The Language Plumber as Public Intellectual

 and the kuka-shop owner as BEE magnate

Let’s see what deep and far-reaching thoughts Hengari conveys to the nation this week. The title “A Nation At The Perceptual Level Of Consciousness” leaves me already stunned. What is a perceptual level of consciousness? Is it a perceived level of consciousness or the perceptible unconsciousness? Is this educated elegance or screaming bullshit? It is what I call a fully-fledged hengarium.

Black men have a great affinity to ‘show off’. They believe if they wear a black suit and shiny shoes they deserve the respect of the people, they are respected as a man, what is already an expression of superiority in paternalistic black culture. The same goes for cars, cellphones, girlfriends and titles. Black man does not care what is behind the façade. For instance if he parks his Mercedes at night behind a corrugated shag or if he has to ‘borrow’ N$ 50 from the girlfriend to buy fuel for the car (the Americans call this “nigger rich”) I hope we don’t get a racism debate on this one. Also the ‘ladies’ know this culture.

Otherwise he talks about quality standards and excellence.

Now let’s scrutinize the ‘qualitymeister’s’ claims for excellence. He pops up everywhere as “Public Intellectual”. Wikipedia says:” the role of the public intellectual is addressing and responding to the problems of his or her society as the voice of the people with neither the ability nor the opportunity to address said problems in the public fora. Hence, they must "rise above the partial preoccupation of one’s own profession”. Now ask the ‘silent majority’ if they feel properly represented by Hengari or if he fits this role by any standards.

The next question is who gave him this title of Public Intellectual? I guess it is very much of his own whims. The same goes for his Intellectuality. Where is the peer reviewed proof of his intellectual value? What qualifies him to advice anybody on something?

So what is Hengari anyway? He is a student! And not even a good one. Good students finish their thesis with26 or 28 and not with 40. Then- what he knows all too well- there are hundreds and thousands of students of his calibre at universities all over the world, he is really nothing special by comparison. The only thing that makes him special is that he sells his mountain dew in the desert to people who have never been in the mountains. He is successful, because he is an evangelist of his education and like most evangelists he becomes a clown after the umpteenth repetition. IMHO his real talents lie in marketing; he should become a copywriter in an advertising agency or establish his own church.

But back to his column. Hengari is whining that he is forced into a banal and senseless debate about his writing style. Did he ever do some reading about the inter-dependencies of form and contents? Let me give an example for illustration: when you are a music teacher and want to introduce your students to[the language of] “serious” European music you don’t start with Stockhausen but with maybe Mozart. In the first case your kwaito boys would shower you with rotten vegetables.

Another metaphor: you know the story of the emperor’s new cloth. His wife, the empress is very sick and skinny [maybe TB]. When she goes out she puts on seven underskirts, pairs of socks in her bra and cotton wool rolls in her cheeks (those the dentists use). A careful make-up with the biggest hat completes her healthy-looks outfit.

            Hengari complains about the low level of the intellectual debate in Namibia and demands more sophistication. What he does is the sophistication of the above mentioned empress – with his style he kills the debate, because the point of discussion drowns in the surge of decorative baloney. For instance his ‘analysis’ that the low intellectual level in Namibia stems from the “animalistic (you want to call us baboons?) obsession with uniformity” is not a thorough insight or deep thought but pseudo-intellectual claptrap.

It would be very interesting to discuss the roots of Namibian anti-intellectualism, to find out why it exists and what can be done to change it. But instead of contributing to this debate he wraps it in a smokescreen.

Regarding his mess up from June 17, where he outed himself as a proponent of racism, xenophobia and censorship to the degree that the head of  NAMRIGHTS, Phil ya Nangoloh, had to tell him ‘kack’. He summons now the ‘flea circus’ to his support in the person of Job S Amupanda writing an embarrassingly dumb letter “Becker has no clue”. (There seems to be a nest of “public black intellectuals” hatched by the hen Hengari) Amupanda didn’t even indicate that he has an intellect to speak of. If Amupanda ever reaches half my intellectual clue, I will send him a bunch of flowers (but hurry up boy, you only have 25 - 30 years left). I would count it already as racism to defend a ‘brother’ on reasons of pigmentation instead on merit or reason.

