‘RENTED-MOUTH’ VERSUS A DEVIL’S ADVOCATE-CAT’S PAW
By Paul T. Shipale

Dear Editor, I am usually not the type to lower myself to the level of cat-paws to amuse the gallery and passing bandwagons because “j’ai des autres chats à fouteur” but allow me a right of response to set the record straight to the distorted and twisted piece which rather reads like a personal attack under the guise of a question or concern opined by a one Ndunga in your Saturday April 24, 2010 edition and using your newspaper as his/her launching pedestal. The said letter has reference indeed and it is a good opportunity to open the eyes and ears of those who can’t see and hear, figuratively, so to speak.

On the onset, let me inform the readers that I have it on good grounds that it is not the first time that a member of a certain non-governmental organization which acts as ‘a rented mouth and propaganda tool’ to carry out personal vendettas under the guise of unverified ‘hypotheses’ and conspiracy theories including some obscure fishing expeditions for ‘truths’ on fact-finding missions of graveyard digging sacrileges, depleting the coffers from donor agencies, while purporting to be neutral, objective and autonomous, wanted to find out “if the writings under the name and picture of Shipale, were indeed mine or am I being used by a ‘third force’ namely the editor of Namibia Today, Asser Ntinda and others.”

On December the 18th 2009, I wrote a paper ‘debunking the demised opposition’s game plan that was not’ where I elaborated on the faux pas of their propaganda war such as a plan concocted to exert control of the party structures following the ‘Nyamu notes’ with plots to discredit those known as ‘Nujoma loyalists’ by placating them as illiterate buffoons and corrupt ; hurling insults in an image-destroying sloganeering; in tandem with derogatory and vilifying articles; with a well calibrated phraseology hiding behind pseudonyms and scum letters used as ploys and public relations stunts. Let me assure the author that unlike them, I don’t hide behind pseudonyms instilling a culture of fear because this is the only land I know, the land of my ancestors. I was born an African, my children are Africans and I will die an African- Namibian! I am not afraid of those who can kill the flesh but not the spirit. Besides, they can’t kill a dead man who resurrected from the dead and is seated at the father’s right hand! Why would I hide behind scum letters? Aikona wena man!

New Era’s editorial of January 15, 2010, confirmed this propaganda war looking back in retrospect at last year’s general elections which were marred by an ‘unusually high dose of toxic (silent and hidden) calculated use of propaganda albeit in a subtle form…that has put Namibia on the verge of a crisis of sorts’ said the editorial. ‘Conversely, a propaganda campaign would aim at winning the hearts and minds of citizens. Presently though, those peddling the propaganda campaign are aiming more at incitement and arousing anger among citizens then anything else. And in this battle to stir emotions…truth is the first casualty’ emphasized the editorial. ‘Consider, a leading member of the information highway who castigates voters for exercising their right and insinuates that they are “un-thinking”…there is more to this than simple rumbling by a journalist whose mind is clouded by her personal choice of politics and in the process, objective analysis and reasoning are lost to deadly and brutal propaganda’, concluded the editorial.

The author asked which SWAPO I am referring to and went on to quote the right honorable Prime Minister Nahas Angula. Ironically, on the same page where his/her letter was printed, Oom Kosie Pretorius of MAG also quoted the PM who stated that “in SWAPO ideology, there was no tribe or colour and people were elected on merit for what they do. That is not SWAPO tradition, not at all. These things are just coming and that is what going to destroy SWAPO from within” said the PM, referring to the ‘Non-Oshiwambo president’ utterances made in the Windhoek Observer to corroborate the earlier version of ‘northerners’ tribal rotation at the presidency’. It is evidently clear that the author misquoted the PM and is hiding behind him and flying under his wings to score cheap political points albeit under the guise of an anonymous letter to throw some low punches at me as their soft target for jibes disguised as a question. Indeed, as the late Olley Maruma, journalist at Southern Times, used to say, the media in Southern Africa has not managed to cleanse itself of the old values of apartheid and shake off its legacy of racism and cynicism. The holdovers of apartheid journalism have decided that the best way to keep it alive is to resort to the duplicitous methods of the past where the militant critics of racism and its mutated forms are treated as enemies, while its fifth columnists and bootlickers are sold as the doyens of the truth and that anyone who defends those they vilify is a dunce and an enemy of freedom.

