPO member at her parents’ request: ‘When I was sixteen my parents instructed me to be a SWAPO supporter. They told me that they were SWAPO, and that because I am their daughter I must also be SWAPO.… If I don’t support SWAPO my parents will be angry. I cannot disobey them.’ She insisted that her five-year-old son will also have to become a member of SWAPO. ‘We must be the same. I know families that aren’t sitting at the same fire because one says that he is SWAPO and the other DTA. They can even kill each other.’ Another daughter of Leonard’s, a resident of Windhoek, never understood her father’s change of political heart. Nonetheless, she shifted parties with him until she married. At the time of our meeting she was following the lead of her husband and not supporting any political party. It is through such paternal mechanisms, a line leading from the chief to children, that traditional authorities are able to deliver a block of votes to their political party patrons.

CONCLUSION

Chapter 10

TOWARDS AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE (NAMIBIAN) STATE

This book has concerned itself with two primary aims. First, it has explored state-related political imagination among Kaokoland-connected people in Namibia. In focusing on the topics of government, courts and chiefship, it has considered some of the different ways Kaokolanders perceive and talk about, represent and construct, and experience the postapartheid State. Secondly, the book has offered a methodological exploration by situating that imagination as a prism through which to refract the State ethnographically. My account offers insight into political imagination in Kaokoland, but it has done so as a means to ‘ethnographise’ the post-apartheid State itself. In this final chapter I want to pull the main threads of this book together by addressing a series of questions. First, what do local experiences, perceptions and representations of government, law and traditional authority suggest about the state-related imagination in Kaokoland? Towards this end, I will offer some final reflections on the prominence of paternalism in the contemporary political imagination of those living in, and/or connected to, the region; and I will attempt to account for that dominant mode of imagining as a historico-cultural process. But since the book has aimed to do more than just that, the chapter also summarises the findings of this study in relation to the postapartheid Namibian State itself. In this regard, the Namibian State emerges as a dialectical process: State and subject-citizen in Kaokoland help to constitute one another vis-à-vis this paternalistically inflected political imagination. The ambiguities of power and the past are central in mediating the processes associated with the making of State and subjectcitizen in Kaokoland. In these ways, the book contributes to the scholarly study of the State more generally, and to anthropology’s ongoing attempts to ‘ethnographise’ this problematic object of study. The account presented herein asserts the importance of political imagination for the constitution of both the State itself and anthropology’s approach to it.

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Paternalism(s) Revisited As in other parts of the world, metaphors feature frequently in African political discourse. In certain parts of the continent, for example, politics and power are represented through idioms of food and eating (Bayart 1993). But in many other African locales people project the language and imagery of kinship onto the formal political sphere (Schatzberg 2001). As Igor Kopytoff has observed, the widespread use in Africa of kinship as a means to explicate the political process is of particular significance because ‘political relations can be stated in terms of kinship and vice versa, that each can suggest the other, and there is therefore a tendency for political relations to merge and overlap with kinship relations’ (1987: 39). Along similar such lines, but within the post-apartheid southern African context, this book has highlighted the extent to which the parent–child metaphor – or what might be termed a spirit of paternalism – resonates in the staterelated political imaginings of Kaokoland-connected people. Thus, Chapters 3 and 4 analysed Kaokolanders’ competing discourses on government, past and present. The dominant Kaokoland critique and the other govern-mentalities circulating throughout the region appeared initially as vastly different representations of state process; but an underlying common thread eventually emerged. The ethnographic material presented therein showed that when most Kaokolanders conceptualised an art of government they did so in such a way as to link its practices to the realm of parental and paternalistic care. ‘Government’ was imagined as an ability to manage the State in a manner befitting a parent, and especially a father, in relation to his or her family. To this end, Kaokolanders invoked idioms of kinship and their own moral imagery of families and households in order to instantiate government, its roles, obligations and responsibilities. The parent–child relationship figured centrally here, appearing as both method and model of government. Nurturance, care and proximity also featured in these personalised (and personified) conceptions. The main differences that did exist within these governmental discourses related not to the art of government per se, but rather to Kaokolanders’ assessments of the new independent State’s ability to master that art. In these ways Part I of the book introduced us to familial relations as a unifying trope through which the State comes to be imagined in Kaokoland. In Chapters 5, 6 and 7, a similar kind of imagery emerged from an analysis of legal dualism in Opuwo. In our consideration of judicial practices and administration in the region, we saw the extent to which Kaokolanders imagine justice as a social process. Dispute resolution requires that an offender or victim be recognised not as an individuated being, but as a person embedded in everyday social contexts and group relations. A socially embedded person in Kaokoland is recognised first and foremost as a child of his or her parents, no matter the person’s age; and since parents establish one’s set of corporate identities, the

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Kaokolander is also recognised as the child of a particular lineage, clan, community and nation. In other words, parents embody a social transgressor’s relationship and responsibilities towards the wider society. This understanding of personhood leads Kaokolanders to employ a number of related legal principles: parental representation at all judicial hearings; collective familial liability for the acts of an individual offender; and the need for adjudicators to be enmeshed in the very same social relations as the disputants themselves. In detailing the workings of both the magistrate’s and traditional court, Part II of the book showed how paternalism and the family also resound in the ways Kaokolanders imagine and practice justice. Here, the parent, the child, and the social relations that emerge out of this nexus of descent prove central in the ways people assert themselves in struggles over the ‘government of individualisation’ (Foucault 1982) in the post-apartheid State. Finally, in Chapters 8 and 9, an attempt to unpack a long-standing factional conflict between traditional constituencies in the region pointed towards the leadership of fathers, and towards issues related to belonging and corporate identity. We were left to contemplate various points of intersection between the political party, the traditional authority and the family. On one level we saw the discursive construction of various political ‘families’. Instead of metaphorically equating the Namibian nation with the family, something that often transpires in other national contexts, Kaokolanders tended to reserve such emotive powers for their discourses on ethnicity, race, traditional authority and/or political parties. On another level we saw how politics and kinship interfaced more immediately within the patrilocal household. Belonging to a traditional authority, and being subject to a particular chief, is grounded in the facts of birth and patrilineal descent. Similarly, one’s political party alignment is also ascribed through that of one’s father and his patriline. But just as party loyalties come with a child’s duties towards his or her parents, we also saw how a father’s political party ties reflect his obligations as a ‘child’ of his headman and chief. In these ways, then, Part III helped reveal some of the other ways kinship domesticates the political process in Kaokoland, including those associated with the Namibian State. *

*

*

*

*

In this book, as in the course of my field research, the paternalistic ethos of state-related imagination among Kaokoland-connected people led me to trace paternalism beyond the realm of the Namibian State per se. The ‘paternalistic imprints’ that colour the previous chapters have thus aimed to not only help bridge politics and kinship, and State and family, but also to help qualify a broader notion of paternalism that is specific to the historical and cultural specificities of the people living in Kaokoland. Taken together, these forays into various forms of belonging and corporate iden-

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tity, these traverses into politics and authority within Otjiherero-speaking ‘families’, highlight the cultural construction of paternalism itself. As most commonly understood, the notion of ‘paternalism’ made its debut during the latter half of the nineteenth century, a time inextricably linked to Europe’s movement away from ‘a social order and world view in which communal and relational categories predominate to one in which “the discrete individual” holds centre stage’ (Kleinig 1983: 3). John Stuart Mill, in his essay On Liberty [1859], offered the anti-paternalist principle that is often taken as the starting point for modern philosophical deliberations on the topic. He wrote that ‘the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others’ (Mill 1999: 51–52). Mill’s rejection of paternalism arose in response to a much earlier body of English political philosophy, that of absolutism and patriarchalism (see Schochet 1975). Robert Filmer (1991), for example, advocated a patriarchal political order modelled on the rule of the father over his family.1 He argued that the basis of all political authority – whether in the form of the father, the king or God – was identical and natural. The notion of paternalism as originally conceived is thus very much rooted in Europe’s history of patriarchal and absolutist rule, and in the subsequent rise of liberalism and its asocial conception of humans as rational rather than relational beings (Kleinig 1983: 3). Just as Marilyn Strathern (1990) did in her analysis of gender in Melanesia, it is necessary to recognise (and de-conflate) two different notions of paternalism. Thus, what might be a Kaokoland analogue to a paternalism born in Europe? In this African socio-cultural milieu, one in which the individual figures without prominence, paternalism takes quite a different shape and meaning. To begin with, among Kaokolanders the paternal relationship is neither conflictual nor cooperative (see Douglas 1983). Though elements of conflict and cooperation do indeed exist between parents and children, ancestors and their descendants, chiefs and their subjects, and States and their subject-citizens, reciprocity is most central to local notions of paternal authority. Paternalism generates mutual dependence, it creates reciprocal (though often asymmetrical) obligations and duties, and it allows people to place demands on those more powerful than themselves. In Kaokoland, paternalism empowers as well as dis-empowers. Unlike the ideal form of cooperative paternalism in the European context, children in Kaokoland are never meant to become free of their parents because it is them to whom they owe life itself. Kaokolanders often explained their sense of lifelong obligation to their parents as an exchange relationship. Since her parents brought her into the world, fed and clothed her, cared for her, educated her and sacrificed for her well being, she must always respect and obey them, and care for them in return. Likewise, the

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living are never free of the dead. One’s ancestors have powers to protect and to condone, to make ill and to heal, to bestow one’s identity and place in the world. In exchange the living must not forget their forefathers; they must commemorate them, sacrifice animals to them, and live life in their names. As for a chief and his subjects, the reciprocal arrangement is well captured by a young man who will ‘vote the way he [the chief] wants me to vote because he is the one I am supposed to listen to, because if I have a problem, I take my complaint to him.’ Finally, as we have also seen, a similar sense of reciprocity permeates the paternalistic political imaginings of the Namibian State in Kaokoland. In tracing Kaokolanders’ paternalistic state imagination to the family, I do not wish to imply a straightforward causative connection between family structure and political imagination, as others have (Todd 1985). Family structure is certainly a lens through which politics is read in Kaokoland, but, as has been made evident throughout the course of this book, so too is the past. Kaokolanders’ perceptions, representations, constructions and experiences of the post-apartheid Namibian State are also a product of history. State-related political imagination in Kaokoland has also been conditioned by people’s historical encounters with a paternalistic (and often violent) colonial/apartheid State. *

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[C]hildhood is seen as an imperfect transitional state on the way to adulthood, normality, full socialization and humanness. This is the theory of progress as applied to the individual lifecycle. The result is the frequent use of childhood as a design of cultural and political immaturity or, it comes to the same thing, inferiority. Much of the pull of the ideology of colonialism and much of the power of the idea of modernity can be traced to the evolutionary implications of the concept of the child in the Western worldview. — Ashis Nandy (1987: 57)

Consider again that very first formal encounter between the South African colonial State and Vita Thom, the meeting that also marked the first significant political encounter between any State and Kaokoland. Inside the Office of the Commanding Troops in Windhoek, Vita listened as Colonel de Jager described the nature of colonial rule: [T]he British Government have [sic] come here and taken this land and the British Government will look as far as the land goes and see that the law is carried out.… The British Law where it comes it gives the right to each man that he can live.… The Government will look after the Hereros, Hottentots, Bastards, Ovambos and all the others. They are all children of the Government and so long as they listen to the Government they need not be frightened of the Government but if one of them does not listen but kills people and steal [sic] cattle the Government will punish them. If a child does not listen a parent must beat it.… Where anyone caused trouble we

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will go and make him quiet.… If you won’t listen the Government must beat you. [To his interpreter] Ask him what he wants. Does he want protection or [sic] go back to Angola?2

In choosing colonial protection, Vita Thom sealed a bargain with the colonial State. Through this seminal agreement the South African Administration had become a parent to all Kaokolanders, and the chief and his followers became its children. Throughout South Africa’s rule, Kaokolanders would hear and experience such state paternalism time and time again. For example, the Officer in Charge at Opuwo often reprimanded Kaokolanders in the language of an angry parent: ‘The Government is very dissatisfied with the Kaokoveld Natives and has decided to put a stop to your nonsense and disobedience. The Supreme Chief has decided to give everybody another chance, but those who do not listen and behave themselves in future will be severely punished by the Government.’3 On another occasion the official reminded people that ‘you cannot expect to be treated like good children unless you behave yourselves.’4 Other such interventions framed by paternalistic concern are readily evidenced in the archival record. For example, the Administration refused to accept a local donation to their War Fund on the grounds that Kaokolanders could not afford it;5 pass books were confiscated from those living in the southern part of the region because they were travelling too ‘indiscriminately with the result that the natives neglected their gardens’;6 and the Native Affairs officer warned Kaokolanders sternly that ‘you will ruin yourself and your country if you take to the “white man’s” liquor.’7 In their dealings with the region’s inhabitants, the regime’s officials also made clear that the benevolent colonial State required something in return: ‘If the government helps you I hope that you will reciprocate,’ explained the Native Commissioner to a 1949 meeting of headmen. ‘By this, I mean you will continue to be loyal to the Government, look well after your country and treat your people justly.’8 *

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In our societies, the state makes a decisive contribution to the production and reproduction of the instruments of construction of social reality. As organizational structure and regulator of practices, the state exerts an ongoing action formative of durable dispositions through the whole range of constraints and through the corporeal and mental discipline it uniformly imposes upon all agents.… Through the framing it imposes upon practices, the state establishes and inculcates common forms and categories of perception and appreciation, social frameworks of perceptions, of understanding or of memory, in short “state forms of classification.” — Pierre Bourdieu (1999b: 68)

While representatives of the South African regime spoke the language of the parent, Kaokoland’s headmen followed suit by upholding their end of

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the paternal bargain. ‘I know the Government is my father and is ready to listen to my complaints,’ one leader declared in 1940, ‘but I have none.’9 Similarly, after the Administration lifted restrictions on the movement of cattle along the Kunene River, sub-headman Katsinatsie felt ‘a great honour that our Governor is trusting us to look after the river and our own stock.’10 During another meeting a headman urged Kaokolanders to abide by their tribal council and ‘prove to the Government that our disobedience and lawlessness was only due to ignorance.’11 His colleague subsequently proclaimed: ‘We are the government’s children and must obey our father.’12

Performing Paternalism in Kaokoland Whether spoken by colonial officials, headmen or ordinary Kaokolanders, such paternalistic utterances were ‘a performance with effects’ (Butler 1997b: 7). In trying to address contemporary state-related political imagination in Kaokoland, Judith Butler’s consideration of the ‘speech act’ offers some useful insights. Butler treats language as conduct, as an act with consequences. Speech, she argues, has the capacity to constitute the subject; the speaker is formed in the language that he or she uses. These performances of speech succeed not because of the strength of an individual utterance, but because such utterances echo previous actions. The force of authority is generated through convention, through the repetition of a prior authoritative set of practices. In questioning the extent to which discourse gains the authority to bring about what it names, Butler concludes that ‘the act “works” in part because of the citational dimensions of the speech act, the historicity of convention that exceeds and enables the moment of its enunciation’ (1997b: 32–33). In part, the authority of the South African regime in Kaokoland was generated and reproduced through such a set of citational speech acts. By citing a long list of prior authoritative acts, the Native Affairs official positioned himself and the Administration as the parental figure in Kaokoland. His speech acts referenced not only the more common and everyday occurrences in colonial Kaokoland, but they also invoked, for example, the force of de Jager’s initial pronouncements to Vita Thom and the original League of Nations mandate. Through such citation, the regime constituted itself as a locus of authority in Kaokoland. But Kaokolanders also cited a similar set of prior actions in their utterances, and, in so doing, they contributed to their own constitution as subjects of the regime. In other words, Kaokolanders’ performance as children of the regime helped produce the effect of such a disposition (cf. Butler 1990). Through Kaokolanders’ repetitive performance of that role, paternalistic beliefs were generated and then, as is still evident among most of those who grew up in colonial Kaokoland, reincorporated into that per-

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formance. This is not to say, however, that Kaokolanders contributed ‘equally’ to their own subjugation, either in their relation to the colonial Administration or to one another. Doing so would deny the fact that power relations within any society position subjects differentially. During the colonial period (just as today), significant power differentials existed between apartheid state functionaries and ordinary Kaokolanders, between chiefs and their constituents, between men and women, old and young. By bringing together aspects of Kaokolanders’ state-related political imagination, as detailed throughout the course of this book, with a more explicit articulation of the prior acts that help constitute it, as shown above, I have tried to show how the performance of paternalism in Kaokoland is partly a derivative of this aforementioned citational index. The performance of paternalism is dependent upon personal, face-toface relations. The former South West Africa (and South Africa) was unique in the sense that, as a European settler colony, its White colonisers had little choice but to form personal relationships with those whom they colonised. The White farmer and his Black farm workers, for example, had to interact with one another on a personal level, and to such an extent that there existed a significant amount of shared (albeit unequal) dependence. The Black worker received his housing, medical care and food from his employer; and the White farmer not only shared the intimate spaces of the family household with his domestic workers, but he depended upon the productive labour of his agricultural workers to guarantee his own livelihood. The Native Affairs official managed ‘his’ homeland/reserve and its inhabitants in much the same fashion. Especially in a place like Kaokoland, the Commissioner’s effectiveness was based on his ability to ‘get to know the Natives under your care’13 and to ‘keep in constant touch with the political aspect of native life and with the traditional rules of each tribe.’14 Native Affairs officials were also told that ‘to be sure that governmental policy is understood properly it must be explained to almost each individual Native.’15 This was a very personalised form of colonial rule indeed, a mode that helped shape and reproduce the paternalistic subjectivities of both coloniser and colonised. The South African Administration took full advantage of these circumstances when they deployed this mode of government as a strategy to incorporate Kaokolanders into the arena of colonial power. Despite having been disguised as cooperative and benevolent, those acting in the name of the colonial/apartheid State adopted paternalism with the aim of keeping its subjects forever dependent. The paternalistic mode of rule was not a means, but rather an end in itself, a most economical method of domination. For this reason, colonial state paternalism can be viewed as a form of symbolic violence, that which Pierre Bourdieu refers to as ‘the gentle, invisible form of violence, which is never recognized as such, and is not so much undergone as chosen, the violence of credit, confidence, obligation, personal loyalty, hospitality, gifts, gratitude, piety’ (1999a: 192).

