Australia and the World Past and Present

Namibia took an idea from Zimbabwe and made it their own.

It is not surprising really since both countries had prolonged battles for independence against colonial powers and the leaders of both countries knew each other well.

Heroes’ Acre lies a few kilometers south of the capital, Windhoek.

It was designed by the same North Korean company that designed the Zimbabwe project.

Like its counterpart in Zimbabwe, the site boasts a statue dedicated to the Unknown Soldier.

It also includes a parade ground for ceremonies and 174 tombs.

Lets look at some of those chosen as National Heroes in Namibia:

Kahimemua Nguvauva (1850-1896)

Nguvauva was Chief of the Ovambanderu, part of the Herero nation.

At various times he had been in conflict with other Herero chiefs.

The German authorities had wanted to make Samuel Maherero paramount chief of all the Herero – something Nguvauva was opposed to.

He would eventually lead his people in conflict with the German Schutztruppe.

He was sentenced to death and executed in Okahandja in 1896.

Nehale Lya Mpingana

Mpingana was King of the Ondonga, part of the Owambo nation, at the eastern edge of the Etosha Pan.

He fought in two wars – one against migrants of the Dorsland Trek and then in 1904, he led his people in an attack on the German Schutztruppe at Fort Namutoni. The German soldiers defending the fort fled during the battle.

Samuel Maherero

He was chief of the Okhandja region.

He was on relatively good terms with German administrator, Theodor Leutwein, but as time went on relations broke down. Samuel had to contend with increasing numbers of German settlers, diseases that were affecting Herero livestock and the encroachment of the railway into Herero land.

Samuel led a revolt against the German authorities in 1904. In that year over 100 Germans were killed in the attacks.

Samuel led an attack on the Waterberg military station and troops stationed there were killed.

Gobabis was also attacked.

Germany believed that Leutwein had proved ineffectual in dealing with the uprising and decided to replace him with Lothar von Trotha.

15,000 soldiers were dispatched to deal with Samuel and his supporters. The Herero would face superior German technology including the latest machine guns.

What followed would become known as the Battle of Waterberg. Many Herero were killed and those that survived were pushed towards the Omaheke desert. It is estimated that tens of thousands died.

Von Trotha had embarked on a campaign of extermination. The authorities in Germany discovered this and overruled his order.

Now survivors were to be taken to the isolated Shark Island, close to Lüderitz on the Namibian coast. There they would face concentration camp conditions including being used as forced labour for construction projects in the town and on the railways.

Maherero himself made it to Bechuanaland (modern-day Botswana) with around a thousand followers. He would die there in 1923 but his body would eventually be repatriated.

Samuel is remembered for fighting for the rights of his people. He is also remembered for attempting to build an alliance with Nama chief Hendrik Witbooi to better resist the Germans.

Hendrik Witbooi (1830-1905)

Witbooi was a ǀKhowesin chief (part of the Khoikhoi nation) and his likeness appears on Namibian bank notes.

His grandfather had led his people over the Orange River from the Cape Colony.

Hendrik was actually born in the Northern Cape area of Cape Colony.

Although he could speak multiple languages, his first language was Nama.

He had been educated at the Rhenish Missionary in Namibia.

In 1856 he became a teacher in Keetmanshoop and in 1859 he moved to Maltahöhe.

He moved on yet again to Gibeon in 1865. In 1888 he became the leader there as chief of the ǀKhowesin.

In 1893 the ǀKhowesin were hit by the Germans at Hornkranz and Witbooi would fight for the next two years.

In 1894 he made a conditional surrender. After this, he aided the Germans in their efforts to dominate other ethnic groups including the Mbanderu Herero and Afrikaners.

In 1904 Witbooi went back to fighting the Germans and died in battle in 1905.

Witbooi is remembered for fighting for the rights of his people.

His actions alongside the Germans in attacking other groups doesn’t make him the poster boy for Namibian nationalism and reconciliation, but he was certainly an important figure in Namibian history.

Jacob Morenga (1875-1907)

Morenga is remembered for bringing the Nama and Herero together.

His mother was Herero and his father was Nama.

Morenga was active in the Herero and Namaqua war (1904-7)

Morenga utilised the ǁKhauxaǃnas ‘hidden fortress’ in the south of Namibia and he fought over 50 battles against the Germans.

In 1906 he sustained injury while fighting and turned himself in to the Cape Mounted Police.

The Germans had wanted him extradited but the Cape Colony authorities refused.

In 1907 he was released on the condition that he not reenter German South West Africa.

Morenga paid no notice to the condition and went right back to fighting.

In disregarding the Cape Colony directive, Morenga burnt his bridges with the authorities there. They were now willing to cooperate with the Germans in tracking him down.

In 1907 he was killed while fighting at Eenzaamheid.

One characteristic Morenga often cited was his pan-tribalism. In the effort to bolster Namibian nationalism, examples of pan-tribalism are viewed as extremely important.

Mandume ya Ndemufayo (1894-1917)

Ndemufayo was the last king of the Oukwanyama, part of the Ovambo nation.

He died while fighting South Africans.

