National Prayer Day and Violence

I had a discussion about the National Prayer Day with an Owambo atheist (no, he is not a fictional character). Of course he condemned it as wrong. I admire this guy for his success in wrestling religious faith, which is a big intellectual achievement, especially in an environment where everybody always praise the Lord and religion. It affords big efforts to abandon traditions and beliefs and develop new ones. That is, because traditions and beliefs are quasi inbred. We acquire them as children from our parents and other role models, before we are able to form our own worldview. But why should we change traditions when our forefathers fared well with them? Simply because they became dysfunctional. They disturb the social fabric of a society, they bring conflicts in our communities. Traditions are based on experience and knowledge often many thousand years old.

The world has changed since the times when only a few millions of humans inhabited the planet. Only human knowledge has doubled in the last two hundred years and it will double again in the next few decades. That has taught us there is no eternal wisdom, we are forced to lifelong learning and adaption. The same goes for morality! Or would anyone still condone the ethics of the Old Testament with a malicious, jealous, revengeful God who wants people to be stoned (no, not from green) and crucified (maybe except Sam Nujoma)? We also had to learn that punishment and prohibition seldom to never improved the situation, more so mostly deteriorates it. Violence yields more violence and fear reaps anger and rage. This is especially true for “passion killings”. The so called justice does not bring the dead back or true consolation. Revenge is not sweet.

So what else cold we do?

Firstly abstain from violence. The Namibian constitution does not allow corporal punishment. Parents, elders, teachers don't beat children. I know most people see a good beating as an essential tool of education – it is not. This is a tradition that is highly damaging. Another one is the myth of the brave warrior who draws honour and reputation from killing enemies. One can only kill an enemy by pacifying him.

The biggest enemy of Namibian people is poverty. How could poverty be pacified?

Easy! Take one third of the military budget and give every Namibian an income of N$ 1.500, children, mothers, unemployed, pensioners, low income workers. The military is not essential to Namibian society. Namibia is under no immediate exterior threat. The NDF is a toy for the old brave warriors and directed only against internal threats. So why burn money for them. A basic income grant would do wonders to the local economy, it will flow directly into consumption instead the international weapon dealers. It will also upend society and the power balance. A single mother with three children and a monthly budget of N$ 6.000 will not be beaten up or killed easily. Instead of being drained by the daily struggle for life she will resist abuse and the security guard, frustrated from his tedious job will not break into a house or steal a friend's cellphone. It would improve the Gini coefficient of Namibia enormously and government would earn international accolade.

But instead of doing something reasonable government resorts to prayer. That means in strait language they don't want to change anything, they are in love with the status quo. They enjoy being superior to the ordinary people instead of promoting the common wellbeing. What would Jesus do?