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But political paternalism exemplified only one form of violence inherent in the apartheid State. The South African regime’s violent repertoire in Namibia also took much more overt forms, and, here too, paternalism intensified the predilection for violence and proved helpful in justifying and legitimating such actions. The widespread use of state-sponsored corporal punishment under South African rule is just one of many possible cases in point. According to Michael Wallace (1974), paternalism and violence often go hand in hand simply because the family is a well-suited model for legitimating violence. Parents usually possess a wide berth in their right to use force in the education of disobedient children. It thus follows that if those who exploit and oppress in a wider political field do so under the rubric of exercising their parental rights and duties, then they are able to act violently with an easy conscience. ‘Aggressors who persuade all concerned that their victims are “children”, their prerogatives are “parental”, their intentions “paternalistic”, avoid the stigma of inhumanity’ (1974: 216). In short, political paternalism is a most useful and effective way to justify violence: If the superior-inferior becomes a parent-child relationship, then what may be in effect oppression or exploitation takes on a pleasing patina of benevolence. The mother-country or father-king is presumed to be using their ‘parental’ authority for the benefit of child-colony or child-subject; their position of authority becomes hallowed precisely to the degree that the true nature of the relationship is submerged in the rhetoric and feelings of a happy family. Subordinate groups, likely to rebel if placed in an avowed position of slavery may be reconciled to the dependent status of childhood because the symbolic structure of the system is awash with domestic good will (Wallace 1974: 215).

When served-up by the State, the violence and paternalism cocktail had other effects as well. As Begoña Aretxaga points out, ‘the confluence of violence and paternalism, of force and intimacy, sustains the state as an object of ambivalence, an object of resentment for abandoning its subjects to their own fate and one desired as a subject that can provide for its citizens’ (2003: 406–7). Paternalism in Kaokoland was not so durable and reconcilable only because it was ‘unrecognized, socially recognized violence’ (Bourdieu 1999a: 191), or only because the structure of the system was coated in domestic good will, but also because Kaokolanders themselves acquiesced, albeit often ambivalently, to the paternal bargain as they understood it. Just as the Administration deployed paternalism as a way to incorporate Kaokolanders into its realm of colonial power, so too did many Kaokolanders use paternalism as a means to insert themselves into the fabric of the colonial State, especially the local ruling elite. In giving their deference to the regime, and in accepting its power to regulate their conduct, Kaokolanders, as agents in their own right, were able to place reciprocal

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demands on that government. As we have seen, reciprocity, albeit an asymmetrical one, was one important aspect of the system. To some extent, then, subservience and coercion can also empower (cf. Goody 1972). Such colonial state practices could also be well accommodated when translated into ‘indigenous grammars of power and authority’ (Crais 2002: 164). As was discussed above, the prospect of terminal dependence might not have appeared so conflictual or sinister to those Kaokolanders who could point comfortably to an indigenous analogue, that is, to parent–child relations within their own families. For these reasons, in trying to account for political imagination in Kaokoland I have tried to steer clear of viewing these contemporary paternalistic imaginings of State as purely a colonial derivative discourse (Chaterjee 1986). Throughout the period of South African rule in Namibia, paternalisms were put into play by different subjects seeking to assert themselves and their interests within a system of gross inequality. As in South Africa itself, ‘rule entailed an interplay of rationalities and symbols, different rationalities and different symbols but not necessarily incommensurate ones’ (Crais 2002: 97). In certain respects, then, Europe’s paternalism converged with Kaokolanders’ notions of parental and paternal authority; and attributes of these paternalisms became entangled over time. As this book has shown, the majority of those in Kaokoland continue asserting paternalistic imaginings of State. Given the reciprocal nature of paternalism, these imaginings moralise the State (Moore 1993) by engendering a set of concomitant expectations. Thus, the Namibian State in Kaokoland ought to be as the father: nurturing, proximate, immediate, decisive and, of course, parental. The State should ‘feed’ Kaokolanders through the provision of development assistance, drought relief, boreholes, cattle markets, employment opportunities and the like, just as it did in the past. But in the post-apartheid era the father appears to be dead, or nearly so (cf. Borneman 2004). Not simply regime change, but also a set of much wider geo-political and economic processes – globalisation, democratisation and liberalisation – is helping to transform this father into an ancestor worthy of commemoration. In Namibia, as elsewhere, the mode of rule has changed drastically, and the independent State no longer applies itself in such a parental format. The reality and constraints of our neo-liberal times demand a different mode of governing, something incommensurate with a paternalistic S/state and the subjects that it constituted. As a result, in the two decades since independence those acting on behalf of the Namibian State have come to speak the language of free markets, civil society, self-help and individualism. Independence and freedom seems to mean much more than just national sovereignty and selfrule. In this neo-liberal S/state, a new subject disposition is being inculcated, a subjectivity that is more amenable to this new mode of rule. For Kaokolanders, independence in Namibia also reveals itself as a new form of inter-subjectivity. In the post-colonial S/state, the individual is

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also being made independent and free; s/he is losing dependence on the State, the ‘tribe’, the lineage, the chief, and even parents. In the process of producing this type of individuated moral citizenry, the post-apartheid State is also helping to rewrite the family in Kaokoland. When we map such a neo-liberal state orientation onto Kaokolanders’ notions of belonging and corporateness, as I have been trying to do at various points in this book, and when we remind ourselves of the ways Kaokolanders produce society in and through the parent–child relation, we can see more clearly the dissonance that helps generate the Kaokoland critique. Paternalism in Kaokoland asserts a moral vision of society whereby the individual remains dependent on larger corporate groupings: parents, kin groups, ‘tribe’, nation and State. However, the postapartheid State operates against this grain. Recall again how the practices and principles of the magistrate’s court work to dis-embed the individual offender from his or her social relations. The independent State severs the social connectivity of everyday life, as well as the moral ties that used to link Kaokolanders to the State. Independence has brought a more diffuse S/state, an alienating S/state, and government from a distance; more than ever before, it requires the Koakolander to independently govern the self. Kaokolanders’ powerful critique of post-apartheid independence might thus be understood as just that: it is a critique of non-dependence. It is one that highlights ongoing struggles over the ‘government of individualisation’ and the concomitant re-subjectivation that it entails (Foucault 1982). As I have come to understand it, this critique reflects Kaokolanders’ perceptions of the independent State’s moral failings, especially its unwillingness to uphold its end of the paternal bargain.

Political Imagination and the Ethnographic State The past twenty-five years have witnessed a number of global transformations that have generated new questions about the State and its relation to modern forms of power. Most especially, we have seen the collapse of the Cold War era geo-political order, an intensification and expansion of nationalist and ethnic sentiments, the development of communication technologies enabling new space–time orientations, the rise and dominance of neo-liberal ideologies, and the acceleration of globalisation more generally. In relation to the State, these recent developments are well captured by an empirical paradox. On the one hand, States and the desire for statehood are flourishing like never before. Since the end of the Second World War, the number of officially recognised States has multiplied almost threefold. In addition, countless numbers of well-established secessionist and nationalist movements around the world continue to press for a State of their own. In these ways the State seems stronger and more legitimate than ever, as if it were the only game in town. On the

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other hand, the past quarter-century has also witnessed quite a different trend. The rapid rise of supranational bodies such as the European Union and the African Union, the establishment of trans-national judicial institutions such as the International Criminal Court, and the creation of international trade organisations such the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organisation are evidence of diminishing state sovereignty. Even within national borders, we can see an apparent loss of state pre-eminence, particularly in relation to economic management and the privatisation of public infrastructure. From this alternative angle, then, our review suggests a move away from the state model, as well as a general weakening of States everywhere. These transformations and the new problems that have emerged in their wake have led to a recent proliferation of scholarly interest in the State and its associated phenomena. As was outlined in the introduction to this book, political scientists continue to dominate the contemporary study of the State, especially in Africa. They have tended to produce topdown, normative accounts of high politics through a focus on state institutions, practices and policies. In focusing so much of their attention on the state apparatus itself, political scientists have had a difficult time recognising the diffusion of the State. Their overly structural analyses are also likely to deny space to the creative capacity of subject-citizens, as well as to culture itself, in the making of the State. Though not nearly as influential when it comes to shaping the practices of statecraft, historians have been more successful in recognising the processual nature of the State. Their work has revealed the lack of universal trajectories in state formation. They have come to understand the State in more dynamic terms, as a product of specific social, cultural and economic processes over time. These important insights and contributions have suggested, among other things, the need for histories of the present in the study of the State. As scholars of the past, though, historians have unfortunately tended to steer clear of studying contemporary state processes. It is thus no coincidence that anthropology returned to the State in the 1980s, for it was a ripe time to do so. These forces of global change were beginning to challenge the limits of political analysis as traditionally conceived; the so-called cultural turn in the social sciences and humanities had begun; and historians were directing us towards the socio-cultural specificities of state formation. Culture and State were becoming much more compatible. Since that time, socio-cultural anthropologists have made significant contributions to our understanding of the contemporary State. Many anthropologists have approached the State by analysing its impacts on a respective group of people that inhabit it. By investigating a people’s relationship with the State, these studies have helped us understand the working of the State as practised and experienced at the local level, and in everyday life. Another more recent set of scholars has approached the anthropological study of the State by taking more direct

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aim. These ethnographies of the State, as they are coming to be called, represent a shift from a focus on practice to one of process. This body of work has helped challenge the autonomy of the State, its coherence, its unity, and its locations. In approaching ‘the State’ through its effects and affect, through its rationalities and self-representations, and through its technologies and tactics, these anthropologists have been successful in helping us bridge the ideological aspects of the State with its materiality. In the opening chapter of this work I outlined my intentions to destabilise the more traditional anthropological gaze by shifting my focus onto the Namibian State itself, and in doing so, to make a contribution to this most recent body of anthropological literature on the State. In constituting the State as an ethnographic object in its own right, I have tried to push my focus beyond a locatable and small-scale object of study in favour of a more complex and amorphous one. To this end, I have deployed a relatively orthodox set of ethnographic means in relation to a dispersed community of people, those whom I have labelled Kaokoland-connected, so as to consider the nature and processes of the post-apartheid Namibian State. In ‘ethnographising’ the Namibian State, this book has tried to distinguish itself through its own distinctive point of access, that is, through the political imagination of those living within it. Although the study of political imagination is represented within the field of anthropology more generally, few have used the notion as a prism through which to refract the State so directly. As deployed herein, state-related political imagination is conceived of in reference to the various ways people perceive and talk about, represent and construct, and experience the State. Political imagination is historically configured and reconfigured; it is structured and structuring; and though it may be constituted in the realm of fantasy, it nonetheless contributes to the cultural production of political reality. In essence, then, by exploring the Namibian State not merely as a set of institutions or practices but also as a figure in the public imagination, this book has tried to probe the confluence of materiality and ideology, structure and agency, past and present, modernity and tradition, national and local, and citizen and subject in the study of state process. For it is precisely here, within these creative and productive spaces, where the political imagination prospers, and where it works in ways that help actualise the State. What, then, does this ethnographic account of Namibia, this exploration of political imagination in and of Kaokoland, reveal about the State itself, especially the post-apartheid State? Most succinctly, this study shows the extent to which political imagination and the State exist in dialectical relation with one another. Political imaginings are more than simply products of the State. Such imaginings also ‘talk back’, and, in so doing, they help to produce the State. In this case, the State helps constitute political imagination among Kaokoland-connected people, and Kaokolanders contribute to the constitution of the Namibian State by

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deploying that imagination in return. The Namibian State and the political imaginary in Kaokoland are mutually constituting. In Chapters 3 and 4, for example, an analysis of ‘govern-mentalities’ among Kaokoland-connected people concluded with an attempt to draw on Foucault’s conception of the governmental art in order to open up the space for the analysis of how Kaokolanders shape and regulate the conduct of the Namibian government. As originally formulated, the art of government is conceived primarily as a problem for the governor, not the governed. But if we accept Foucault’s conception of ‘power’, then we are also forced to treat governmentality from the perspective of the governed, and with equal attention. Thus, the problem of ‘how to be governed’ also lies within the field of power. The critical discourses that circulate through Kaokoland, these reflections of a paternalistically inflected political imagination, are not in an exterior relationship to Namibian state power, but are in fact essential to it. Through them, Kaokolanders negotiate the governing process, helping to constitute a rationality of government in the process. Here, then, the distinction between the governors and the governed, the State and its subject-citizens, begins losing its contrast. The State is governmentalised through the work and imagination of those it purports to govern. By putting their political imaginings into action, ordinary Kaokolanders also govern the Namibian State, thereby helping to produce the very object of their knowledge. Part II of the book shifted from discourse to practice in order to detail state-related political imagination in action. By mapping Kaokolanders’ paternalistic imaginings onto a set of practices relating to the law, these chapters tried to show the extent to which traditional and state legal systems in Kaokoland are dependent and referential forms of judicial administration. For example, my historical outline of legal dualism in Namibia showed how the state and traditional legal systems were in fact interwoven throughout the colonial and apartheid periods. There was a great deal of overlap between these two types of courts, as well as their practices and laws, so much so that it was often difficult to distinguish one from the other. In the years since independence, and despite the passage of a significant amount of national law reform legislation, Namibia’s state and traditional legal systems continue to interact in highly ambiguous ways. Thus, in Opuwo we saw how the State’s magistrate and other government officials accommodated customary notions of judicial practice, even though doing so meant breaking with state law and procedure. In customising the State, the magistrate’s court gains greater credibility in Kaokoland. On the other hand, we also saw the étatisation of the traditional authorities, as local leaders invoked the powers of State in order to exert their own authority. The mutual conversion of legitimacy serves to extend the powers of both State and traditional authority in the region. But these practices also reveal a dialectics of so-called legal dualism, for the two apparent legal orders are indeed quite porous. They cross-fertilise

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each other, and, in doing so, produce a single legal complex, a hybrid legal order. The appearance of a pluralistic legal system, of distinctive state and traditional realms, was unmasked as but yet another state effect. Finally, in Chapters 8 and 9 we saw how a long-standing factional dispute in Kaokoland conditioned not only local internal political processes, but also the relationship between Kaokolanders and the national government. In addition to exploring a number of post-apartheid state problematics such as chieftaincy, identity, ‘history’ and ‘tradition’, the chapters offered a critical perspective on Mamdani’s (1996) notion of the bifurcated State. In particular, the ethnographic approach presented therein offered a finer degree of state texture and ‘thickness’, as Namibian state bifurcation emerged as not nearly so rigid as Mamdani’s model suggests. Instead, the elemental constellations that are meant to generate and constitute such bifurcation – urban vs. rural, modern vs. traditional, civil law vs. customary law, citizen vs. subject – were shown to interpenetrate one another. Kaokoland’s micro-politics takes root in the State, and, conversely, the Namibian State finds root in local political processes. The symbiosis between local and national politics, between chiefs and political party politicians, and between the traditional authorities and central government reveals how local and national power constellations infuse one another. If this book has shown the mutually constituting nature of political imagination and the State in Namibia, then it has also revealed two central elements that have helped to mediate this dialectical relation. Both ‘history’ and ambiguity (more generally) have proven critical to the making of both the political imaginary and the State in Kaokoland. With respect to ‘history’, the Kaokoland case reinforces the recognition that ‘anyone who wants to understand a “political culture” must reconstruct the cognitive connections between one era and another, which often consist in exchanges between one civilization and another’ (Bayart 2005: 107). We are thus reminded that people’s actions in, and experiences of, the present depend greatly on their perceptions of the (colonial) past. Although we first approached history in our attempts to understand and contextualise the present, we went on to see the Namibian State as more than just a historical process. In this ethnography, the State has also emerged as a historical procedure. In other words, the South West African and Namibian States have worked on and through history; and history has worked in and on the present. History is thus much more than just that which transpired in the past. Today, history works through the acts of Kaokolanders who imagine States; and it works through the acts of a recently minted State that imagines Kaokoland(ers). But in what specific ways does 'history' manifest itself in the political imagination of Kaokoland-connected people? From an individual’s perspective, a sense of the past is central to establishing one’s corporate belonging in the present. Thus, ancestral histories situate a person in rela-