The Ovambo people live in southern Angola and northern Namibia. The Berlin Conference had split their nation in two.

When Ndemufayo became monarch he moved the royal residence to Ondjiva (Angola).

He was a reforming monarch and wasn’t afraid to adopt new customs.

He let women own cattle – big social change for the Ovambo.

He was not well disposed towards Christians and ordered them out of Ovambo territory.

Between 1917 and 1998 there was no Oukwanyama kingship. The institution has now been reestablished.

A university in Angola has been named in his honour.

lipumbu ya Tshilongo

Tshilongo was the King of the Unkwambi between 1907 and 1932

He resisted white settlers encroaching into his territory as well as the establishment of mission stations.

He refused to send his subjects south for contract labour.

He was overthrown by his own people, arrested and exiled to Kavango – the area in the northeast and next to the Caprivi Strip.

He died in 1959.

Anne Mungunda (1932-1959)

A Herero, she died during the Old Location Uprising in Windhoek (1959).

She had set the car of a high official alight during the uprising and was shot by South African police.

Hosea Kutako

Kutako was a founding member of SWAPO and is remembered as being a strong Namibian nationalist.

In 1920 he was an appointed leader of the Herero.

In the 1950s and 1960s he submitted petitions to the United Nations paving the way for the 1971 International Court of Justice decision that ruled South African administration of the territory was illegal under international law.

Kutako died in 1970 and the international airport is named in his honor.

Hage Geingob (1941-2024)

Last year Geingob was declared a Hero of Namibia.

He had been president of the country between 2015 and 2024.

He had also been Prime Minister between 1990 and 2002 and then between 2012 and 2015.

Geingob had been educated in Otavi.

He became a teacher and taught at Tsumeb Primary School.

He left the country of his birth and spent 27 years living in Botswana, the US and the UK.

Between 1964 and 1971 he was SWAPO’s representative at the United Nations.

In 1971 he was appointed to the UN Secretariat at a political affairs officer.

In 1975 he became the director of the UN Institute for Namibia. The objective of the Institute was to prepare people for civil service once Namibia gained independence.

In this role Geingob gained much experience in public policy and the position allowed him to create many relationships with universities around the world. He was director there until 1989.

In that year he returned to the country of his birth to participate in the historic elections where he was instrumental in the SWAPO campaign.

After independence, he became chairman of the Constituent Assembly and had a pivotal role in drafting the Constitution.

As Prime Minister he was known for his promotion of conservation.

From 2002 to 2007 Geingob experienced a lull in his political fortunes. Perhaps this is to be expected in a career as long and full of highs as his. He seems to have had a falling out with Sam Nujoma and reportedly they had not been on speaking terms for some time. There was speculation that the cause for the frosty relationship was a congress resolution banning Nujoma from running for a fourth term as president even though in 1998 Geingob had supported changing the Constitution to allow a fourth term.

In 2002 he was offered the Ministry for Regional and Local Government and Housing but he refused to accept it. Perhaps he felt as though it was too much of a demotion for him.

During this time he was also unable to get voted back onto the SWAPO Central Committee.

So he left the country for a time but he contested the 2004 election and won a seat.

By 2007 he was on the rise again and was back on the SWAPO Politburo.

In 2014 he contested the presidential election and won a whopping 87% of the vote.

During his presidency, he championed Namibia’s adoption of renewable energy but problems with poverty remained.

He was reelected president again in 2019 with a reduced but still respectable 56.3% of the vote.

In terms of foreign policy, his administration maintained good relations with the US, China and Russia.

One thing that is emphasised among the early heroes in Namibia is their ‘revolutionary spirit’. Nujoma’s inauguration speech in 2002 is full of references to this. Many of the early heroes were clearly fighters for their people and for their land – literally. They fought German colonialism and South African domination. But the term ‘revolutionay spirit’ also has another meaning. It is a reference to SWAPO’s Marxist-Leninist ideology. Nujoma was happy to try to draw a straight line between Namibian monarchs, the left-leaning SWAPO and the present.

Many of the Heroes of Namibia are fighters. They are leaders of their people. But their ‘people’ may be a clan or a tribe. In fact this is more likely to be the case than not. The early Heroes were mainly men. They tended to be at the top of their local social pyramid, not the bottom. In the case Samuel Maherero, we have a case of a paramount chief. There are royal figures among the early Heroes which one would think would conflict in some way with SWAPO’s ideology.

If we compare the Heroes in Namibia with those at Heroes’ Acre in Zimbabwe, we see that Namibia’s early choices are less party political. One of the reasons for this is that many of the early Heroes were active before the founding of SWAPO in 1960. Resistance to colonialism did not begin with SWAPO.

It would seem that Namibia is doing a better job at selecting Heroes than Zimbabwe has up to the present. It should also be noted that while Zimbabwe’s frame of reference is largely the Bush War, Namibia looks far wider across time – from the late 1800s right up to the present.

There will always be differences of opinion of who should and shouldn’t be elevated to to the position in national hero. But Namibia is attempting to elevate individuals from all parts of the country and from different periods of history.