While I thought about Hengari I got an association of Dr Tobi Aupindi, someone who also walks in shoes too big. To me it seems symptomatic of the second Namibian generation (the first one being the struggle generation, the second the rip off generation) that they are always looking for a shortcut. While the normal way in life is to grow step by step making experiences and achieve proficiency many of them like to jump the queue. This seems to me one big problem of the BEE concept. Real life competence is not a voluntary act, but achieved by work. These ‘instant millionaires’ of the BEE making don’t help the economy, because they are mostly not competent businessmen. Very often they only destroy competing small enterprises, because they have easy access to money and don’t need to make profits while living from kickbacks, corrupted tenders or subsidies. Too often they are just satisfied with their positions by entitlement and become passive consumers.

If Hengari were[was?] genuinely interested in a lively intellectual debate, he would work a little bit and put some hard scientific facts and theories on the table instead of lazily just spitting out his gut feelings about the state of the nation. This way all his expensive education will be wasted. He knows exactly with these low level speculations he serves us here he could only play the harlequin in Paris.

I would like to challenge Mr Hengari (and Mr Amupanda for that matter) to give us some answers to the legitimate questions he asked and to tell us “the bigger story about where we are in terms of some of the issues that matter as a country…: Why is Namibia profoundly anti-intellectual and intellectually lazy?”(and what to do against it).  I want to read some crystal clear sentences and not only hot air. I will also answer this question and would welcome anybody else to come forward with an informed opinion. Maybe then we can see on the marketplace of ideas who is a babble-head or a public intellectual (Namibia-sized anyway). Let’s give us half a year, because we all have some other commitments. Until 26. December, merry Christmas.

perceptive =  1. of or relating to perception

perceptual = of or relating to the act of perceiving 

                   2. having the ability to perceive or understand; keen in discernment

perceived =    1. detected by instinct or inference rather than by recognized perceptual cues

 2. detected by means of the senses

perceptible =  1. capable of being perceived by the mind or senses

2.    easily perceived by the senses or grasped by the mind

3.    easily seen or detected

Latest update on Hengari

On Friday 24. June the Namibian printed my letter (as already posted). They always delete my sexual slander. It looks as if they don't like sex. In Namibia it is not allowed to talk about sex only one man is: The Rambler. But I am not jealous because this still unknown person (I believe it's a guy) is good, one of my favorite, much ,much better than this Trantüte of Hengari. My old and tested estimation that I shouldn't deal with people who obviously don't have any humor proofs to be very true.But there were two other letters which I liked: The first one from Phil ya Nangoloh the director of NAMRIGHTS, the Human Rights watchdog and another one which is quite funny from a guy named Amadeo.There was also one from Hengaris foot soldiers, I will deal with him later.

About Racism in Namibia

Since I have been publicly accused of racism in a very paranoid and unfounded manner, I came to the conclusion to look into the matter of racism more carefully. I don’t take the accusations lightly because racism is a very pressing matter in Namibia and to be a racist is a serious moral infringement. But for a white man to talk about racism means to walk the slippery slope.

Racism is widely ignored or swept under the carpet in present Namibia, because the official doctrine of reconciliation discourages the open discussion. But racism is rampant in every day live and there is still a lot of injustice, discrimination and suffering in this regard. The reconciliation doctrine also suppresses the perception of reality: reconciliation is embraced by only a very few, predominant is the view it’s ‘payback time’. I fully understand these feelings. They are very basic, after an experience of the enormity of Apartheid the victims cannot just go back to business as usual. The Jews could not, nor can the Hereros and Namas after the genocide. There is a strong urge for retribution. But under the reconciliation doctrine these needs have to go underground and manifest them only clandestine. What is happening nowadays in Namibia is guerrilla-racism. It only rears its ugly head from time to time publicly in emotional outbursts like the hammering of the British promised by the Founding Father or the expropriation of the Wiese farm.  Also the admiration for the Zimbabwean disaster belongs in this category. I think it was a critical omission of the post-independent society to address these needs, which now haunts public and private life. I don’t demand a ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission’ now after 21 years, but the measures introduced by government like ‘Affirmative Action’ and BEE did not contribute to reconciliation; it rather created new injustices against the masses of the victims. Maybe it quenched the thirst for retribution among the new instant millionaires; and it created a new form of racism between the Black Fat Cats and the Hungry Majority. But the feelings of injustice from the Apartheid era and the time after Independence are smoldering and there is the danger that they will flare one day.