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tion to lineages, clans and ethnic groups; they substantiate a person’s rights to land and resources; and they ascribe him or her to a local chieftaincy and, through it, to a political party. ‘History’ is thus central to the constitution of ‘families’ in Kaokoland. In more direct relation to the State, the past is materialised in the present through Kaokolanders’ personal and collective understandings and memories of the former South West Africa. Thus, Black Kaokolanders may assert that apartheid aimed to protect them from SWAPO, or they may symbolically condense an entire political epoch into that proverbial loaf of forbidden white bread. White Kaokolanders may also invoke a version of history, but it is quite a different one. Their ‘history’ often begins with the onset of colonial rule and in its telling excludes the presence of both Black people and an apartheid past altogether. Especially in these state-related narratives, we see history working through Kaokoland-connected people’s sense of nostalgia. For them, ‘the past is [indeed] a foreign country’ (Lowenthal 1985). Now, in the independence era, that mode of paternalistic rule has been displaced onto a set of expectations and ideals that many Kaokolanders use as a means to reflect upon the post-apartheid S/state. We have also seen some of the ways history works instrumentally on and through the Namibian State. Traditional authorities and their leaders invoke ‘history’ and ‘tradition’ when pressing their claims for government recognition, or when trying to direct international development resources. Thus, a chieftaincy whose name was first uttered twenty-five years ago can trace its origins to time immemorial; a chief and his supporters can rewrite history on a gravestone; and an anthropologist can be pursued to assist in the history-making project, especially if he can produce and deliver the written goods (such as this book). These ‘histories’ serve as a means to authenticate a traditional constituency in its quest for official status and state-sanctioned dominance. But agents of the Namibian State also work on ‘the history’, and deploy it instrumentally, especially when they must declare a correct version of the past as part of their traditional authority recognition procedures. In these ways and others, ‘history’ and ‘tradition’ mediate political imagination and the State in Kaokoland. Neither political imagination nor the Namibian State can be understood meaningfully out of time. In having chosen to step back in time, this ethnographic account generated its own historical narrative of the State in Kaokoland. One of the most central elements to emerge out of that accounting relates to the ambiguous nature of colonial and apartheid rule in the region.16 The contradictions and uncertainty within the colonising process is most evident in the colonial archives. During the critical period between 1917 and 1950, for example, we saw how the Administration cultivated ambiguity in relation to the newly established Kaokoland Tribal Council and its members. Whether in relation to ordinary Kaokolanders, local leaders, or other state functionaries working in the various government departments, colo-

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nial officials disseminated contradictory messages about the source and legitimacy of traditional authority in the region. Kaokoland’s leaders could never be sure as to whether or not they actually held any power, and, if so, over whom. In relation to the region’s factional conflict too, the cultivation of ambiguity set in motion a number of identity-forming processes that helped generate, drive and reproduce intra-regional divisiveness, a dynamic that has continued into the present. Ambiguity was a most effective technology of indirect rule in the region, as it produced obedient and disciplined colonial subjects while simultaneously dividing Kaokolanders from one another. In the case of southern Africa more generally, the contradictory nature of colonial rule is well documented (Comaroff and Comaroff 1991; Herbert 2002; McKittrick 1999), and thus my reading of ambiguity in the colonisation of Kaokoland is of no great surprise. In this case, though, we are also seeing how the ambiguities of power continue to work the political process in the independent Namibian State. Thus, since 1990 those inside and outside the region have been trying to determine who is the true and rightful ‘Chief of Kaokoland’, and which traditional authority is the most genuine. In more local contexts too, ordinary Kaokolanders confront a similar set of questions about the legitimacy of their respective village’s competing headmen. Other more subtle political ambiguities are also apparent. Take, for example, the ways in which the local chiefship dispute is articulated as a conflict between two socio-culturally distinctive and differentiated collectivities, even though that is not in fact the case. Both chieftaincies count Herero, Himba, Ovambo, Zemba, Nkumbi, Mbundu, Hakaona, ‘Portu’17 and Afrikaner people as constituents of their respective traditional authority, while kinship relations also cross-cut the two factions. Then there is also the ambiguous construction of both ‘politics’ and ‘tradition’. Here, ‘the political’ and ‘the traditional’ stand as mutually exclusive fields, so much so that traditional leaders are reluctant to even talk ‘politics’. However, in denying the political nature of traditional leadership, Kaokoland’s leaders mask the political struggle while claiming evermore power for themselves and their constituencies. The power of ‘tradition’ to displace political realities has also been evidenced through the Epupa dam debate. Though it has played out publicly as a contest between tradition and modernity, the debate has been driven as much by the local factional dispute as by issues of cultural survival and economic progress. The Epupa debate is an ambiguous one because it is a debate about culture and tradition, dams and development, and political legitimacy in Kaokoland at one and the same time. But if the nature of politics is masked by tradition, then it is possible only because ‘tradition’ itself is also ambiguous. The ‘customary rules’ governing the succession of traditional leaders is a case in point. The numerous succession disputes that transpired during my main period of

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fieldwork were usually fought out in debates over ‘custom’. Who had the right to the headmanship? Was it the most senior male member of the patriline? Was it the most capable male member of the patriline? Did the matriline have a bearing on an individual’s eligibility? Or, given Namibia’s new democratic dispensation, did ‘tradition’ call for an election, one in which even a female could contest the headmanship? In the context of traditional court too, we also saw the ambiguous nature of ‘tradition’, as debates over the correct articulation of customary law often dominated the proceedings. The ambiguity that has been so central to both power and conflict in these state margins has left an indelible legacy indeed. Among other things, ambiguity in the colonial era created the space for multiple present-day readings (and imaginings) of the past; and it afforded the possibility to construct multiple and competing histories in the present. Most recently, and as we saw in Chapter 9, this dynamic has enabled a group of Kaokolanders to begin ‘re-constituting’ the ‘Tjimba’ by creating a chieftaincy in its name. Ambiguity generates ‘history’; instrumentalised ‘history’ propels conflict; and such conflict reproduces political ambiguity throughout the region. The Kaokoland case shows clearly the extent to which the ambiguities of power generate and reproduce themselves over time. This continuity bridges Kaokoland’s colonial past with the present, and its history with political imagination. Today, ambiguity remains central to the dynamics of power in Kaokoland and the post-colonial State; it is also an integral component of neo-liberal governmentality more generally. In cultivating uncertainty, the ambiguities associated with modern forms of power effectively shape the constitution of subjects, and thus the conduct of people. Inside Bentham’s classic panopticon, for example, it is the uncertainty and not the prison itself that is conducting. Similarly, it is the cultivation of ambiguity that also enables ‘government from a distance’ (Rose 1996). In helping to mediate political imagination and the State, ambiguity (re)configures the performance of power and ‘government’ in Kaokoland. Ambiguity has helped discipline and regulate Kaokolanders as governable subject-citizens, both in the past and in the present. But such ambiguity has also afforded Kaokolanders the capacity to govern the State in return. For these reasons, the cultivation of ambiguity should be treated as a modality of power in the (post-)apartheid Namibian State. These final reflections on neo-liberal governmentality and the ambiguities of state power in Kaokoland lead us back towards a consideration of State-society relations more generally. Most contemporary discussions on the nature of the State continue to assert an oppositional construction, one in which the State and (civil) society exist as two distinctive realms of political power. As David Nugent (1994) details in his review of the literature, non-Western States such as Namibia are usually characterised in terms of the distance between State and society. As he writes, ‘the emphasis on state

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autonomy, and coercion rather than legitimacy as the basis of rule, actively informs the work of most authors who have analysed how such “imposed” states attempt to consolidate control throughout their territories, and how they attempt to create a national consciousness among those who live within state boundaries’ (1994: 335). In these accounts, the State appears as a reified structure of power that is imposed upon society. Thus, both ‘the State’ and ‘society’ are essentialised, bounded and fixed, and the relationship between the two is treated as inherently conflictual. Though they are mere abstractions, State and society are each conceived of as ‘a thing unto itself, existing independently of the other’ (Nugent 1994: 336). It is also important to emphasise that this dominant construction extends well beyond the academy, as it also conditions international policy and practice. The fact that so many international donors try to promote global development and good governance by targeting so-called civil society organisations rather than the State is one obvious case in point. But these two apparently oppositional domains of political power are not nearly as distinctive and separate as is so often claimed. Recently, scholars have started to reveal State-society boundaries in quite a different light. In particular, they show the extent to which State and society are mutually interdependent, and the ways in which they construct, enable and produce one another (Nugent 1994; Gupta 1995; Mitchell 1999; Ferguson and Gupta 2002; Sharma 2006; Ferguson 2006). In these alternative accounts, State and society are taken as part and parcel of the same total social complex. In detailing the mutually constituting nature of political imagination and the State in Kaokoland, this ethnography of the State lends further support to this growing body of scholarship while highlighting simultaneously yet another aspect of ambiguity in state process. In our particular case, we too have been forced to see the blurred boundaries between the (post-apartheid) State and society, and in just such mutually constituting terms. In chapters 3 and 4, for example, I drew on Foucauldian insights in order to argue that the paternalistically inflected political imagination in Kaokoland is reflected in local discourses about the art of government, as well as the art of being governed. In turn, these discourses serve as a means through which Kaokolanders discipline and regulate the conduct of the Namibian government. The paternalistic imaginings that surface in these discourses work as a culturally productive force that helps govern (and even create) both the Namibian State and its subjects. Here, we began seeing the distinction between ‘the State’ and ‘society’ fall away. In the book’s second part, too, the appearance of any clear-cut State-society boundaries could not be sustained once we took a closer look at the workings of the magistrate’s and traditional courts in Kaokoland. In the end, we were forced to acknowledge that what may first appear as two distinctive systems of law – one state, the other customary – are more accurately conceived of as a single legal complex. The two so-called legal orders are

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extremely porous; they cross-fertilize, and thus help to constitute, one another. This recognition led us to rethink the notion of legal pluralism itself by arguing that the appearance of two distinctive legal systems in Kaokoland is but a state effect. Such an effect allows the Namibian State to appear an independent entity unto itself. As a resource of power in its own right, this state effect helps to maintain and reproduce the political order in Kaokoland and in the post-apartheid State. Finally, in Part III of the book we explored the complex dynamics of traditional authority. Among other things, it became quite impossible to distinguish this institution as being either ‘of the State’ or ‘of society’. Instead, our analysis of the struggles surrounding traditional leadership revealed the mutual interdependence of chiefly and state power in the region. The Namibian State penetrates Kaokoland’s traditional authorities, but traditional leaders also incorporate the Namibian State into their own fields of power. In practice, the traditional authorities help perform the work of the State (often directly so); ‘Namibia’ is customised in the process. All the while, the Namibian State works on behalf of Kaokoland’s traditional leaders, helping to étatisise chiefly authority. Traditional and state authority colonise one another; they are mutually constituting constellations of power. This ethnography has shown the extent to which States and subject-citizens, States and civil societies, are both created and creative. But our account has helped to show more than the mutual constitutiveness of just the State-society dyad. In Kaokoland, a third social domain, the family, also proves central to the formation and blurring of this nexus. As is the case with ‘the State’ and ‘society’, many people also tend to conceptualise ‘the family’ as a distinctive realm unto itself. Whereas ‘State’ and ‘society’ are said to be constitutive of the public realm, ‘the family’ is often taken to represent the private sphere. The intimate spaces of the family are perceived to lie beyond the reach of the State; while, almost without question, the modern State is thought to exist beyond the reach of the family. But as we have seen in Kaokoland, the State-family boundary is also a fluid one. There is no clear-cut opposition between them; neither is bounded or fixed in relation to the other. In detailing this particular blurred boundary, we return full-circle to the paternalistic nature of state-related imagination in Kaokoland. Initially, we took our lead from Foucault (1991a) in order to awaken ourselves to the possibility that government is as integral to the family as the family is to the State. Thus, we began to explore the interconnections between two governmental assemblages in Kaokoland: government in/of the family, and government in/of the (post-apartheid) Namibian State. The ethnographic material presented throughout the book revealed the tendency among Kaokoland-connected people to imagine the management of State through an art of governing the family. This group of dispersed Namibians ‘familiarised’ the practices of state government by invoking idioms of kinship and a set of moral images drawn from the

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household. In local discourses relating to the post-apartheid state dispensation, for example, the parent–child relation emerged as both method and model of government. In practices as well, we saw the family imbricated in legal proceedings and judicial principles, as Kaokolanders disciplined state notions of justice through their conceptions of personhood, social connectivity and kinship. Regarding traditional leadership and its relation to state power in the region, the family was also shown to be integral to the construction and enactment of the local factional dispute, as well as to political party alliances that help insert Kaokolanders into the Namibian State, and vice versa. All the while, we simultaneously explored kinship and ‘families’ in Kaokoland as a way to further contextualise this unifying trope through which the Namibian State comes to be imagined. Through this series of paternalistic imprints, we saw dependency emerge as a dominant feature of all social relations (e.g., between fathers and sons, parents and children, men and women, criminal offenders and their victims, chiefs and their subjects); and we saw how an individual, and his or her sense of selfhood and belonging, is dependent on the existence of corporate groupings (e.g., lineages, traditional authorities, political parties, ‘tribes’ and nations). In helping to link the realm of the State with that of the family, paternalism and its concomitant ideals of paternal authority have emerged as most central to the political imagination in and of Namibia. In Kaokoland, paternalism has been used and transformed as a way to both domesticate the State and governmentalise the family. Despite the end of apartheid rule and the paternalistic mode of government in Namibia, the image of the father lingers on as a central trope through which Kaokolanders imagine the State. Based on the findings of this ethnography, then, we might wish to allegorise the State in Namibia as one of Kaokoland’s patrilineal ancestors.

NOTES

Chapter 1 1. I have chosen to capitalise the word ‘State’ when it appears in reference to this work’s main subject matter. I will continue to do so throughout the book, unless under direct quotation or in the form of an adjective. Michael Taussig has suggested that such a capitalised ‘State’ is symptomatic of our tendency to reify the State as ‘a being unto itself, animated with a will and mind of its own’ (Taussig 1992: 112); or as another scholar suggests, ‘[o]nce one writes “State” rather than “state,” Leviathan and Behomoth are already casting their enormous and oppressive shadows’ (Avineri, quoted in Taussig 1992: 112). Though such concerns are valid, I have chosen to capitalise ‘State’ as a way to draw attention to my construction of the (Namibian) State as an ethnographic object of analysis. 2. The South West Africa People’s Organisation, the driving force behind Namibia’s liberation movement. SWAPO has been Namibia’s ruling party since independence in 1990. 3. ‘Otherwise than in myth, states do not have origins; they are formed. Origins are magical events; formation is slow, often very slow, social, and political process’ (Lonsdale 1981: 154). 4. For a more critical review, as well as an alternative anthropology of the imagination, see Sneath et al. (2009). 5. Strauss (2006) also recognises the centrality of Anderson’s work in shaping anthropology’s engagement with imagination more generally. 6. Kaokolanders often refer to the area as Okaoko. The South African Administration used the term Kaokoveld to refer to what was then a legislatively delimited geographical area. Today, Kaokoland is no longer delimited, though it still figures in most Namibians’ mental map of the country. I use the terms ‘Kaokoland’ and/or Okaoko interchangeably in reference to the northern part of Kunene Region, or, more specifically, in reference to what are today Epupa and Opuwo constituencies. 7. For a comprehensive summary of the literature relating to state origins, see review articles by Southall (1974); Wright (1977); and Bentley (1986). See also, Claessen and Skalník (1978). 8. Among others, see Herzfeld (1992, 2005); Borneman (1992, 1997, 1998); Taussig (1992, 1997); Tsing (1993); Gupta (1995); Coronil (1997); Steinmetz (1999); Holston (2000); Fuller and Bénéï (2001); Trouillot (2001); Hansen and Stepputat (2001, 2005); Alexander (2002); Navaro-Yashin (2002); Ferguson and Gupta (2002); Aretxaga (2003); Nugent (2004); Stoler (2004); Das and Poole (2004a); Krohn-Hansen and Nustad (2005); Yang (2005); Linke (2006); Sharma and Gupta (2006); Ferguson (2006); and Cowan and Navaro-Yashin (2007). However, not all would agree with my positive assessment. For a much more critical review of this most recent anthropological engagement with the State, see Marcus (2008). 9. Fieldwork was undertaken in Namibia during the periods June–July 1999, July 2000 – September 2001, and June–August 2008. 10. Racial concepts are contested social constructs, especially with respect to apartheid policies in Namibia and South Africa. Throughout Namibia’s colonial period, officials used a wide array of vocabulary to denote different categories of Namibian peoples. This lex-

Notes

11. 12.

13. 14. 15.

16. 17.

18. 19.

20.

21.

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icon has included ‘Natives’ and ‘Bantus’, ‘Africans’ and ‘Europeans’, and ‘Whites’, ‘Blacks’, and ‘Coloureds’. Though these terms are clumsy and awkward at best, colonial administrators employed these classifications when applying their racial policies. Since they are historically significant, it is impossible to avoid using them. Thus, I have chosen to capitalise all racial terms in order to alert the reader to a contested and historically specific construct. People’s Liberation Army of Namibia, the former armed wing of SWAPO. These figures are based on the results of Namibia’s most recent national census of 2001. For a national overview, see Republic of Namibia (2003); for a Kunene regional overview, see Republic of Namibia (2005). United Nations Development Programme (2000), p. 172. Ministry of Lands, Resettlement and Rehabilitation (1999), p. 64. Nationally, however, SWAPO received 76 per cent of the total votes, while only 9 per cent of the Namibian electorate voted for the DTA. In the subsequent 2004 elections, 58 per cent of Kaokolanders voted for either the DTA or its breakaway National Unity Democratic Organisation (NUDO), while SWAPO received 35 per cent of the votes. In the most recent national elections of November 2009, SWAPO made further inroads into the region, taking 39 per cent of the vote; support for the DTA and NUDO slipped to a combined total of 49 per cent (Source: Namibia Electoral Commission). In most cases, I have chosen to protect the identity of my informants by utilising aliases. Unless otherwise indicated, all statistics relating to Opuwo and its residents are based on findings from a representative Opuwo Household Survey (N=301), conducted in conjunction with F. Müller-Friedman, in November 2000. The 2001 national census reports Opuwo’s population as 5,101 (Republic of Namibia 2003). For more information on van Warmelo’s work in Kaokoland, see Rizzo (2000). See Gibson (1962, 1977); MacCalman and Grobbelaar (1965); Malan (1971, 1973, 1974); Hitzeroth (1976); Jacobsohn (1988, 1990); Crandall (1991, 1992a, 1992b, 1996, 1998, 2000); Okupa (1996); Bollig (1997b, 1997c, 2000, 2006); van Wolputte (1998, 2000, 2002, 2004); and Wärnlöf (1998, 2000a, 2000b). In the Namibian context, the term ‘location’ is a synonym for ‘township’. However, when accompanied by an ethnic label, the term refers to a particular neighbourhood within the (former) township. With respect to (post-)apartheid Namibia, I am not aware of any literature that explicitly approaches the topic of paternalism in relation to the State itself. In the context of twentieth-century Europe, however, a group of anthropologists has recently addressed the relationship between paternal authority and authoritarian state rule (Borneman 2004). In a similar vein, Katherine Verdery (1996) has analysed socialist paternalism as a ‘cultural relation between state and subject’ in Ceausescu’s Romania.

