There should be no doubt that Job Shipululo is emerging on the horizon as both an intellectual and political factor. Job, it seems has been greatly misjudged by many of our contemporaries, there is no doubt that at times he is prone regrettable outburst like the infamous “shanyok” Facebook post, which was all the rage at the time.
I too have found some of his written and oral outbursts dissapointing but never in a threatening way, for example as an intellectual, however young and exuberant one may be. One must conquer the urge to spew vitriol against others, no matter the extend under which one’s own character and work may came into question. All of us, as contributors to public discourse will one time or another come face to face with the most brutish attacks on our person. The test of one’s aptitude is the ability to take that into stride and to offer sober, concrete and tested ideas that will elevate debate into its rightful realm. Thus, Dear Comrade Job, even if you are under severe and disparaging assault, never descend to the level of your detractors.keep on keeping on!
Perhaps, another minor tendency emerging amongst our younger peers is the ill-advised knack to claim the victories scored by our nascent society against poverty and government indifference for oneself. The victories we win and lose on daily basis in the fight to advance our society, are the results of Namibians from different walks of life, whose collective abilities and sacrifices come together in a unity of purpose of sorts, to help propel this nation forward. The miscellany of efforts in the form of exposing, engagement, lobbying, advocating and educating from CSO’s, Youth Groups, officials, think tanks, journalist, political parties, worker unions, intellectuals and traditional leaders amongst a host of other social actors over time, are the real underlying motive force that ultimately propel us forward. To in the face of the above, claim all progress as ones doing is a bit of a stretch if you ask me. The inverse of which is to accept no role in our society for any off the multitude of challenges we face, except to kick dust in the face of those who have the difficult task of getting things going, is just as foolhardy. Certainly, I admit there are many who are supposed to get things done, whose (in)abilities and excessive failures leave little inspiration for assurance, we must nevertheless be champions of the future by doing (or even trying), in addition to the talking.
However, if it is true as Job suggest that much hatred has been spewed in his direction for advancing the views he has, then this is wrong and misguided. I am worried that we are following the footsteps of our elders whom we have remonstrated against so much for exactly these tendencies. How can we as the emerging youthful intellectual class of our generation and party, be so violent and abhorrently vitriolic for that matter, against one of our own? The views that Job and others like him have, maybe provocative in some part, but they should in no way lead to the kind of venom that Job implies he is getting. If we were to elevate our engagement with Job to the intellectual realm, we may find that some of the notions that we constantly find being advanced, may fall away easily in the face of sober and scientific scrutiny. For example, Comrade Job in a recent video posted on Youtube castigates the National Pride Campaign in a manner similar to that made by Gwen Lister some time ago in her perspective in The Namibian. While both held respectable views on why such a campaign was a waste, I found it difficult to reconcile Comrade Job’s anger with the GIPF’s DCP gaff as a basis for rejecting The National Pride Campaign. He also makes the argument that Namibians according to the Afrobarometer have proven to be highly patriotic, fine and well, but is it not exactly this, our common and collective rejection of corruption that should be one of the pillars of a national and unified effort to promote such positive values in our search for true national unity, beyond what Job at many a fora has dubbed “flag and anthem citizenship” as opposed to “substantive citizenship”. What is substantive citizenship in the teleological sense then? If it is something good, as I suspect it is, should it then not be engendered and if yes, how so? Better still, if other views are confirmed and correct, such as his views on the exploits of a certain namibian award winning vixen and a certain sushi loving bussines man from South Africa and the decay of morals in namibia, then is it also not waranted that such good ideas be heralded, why do we insist in reacting only to what is negetive in our view.
A true cadre with substance can therefore not on the basis of what Job may have said or posted, erase all ones ideological nuances; one must internalise and test any hypothesis, reject it or accept it. we can also not be angered by them, thus lets stop the needles "murmurings" as Job puts it.lets engage the issues and not the man. Violence, even if it is only verbal violence, is the retreat of the ideologically myopic, as cadres we must realise that such intellectual chauvinism cannot be our path; let us engage in a battle of ideas not against each other. Live, and let live, LET JOB BE….
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