But the traditional racism, the discrimination against blacks by white Namibians is still a bitter reality.  Its most relevant expression is of course economic discrimination, which didn’t improve after independence, but even got worse.

 Namibia is still very much a province of South Africa economically. Most goods are imported from there. The historic ties between the former ‘ruling tribe’, the ‘Boers’ or Afrikaners as they like to be called in Namibia and South Africa are at work and functional. This way the economic elite stay in place and cement their position. They of course also use their guerilla tactics. Until now they were able to rule the country by economic power, supported by cultural imperialism. A screaming injustice in Namibia is that workers and employees in the lower ranks are always underpaid (members of other tribes are excluded from higher ranks). This culture of exploitation is very similar to the one during the industrial revolution in Europe, typical early capitalism style. The emerging black economy is perpetuating this mode. Black businesspeople are very greedy and lack any sort of social consciences. They always stress the African culture of ‘sharing’, but this is only true for kinship and they give just alms (peanuts). Also the state refuses to support the neediest and it rejects basic welfare measures (BIG) with ridiculous arguments.

 One can hardly get a job or pursue business without speaking Afrikaans. The Boers insist on their language and culture and undermine the assimilation of Namibians into an integrated nation. Although the government intended to create a monolingual population, the implementation is very sloppy. There are still many schools where Afrikaans is the medium and the now ruling tribe is also not very keen to learn English.

But besides the dirty hard facts of material life there are also ways of discriminating on a mental or psychological level. For instance the Boers generally disrespect black people, grown men are called “boys” and any black is treated as a minor. It is true, that many blacks lack education and knowledge in even basic fields, but that doesn’t mean you must treat them all like morons. The apartheid mentality within the white population is still alive and is nourished. Most whites are far away from the idea to reconcile with the ‘kaffirs’ and as long as they have the economic leverage, they don’t see the necessity. They enjoy for instance jokes like this: “What does it take to turn a tourist into a racist? … Five minutes!”

In my opinion the majority of the white population is very shortsighted and careless. Because I cannot see any alternative to reconciliation, which consequently means the rich must give up some of their economic power and wealth voluntarily. The only alternative would be the Zimbabwean way, which is no solution because of destructive consequences and prohibitive costs.

What Namibia needs is a rational discourse about the coexistence of the tribes and races and the just distribution of the wealth of the country. In this regard it is not a good idea of the powers that be to shower their cronies with money and pay comrades exorbitant salaries or bring in Chinese companies, who pay their local employees even worse than the Namibians.

I am always surprised how seemingly endless the ability to suffer is in the Namibian population. In most other nations people would have staged already a revolution. If the relevant parties in society don’t engage in some radical changes, they will most probably find themselves at the receiving end of the change. Therefore an emotional whining about racism is useless and childish (Alfredo).

I guess if income and lifestyle would be more evenly distributed, then also the cultural forms of racial discrimination will diminish. Already today one can see that mutual respect among people increases with comparability of income. Education will adapt to more equal levels and the tribal cultures will hopefully melt into a common Namibian culture. Many other cultures have undergone this transformation and reached a unified identity. Therefore every tribe must be able to give up some identity and try to reform its partly millennia old habits and traditions. Every Namibian must modernize and put cultural traditions in a space where they don’t hurt: into folklore and museums. In the ages of globalization the feelings that one family, one clan or one tribe is superior or should dominate any other one must be put aside. In Namibia this must be initiated with the abolishment of authoritarian partiarchism. Yes, guys you must give up your useless macho behavior (I’m a man! I’m a man!). This is the most basic discrimination in society and it starts with parents not discriminating against their girls and promoting boys.

Hengari calls me a racist

I have decided to start my own blog. The immediate occasion is an article in The Namibian newspaper of Friday June 17, 2011. It is written by the political columnist Alfredo T. Hengari with the Title:  “On thinking, language and racism”. It is an installment of his weekly column “Post  ̴Scriptum”. I just checked the website of The Namibian  to provide a link to the opinion piece, but there wasn’t one. Maybe the editors of The Namibian didn’t post it (yet), because it is controversial. [here] In this direction hints also that the “editor in transition” Tangeni Amupadhi called me on Thursday evening to warn me about Hengari’s outburst and assured me that I have the right to publish a reply. This way I found out, who will be the next editor in chief of The Namibian. This position was advertised for quite some time, because Gwen Lister, the founder and editor for 25 years wants obviously to move on. I was wondering who would be able to follow this most prolific icon of Namibian journalism.