Chapter 2 1. German troops and administrative personnel were stationed no farther north than Sesfontein (situated on Kaokoland’s southern border), though the German’s did consider Kaokoland as a possible site for the future settlement of White farmers (see NAN BOU 001 B10Q). 2. In the Namibian context, I use the term ‘post-colonial’ in reference to Namibia’s entire period of colonial rule, first under Germany (1884–1915) and later under South Africa (1915–1990). My use of ‘post-apartheid’ is an attempt to emphasise the period of South African apartheid rule in Namibia between 1948 and 1990. In the Namibian case, apartheid should be considered a particular form of colonial rule. 3. For example, see Hahn et al. (1928); Vedder (1938); and van Warmelo (1951). 4. For example, see Lau (1987, 1995a); Williams (1991); Heywood et al. (1992); Hayes et al. (1998); Hartmann et al. (1998); Werner (1998); Gewald (1999, 2000a); Bollig and Gewald (2000); Mckittrick (2002); and Kreike (2004).

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5. See Iliffe (1995); Wilks (1989); McCaskie (1995); Law (1991); Last (1967); and Wrigley (1996). 6. I have chosen to speak of Oshivambo-, Otjiherero- and Nama-speaking peoples, rather than the Ovambo, Herero or Nama peoples. We (both academics and the categories of people concerned) have the tendency to project contemporary social groupings and identities back in time, implying that such categories existed in consciousness then as they exist now. However, it is difficult to determine whether or not these cohesive social identities existed in the past. It seems safest to refer to pre-colonial peoples with respect to linguistics, mode of production, or patterns of living, rather than in relation to a reified notion of self-identity. It is important to recognise that these historical projections trickle into the way historians and Namibians imagine and construct social collectivities today, and thus contribute to structuring the way we think and conceptualise Namibia’s past and present. 7. In having sketched out this history of what I term ‘statishness’ in Namibia, I wish to make manifestly clear that I do not intend to imply that pre-colonial Namibians did not actively engage in, or contribute to, the making of the colonial State. Following on from what I have suggested in the previous chapter, it is not just in the post-apartheid State where relations between subject-citizen and State should be viewed as mutually constitutive. In the colonial State as well, subject and State also have to be treated as such. In my historical account, I am not denying agency to the Namibians who participated in, responded to, and/or resisted the state-making process, nor am I trying to suggest that colonialism offered the only avenue to statehood in Namibia. So as not to be charged with inadvertently reproducing many of the assumptions carried through colonial historiography, I would like to remind the reader that I restrict my argument only to an analysis of the post-colonial Namibian State and state processes implicated in the political imaginary. 8. Clifton Crais (2002) offers a very detailed accounting of this process for colonial South Africa. 9. Robert Gordon (2000) offers a more comprehensive history of the relationship between ethnology and the State in South West Africa. 10. Vedder first visited Kaokoland in 1914 (see National Archives of Namibia [from here forward, NAN] ZBU 1011 J.XIII.B.5 (vol. 2), Untitled Report to the Administration, Heinrich Vedder, 1 September 1914). 11. The work has been republished at least twice since its first appearance. The latest edition was printed in the late 1990s. Not only is it still widely available in Namibia, but it also continues to serve as the most definitive (popular) source on the region and its people. 12. As early as 1920 the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, General Jan Smuts, equated the mandate over South West Africa with annexation; and in a speech delivered before Parliament in 1925, he interpreted the mandate to mean complete sovereignty over the territory (Goldblatt 1971: 210). Nearly a decade later, a legislative process was put into motion whereby South West Africa was to become a fifth province of the Union (League of Nations n.d., pp. 3–4). The League’s Permanent Mandates Commission refused to accept South Africa’s position on the issue of annexation and territorial sovereignty. 13. NAN SWAA 1060 A135/46 (Vol. 2), ‘Recruiting and Trading in the Kaokoveld’ letter, Manager, South West Africa Native Labour Association, Grootfontein, 7 December 1954. 14. An abundance of research addresses the institution of paternalism in the context of farmer–farm worker relations in South Africa and Namibia. This body of literature points towards the widespread use of a familial model of farm management. Farmers and farm workers often utilise the family, and especially the parent–child relation, as a metaphor to describe the social dynamics of farm life. For Namibia, see Sylvain (2001) and Suzman (1995, 2000); for South Africa, see Ochiltree (1998), Waldman (1996), van Onselen (1992, 1996) and du Toit (1993, 1994). 15. Charles van Onselen notes how the whipping of Black workers by White South African farmers reinforced the dynamics of paternalism: ‘the act itself constituted a humbling of

Notes

16.

17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

38.

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the “child” before the authority of the “father”’ and ‘served to relegate the tenant to child-like status within the wider social structures of the society and to underscore his lack of standing in law’ (1992: 142). Under the contract labour system it was common for workers to receive the cash component of their salary only at the end of the stipulated contract period. A worker would thus have to successfully complete the nine-, twelve- or eighteen-month contract before receiving payment in full for the work performed. Fleeing the workplace or quitting a job in mid-contract resulted in the forfeiture of these unpaid salaries. For additional information on the contract labour system, see Hishongwa (1992). For example, the Administration often supported or initiated the publication of ‘scientific’ research, work that was intended for an international readership. Hahn et al. (1928) and Vedder (1938) are two important examples. For a critical review of these publications, see Lau (1995b). Union of South Africa (1925), p. 19. Union of South Africa (1933), p. 57. Union of South Africa (1938), p. 51. Union of South Africa (1947), p. 12. Ibid., p. 16. Ibid., p. 17. Ibid. For a comprehensive review of the international legal dispute surrounding South West Africa, see Dugard (1973). NAN A.591 018 [37], various untitled documents excerpted and assembled (c. early 1960s) in preparation for the SWA case, n.d. Republic of South Africa (1964), p. 61. Ibid. In the South African context, Ivan Evans (1997) offers an account of paternalist ideology within South Africa’s Department of Native Affairs; while Anthony Costa (2000) discusses the ways White administrators drew upon Western notions of authority as a means to both understand and shape local power constellations. Further afield, Bruce Berman details the ‘ideology of paternalistic authoritarianism’ in the administration of the colonial State in Kenya (1990: 104–15). NAN SWAA 2516 A552/22 (Vol. 2), ‘Complaint by Muhona Katiti against Oorlog’ memorandum, Military Magistrate, Windhoek, 20 March 1919. NAN LOU 3/1/1 2/2/1920, ‘Kaokoveld Complaints: Chief Oorlog’, Magistrate, Outjo, 15 May 1924. NAN SWAA 2516 A552/22 (Vol. 2), ‘Complaints against Chief Oorlog’, Magistrate, Outjo, 25 June 1924. NAN NAO 028 24/1/1 (Vol. 2), ‘Drought in Kaokoveld’, Secretary of South West Africa, Windhoek, 19 November 1932. NAN NAO 029 24/2, ‘Trial of Cases by Headman Langman Tjahura’ memorandum, Native Commissioner, Ovamboland, 14 December 1942. NAN SWAA 2513 A552, ‘Instructions to Mr A.M. Barnard on assuming duty as officer in charge of Native Affairs at Ohopuho in the Kaokoveld’ [final draft], c. March/April 1939. NAN BOP 004 N1/15/2, ‘Administrasie van Reservate’, Transcription of Mnr. McIntyre during meeting of Native Affairs officers, 13 October 1958. NAN NAO 021 11/1 (Vol. 11), ‘Annual Report of Native (i.e., Non-European) Affairs, 1939’ circular, Chief Native Commissioner, Windhoek, n.d. In the annual reports, the ‘Bushmen’ section was situated between the sections ‘carnivora’ and ‘stock branding’. As a matter of interest, in 1943 eighteen ‘Bushmen’ were reported as living in Kaokoland (NAN NAO 029 24/4, ‘Kaokoveld: Annual Report, 1943’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 29 December 1943). NAN SWAA 1168 A158/40 (Vol. 1), ‘Removal of natives from the Southern Kaokoveld to the North’ memorandum, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ovamboland, 18 July 1929.

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39. NAN NAO 031 24/21, ‘Address by H.H. Administrator’, 13 August 1936. 40. For example, see Herbst (2000: 5) and Chabal and Daloz (1999: xxi). 41. In recent years, a number of collected volumes have been published with the express aim of reflecting upon the political, economic and/or social developments that have transpired in Namibia since its independence in 1990 (see Diener and Graefe 2001; Winterfeldt et al. 2002; and Melber 2003c, 2007a). 42. Even though national reconciliation guarantees equal rights in an independent Namibia, White people have generally refused to embrace the political sphere. This segment of society has withdrawn almost totally from Namibia’s political life, at least at the national level, and many White Namibians do not even vote. 43. Republic of Namibia (1995), p. 24. 44. During the past decade the SWAPO party has demonstrated its ever-tightening grip on power. In 1999, for example, the government cracked down on a separatist movement in the Caprivi Region, and in the process committed serious human rights violations. During the same period, the government also showed an increased willingness to apply armed force abroad, as troops were dispatched to support the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola. Furthermore, SWAPO recently amended the Constitution to afford the country’s first President, Sam Nujoma, a third term of office; and it displayed a growing intolerance of individuals and groups with dissenting viewpoints, including foreigners, homosexuals and opposition parties. 45. These figures are garnered from Melber (2003c) and the Electoral Commission of Namibia. 46. In the case of the conservative African States, independence-era reform efforts deracialised the State but retained chiefs and customary law as part of the hierarchy of the local state apparatus. In the radical African States, de-racialisation was accompanied by an attempt to de-emphasise customary and ethnic differences (‘de-tribalisation’), in the extreme case by discarding customary law and traditional rule altogether (Mamdani 1996: 25–27).

Chapter 3 1. The main exception, however, is that prior to the German colonial period a number of distinct (though very small) kingdoms did exist in the Oshivambo-speaking areas of the far north (Williams 1991; Hayes 1992). 2. Again, in relation to Kaokoland, German personnel were never stationed farther north than Sesfontein. As indicated in Chapter 2, European traders and explorers did visit Kaokoland during this period, but only infrequently (see NAN ZBU 1011 J.XIII.B.5). Finally, though the German administration did extend concessions to private mining interests in Kaokoland, little came of it (NAN AP 5/7/1, ‘SWA Concessions Commission: General Report by the Chairman and Minority Reports by the Chairman on the Deutsche Kolonial Gesellschaft and the Kaokoland und Minen Gesellschaft’, 1920; also see NAN BOU 001). 3. NAN PTJ 1 4/R, ‘Tshimhaka Police Post: Northern Kaokoveld’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ovamboland, 28 April 1926. 4. Union of South Africa (1927), p. 33. 5. Also see NAN PTJ 1 4/R; NAN SWAA 2513 A552/1; NAN NAO 018 11/1; and NAN NAO 029 24/4. 6. Union of South Africa (1927), pp. 33–35. 7. Ovamboland Affairs Proclamation No. 27 of 1929. 8. NAN SWAA 2513 A552, ‘Instructions to Mr A.M. Barnard on assuming duty as officer in charge of Native Affairs at Ohopuho in the Kaokoveld’, c. March/April 1939. 9. NAN NAO 065 21/12, ‘Kaokoveld: Medical Aspects’ memorandum, Regional Medical Officer, Ovamboland, 7 June 1955. 10. NAN NAO 061 12/3, ‘Annual Report on Native Affairs, 1952’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 31 December 1952, p. 9.

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11. NAN SWAA 1060 A135/46 (Vol. 2), ‘Recruiting and Trading in the Kaokoveld’ letter, Manager, South West Africa Native Labour Association, Grootfontein, 7 December 1954. 12. NAN SWAA 2517 A552/25, ‘Government Notice: Levy of Annual Rate in the Kaokoveld Reserve’, 13 October 1953. 13. NAN SWAA 1060 A135/46 (Vol. 2), ‘Recruiting and Trading in the Kaokoveld’ letter, Manager, South West Africa Native Labour Association, Grootfontein, 7 December 1954. 14. NAN SHELF BB/1000, ‘Meeting with Hereros in the Kaokoveld Native Reserve, 10 May 1962’, in United Nations General Assembly, Seventeenth Session, Report of the Special Committee for South West Africa, Annex XI, Records of the hearings held by the Chairman and Vice-Chairman in South West Africa, 20 September 1962, p. 19. 15. Another point of comparison might also be of interest. In 1926, the Finnish Mission Society was operating eighteen churches across Ovamboland, and had already been missionising in the region for more than fifty years (Union of South Africa 1927, p. 34). The first missionary was not authorised to maintain a permanent presence in Kaokoland until 1950 (NAN SWAA 2514 A552/9, ‘Medical Services: Kaokoveld’ memorandum, Chief Native Commissioner, Windhoek, 13 September 1950). 16. NAN SWAA 1168 A158/40/2, ‘Minutes of a General Meeting Held at Ohopoho from the 17th to the 24th December, 1942’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 27 December 1942, pp. 1–2. 17. OTC [Archives of the Opuwo Town Council] N1/1/5/5 (1), Untitled letter No. 1 to Bantu Affairs Commissioner, Willem Hartley, Oruvandjae, 10 December 1960; OTC N1/1/5/5 (2), Untitled letter No. 2 to Bantu Affairs Commissioner, Willem Hartley, Oruvandjae, 10 December 1960. 18. NAN BOP 019 N2/13/2/17, ‘Verslag Inverband met Moeilikhede in Kaokoveld van die Naturelle nie Hul… met die XH Yster… Laat Brand nie’ memorandum, Chief Native Commissioner, Windhoek, 16 June 1955. 19. The report, which later came to be termed the ‘Odendaal Plan’, outlined South Africa’s intention to implement its revised apartheid policies in Namibia. It recommended the creation of ten quasi-autonomous tribal ‘homelands’, one of which was to be Kaokoland. In addition, it signified an attempt by the colonial government to more fully integrate the territory into South Africa (see Republic of South Africa 1964). 20. For example, see OTC N1/1/2, ‘Bevolkingsensus: Kaokoland’ memorandum and attached ‘Vergadering met Kaokoland Hoofmanne op 4 September 1970’, Bantu Affairs Commissioner, Ohopoho, 9 September 1970; NAN BOP 007 N1/15/6 (Vol. 2), ‘Memorandum. Feite Posisie van die Kaokoland’, n.p., n.d., c. 1974, p. 10; and KRC [Archives of the Kunene Regional Council] n.#., Untitled open letter to Kaokoland inhabitants, Clemens Kapuuo, 12 May 1976. 21. PLAN launched only one attack against Opuwo, an incident involving three bombs that failed to hit their intended target, causing no damage or casualties. 22. With respect to the last strategy, see ‘Army awards medals to five civilians’, The Windhoek Advertiser, 30 November 1987; and ‘Kaokoland frei von SWAPO: Himba enthauptete einen Terroristen’, Allgemeine Zeitung, 30 November 1987. 23. United Nations Security Council Resolution 435 seemed to clear the path for Namibia’s independence, originally scheduled for 31 December 1978. Free elections were supposed to take place in June of that year but never came to pass. 24. For an overview of Namibia’s transitional politics of the late 1970s and 1980s, see Forrest (1998: 32–49). 25. Though originally established with the intention of building a multi-ethnic political body, NUDO became an all-Herero organisation synonymous with the Herero Paramount Chief’s council (Ngavirue 1997: 253). 26. In the 1999 elections, 69 per cent of Kaokolanders voted for the DTA. In late 2003 NUDO withdrew its affiliation from the DTA and contested the 2004 elections as an independent political party. In those elections, Kaokolanders cast 41 per cent of their votes for the DTA, and 17 per cent for NUDO (Source: Namibia Electoral Commission).

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Notes

27. At independence, the former Ovamboland was divided into Omusati, Ohangwena, Oshana and Oshikoto Regions (‘the four Os’). 28. United Nations Development Programme (2000), p. 172. 29. The four regions that previously constituted the former Ovamboland comprise a geographical area that is roughly equivalent in size to Kaokoland. However, whereas in 2001 Kaokoland possessed a population of approximately 34,000 people, ‘the four Os’ were home to more than 780,000 people (Republic of Namibia 2003). 30. I have also found this to be much the case in other parts of Namibia.

