A Crown For Your Brow, And a Key For Your Hand

on Namibia's 21st birthday, 21 March 2011

This morning once more my country awakes
This day is no normal day though,
No, today my country has come of age,
It is no longer a child,
But an adult member of the world.

I remember its birth many sunrises ago
When I was chosen to raise our new flag,
Looking out from that first maternity ward
Over the rolling hills of our capital Windhoek
The skyline created by the colonialists.

Today, my country receives its key,
The key to unlock things before hidden,
Things that were forbidden to do,
Now maturity must lend a hand
And help in the choices it makes.

During its teenage years,
I became worried as it flirted,
Its political alliances changing shape
Hard words being exchanged during puberty
Crying tears of unanswered love.

As my country becomes more self-assured
Exerting its own will and wants
It is time to step quietly aside,
Assuring it of my undying, continued love
While letting it achieve its own greatness.

Smile, my beloved land on your crown birthday,
You have overcome many a fall or scrape
Some of the scars will remain as proof
All of it part of growing up and learning
Preparing for your role in life

Do not care about your past
The bitted words of things you cannot change
Mould yourself into a strong unified character
Reconciliation will always be your guide
Making every citizen a part of the motherland

From Today, as always, make us proud.

Is there such a thing as coloured?

I quote from a paper by R van der Ross at the Symposium on Slavery 2008 –
“The question of identity is one which elicits wide, wordy and largely useless response.
In this country there is continuous debate about the matter, and mostly about and from the Coloured people. Who are we? Why? Where from? Where to? Some even ask: Are we? Are there Coloured people? The ridiculousness of these questions is compounded by the attempts at answers: “We are not; we are not Coloured; we are simply human; we are, but we refuse to be called Coloured,” and so into various degrees of assininity. If the matter of mixed descent is raised, it will most likely be met with the response that all the peoples of the earth are mixed.

Of course there is some truth in this, but it evades the other truth namely that which the philosophers call “immediate perception.” We are Coloured because people look at us and regard us as Coloured. Finish en klaar.”
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