The horse, the past and the hipocrisy

So while the nation was busy tucking into their salads and enjoying the festive season. The Reiterdenkmal statue was removed under police guard. Why it was removed under the cover of night in a “hush-hush” top secret manner that sounds like something out of a TV series is anyone’s guess. “This monument is a symbol of victory on the side of the Germans. This monument means ‘we have defeated them’. The horse rider must be removed,” said President Hifikepunye Pohamba at last year’s Heroes day commemoration. 

Before the Reiterdenkmal was moved to its previous position it was first removed to make way for the national museum. I remember that great care was taken during the removal not to damage the statue at a great cost, the national museum was built by a Chinese company: also at a great cost. That museum looks like one of my wisdom teeth, from a 30 degree angle it looks like a spaceship from Babylon 5: it’s a hideous blot on the capital’s skyline. Do you see the trend? So we are satisfied with blotting our landscapes with aesthetically displeasing infrastructure, no part of this actually benefits the ordinary Namibian anyways. How does removing the Reiterdenkmal contribute to improving Education, Health care and Employment creation? It’s better to have left that statue where it was originally, it would have saved the government at least N$100 million that could have been used for something more beneficial to Namibians.

The statue of the founding president Dr Sam Nujoma was made in Korea, also at a cost. So it looks like the whole purpose of this crusade is to waste taxpayer’s money under the pretence of removing signs of the colonial past. Some guy in North Korea pockets a load of money for making a statue that looks like the cars that KIA motors were making before they poached their new head designer from AUDI. Are we saying that there are no Namibians that can make statues, are we saying there are no local construction companies that can build museums? 

Why are more statues not being erected in Katutura? That’s where most of our people reside. In the run up to election year, be sure to expect more publicity stunts of the same nature, as politicians do everything to convince the voting public that they are actually doing more than just sleeping in parliament. But what are we teaching the future generations though? That’s it is okay to blot out pieces of history that we deemed inappropriate? If it irks you, just get a bulldozer and remove it? It’s almost as if we just slowly pulled away the hand of national reconciliation. It’s clear there are still remnants of bottled emotions from the past lingering around. A friend of mine said “We were all preaching Madiba's spirit of forgiveness weeks ago. What we need to do is to find ways on how to deal with our skeletons from the past, and not running away from them. We need that statue”. So to make it seem as though removing the statue is actually for the good of the people, smacks of the Hypocrisy that stalks our leaders.