Chronicles of Fly

“ Nous sommes tous les mêmes ,” we are all the same. To a slender and malnourished job seeker in tattered rags, with untended hair and an overgrown beard, the opening statement is hard to believe. Especially as he stretches out his hand, asking, begging, his eyes pleading with those separated from his by a transparent compound made from Silica, Lime and Sodium Carbonate. Let us call him normal Petrus. To a well-dressed and podgy career professional, comfortable in his automobile trying to ignore the pleading eyes of a ‘man on the side of the road’, it is hard to believe that they are equal. Let us call this one office Petrus. As normal Petrus approaches office Petrus’s car window, it is hard to believe that they are equal. The glass that divides them spells out that they are not the same, whether or not office Petrus gives normal Petrus the spare change in his coin box next to the gear lever is uncertain. What is certain is that they cannot be the same. Office Petrus...

Photograph from the Namibian newspaper. Who is  McHenry Veenani and why am I writing about him? He is the president of the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA), a political party that was the official opposition party in Namibia at independence (1990). He inadvertently (I am assuming that it wasn’t his intention) created a storm, he decided to trade his comfortable life in the suburbs for a three day stay in the Ghetto. I kid you not, a politician moved into a shack in the ghetto for three days. He slept in a shack, ate canned beef for dinner, bathed in the open and took a taxi to work. On his Facebook page he stated that his motive was to get in touch with situation on the ground and familiarise himself with the struggles and the problems of people in informal settlements. Noble intentions right? As expected the media attention has created a shit storm and invoke quite a reaction. The prime minister even criticized him on Facebook (Yes, the Prime Minister finally has a F...