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