Namibia: Minister responds to Black Lives Matter movement

Namibia’s Minister for Agriculture, Calle Schlettwein, has publicly addressed Namibia’s own struggle with racial equality this Tuesday in a response to a week of international Black Lives Matter protests. 

Writing on his twitter account, the minister said, “Inequality in Namibian Society is the deep-seated legacy of colonization/apartheid”.

“Anyone denying this, and postulating that corrective measures are principally inappropriate has no understanding and no compassion for people who suffered the consequences of racial oppression”. 

The protests have come in response to the killing of George Floyd last Monday in Minneapolis, USA, when a white police officer stood on the neck of the unarmed Floyd for nine minutes. 

Floyd was later taken to hospital where he died of cardiac arrest.

Namibia itself has had a bleak history of racial inequality, from its days as German South West Africa and suffering under European oppression, to being taken under the South African mandate and introduced to apartheid. 

Schlettwein’s comments come as a refreshing take by a white minister in a predominately black country, acknowledging the effect his race has had on the native population. 

Similarly, in South Africa both white and black protestors have taken to the streets to campaign for racial equality internationally and at home. 

In Cape Town, placards were paraded around Parliament by groups of young people, saying “We want to love the police, but they don’t want to love or respect us”. 

In the light of George Floyd’s killing, it is easy to see why Africans of both races feel compelled to respond. 

Photo: NBC