Chapter 4 1. Omuhoko has been defined as ‘family’ (Viljoen and Kamupingene 1983; various informants), ‘kin’ or ‘relatives’ (Ohta 2000; Crandall 1996), ‘tribe’ (Viljoen and Kamupingene 1983; Malan 1971; various informants), and ‘nation’ (A. Kaputu, personal communication; various informants). Likewise, otjiwana has also been defined as ‘family’ (Wärnlöf 1998), ‘kin’ or ‘relatives’ (Steyn 1977), ‘tribe’ (A. Kaputu, personal communication), and ‘nation’ (Viljoen and Kamupingene 1983; various informants). 2. For a more detailed description of the Herero and Himba onganda, see Jacobsohn (1988), Crandall (1996) and Gibson (1956). 3. Kuvare (1977) discusses the okuruwo in much greater detail. 4. With respect to the Tallensi in West Africa, Meyer Fortes (1970) observed similarly: ‘Ancestorhood is fatherhood made immortal, in despite of the death of real fathers; that is to say, it is paternal authority, above all, that is made immortal and impregnable in despite of the transience of its holders’ (1970: 189).

Chapter 5 1. For an overview of anthropology and law, see Merry (1992) and Moore (2001). 2. Among others, see Moore (1978); Griffiths (1986); Merry (1988); and Galanter (1981). 3. For a more comprehensive review of legal history in Namibia, with special attention to customary law, see Theodoropolos (1982); d’Engelbronner-Kolff et al. (1998); Legal Assistance Centre (1999); and Hinz (2000, 2002). In addition, R. Gordon (1991) provides an informative national overview with a focus on the former Ovamboland, while Okupa (1996: 68–85) considers aspects of legal history in Kaokoland with respect to the ethnojurisprudence of children’s rights. 4. Extending from Namibia’s west coast to its eastern border with Botswana, the Red Line remains in place today as a veterinary control measure. It continues to divide the country’s northern communal areas from the commercial farmlands to the south. 5. Administration of Justice Proclamation No. 21 of 1919. 6. Definition of Magisterial Districts Proclamation No. 40 of 1920. 7. Native Administration Proclamation No. 11 of 1922. 8. Up until 1928 magistrates also had a third role, serving as police commander for the respective district (R. Gordon 1998: 60). 9. See NAN LOU 3/1/1; NAN LOU 3/1/2; and NAN LOU 3/3/1. 10. Inside the Police Zone, however, headmen were not allowed to dispose of any criminal cases whatsoever (Native Reserves Regulations Government Notice No. 68 of 1924). 11. Any criminal or civil case involving a ‘Native’ and a ‘European’ had to be tried before a magistrate. 12. Native Affairs Proclamation No. 15 of 1928, Section 9 (1). 13. The most famous of these involved a murder case against Thomas Mutata. The case led to a charge of perjury being brought against the ‘Chief of Kaokoland’, Vita Oorlog Thom (see NAN LOU 1/2/2). For a detailed analysis of the case, see Rizzo (2007). 14. Outjo and Kaokoveld Magisterial Districts Proclamation No. 10 of 1939.

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15. NAN NAO 031 24/18, ‘Kaokoveld Affairs’ memorandum, Additional Native Affairs Commissioner, Windhoek, 26 April 1939. 16. NAN SWAA 2513 A552, ‘Instructions to Mr A.M. Barnard on assuming duty as officer in charge of Native Affairs at Ohopuho in the Kaokoveld’ [final corrected draft], c. March/April 1939. Interestingly, the first draft of this document stated: ‘The system of administration to be followed by you is that at present in vogue in Ovamboland and the Kaokoveld, viz. indirect rule in a modified form, but as most of the Natives in the Kaokoveld no longer observe any tribal laws and customs, it should be your aim gradually to educate them up to the stage when the ordinary reserve regulations can be applied and the country administered like an ordinary native reserve in the Police Zone’ [emphasis added]. 17. Establishment of Native Commissioners’ Courts, Government Notice No. 126 of 1941. 18. NAN NAO 048 47/1, ‘Native Policy in South West Africa: Indirect Rule in Ovamboland and the Kaokoveld’, Native Commissioner, Ovamboland, 1945. 19. NAN SWAA 1168 A158/40/2, ‘Minutes of Tribal Meeting Held at Ohopoho from the 2nd to 14th February, 1942’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 18 February 1942; NAN NAO 029 24/2, ‘Minutes of Tribal Meeting Held at Ohopoho from the 26th to 27th October 1942’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 30 October 1942; NAN NAO 029 24/2/1, Minutes of a Tribal Meeting Held at Ohopoho in November 1942, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 23 November 1942; and NAN SWAA 1168 A158/40/2, ‘Minutes of a General Meeting Held at Ohopoho from the 17th to the 24th December, 1942’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 27 December 1942. 20. See annual statistical reports in NAN BOP 007 N1/15/6. By 1971, the Native Affairs Officer had to devote a total of 32 hours to his magisterial duties; the following year he required 117 hours. These statistics reflect the growing number of ‘Europeans’, particularly government officials and their families, who were being stationed in the region. 21. Republic of South Africa (1964). 22. Civil and Criminal Jurisdiction – Chiefs, Headmen, Chiefs’ Deputies and the Headmen’s Deputies, Territory of South West Africa Proclamation No. R.348 of 1967. 23. Civil and Criminal Jurisdiction – Chiefs, Headmen, Chiefs’ Deputies and the Headmen’s Deputies, Territory of South West Africa Proclamation No. R.304 of 1972. 24. See Development of Self-Government for Native Nations in South West Africa Affairs Act No. 54 of 1968; Representative Authorities Proclamation AG 8 of 1980; and Representative Authority of the Hereros Proclamation AG 50 of 1980. 25. For example, see NAN BOP 079 17/7/2, ‘Administration of Justice: Kaokoland’ memorandum, Chief Bantu Affairs Commissioner, Windhoek, 8 June 1962. 26. NAN BOP 079 17/7/2, ‘Investigation of Criminal Cases’ memorandum, Attorney General, Windhoek, 26 August 1961. 27. In theory, a judgement of the Native Affairs Commissioner could be appealed to the High Court of South West Africa, and then on to the Supreme Court. However, a survey of Supreme Court records between 1920 and 1985 revealed that not a single appeal was ever lodged (R. Gordon 1991: 89). 28. Native Administration Proclamation Amendment Act No. 27 of 1985. 29. It is important to mention that Namibia has neither an established system of customary case law nor codification of such law (Hinz 2000: 91). In recent years, though, traditional authorities have begun to document their laws, a process that has yielded a body of selfstated legal texts. For the self-stated laws of the Himba people in Kaokoland, as well as many other groups throughout the country, see Hinz (1995). 30. Traditional Authorities Act No. 25 of 2000. 31. Community Courts Act No. 10 of 2003. 32. Significant cases recently heard in the High Court of Namibia include Ashikoto v. Kwanyama Traditional Authority and Others (2001) and Kauapirura and Nguvauva v. Kaunatjike and Others (2001). 33. However, when the Community Courts Act is finally implemented it will be possible to transfer cases between the two venues, appeal a traditional ruling in the magistrate’s court, and request the magistrate’s enforcement of a traditional court order, among other things.

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34. In the South African context, Barbara Oomen has observed similarly. She depicts state law as a potential resource upon which traditional courts may or may not draw (2005: 211–14). 35. In mid-2008, during my most recent field trip to Kaokoland, Opuwo’s state prosecutor was a displaced Zimbabwean lawyer who had arrived in Namibia only eight months earlier. He had lived in Namibia for only two months before being hired and posted to the court. 36. In relation to South Africa, Barbara Oomen (2000) has made a similar observation. 37. See Union of South Africa (1918), pp. 202–3. 38. Union of South Africa (1929, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934). 39. S. v. Manuel en Andere (1975). 40. Criminal Procedure Act No. 51 of 1977. 41. Ex parte Attorney-General, Namibia: In re Corporal Punishment by Organs of State (1991). 42. NAN NAO 011 5/9, ‘Sentences Imposed by Kaokoland Council of Headmen’ memorandum, Chief Native Commissioner, Windhoek, n.d. [1941]. 43. NAN NAO 011 5/9, ‘Sentences Imposed by Kaokoland Council of Headmen’ memorandum, Native Commissioner, Ovamboland, 4 June 1941. 44. Quoted in UNAM [Archives of the University of Namibia] UNIN Collection, ‘When Flogging is Made to Equal Justice’, unpublished manuscript, Peter Katjavivi, 1974. 45. For a more detailed account of Hahn’s use of violence in the colonial administration of Ovamboland, see Hayes (2000a). 46. NAN SWAA 1168 A158/40/2, ‘Minutes of Tribal Meeting Held at Ohopoho from the 2nd to 14th February, 1942’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 18 February 1942; NAN NAO 029 24/2, ‘Minutes of Tribal Meeting Held at Ohopoho from the 26th to 27th October 1942’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 30 October 1942; NAN NAO 029 24/2/1, ‘Minutes of a Tribal Meeting Held at Ohopoho in November 1942’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 23 November 1942; and NAN SWAA 1168 A158/40/2, ‘Minutes of a General Meeting Held at Ohopoho from the 17th to the 24th December, 1942’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 27 December 1942. 47. NAN BAC 041 HN1/15/4/1, ‘Notule van Vergadering met Hoofmanne: Kaokoveld: 20 tot 23 Maart 1962’, Officer in Charge, Bantu Affairs, Ohopoho, 24 March 1962. 48. Civil and Criminal Jurisdiction – Chiefs, Headmen, Chiefs’ Deputies and the Headmen’s Deputies, Territory of South West Africa Proclamation No. R.348 of 1967. 49. S. v. Sipula (1994). 50. Throughout the course of my stay in Opuwo I did not witness any traditional leader sentence or administer corporal punishment under customary law, though some people did insist that such punishment continues to take place in Kaokoland, especially in the more remote villages. 51. These statistics are based on my monthly reviews of case files and charge sheets at the magistrate’s court between November 2000 and May 2001. 52. For comparative purposes, see Okupa’s (1996) detailed description and analysis of Himba customary law and traditional court procedures in rural Kaokoland. 53. Double descent has been documented for other parts of Africa (Nadel 1950; Forde 1950), as well as more generally (Murdock 1940; Goody 1961). 54. I was able to identify seven matriclans in Kaokoland. Some scholars have concluded similarly (Kavari 2000; Malan 1973), but others have noted the existence of as many as fifteen omaanda (van Wolputte 1998). The particular matriclans are not exclusive to Kaokoland alone, as Otjiherero-speakers from other parts of the sub-continent also belong to them. 55. The number of patriclans in Kaokoland is also open to dispute. Malan (1973), for example, lists eighteen otuzo. Similar to the omaanda, the patriclans are not exclusive to Kaokoland. Otjiherero-speakers from central and eastern Namibia, Botswana and Angola may share the same oruzo. 56. Friedman, ‘Oruzo Acquisition Survey’, Opuwo, April 2001 (N=400).

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57. An identical survey undertaken among Otjiherero-speakers in Windhoek during August 2001 returned a similar set of findings (N=643). In the capital city, 28 per cent of respondents were affiliated at birth to their mother’s father’s patriclan. As in Kaokoland, Otjiherero-speakers in Windhoek were also more than twice as likely to possess their maternal grandfather’s patriclan if their parents had lived in an urban, rather that rural, setting. In comparison to the 8 per cent of Otjiherero-speaking Windhoekians over the age of sixty who had become members of their mother’s father’s oruzo at birth, 36 per cent of respondents under the age of twenty had done so. 58. Since a married mother belongs to her husband’s oruzo, van Wolputte (1998: 156) has suggested that mothers bestow both matriclan and patriclan membership upon their children. His formulation, despite its semantic similarities, is quite different from my own. Van Wolputte’s alternative perspective has no real effect, as the child becomes a member of its father’s patriclan nonetheless. Instead, I am trying to highlight an observed trend whereby mothers and their children take on the same oruzo at the time of their respective birth.

Chapter 6 1. The case was tried on 1 November, 22 November and 23 November 2000. 2. The case was heard on 22 May and 3 June 2001.

Chapter 7 1. The case was tried and finalised in the Opuwo Magistrate’s Court on 23 January 2001. 2. Interestingly, a recent piece of Namibian legislation stipulates that children also have a legal responsibility to maintain their parents (see Maintenance Act No. 9 of 2003). 3. In Botswana, Diana Wylie (1990) has made many similar observations with respect to collective responsibility and the role of the family in a Tswana chiefdom’s kgotla (traditional court). 4. For an alternative critique of the notion, see Tamanaha (1993, 2000).

Chapter 8 1. The Herero-German War is well documented (see Bley 1971; Drechsler 1980; Gewald 1999). 2. NAN OCT 17 Z1, ‘Notes on an Interview between Colonel de Jager et al. with the Headman Oorlog at Windhuk’, 6 June 1917. 3. NAN ADM 156 W32, ‘Report on Kaokoveld by Major C.N. Manning’, 1917, p. 2. 4. As mentioned previously, throughout Germany’s period of rule (1884–1915), the colonial administration had little to do with Kaokoland and its inhabitants. 5. In 1919, Major Manning undertook a second tour of Kaokoland in order ‘to inquire into certain native questions in Kaokoveld and deal with disarmament of tribes’ (NAN SWAA 2516 A552/22, ‘Report by Major C.N. Manning re. Second Tour Kaokoveld’, 1919, p. 1). 6. For a detailed account of Vita Thom’s life, including the years he spent living in Angola, see Stals and Otto-Reiner (1999). 7. NAN ADM 156 W32, ‘Report on Kaokoveld by Major C.N. Manning’, 1917, p. 54. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid., pp. 70–71. 10. Ibid., p. 71. 11. NAN NAO 018 11/1 (Vol. 1), ‘Annual Report 1927’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ovamboland, 27 January 1928. 12. See NAN ZBU 1011 J.XIII.B.5, Untitled Kaokoveld Travel Report, Heinrich Vedder, 1914.

268

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35.

36. 37.

38. 39. 40.

41. 42. 43. 44.

Notes

NAN ADM 156 W32, ‘Report on Kaokoveld by Major C.N. Manning’, 1917, p. 54. Ibid., p. 61. Ibid., p. 53. Ibid., p. 54. Ibid., p. 61. Ibid., p. 60. For my purposes, a person is an ‘oral historical source’ if he or she is viewed by others (scholars and/or Kaokolanders) as possessing expert knowledge in the field of local history. NAN SWAA 2516 A552/22, ‘Report by Major C.N. Manning re. Second Tour Kaokoveld’, 1919, p. 33. Native Reserves Government Notice No. 122 of 1923. Union of South Africa (1931), pp. 71–72. See NAN LOU 3/1/1 2/2/1920; NAN NAO 028 24/1/1; NAN NAO 029 24/2; and NAN SWAA 2516 A552/22. NAN NAO 019 11/1 (Vol. 9), ‘Annual Report: 1936’, Native Commissioner, Ovamboland, 9 January 1937, pp. 39–40. Ibid. NAN NAO 026 21/1, untitled memorandum, Native Commissioner, Ovamboland, 22 January 1936. NAN NAO 020 11/1 (Vol. 11), ‘Monthly Report: February and March, 1938’, Native Commissioner, Ovamboland, 30 March 1938. NAN NAO 029 24/4, ‘Kaokoveld: Annual Report, 1943’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 29 December 1943. NAN NAO 020 11/1 (Vol. 11), ‘Annual Report, 1938’, Native Commissioner, Ovamboland, 16 January 1939, pp. 33–34. Union of South Africa (1939), pp. 55–56. NAN NAO 020 11/1 (Vol. 11), ‘Annual Report, 1938’, Native Commissioner, Ovamboland, 16 January 1939, pp. 33–35. NAN SWAA 1168 A158/40/2, ‘Minutes of a General Meeting Held at Ohopuho on the 31st January and the 1st and 2nd February, 1940’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopuho, 4 February 1940, p. 10. Ibid. NAN SWAA 2513 A552, ‘Instructions to Mr A.M. Barnard on assuming duty as officer in charge of Native Affairs at Ohopuho in the Kaokoveld’ [final draft], c. March/April 1939. NAN NAO 029 24/4, ‘Kaokoveld: Annual Report, 1943’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 29 December 1943, p. 1. See also related documents in NAN SWAA 2085 A460/24 and NAN NAO 051 3/8. See related documents in NAN SWAA 2085 A460/24. NAN NAO 061 12/3, ‘Kaokoveld Annual Report: 1948’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 20 December 1948, pp. 1–2; also see NAN A.450 011 3/9, ‘Southwest Africa. Native Affairs. Annual Report for the Year 1945’, n.d. NAN SWAA 2085 A460/24, untitled memorandum addressed to Chief Native Commissioner, 26 October 1939. Ibid.; also see other related documents in NAN SWAA 2085 A460/24. NAN SWAA 2513 A552/1 (Vol. 2), ‘Kaokoveld Tribal Affairs: Appointment of Members of Council of Headmen’ memorandum, Native Commissioner, Ovamboland, 5 December 1949. NAN NAO 051 3/8, ‘Kaokoveld Tribal Affairs: Appointment of Members of the Council of Headmen’ memorandum, Chief Native Commissioner, Windhoek, 23 February 1950. NAN SWAA 2513 A552/1 (Vol. 2), untitled excerpt, n.d. NAN SWAA 2513 A552/1 (Vol. 2), ‘Monthly Report: Kaokoveld: July, 1939’ memorandum, Native Commissioner, Ovamboland, 6 September 1939. NAN SWAA 2085 A460/24, ‘Trial of Cases by Headman Langman Tjahura’ memorandum, Native Commissioner, Ovamboland, 14 December 1942.