Hengari’s outburst  was the reaction on my reader’s letter from 10. June 2011, which I submitted under the title: “Post  ̴Scriptum” but was published as:

Please write for the man in the streets

I really enjoy the opinion pages in the weekend edition of the
Namibian, they are actually my main motivation to buy the paper. But I
have a problem with Mr. Hengari. While I mostly agree with what he
writes I disagree sharply how he writes. I think it is really bad
journalism to deliver seminary papers in a newspaper. I know how
excited one can get about one’s education, especially when one comes
from an education hostile environment. But to smear it all the time
into your readers face is more than impolite. I think we all know by
now that he is a PhD- fellow at Panthéon-Sorbonne and he can drop the
public masturbation. This style doesn’t serve the reader, it only
serves himself. I wonder if many of the ‘Doctors’ in State House or
in the August House understand what he is saying.
In my opinion the purpose of writing an opinion piece is to influence
or form an opinion in a population and this is what Mr Hengari fails
to do. Therefore I plead [that] the Namibian replaces him with somebody who
can write for the nation or Mr Hengari changes his style: not more
than 2 words which don’t even show up in the dictionary per article
and no name dropping. For instance, nobody gives a sh*@th about John
Rawls or Amartya Sen. Then he should learn to call a spade a spade
instead of making cryptic hints about a thing.

An example from his 3. June column: there is nothing shocking about
the remarks of Mr. Aochamub. It is perfectly normal Namibian populism
as anybody knows. The shocking scandal is that many Namibians are
‘born’ SWAPO members as they are ‘born’ ELCIN members or Catholics.
The scandal is that most Namibians are doubly brainwashed for the
advancement of the nation and the eradication of the consequences of
Apartheid. Mr.  Aochamub knew exactly what he was doing and he doesn’t
care about Mr. Hengari’s irrelevant formulations.
P.S. from a senior citizen: Please, Alfredo get your PhD, print it on
your business card and become a normal man, who can talk to the man in
the street.
Jochen Becker, Windhoek

It was slightly edited (the underlined part was deleted). My letter was related to Hengari’s last column, but was an expression of my estimation on all his writings. http://www.namibian.com.na/columns/full-story/archive/2011/june/article/waiting-for-common-sense-leadership-at-public-institutions/

Obviously he didn’t like it a bit. My reply, which I submitted already on Friday morning was the following:

A Man Full of Himself

Dear Columnist. (Reply to A.T. Hengari’s Post Scriptum form 17.06.2011)

I am not 100% sure if your reply to my letter was a clever move. You just tried to crucify one of your last three fans in Namibia (hope there are some French girls left). You seem to suffer from one rampant Namibian weakness: you can’t take criticism at all. It is not an admired quality to be sensitive like a little girl when one is a critic. Remember you are not (yet) the president of Namibia or the pope and therefore uncriticizable. But if you ever played with the thought to become a politician, then you should start immediately to grow a thicker skin, otherwise you will make your psychiatrist rich. Confirmation wise your reaction proofs I hit the bull’s-eye! And I know from experience if a black man plays the race card he is out of arguments and this is what I call reverse racism. This time you lost it. You are badly hurt and try to compensate with arrogance but you are only ridiculous.

Your thorough analysis might appear probably not only to me somehow racist and xenophobic. Therefore I dare to edit them into your Wikipedia article for posterity to remember. But let me give you some consolation: when I was studying Sociology and Politics at Hamburg University (admittedly no comparison to 1 Pantheon- Sorbonne) I was also talking like you (proud like a peacock) and pissing off all the hot chicks.  But with age (and an able psychiatrist) I overcame it. I hope when you reach my age and gain some emotional stability a mild grin will play around the edges of your mouth, when you remember our exchange. Hey, man get a girlfriend and some real sex.