The author of the anonymous letter was given a full platform to launch his/her vitriolic attacks in a typical ‘alliance of deceit and haunted deserters with a grand design of conspiracy to side with whoever is against SWAPO and regurgitating insults against anyone perceived to be a SWAPO member, supporter or sympathizer by a gang of socio-political clowns with a common denominator of hatred toward SWAPO and its leaders’ and their insatiable lust for a ‘regime change’ doctrine and unrepentant tribalism with a sole mission subversively designed to provoke people into acts of retaliation and verbal counter-attacks, having just emerged from a stunning defeat in the last elections and are now licking their wounds like injured buffalos who are now frantically trying to cobble together a sort of a come back strategy to regroup the troupes.

I suspect the author or his/her handler to be the same person who carried out a satirical study purported to be a “hypothesis” with no any research design whatsoever that describes a flexible set of guidelines that connect theoretical paradigms to strategies of inquiry and methods for collecting empirical material evidences connected to a body of specific sites and of relevant interpretive materials, including documents and archives to address the critical issue of legitimacy and representation. To be a civic-minded qualitative researcher one has to think historically, interactionally and structurally, identifying the many persuasions, prejudices, injustices and inequities in a given historical context to arrive at an all encompassing conclusive evidence, rather than falling into communication barriers’ traps of selective perception, defensive behavior, stereotyping and labeling, paradoxical assumptions, know-it-all attitude and value judgment. I suggested, we read Bent Fly berg (2001), on the work of Aristotle in making taxonomy based on episteme, techne and phronesis defined as internally consistent, reasoning that deals with all possible particulars as praxis oriented knowing.

In a Neo-Weberian theory of social class, Weber argued that members of a social class would seek both to protect their advantages Vis a Vis other groups and to try to enhance their share of rewards and resources by excluding subordinate groups from securing its advantages. This is how I view the recent outburst by the anonymous writer and his/her handlers who wish that we should first report to them for a clearance certificate to be able to articulate our views in the public arena. Yes, it is a State Media, but was it not the corrupt tribal network with falsely touted media analysts, columnists and experts using complicated manner of speech to sound academic and convincing who were used with regular platforms given to some ‘professors’ to plant in our minds the idea of a regime change doctrine with borrowed slogans while censoring the same state media?

Ironically, as we approach May month in which we commemorate the Cassinga Massacre and celebrate worker’s and Africa’s day, My first opinion piece to the New Era’s newspaper was in May the second, 2008 when I wrote about a prophetic dream under the heading ‘let’s build’ after a revelation I received in 1997 in which I saw the then minister of education Nahas Angula in the middle of two camps or groups on top of a building without a roof. On his right hand was President Nujoma followed by the two ex PMs and other distinctive faces such as Tatekulu Mzee Kaukungwa and many others followed by a sea of people waving the SWAPO party’s flags and on the left hand side of the current PM was a marching platoon of soldiers with the then minister of trade commonly known as HH saluting the marching soldiers. I was perplexed and asked the then minister of education what the dream meant and he told me, in the same vision, to let go of the dichotomy and concentrate on building the unfinished house without a roof.

Reading some experts on dreams and metaphysical phenomenon, I now realize with the benefit of hindsight that the unfinished building was the country and the nation. When the PM wrote in the newspaper some articles about the country ‘at a political cross road’ and ‘tribal solidarity’ under the name of ‘citizen Angula’, I decided to write to corroborate his version of the story. I once wrote that perhaps the best approach to soften the blows of reality is to adopt Terry Powel’s strategy of creative approach to carry a message to people who might have trouble understanding it but it seems these people just don’t get it! “God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son men that he should change his mind; once he speak, he acts and once he promises, he fulfills and it shall come to pass” Numbers 23:19-20. What I said came to pass as in Deuteronomy 18:21-22.

As for those we are told to listen to, I advice the author to read Joel 2:28 and Job 32:6-11 and 33:14-17 to prove that young men can dream dreams and see visions and that it is god’s spirit that gives wisdom and not the age or grey hair.”It is the spirit in man that gives understanding. It is not only the old who are wise and understand what is right, therefore I say listen to me; I will tell you what I know. I waited while you spoke, I listened to your reasoning…God does speak though man may not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night…”

Didn’t I see this woman who was wearing a dress in SWAPO party’s colors but had a different head gear in a packed hall until she received a cell phone call from someone to leave the hall, unlike the other woman who was elected and had full SWAPO’s colors from the head to the dress with both fits in the air? With the benefit of hindsight, I can confidently tell that the first woman was caught wavering between two ideas while the second did not waver at all.