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45. With respect to British colonial rule in East, West and Central Africa, Sara Berry concludes similarly: ‘the effect of indirect rule was neither to freeze African societies into precolonial moulds, nor to restructure them in accordance with British inventions of African tradition, but to generate unresolved debates over the interpretation of tradition and its meaning for colonial governance and economic activity. In seeking to maintain social and administrative stability by building on tradition, officials wove instability – in the form of changing relations of authority and conflicting interpretations of rules – into the fabric of colonial administration’ (1992: 336). 46. NAN NAO 061 12/3, ‘Annual Report on Native Affairs, 1951: Kaokoveld District’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 31 December 1951, p. 2. 47. NAN NAO 061 12/3, ‘Annual Report on Native Affairs, 1952’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 31 December 1952, p. 3. 48. NAN NAO 061 12/3, ‘Minutes of Meeting Held at Ohopoho from 7th to 16th April, 1952’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 16 April 1952. 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid. 51. Ibid. 52. Ibid. 53. NAN SWAA 2085 A460/24, ‘Complaint against the Hereros by the Ovatjimbas’ memorandum, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 20 April 1952. 54. NAN SWAA 2513 A552/1 (Vol. 2), ‘Report of the Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Kaokoveld for the Quarter Ending 30th June, 1952’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 30 June 1952. 55. NAN SWAA 2085 A460/24, ‘Tribal Affairs: Kaokoveld’ memorandum, Native Commissioner, Ovamboland, 30 April 1952. 56. NAN SWAA 2085 A460/24, ‘Complaint against the Hereros by the Ovatjimbas’ memorandum, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 20 April 1952. 57. NAN NAO 051 3/8, ‘Complaint against the Hereros by the Ovatjimbas’ memorandum, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 2 October 1952. 58. NAN SWAA 2085 A460/24, ‘Tribal Affairs: Kaokoveld’ memorandum, Native Commissioner, Ovamboland, 30 April 1952. 59. NAN NAO 061 12/3, ‘Inspection Report: Kaokoveld’, Native Commissioner, Ovamboland, 3 August 1953; SWAA 2085 A460/24, ‘Kaokoveld Tribal Affairs’ memorandum, Native Commissioner, Ovamboland, 3 August 1953. 60. NAN NAO 023 15/2, ‘Vital Statistics’ memorandum, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ovamboland, 25 August 1927. 61. NAN SWAA 2085 A460/24, ‘Tribal Affairs: Kaokoveld’ memorandum, Native Commissioner, Ovamboland, 30 April 1952. 62. Since Himba and Herero people share all cultural attributes, contemporary Kaokolanders generally rely on style of dress and bodily presentation as a way to differentiate between the two so-called ethnic groups. Thus, Himba people wear animal skins and extensive body ornamentation and jewellery. Himba women leave their breasts exposed and smear their bodies with a mixture of red ochre and butter fat. In contrast, Herero people wear western-style clothing and the traditional long-dress. Given this basis of identity, a contemporary Himba person can become Herero by simply adopting the relevant style of dress. For this reason it is not uncommon for Kaokolanders (especially those resident in Opuwo) to profess that they used to be Himba, or that ‘my parents are Himba’. Some people in Kaokoland even classify themselves as ‘Himba-Herero’. As for the descendents of those who were once classified ‘Tjimba’, they now generally refer to themselves as either ‘Himba’ or ‘Herero’, although a Tjimba identity is beginning to regain currency (see discussion in chapter 9). 63. For example, see OTC N1/1/5/5, Untitled letter to Bantu Affairs Commissioner, K. Muhonje and J. Muharukua, Ohopoho, 15 January 1963. 64. OTC N1/1/5/5 (1), Untitled letter No. 1 to Bantu Affairs Commissioner, Willem Hartley, Oruvandjae, 10 December 1960.

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65. OTC N1/1/5/5 (2), Untitled letter No. 2 to Bantu Affairs Commissioner, Willem Hartley, Oruvandjae, 10 December 1960. 66. NAN BAC 007 HN/1/9/3/9, Excerpt from ‘Verslag oor Kaokoveld’, Officer in Charge, Ohopoho, c. June 1961. 67. NAN BOP 007 N1/15/6 (Vol. 1), ‘Jaarverslag vir 1964. Bantoe Administrasie en Ontwikkeling. Kaokoveld Bantoe Reservaat en Zessfontein Inboorling Reservaat’, Bantu Affairs Commissioner, Ohopoho, n.d. 68. NAN BOP 004 N1/15/2, Attachment to ‘Distriksadministrasie: Klagtes van Hoofmanne en Invoners Aangaande Veeverkope en ander Aangeleenthede’ memorandum, Bantu Affairs Commissioner, Ohopoho, 18 November 1969. 69. The new labels were being used by at least 1970 (see OTC N1/1/2, ‘Bevolkingsensus: Kaokoland’ memorandum and attached ‘Vergadering met Kaokoland Hoofmanne op 4 September 1970’ notes, Bantu Commissioner, Ohopoho, 9 September 1970). The term ‘Tjimba’ might have once again fallen out of favour with members of the Big Group because of its derogatory connotations (NAN BOP 007 N1/15/6 Vol. 2, ‘Memorandum. Feite Posisie van die Kaokoland’, n.p., n.d., c. 1974). 70. NAN BOP 004 N1/15/2, Attachment to ‘Distriksadministrasie: Klagtes van Hoofmanne en Invoners Aangaande Veeverkope en ander Aangeleenthede’ memorandum, Bantu Affairs Commissioner, Ohopoho, 18 November 1969. 71. OTC N1/1/2, ‘Notule. Stamvergadering Gehou te Ohopoho. 10 November tot 17 November 1964’, Bantu Affairs Commissioner, Ohopoho, 1964. 72. OTC N1/1/2, ‘Bevolkingsensus: Kaokoland’ memorandum and attached ‘Vergadering met Kaokoland Hoofmanne op 4 September 1970’ notes, Bantu Affairs Commissioner, Ohopoho, 9 September 1970. 73. OTC N1/1/2, ‘Notule. Stamvergadering Gehou te Ohopoho. 10 November tot 17 November 1964’, Bantu Affairs Commissioner, Ohopoho, 1964. 74. See, for example, related documents in NAN SWAA 2173 A470/27; NAN SWAA 2085 A460/24; NAN NAO 030 24/12 (Vol. 1); NAN BOP 019 N2/13/2/12; and NAN BOP 019 N2/13/2/17. 75. The National Archives of Namibia maintains a thirty year closed period on all of its material. As a result, my ‘history’ of more recent events in Kaokoland relies mostly on oral history and personal testimonies. 76. NAN BOP 007 N1/15/5/3, ‘Notule van Vergadering Gehou te Ohopoho met Hoofmanne en Ongeveer 200 Invonwer op 10 November 1964’, n.d. 77. OTC N1/1/2, ‘Bevolkingsensus: Kaokoland’ memorandum and attached ‘Vergadering met Kaokoland Hoofmanne op 4 September 1970’ notes, Bantu Affairs Commissioner, Ohopoho, 9 September 1970. 78. Interestingly, this legal dispute was still pending as late as 1992. In February of that year, the Prosecutor General of Namibia sent a delegation to Kaokoland in an attempt to finally settle the case. In their report the investigators stated that ‘if this dispute is not solved quickly it will again lead to fighting’ (KRC 11/4/6, ‘Dispute between D. Humu and P. Nderura (G. Mbinge) in the Estate of Ferdinand Humu’ memo and annexes, Prosecutor General, Windhoek, 9 March 1992). 79. For a more detailed treatment of the second tier authorities, see Simon (1985), Abdallah et al. (1989) and Forrest (1998). 80. The formerly recognised Herero Paramount Chief Kuaima Riruako has recently called for the creation of a separate Herero State under a revamped federal system in Namibia. Critics have argued that such a proposal, if adopted, would return the country to an apartheid-like system of government (The Namibian, 15 August 2003 and 5 January 2004).

Notes

271

Chapter 9 1. For example, see Buur and Kyed (2006); Williams (2004); Nyamnjoh (2003); Englebert (2002); Berry (2001); and van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal and van Dijk (1999). In detailing the South African case, Oomen (2005) offers the most immediate comparison. 2. The Traditional Authorities Act (2000) defines a ‘traditional community’ as an ‘indigenous homogeneous, endogamous social grouping of persons comprising [sic] of families deriving [sic] from exogamous clans which share a common ancestry, language, cultural heritage, customs and traditions, who recognises [sic] a common traditional authority and inhabits [sic] a common communal area, and may include the members of that traditional community residing outside the communal area.’ 3. The debate was originally sparked off by the publication of the ‘Kozonguizi Report’ in 1991. The report detailed the findings of the ‘Commission of Inquiry into Matters Relating to Chiefs, Headmen and Other Traditional or Tribal Leaders’ (Republic of Namibia 1991). 4. State recognition of traditional authority is in no way unique to Namibia alone, as similar policies have been implemented in a number of other African countries (see Buur and Kyed 2007a). 5. This observation extends deliberately to South Africa where post-1994 reforms have generated a very similar set of ambiguities in that State’s relationship with traditional leaders (see Ntsebeza 1999). 6. Most ironically, a group of Afrikaners in Namibia have also submitted an application in an attempt to secure government recognition of its chiefship under a so-called Afrikaner Traditional Authority (The Namibian, 16 December 2002). 7. OTA [Archives of the Otjikaoko Traditional Authority] n.#., Letter to Ministry of Regional and Local Government and Housing ‘Re: The cultural/historical background of Otjikaoko’, Otjikaoko Traditional Authority, Opuwo, 4 February 1999. 8. Already in the early 1950s, van Warmelo reported that many Himba people ‘derive a reflected greatness by claiming a relationship with him [Mureti]’ (1951: 13). 9. On the life of Mureti, see Otjikaoko group oral historians Muniombara, and Mutambo and Rutjindo in Bollig (1997b). For another historical account of Mureti, as told by a Herero oral historian from central Namibia, see Kaputu (1992). 10. See Recognition of Designation of Traditional Leaders Government Notice No. 65 of 1998. 11. The Namibian, 2 June 1998. A few weeks before the 2009 national elections, the government gave all 49 of Namibia’s recognised traditional authorities a four-wheel-drive vehicle (New Era, 19 and 24 November 2009). 12. The Namibian, 4 June 1998; 10 January 2000; 9 February 2001. 13. Permanent Joint Technical Commission of Angola and Namibia on the Cunene River Basin (1997), pp. A16-9 – A16-10. 14. OTA, n.#., Letter to Sam Nujoma regarding ‘Controversial Appointment of Hijandekete Jatemuna as Headman by Chief J. Thom’, Otjikaoko Royal House, 31 May 2001. 15. If the Ministry of Regional and Local Government and Housing had granted these fortysix requests, the total number of recognised traditional authorities in Namibia as a whole would have more than doubled. 16. ‘Affidavit of Kuaima Riruako’, Windhoek, 9 February 1999, p. 12 in Riruako and 46 Others vs. the Minister of Regional, Local Government and Housing and the President of the Republic of Namibia (2001), High Court of Namibia. Interestingly, one of the original Kaokoland claimants withdrew himself from the list of applicants shortly before the case was heard, then left the DTA, joined SWAPO, and resubmitted an application for government recognition. His strategy proved unsuccessful though, as he was eventually denied recognition as ‘chief’ of a traditional authority (The Namibian, 23 April 2002). In 2008, his successor, also a SWAPO supporter, did manage to get himself and the Kakurukouje Traditional Authority finally recognised. The government’s decision has not gone without challenge. The new chief’s aunt claims that she is the rightful heir to the position but

272

17. 18. 19.

20. 21.

Notes

was not recognised as such because of her affiliation with the opposition DTA party (The Namibian, 13 and 28 February 2008). New Era, 11 December 2008; The Namibian, 15 January 2009. NAN NAO 018 11/1 (Vol. 1), ‘Annual Report 1927’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ovamboland, 27 January 1928, p. 17. For example, during a discussion of the dispute at a 1952 meeting, one ‘Herero headman said that when a person died they come together for the burial. The Hereros and Ovatjimbas are one tribe. Should a Herero die we feel that the Ovatjimbas should also contribute grain, tobacco or stock for consumption at the funeral. The same should apply to the Hereros should an Ovatjimba die’ (NAN NAO 061 12/3, ‘Minutes of Meeting Held at Ohopoho from 7th to 16th April, 1952’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 16 April 1952). See also oral historian Muharukua, quoted in Bollig (1997b: 138), as well as Bollig (1998b: 266). OTA, n.#., Letter to the Honourable Minister ‘Re. Appointment of an Inspector in Opuwo Circuit’, Kunene North Traditional Authority, 28 May 2001. For example, see The Namibian, 10 November 2003; 9 January 2004; and 27 January 2004. For an interesting scholarly account, based on the disinterment and re-burial of a former Nama-speaking leader in southern Namibia, see Kössler (2004).

Chapter 10 1. Filmer is best known through the writings of John Locke (1962). The latter’s Two Treatises on Government was written in reply to Filmer’s theory of patriarchalism. 2. NAN OCT 17 Z1, ‘Notes on an Interview between Colonel de Jager et al. with the Headman Oorlog at Windhuk’, 6 June 1917. 3. NAN SWAA 1168 A158/40/2, ‘Minutes of a General Meeting Held at Ohopoho on the 19th and 20th July, 1940’. 4. NAN SWAA 2265 A502/43 (Vol. 1), ‘Notes of Discussions at Enyandi on the 17th September, 1941, Re Ovahimbas and Small Stock Ex Angola’. 5. NAN SWAA 2265 A502/43 (Vol. 1), ‘Offer of Kaokoveld Natives to Donate Sheep to War Funds’, Chief Native Commissioner, Windhoek, n.d. (c. July 1941). 6. NAN SWAA 2513 A552/1 (Vol. 2), ‘Quarterly Report for the Period 1/1/1950 to 31/3/1950’, Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Ohopoho, 31 March 1950. 7. NAN NAO 061 12/3, ‘Inspection Report: Kaokoveld Native Reserve: September–October, 1949’, Native Commissioner, Ovamboland, 10 October 1949. 8. Ibid. 9. NAN SWAA 2085 A460/24, ‘Statement’, Headman Moses N’jai, Ohopoho, 10 January 1940. 10. NAN NAO 029 24/2/1, ‘Minutes of a General Meeting Held at Ohopoho from the 17th to the 24th December, 1942’. 11. NAN SWAA 1168 A158/40/2, ‘Minutes of a General Meeting Held at Ohopoho on the 19th and 20th July, 1940’. 12. Ibid. 13. NAN BOP 004 N1/15/2, ‘Administrasie van Reservate’, Transcription of Mnr. McIntyre during meeting of Native Affairs officers, 13 October 1958. 14. NAN SWAA 2085 A460/24, ‘Trial of Cases by Headman Langman Tjahura’ memorandum, Native Commissioner, Ovamboland, 14 December 1942, p. 2. 15. NAN BOP 004 N1/15/2, ‘Administrasie van Reservate’, Transcription of Mnr. McIntyre during meeting of Native Affairs officers, 13 October 1958. 16. A similar such argument appears in Friedman (2007). 17. A Portuguese-speaking Angolan national of mixed descent.

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Newspapers Allgemeine Zeitung The Namibian The Windhoek Advertiser

INDEX Abrams, Philip, 4, 5 affirmative action, 80, 88 Africa chiefship in, 179–80, 181, 202, 271n4 colonialism, 7, 30–32, 111, 253, 269n45 democratisation, 227 ethnicity, 227 law, 110–11 metaphors in political discourse, 70, 100, 238 state processes, 30–32, 46–48, 50, 180, 226, 228–29, 248 tradition in, 7, 180, 269n45 agency, 8, 52, 62, 97–98, 249, 260n7 ambiguity (as modality of power), 25, 39–40, 64, 82, 95–96, 100–101, 114–18, 172, 188–90, 220, 222, 237, 250–51, 252–57, 271n5 ancestors, 4, 12, 83, 104, 128–30, 206, 207–8, 231, 240–41, 257, 264n4, see also commemorations Anderson, Benedict, 6, 198 Angola, 63, 64, 83, 84, 90, 128, 190–91, 200, 262n44, 266n55, 272n17 refugees, 12, 20, 83, 89–90, 124 Vita Thom in, 182–83, 185, 217–18, 221, 242, 267n6 anthropology and colonialism, 35–36 ethnography of the State, 1, 3, 5, 8–9, 10–12, 27, 28, 30, 58–59, 229–30, 237, 248–49, 251, 258n1, 258n8 and imagination, 5–7, 21, 258n4 of Kaokoland, 15, 20, 36, 37, 184, 211, 259n19 of law, 109, 110, 264n1 of the margins, 11, 12, 13 methodology, 3, 8–9, 10–12, 23, 26, 59, 157–58, 174–76, 181, 211, 219–20, 229–30 of Namibia, 20, 31, 260n9 and photography, 16 and political imagination, 6–7, 249 and/of the State, 9–12, 30, 59, 229–30, 248–49

apartheid ambiguous nature of, 252–54 and legal pluralism, 111, 113–14, 171, 250 ‘neo-apartheid’, 4, 76–77, 85, 87 Odendaal Commission Report, 36, 43, 113–14, 263n19 as ombangu, 80 and paternalism, 46, 244–47, 259n21 perceptions of, 57, 58, 71, 77–80, 84, 88, 174–76, 200, 252 periodisation, 259n2 racial and ethnic terminology of, 258n10 second tier authorities, 195–97, 270n79 separate development, 35, 40, 41, 43, 51, 77, 111, 114, 195–97, 263n19 and state bifurcation, 180 in urban and regional design, 20–21, 35 Appadurai, Arjun, 6 authority, 60, 101–2, 198, 240, 243, 257, 259n21 of fathers, 24, 42, 102–4, 129, 260n15, 264n4 of husbands, 69–70, 103, 104 of lineages, 130–31 of mothers, 25, 105 parental, 24–25, 42, 69–70, 104–5, 245 of State, 13, 33–34, 42, 46, 50–51, 63–66, 111, 113–14, 165, 172, 180, 243, 250–53, 256, 261n29 tradition as source of, 225–26, 269n45 of traditional authorities and leaders, 31–32, 40, 51, 68–69, 121, 128, 172, 186, 188–90, 204, 207–8, 221, 223, 225–26, 230–31, 250–53, 256 autochthony, 180, 192, 221, 227–28, 271n2 Barnard, A.M., 45, 265n16 Bayart, Jean-François, 7–8, 30, 100, 227, 251 Berry, Sara, 269n45 Bollig, Michael, 184, 192 Borneman, John, 11, 259n21 Botswana, 128, 200, 210, 266n55, 267n3 Bourdieu, Pierre, 242, 244–45 ‘Bushmen’, 32, 33, 45–46, 221, 261n37 Butler, Judith, 60, 243