Jochen Becker, Windhoek

I guess what infuriated him, was that: “Therefore I plead [that] the Namibian replaces him with somebody who can write for the nation.”  That someone can doubt his ability to talk to his own people pushed a very sensitive button. Hengari is a lifelong overachiever and naturally doesn’t get the deserved recognition and is simultaneously haunted by the question if it was really enough, a vicious circle he is trapped in. The only way out is a vicious attack at the one who doesn’t appreciate him enough. And the easiest weapon lying around is racism. Of course he doesn’t care about the epistemology (one of his favorite words), the truth or justification of his ranting. Here his emotional disturbances supersede his intellectual prowess. IMHO this leads us to the core of the problem. Racism is very much an emotional issue, why it is difficult to discuss it rationally. It is also very basic in terms of human evolution, because it springs from the thread of family, kinship, tribe, people, and nation. Thus it is insufficient to see it in the black and white dichotomy, but it is the topic in question, specifically racial discrimination of people of color by whites. This is indeed an important topic in the Namibian context; I don’t need to mention Apartheid, which is still a very vivid memory of many people and will not be forgotten for a long time. Whoever talks about racism in Namibia has to respect and take into account that people carry deep wounds and scars of the oppression.

The fact of racism in Namibia is seldom discussed openly, usually an ostrich behavior is applied or it is plainly denied. But of course it is very present in everyday life. The severest is economic racism. The core problem of the Namibian society is the wide gap between the rich and the poor. If Hengari would turn his attention on this he would be more relevant.

So what exactly is he accusing me of?

1.      that I want to dictate how he as a black Namibian should write to his Namibian audience and he goes even further to ask for protection of this inherent racism through censorship by the newspaper. Let’s stay for a moment with the explicit, I was saying: “This style doesn’t serve the reader, it only serves himself”. To turn this into a racist dictate on how a columnist (n.b. he is not an ordinary journalist) must address his audience needs already a lot of paranoia.

2.      Of condescending racial thinking, that a white man knows more what the blacks in the streets understand about the black columnist’s writings. Here I dare to say - yes - Alfredo I believe I understand better than you what the man in the street understands of your writings, not because I am white, but because I live with the people and you have lost touch with them long time ago. You are an elitist individual, who hovers high over the hoi polloi, the common people, who even doesn’t mingle with journalists. And here you confirm the very common prejudice of most black Namibians that Hereros are fucking arrogant bastards. (This is of course another colour of racism called tribalism).

3.       He accuses me of intoning “that blacks only pursue doctoral studies in order to put these titles on business cards”. I did not write anything like this! Here Hengari’s paranoia strikes again. When I made the remark he should get his title (and consequently print it on his business cards) I thought about for how long we are reading week in week out, that he is a PhD candidate. Hey, this man is almost 40 years old and still pursues an adolescent lifestyle and mind-set.

4.      He accuses me of criticizing his intellectual honesty by naming the sources of his profound arguments. This is the dishonest try of malicious misunderstanding. I was criticizing him of “name dropping”, which is a technique known by most students and all con-men to impress their audience. If it is necessary in the context of a discourse to disclose one’s inspirators it is naturally OK. But to name Nelson Mandela, Hosea Kutako and Sam Nujoma among many, many others looks to me more like collecting of brownie points than an inherent necessity.

Conclusion:

With this week’s column Hengari stoops too low, he forgot the thinking while he was writing; he is a dishonest person and an intellectual buffoon. He uses the race card out of ulterior motives and tries to slander my name because I criticized his writing style, which he definitely doesn’t want to give up, because this seems to be the only thing he has. He might have read a lot of books and memorized many funny words, but his analyses mostly only scratch the surface (that’s what I meant by saying he should call a spade a spade). He styles himself as a superior intellectual, but I think Namibia has sharper brains (e.g. Hengari will never reach the level of his teacher Joseph Diescho) Another example, where I gave my comment is his opinion on Kazenambo’s morality regarding prostitutes. http://www.namibian.com.na/columns/full-story/archive/2010/october/article/kazenambo-neglected-the-ethics-of-his-ministry-on-prostitution/ and my reply: Give Their Dignity Back: here

Proposal:

I think, if The Namibian would advertise a Weekly Column competition and pay Hengari’s salary to the winner, we would get some more interesting reading and discussion than now. This competition could be open to the general public and ask especially young professionals and students to give their views on pressing matters. A jury of journalists, academics and public personalities could select the winner.  It could become the equivalent of the Namibian Newspaper Cup for critical thinking in Namibia. Think about it Tangeni.