What happened to the near blunder of appointing someone else probably instigated and induced by the media as if this was a popularity contest to balance and please the crowd? Promotion does not come from the east or the west but from above and god does not look at outward appearances but at the heart! Did the ‘wise-academics’ see that too? Did they see that people almost complained? If not, let them be still and know that he confounds the wise and academics with a string of accolades as self-appointed ‘analysts and experts in politics’.

Yes, perhaps I am ‘a rented mouth’ but certainly of the one who called me more than ten years ago saying “Paul, Paul” and asked me if I read the book to the Corinthians and I inquired “which chapter and verse, even 1 Corinthians 1:1a?” and he answered “yes” which reads “From Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus…” !? I understand an apostle to be a simple servant as a messenger from the Greek word apo-stello etymologically meaning ‘send forth’. Indeed, If I am a rented mouth and a propaganda tool as alleged by the author, then I am a send forth rented mouth and a progressive tool and it will be interesting to find out whose rented mouth is the author; a rented devil’s advocate perhaps?

Habakkuk 2 reads as follows: then the Lord told me: “I will give you my message in the form of a vision. Write it clearly enough to be read at a glance. At the time I have decided, my words will come true. You can trust what I say about the future”. It may take a long time, but keep waiting - it will happen! In Jeremiah 1:4 the Lord said: “Jeremiah, I am your creator, and before you were born, I chose you to speak for me to the nations.” I replied, “I’m not a good speaker, Lord, and I’m too young”. “Don’t say you are too young”, the Lord answered. “If I tell you to go and speak to someone, then go! And when I tell you what to say, don’t leave out a word…” Isaiah 42:9 says “see, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you. Isaiah 44:8 says do not tremble, don’t be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses.

Of course there are those who will brush this aside as pure hogwash, opium, indoctrination and hallucinations of false prophets of doom or what else can one expect from those who see things from the world’s perspective and rely on their own understanding?

I don’t go around proclaiming and pretending to be an apostle or some kind of prophet because I know that these things happen as one ex plan commander was telling me how they were saved many a times by a young man who was ‘a seer’. According to the commissioning of Isaiah 6:8 “is there anyone I can send? Will someone go for us?” “I will go”, I answered, “Send me!” and I left my working post, where I spent ten years, coincidentally the day my article was published. True to the commission, I said it and keep saying it again “let’s build”! President Pohamba reiterated his clarion call for the nation to unite and build this country and nation, as well as to fight against tribalism and all other evils. The President also eloquently responded to the author during his state of the nation address by saying that our constitutional democracy is on course under the able leadership of the governing ruling party, SWAPO of which he is the President. I also advice the author to read the response that the Minister of Finance gave to Parliamentarians about job creation projects catered for in the budget. Need I say more?

Indeed, we should not allow differences of nationality, class or ethnic membership or even gender or religious and party’s affiliations to erect barriers between us and our fellow human beings. We should recognize humanity wherever it occurs, and give its fundamental ingredients, reason and moral capacity, our first allegiance and respect. To be a citizen of the world one does not need to give up local identifications, which can frequently be a source of great richness in life. We should think of ourselves not as devoid of local affiliations, but as surrounded by a series of concentric circles based on ethnic, linguistic, historical, professional, gender and religious identities. Outside all these circles is the largest one, that of humanity as a whole. Our task as citizens of this country will be to "draw the circles somehow toward the center" (Stoic philosopher Hierocles), making all human beings more like our fellow city dwellers, and so on. In other words, we need not give up our special affections and identifications, whether racial, ethnic or religious. We need not think of them as superficial, but we should work to make all Namibians part of our community of dialogue and concern, base our political deliberations on that interlocking commonality, and give the circle that defines our humanity and namibianess a special attention and respect.

I say once again loud and clear and not as a dry leaf, scared by the blowing wind because of some dead woods and arrogant unrepentant rebels including those who wanted to shoot the messenger; “let’s build!” (Momutse gwomutumwa kamuya mbole/momutwe womutumwa ihamu ende ombole.)