304

Index

Castoriadis, Cornelius, 5–6 Chanock, Martin, 109 chiefship, see traditional authorities and leaders chieftaincy dispute (Kaokoland), 179–98, 202–30, 251 and Epupa dam debate, 212–14, 253 factions, 194, 220–22, 230–34 in the Herero Representative Authority, 195–98 history and, 210–11, 226–27 Kuaima Riruako and, 197–98 and political parties, 195–98, 257 and recognition of traditional authorities, 203–20 ritual as instrument in, 200–201, 207–9, 211, 222, 228 segmentary nature of, 195, 201, 217, 222–23, 230, 232 and state process, 26–27, 179–81, 226–30, 251, 257 children and childhood, 69–70, 101, 103–5, 130–31, 167–69, 231–33, 240–41, 243–45, 267n2 churches, 12, 15, 225, 263n15 citizenship, 48, 89–90, 227–28 civil society, 47, 50, 51, 59, 173, 215, 246, 254–56 Cohen, Abner, 227 colonialism in Africa, 7, 30–32, 111, 253, 269n45 ambiguous nature of, 188–90, 252–54 and anthropology, 35–36 and childhood, 241 and ethnography in South Africa and Namibia, 35–36, 37, 226, 260n9 historiography, 31, 182, 260n7 history of in Kaokoland, 29, 33, 36–39, 44–46, 63–65, 67–71, 77–80, 182–98, 241–46, 259n1, 262n2, 267n4 history of in Namibia, 33, 34–46, 259n2 and imagination, 6–7, 35, 36, 38, 45, 226 knowledge about colonial subjects, 34–39 and law, 111, 112–14, 119–22, 171–72, 250–51 and paternalism, 24, 40–41, 241–46, 260n14, 260n15, 261n29 and state formation in Africa, 9, 30–32, 180, 228–30 and tradition, 42–43, 51, 203, 269n45 see also apartheid; indirect rule Comaroff, John, 28 commemorations, 200–201, 207–9, 211, 215,

221, 222, 228, 246 Community Courts Act, 115–16, 118, 265n33 Constitution of the Republic of Namibia, 50, 52, 98, 111, 115–16, 117, 120, 122, 125, 165, 262n44 contract labour, 40–41, 63, 79, 84, 90–91, 261n16 corporal punishment, 103, 104, 110, 118–22, 155, 157 under customary law, 120–22, 266n50 in German South West Africa, 119 in Kaokoland, 119–22, 171 in Namibia, 122, 144, 146, 266n50 police use of, 69–70, 119–21, 143, 155 in South West Africa, 69–70, 91, 119–22, 143–44, 146, 241–42, 245 under state law, 104, 119–20, 122, 143–44, 146 and traditional authorities, 120–22, 266n50 corporate belonging, 100–102, 128, 168, 170, 180, 208, 220, 222, 227–28, 238–40, 247, 251–52, 257, see also ethnicity; identity; kinship corruption, 50, 58–59, 87, 90, 154 Council of Traditional Leaders, 209, 210, 214, 225 courts, 109, 134–35, 165 coordination (informal) of magistrate’s and traditional courts, 116–18 and imagination, 134 Native Commissioners / Affairs Officers and, 112–14 researching in, 122–23, 135 see also magistrate’s court; traditional court custom, see tradition customary law ambiguous nature of, 114, 253–54 codification of, 265n29 collective (familial / parental) liability under, 167–68, 170 corporal punishment under, 120–22, 266n50 Ferndo Kovere v. Theo Musya, 146–57 in German South West Africa, 112 Native Commissioners / Affairs Officers and, 41, 112–14 in Ovamboland, 120–21 and social relations, 154, 169–71, 238–39 in South West Africa, 112–14 and state law, 111, 112, 115–17, 118, 172, 173 see also traditional court

Index

Dahl, Robert, 81 Dean, Mitchell, 61, 81, 92 death, 104, 222, 225, 264n4 politics of, 180, 207–9, 211–12, 228, 272n21 see also commemorations; funerals democracy and democratisation, 47, 96, 180, 202, 227–28 in Namibia, 3–4, 48–51, 104, 111, 203, 225–26, 246, 254 perceptions of, 68–90, 165 development and development assistance, 11, 13–14, 38, 40, 49–50, 71–74, 85, 95, 212–15, 219, 222, 227–28, 246 discourse, 10, 58–62, 81–82, 99, 243–44, 246 ‘Kaokoland critique’ as, 58, 62–80, 83, 92–100, 238, 247 double descent, 128–31, 231–32, 266n53 DTA (Democratic Turnhalle Alliance) election results, 15, 259n15, 263n26 and Epupa dam project, 212–13 and ethnicity, 65–66, 74, 86, 217, 229, 232 history of, 195 and NUDO, 65, 195, 217–19, 227 and traditional authorities, 195–98, 206–7, 213–16, 271n16 eanda (matriclan), 128, 131, 168, 170, 205, 231–32, 266n54, 267n58 economy, 9, 13, 52, 93, 173, 244, 246, 248 Kaokoland, 38, 72, 179, 184, 212 Namibia, 48–49, 262n41 South West Africa, 40, 48 Windhoek, 21 see also development and development assistance education , 41, 63, 65, 67–68, 71, 74, 91, 124, 136, 187, 245, see also schools elections national, 15, 48, 50, 51, 88, 198, 225, 259n15, 263n23, 263n26, 271n11 traditional leaders, 166, 189, 197, 206–7, 210, 223, 254 see also voting employment, 15, 18–19, 20, 22, 23, 40–41, 50, 65, 71–72, 74–76, 83, 87, 89, 212, 214–15, 222, 246, see also contract labour Epupa dam project, 212–14, 253 ethnicity, 52, 200, 247, 262n46 and apartheid, 35, 43, 5, 111, 195–7, 198, 227 construction of, 17, 36, 184, 218, 221, 226–27 fluid nature of in Kaokoland, 192, 193, 194, 217–18, 226–27, 269n62

305

politics of, 66, 180, 190–95, 217–19, 227–28, 232 Fabian, Johannes, 208 family, 68, 199–200, 230–34, 247, 256–57, 264n1, 267n3, see also kinship and government, 61, 82, 93–100, 238 law, 25, 159, 164–65, 167–68, 170, 238–39 matrilineal and patrilineal families, 128–31 and paternalism, 25–26, 94–95, 100–105, 128–31, 171, 198–201, 230–34, 239–41, 256–57, 260n14, 260n15, 264n4 patrilocal families and households, 100–105 and politics, 86 and violence, 245 fathers and fatherhood, 24–25, 74, 93–94, 96, 97, 102–5, 119–120, 128–31, 204–6, 210, 230–34, 238–41, 246, 257, 260n15, 264n4 Ferguson, James, 3, 11, 174 Filmer, Robert, 240, 272n1 Finnish Mission Society, 263n15 food and eating, 19, 67, 68, 70, 73, 78, 92, 94–95, 98, 103, 192, 200, 207, 238, 246 Fortes, Meyer, 264n4 Foucault, Michel, 5, 34, 170, 239 discourse, 59–60, 61–62, 81–82, 97, 255 governmentality, 58, 60–62, 92–94, 97–99, 250, 256–57 power, 60, 81–82, 97–99, 250 resistance, 82, 97–98, 99 on ‘the subject’, 60, 62, 99, 247 freedom, 55–58, 66–67, 187, 246–47 funerals, 68, 123, 191, 207–8, 211–12, 215, 222, 228, 272n19 Galanter, Marc, 134–35, 169 Geertz, Clifford, 3, 132–35, 159, 169 gender, 103, 104, 225, 240 German South West Africa, 33, 34, 35, 39, 63, 112, 259n2 corporal punishment in, 119 and Kaokoland, 29, 33, 36–37, 38, 63, 182, 190, 259n1, 262n2, 267n4 legal pluralism in, 112 see also Herero-German War Germany, 11, 83 see also German South West Africa; Herero-German War Geschiere, Peter, 9, 227–28 Gibson, Gordon, 231 globalisation, 6, 47, 52, 96, 180, 202, 215, 227–28, 246, 247–48

306

Index

government, 13–15, 23, 44, 50–52, 63–65, 81, 254 art of, see governmentality discourses on, 58–59, 61–66, 82 in/of the family, 61, 82, 93–97, 99–105, 128–31, 171, 198–201, 230–34, 238, 246, 256–57 Michel Foucault’s conceptualisation of, 60–61, 82, 170, 239, 247 and paternalism, 94–95, 99–100, 238, 250, 255–56 perspectives on, 18, 57–58, 66–80, 83–100, 120, 136, 147, 152–53, 154, 171, 187, 218–19, 238 see also colonialism; democracy and democratisation; SWAPO governmentality, 58, 60–62, 81–82, 92–94, 97–99, 256–57 in Kaokoland, 95–100, 250, 254–55 graves, 187, 205, 207–8, 209, 211–13, 228, 252, see also commemorations; funerals Gupta, Akhil, 3, 58–59 Hahn, Carl Hugo L. (Cocky), 36, 46, 121, 185–86, 261n17, 266n45 Hartley, George, 186 Hartley, Willem, 192–93 health and medical care, 14, 18, 41, 50, 57, 63, 67, 68, 73, 75, 84, 90, 193, 244 Herero double descent, 128–31, 231–32 history of, 32–34, 37, 187, 229 see also Herero-German War identity, 200–201, 221–22, 227, 260n6, 269n62, 272n19 national leadership, 64–66, 215–16 paramount chieftaincy, 195, 203, 215–19, 270n80 political party allegiances, 86, 195–98, 215–19 see also NUDO Herero-German War, 33, 182, 187, 191, 210, 267n1 Herero Representative Authority, 197–98 Herero Traditional Authority, 217 Himba, 74, 126, 168, 208, 221, 269n62 and anthropology, 20 customary law, 265n29, 266n52 and Epupa dam, 212–13 identity formation, 186, 188, 190–91, 217 origins of ethnonym, 183–84, 192 political party allegiances, 217 representations of, 37–38, 44, 124, 189, 191, 212, 221

Hindess, Barry, 81 historiography colonial, 31, 182, 260n7 land, graves and commemorations as, 207–9 and the Namibian State, 203–4, 209–10, 226–27, 252 writing of, 181–82, 205, 210–11, 219–220, 252, 260n6 history, 5, 253–54 colonial, 7, 30–34, 47–48, 64, 226, 252–53 corporal punishment in Namibia and Kaokoland, 118–22 discourse and, 61–62, 97 legal dualism in Namibia and Kaokoland, 112–118, 250–51, 264n3 memorialisation of the past, 196, 208, 228, 229 oral, 184–85, 186, 204, 211, 221, 226, 268n19, 270n75 and political imagination, 7–8, 27, 62, 237, 241–47, 249, 251–52, 254 as political instrument, 210–11, 212, 219–20, 226, 252 state formation in Africa, 30–31, 248 state formation in Namibia, 31–34, 48, 260n7 traditional leadership in Kaokoland, 180–220 identity, 100–102 ethnic, 180, 200, 227, 260n6, 269n62 national, 6, 47, 83, 111, 198–201 and political process, 48, 183–84, 190–95, 227 regional, 200–201 and the State, 9, 28, 35, 89, 227–28, 253 see also ethnicity; corporate belonging imagination, 5–7, 29, 82, 157 and anthropology, 5–7, 21, 258n4 colonial, 6–7, 35, 38, 45 and discourse, 58–62 legal, 132–35, 169–70 and marginality, 13 and paternalism, 110, 171, 237–39 spatial, 34 see also political imagination India, 58–59 indirect rule, 30, 113, 114, 184, 187–90, 252–53, 265n16, 269n45 Indonesia, 7, 11 inheritance (estate), 113, 115, 128, 130–31, 194–95, 200, 231, 270n78 International Court of Justice, 42, 43

Index

justice, 111, 112, 134–35, 165, 257 administration of, 109–176 models of, 159, 169–71, 238–39 Kameru Mumbuu, 79, 191 Kaokoland, 8, 205, 258n6 anthropology and ethnography in, 15, 20, 36, 37, 184, 211, 259n19 apartheid in, 46, 64, 77–80, 263n19 corporal punishment in, 119–22, 171 description of, 13–17 development, 4, 12, 13, 38, 71–74, 95, 190, 212–15, 219, 222, 246, 252, 253 economy, 38, 72, 179, 184, 212 under German colonial rule, 29, 33, 36–37, 38, 63, 182, 190, 259n1, 262n2, 267n4 history of legal dualism in, 112–18, 250–51, 264n3 Kaokoland-connected people, 8, 12, 20–21, 249 the ‘Kaokoland critique’ 58, 62–80, 83, 92–100, 238, 247 ‘Kaoko myth’, 15–17, 20, 37–39 militarisation of, 64–65, 66–67, 71, 85, 196, 263n22, see also war population, 13 pre-colonial history, 32, 34 regional identity, 200–201 under South African rule, 37–39, 40–41, 44–46, 63–66, 67–71, 77–80, 182–98, 241–46, 263n15 Kaokoland Tribal Council, 113, 189, 252 and adjudication of disputes, 113, 121 composition of, 186, 188, 190–91, 193 establishment of, 121, 185–88 Kaoko Land und Minengesellschaft, 36, 262n2 Kaoko Otavi, 85, 192–93, 194, 198 Kapuuo, Clemens, 64, 65, 195 Katiti, Muhona, 183–86, 221 and Vita Thom, 183–85 Kenya, 114, 261n29 kinship, 21, 25–26, 238 double descent, 128–31, 231–32, 266n53 and government, 76, 94–97, 99–100, 167, 238–40, 256–57 and political parties, 230–34 principles in Kaokoland, 100–105, 128–31, 168 see also eanda; matrilineage; oruzo; patrilineage Kozonguizi Report, 271n3 Kunene Region, 8, 18, 75, 258n6

307

description of, 13–15 development, 72 see also Kaokoland Kutako, Hosea, 229 labour, see contract labour land and land tenure, 13, 48–49, 52, 115, 130, 193, 207–8, 213, 224, 251–52 law, 132–35, 147, 153–54, 172 anthropology of, 109, 264n1 and culture, 132–35 and imagination, 7, 132–34, 169, 250 legal centralism, 110, 134 and paternalism, 24, 109, 159, 170–71, 238–39, 250 and power, 81–82 as social process in Kaokoland, 154, 169–71, 238–39 see also courts; customary law; legal pluralism; state law League of Nations, 39–40, 42, 243, 260n12 legal pluralism, 26, 109–18, 132–35 ambiguous nature of, 114–18, 172, 250–51 and apartheid, 111, 113–14, 171, 250 in colonial Africa, 111 and Constitution of the Republic of Namibia, 111, 115–16 and courts, see magistrate’s court; traditional court critique of, 172, 267n4 customary law, see customary law defined, 110 in German South West Africa, 112 history of in Namibia and Kaokoland, 112–18, 250–51, 265n3 vs. legal centralism, 110, 134 and Odendaal Commission Report, 113–14, 263n19 in South Africa, 111 in South West Africa, 112–14 as state effect, 171–73, 250–51, 255–56 state law, see state law study of, 110 see also law Lesotho, 11 liberalisation, 52, 180, 202, 227, 246 see also neo-liberalism liberalism, 96, 111, 240 see also neo-liberalism liberation struggle, see PLAN; SWAPO; war livestock disease control, 63, 68, 192, 193–94, 222 London Missionary Society, 35

308

Index

Lonsdale, John, 30, 258n3 Lower Kunene Hydropower Scheme, see Epupa dam project Machiavelli, Niccolò, 92–93, 97 magistrate’s court caseload, 125, 160 criticisms, 136, 147, 159–61, 171 description, 123–26 institutionalisation of in Kaokoland, 114, 117–18 jurisdiction, 112, 116, 118, 125, 265n33 Outjo, 44, 112–13 personnel, 125, 159–60, 264n8, 266n35 procedure, 117, 124, 125, 136, 137, 138, 139, 142, 160–64, 168–69, 172, 250, 266n52 sentencing, 116–17, 120, 136, 142–43, 144–46, 147, 159, 164 in South West Africa, 112–14, 143–44 The State v. Ephram Shipinge, 135–46 see also state law Maharero, house of, 207 Malan, Johannes, 232 Malkki, Liisa, 6 Mamdani, Mahmood, 30, 51, 52, 109, 111, 180, 228–30, 251, 262n46 Manning, C.N., 183–85, 267n5 margins and marginality, 11, 12, 13 in Kaokoland, 13–18, 20, 85, 214–15, 228, 254 marriage, 103, 104, 115, 128–29, 131, 210, 220–21, 231, 232 matriclan, see eanda matrilineage, 100–102, 128–31, 168, 222, 231, 254 Melber, Henning, 51, 228 memory and remembrance, 4, 78, 187, 208, 228, 229, 242, see also commemorations Merry, Sally Engle, 110 Mill, John Stuart, 240 missionaries, 12, 15, 34, 35, 36, 37, 42, 45, 184, 263n15 Mitchell, Timothy, 173 mothers and motherhood, 25, 85, 102–5, 131, 145, 167–68, 210, 267n58 Muharukua, Mbumbijazo, 206, 207, 209–10 Mureti Kaupangua, 206–7, 209–10, 271nn8–9 Namibia, 4–5, 262n41 anthropology of, 20, 31, 260n9 bureaucracy, 50 corporal punishment in, 118, 120, 122,

144, 146, 266n50 democratisation, 3–4, 48–51, 104, 111, 203, 225–26, 246, 254 economy, 48–49 elections, 15, 48, 50, 51, 88, 198, 225, 259n15, 263n23, 263n26, 271n11 geography, 32 independence, 56–58, 262n41 judiciary, 50, 160, 165 land reform, 48–49 language, 21 law, 111, 114–16, 264n3, 265n29 liberation struggle, see war national reconciliation, 48–49, 200, 262n42 political economy, 48–51, 262n41 pre-colonial history, 31, 32–33 state bifurcation, 51–52, 109 state formation, 31–34, 48, 63, 260n7 see also German South West Africa; South West Africa Nandy, Ashis, 241 nation, 6, 30, 199 Herero, 102, 199–201, 216, 231 Kaoko, 200–201 Namibian, 16, 50, 98, 175, 198–200, 239 nation-building, 22, 111, 158 see also omuhoko; otjiwana nationalism, 6, 247–48 Native Affairs Proclamation Number 15 of 1928, 112 Ndjai, Moses, 186 neo-liberalism, 5, 22, 47, 49, 96, 99, 214, 246–49, 254 NPF (National Patriotic Front), 197, 213–14 NUDO (National Unity Democratic Organisation) and DTA, 65, 195, 217–19, 227 election results, 259n15, 263n26 and ethnicity, 65–66, 217–19, 263n25 and traditional authorities, 217–19 Nugent, David, 254–55 Nujoma, Sam, 23, 65, 70, 72, 73–74, 76–77, 84, 85, 91, 92, 95–96, 199, 229, 262n44 Nyamnjoh, Francis, 227–28 Odendaal Commission, 36, 43, 64, 113–14, 263n19 Okanguati, 198, 213, 215 okuruwo (ancestral fire), 102, 104, 129, 130, 131, 264n4 omuhoko, 95–96, 100–102, 264n1, see also nation onganda, 102, 206, 209, 264n2

Index

Oorlams, 32, 33, 183, 221 opolitika, 223–25, 232 Opuwo, 73, 186–87 apartheid in, 77–80 courts, see magistrate’s court; traditional court demographics, 20, 259n17 description of, 12–15, 17–20, 104–5, 133 history of, 113–14, 187–88 militarisation of, 64–65, 263n21 population, 18, 259n17 oruzo (patriclan), 105, 128–31, 170, 205, 220, 232, 266n55, 267nn57–58 Otjikaoko Traditional Authority, 179, 202, 215–16 composition, 188, 221–22 and Epupa dam debate, 211–14 establishment, 206–7 genealogy, 184–85, 192, 194, 205–7, 209, 226 political party allegiances, 197–98, 206–7, 212–13, 217–19, 222, 227 recognition of, 214–15, 223 revival, 207–9 succession dispute, 209–10 otjiwana, 100–102, 127, 264n1, see also nation Outjo, 78, 79, 90–91, 112–13, 205 Ovambo, 74–77, 253 history of, 32–33 Ovamboland, 63–64, 72, 74, 83–85, 90–91, 112, 120–21, 185, 188, 263n15, 264n27, 264n29, 264n3 parentalism, 25, 100, see also paternalism parents and parenthood, 67, 101, 103–4, 239–40, 242–43, 246–47, 267n2 authority of, 24–25, 42, 68–70, 102–5, 120, 245 and government, 82, 93–97, 99–100, 171, 238, 246, 257 and the judicial process, 119, 170–71, 238–39 legal liability of, 117, 122, 167–68, 170 and political party loyalties, 85–86, 232–34, 239 see also fathers; mothers pass system, 41, 242 paternalism, 23–27, 39–46, 238–47, 259n21 and apartheid, 46, 244–47, 259n21 in colonial society, 24, 40–41, 241–46, 260n14, 260n15, 261n29 conflictual vs. cooperative, 39–41, 42, 240–41, 244 defined, 24–25

309

and dependence, 39–41, 103–4, 240, 244–47 in European history, 24, 42, 239–40, 246 and the family, 25–26, 94–95, 100–105, 128–31, 171, 198–201, 230–34, 239–41, 256–57, 260n14, 260n15, 264n4 and farm workers, 41, 90–91, 244, 260nn14–15, 261n16 and government, 94–95, 99–100, 238, 250, 255–56 and law, 24, 109, 159, 170–71, 238–39, 250 and the League of Nations, 39–40 as performance, 243–47 and political imagination, 23–24, 25, 26–27, 45–46, 110, 171, 237–39, 246–47, 257 and power, 244–47, 250 and protectionism, 45–46 reciprocal nature of, 240–41, 242, 244, 245–46 and the South African State, 39–46, 241–47, 260n14, 261n29 and traditional authorities, 239, 257 and violence, 241, 244–46 ‘paternalistic imprints’, 25–26, 100–105, 128–31, 157–58, 174–76, 198–201, 230–34, 239–40, 257 patriclan, see oruzo patrilineage, 96, 102–5, 128–31, 170, 206, 220, 230–33, 239, 254, 257 patrilocality, 100–105, 128, 130, 220, 239 Photographic Narratives Project, 16, 19, 26, 69, 73, 78, 93, 98, 101, 120, 129, 133, 165, 175, 187, 196, 199, 204, 224, 229 PLAN (People’s Liberation Army of Namibia), 23, 46, 65, 83, 85, 91, 195, 234, 259n11, 263n21 police, 14–15, 63, 67, 71, 76, 77, 89–90, 114, 120, 165 and corporal punishment, 69–70, 119–21, 143, 155 and judicial administration, 114, 116, 123–25, 136, 138, 146–48, 160–61, 163–64, 166–68 political imagination, 5–9 in anthropology, 6–7, 249 and discourse , 58–62, 245–46 and family, 256–57 and government, 26, 62, 99–100, 250, 255 and history, 7–8, 27, 62, 237, 241–47, 249, 251–52, 254

310

Index

and legal process, 26, 132–35, 159, 169–71, 250–51 and marginality, 13 methodology, 8–9, 16, 21, 25–26, 157–58, 174–76 and paternalism, 23–24, 25, 26–27, 45–46, 110, 171, 237–39, 246–47, 257 and photography, 16 and the State, 6–9, 21–22, 25–27, 28–29, 46, 62, 99, 132–35, 237, 247–55 political parties, 56 , 64–66, 74, 86 and chieftaincy dispute in Kaokoland, 195–98, 257 and ethnicity, 52, 217–19, 232 Herero, 86, 195–98, 215–19 Himba, 217 and kinship, 230–34 and Otjikaoko Traditional Authority, 197–98, 206–7, 212–13, 217–19, 222, 227 and parents and children, 85–86, 230, 232–34, 239 Tjimba, 217–19 and traditional authorities and leaders, 48, 167, 195–98, 208, 213–14, 215–19, 223–26, 230, 233–34, 251, 271n16 and Vita Royal House Traditional Authority, 197–98, 213–14 see also DTA; SWAPO; NPF; NUDO political science, 47, 110, 229, 248 power, 30, 39, 92–93, 120, 129, 180, 223–26, 238 ambiguity as modality of, 82, 237, 252–57 and law, 81–82, 114, 165, 173 Michel Foucault on, 60–62, 81–82, 97–99, 250 and paternalism, 244–47, 250 and ritual, 208 state, 13, 29, 31–32, 34, 47, 51, 180–81, 198, 226–30, 250–51, 254–57 traditional authorities, 40–41, 68–70, 115, 148, 166, 186, 189–90, 198, 204, 233, 250–51, 252–53 president, 72–74, 95–96, 102, 165, 214, 224 see also Sam Nujoma race and racism, 22, 24, 35, 40, 42–43, 48–49, 50, 52, 78, 79, 88, 111, 174–76, 180, 191, 200, 239, 258n10, 262n46, see also apartheid Ranger, Terence, 7 reciprocity, 86, 226, 240–41, 242, 245–46 ‘Red Line’, 34–35, 112, 264n4 resistance, 81, 82, 97–98, 99

Rhenish Mission, 35 Riruako and 46 Others vs. the Minister of Regional, Local Government and Housing and the President, 215–16, 218, 271n16 Riruako, Kuaima, 197–98, 215–17, 218, 219, 270n80 Rose, Nikolas, 96, 98 San, 32, 33, 45–46, 221, 261n37 schools, 14, 18, 50, 63, 67, 69, 75, 79, 83, 84, 90, 103, 196, see also education Scott, David, 39 Scott, James, 28 second tier authorities, 195–97, 270n79, see also Herero Representative Authority segregation, 35, 40, 46, 79, 111, see also apartheid South Africa, 47–48, 49 colonisation of South West Africa, see South West Africa and corporal punishment, 266n36 law, 266n34 legal pluralism in, 111 and paternalism, 244, 246, 260n14, 261n29 traditional leaders in, 225–26, 271n5 South West Africa, 35–46, 87–89, 261n25 anthropology and ethnography in, 35–36, 37, 226, 260n9 corporal punishment in, 69–70, 91, 119–22, 143–44, 146, 241–42, 245 customary law in, 112–114 indirect rule in Kaokoland, 182–198 League of Nations Mandate, 39–40, 42, 243, 260n12 legal pluralism in, 112–14 magistrate’s court, 112–14, 143–44 and paternalism, 42–46, 58, 244–46 political economy, 40–41, 48 spatial planning in, 34–35, 37 state formation, 33–34 traditional courts in, 112–14 see also apartheid South West Africa Commission, 42 Soviet Union, 9 Spencer, Jonathan, 7 State, 247–48, 258n1 in Africa, 30–32, 46–48, 50, 180, 226, 228–30, 248, 262n46 ambiguous nature of, 25, 118, 181, 254–57, 271n5 anthropology of, 9–12, 27, 58–59, 229–30, 237, 248–49, 258n8 bifurcation, 27, 51–52, 109, 111, 180, 202, 228–30, 250–51, 262n46

Index

and civil society, 47, 59, 173, 214–15, 246, 254–56 and culture, 11, 48, 52, 61, 100, 134–35, 228, 242, 248–49, 251 effects, 5, 171–73, 250–51, 255–56 ethnography of, 1, 3, 5, 8–9, 10–12, 27, 28, 30, 58–59, 229–30, 237, 248–49, 251, 258n1, 258n8 governmentality, 60–62, 81–82, 92–94, 97–99, 256–57 historical studies of, 30–31, 248 and history-making, 226, 252 and identity, 9, 28, 35, 89, 227–28, 253 law, see state law; legal pluralism margins, 11, 12, 13 methodological issues in studying, 3, 10–12, 16, 20–22, 25, 59, 157–58, 174–76, 181, 211, 219–20, 229–30 origins of, 4, 9, 258n3, 258n7 and paternalism, see paternalism and political imagination, 6–9, 21–22, 25–27, 28–29, 46, 62, 99, 132–35, 237, 247–55 and political science, 7, 47, 229, 248 power and authority of, 13, 29, 31–32, 46–47, 50, 51, 60–62, 81–82, 111, 172, 180–81, 226–30, 243, 250–53, 254–57 and society, 10, 62, 171, 173, 254–56 technologies of, 5, 7, 8, 28–29, 34–39, 249, 253 theories of, 4–5, 9–10, 172–73 trusteeship, 39–40 see also German South West Africa; Namibia; South West Africa; state formation state formation, 9, 248, 258n3 and colonialism in Africa, 30–32, 180 Kaokoland, 63–64 and legal pluralism, 111 Namibia, 30–34, 48 state law, 125 case law, 115, 125 common law, 115, 125 constitutional law, see Constitution of the Republic of Namibia corporal punishment under, 104, 119–20, 122, 143–44, 146 and customary law, 111, 112, 115–17, 118, 172, 173 High Court of Namibia, 122, 145, 165, 216, 217, 265n27, 265n32, 271n16 reform, 48, 50, 110, 250, 262n46 Roman-Dutch law, 112, 125 The State v. Ephram Shipinge, 135–46 statutory law, 115, 125

311

see also magistrate’s court Steinmetz, George, 35 Strathern, Marilyn, 240 SWAPO (South West Africa People’s Organisation and/or Swapo Party) economic policy, 49, 57 election results, 15, 51, 259n15 and Epupa dam project, 212–13 and ethnicity, 75–76, 187, 232 in Kaokoland, 195 and liberation struggle, 64–66, 196, see also war and memory-work, 228 and national reconciliation, 48–49 party loyalty, 83–85, 91–92, 234 People’s Liberation Army of Namibia, see PLAN repression, 51, 262n44 and state reform, 52 and traditional authorities, 213–16, 219, 271n16 Tanzania, 6 Taussig, Michael, 6–7, 12, 258n1 Taylor, Charles, 6 Thom, Kapuka, 184–85, 204–5, 211, 213, 214, 217, 220, 230–31 Thom, Vita , 179, 182–86, 231, 267n6 death and (re)burial of, 186, 205, 208, 209 migration of, 182, 184–85, 221 and Muhona Katiti, 183–85 protection agreement with South African Administration, 182–83, 241–42, 243 Tjavara, Uziruapi, 205–6, 209–10, 211, 214, 215–16, 217, 220, 224, 230–31 Tjimba, 37, 45, 46, 186, 188, 190–93, 221, 272n19 identity formation, 192–93, 194, 206, 219–20, 221, 227, 269n62 origins of ethnonym, 183–84, 192, 217–18, 270n69 political party allegiances, 217–19 ‘traditional authority’, 217–220, 222, 254 tradition, 7, 37, 42–43, 69, 114, 180, 223, 269n45 ambiguous nature of, 118, 253–54 apolitical construction of, 213–14, 223–26 and colonial rule, 42–43, 51 and family, 104, 129, 210 in law, 115–16 as political resource, 208, 212, 218, 225, 226–27, 252 Traditional Authorities Act, 115–16, 122, 203, 218, 223, 271n2

312

Index

traditional authorities and leaders, 40–41, 63, 74, 179–81, 209, 214–15, 256 as adjudicators, 52, 89–90, 117, 126–28, 147, 152, 161, 165–67, 172 apolitical construction of, 213–14, 223–26, 253 authority of, 31–32, 40, 51, 68–69, 121, 128, 172, 186, 188–90, 204, 207–8, 221, 223, 225–26, 230–31, 250–53, 256 and corporal punishment, 120–22, 266n50 and development, 212–15 elections, 166, 189, 197, 206–7, 210, 223, 254 étatisation of, 250–51, 256 ethnic construction of, 220–22, 227–28 headman appointments in Kaokoland, 192–93, 197–98, 215 history of in Kaokoland, 180–220 and history-making, 226, 252 and paternalism, 239, 257 and political partisanship, 48, 167, 195–98, 208, 213–14, 215–19, 223–26, 230, 233–34, 251, 271n16 recognition and legitimation of, 185, 188–90, 203–20, 224, 252–53 in South Africa, 225–26, 271n5 and state bifurcation, 51–52, 180, 228–30, 250–51, 262n46 succession to office, 130, 210, 220, 253–54 see also chieftaincy dispute; Council of Traditional Leaders; customary law; Kaokoland Tribal Council; Otjikaoko Traditional Authority; Traditional Authorities Act; traditional court; Vita Royal House Traditional Authority traditional court, 89, 115–16 criticisms, 90, 147, 151–52, 165–67 description, 126–28 and family members of disputants, 164–65, 167–68, 170–71, 267n3

Ferndo Kovere v. Theo Musya, 146–57 jurisdiction, 116, 118, 166, 265n33 personnel, 126, 154, 159–60 procedure, 116, 126–28, 136, 138, 147–48, 149–50, 151–52, 154, 160–61, 166–69, 172 sentencing, 120–21, 122, 136, 144, 145, 146, 147, 155–56, 159, 167, 168–69, 266n50 in South West Africa, 112–14 see also customary law traditional law, see customary law Trouillot, Michel-Rolph, 173–74 Tshimhaka, 63 Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt, 7, 11, 13 Turnhalle Conference, 195 United Nations, 42, 65, 229, 263n23 Vedder, Heinrich, 36, 37, 184, 260n10, 261n17 Vita Royal House Traditional Authority, 179, 202 composition, 193, 221–22 and Epupa dam debate, 211–14 genealogy of, 184–85, 194, 211–12, 226 political party allegiances, 197–98, 213–14 recognition of, 204–5, 214–15, 223 revival, 205, 211 voting, 88, 91, 213–14, 225, 233–34, 241, 262n42, see also elections Wallace, Michael, 245 war, 4, 9, 23, 50, 56, 73, 89, 187, 200, 225 in Kaokoland, 64–65, 66–67, 71, 85, 196, 263n21 see also Herero-German War Warmelo, N.J. van, 20, 37, 121, 259n18, 260n11, 271n8 Weber, Max, 50, 81 Wilson, Richard, 111 Windhoek, 20–21, 95, 124, 165, 187, 267n57 Wolputte, Steven van, 190, 267n58