Browsing by Author "Akawa, Martha"

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    The gendered politics of the SWAPO camps during the Namibian liberation struggle
    (University of Namibia Press, 2015) Akawa, Martha
    This chapter looks at the sexual politics of the SWAPO camps (civilian and military) in Angola and Zambia.1 Its purpose is to explore issues around allegations of sexual abuse and unwelcome sexual advances, and issues of sexuality, against the backdrop of SWAPO’s policy on gender equality. Did these allegations undermine the goals and objectives of the leadership, particularly the women’s leadership that had gender equality and women’s emancipation as one of its main goals? The chapter will also seek to question whether a rhetorical commitment to equality was translated into practical equality in terms of the political structures and socio-economic power relationships in the camps. SWAPO made a clear and a firm ideological commitment in publications and speeches that, in the liberation struggle, women were equal to men and that equality between men and women was a central principle of the party. Iina Soiri has argued that the rhetoric of sexual emancipation became more pronounced from the mid-1970s because of a combination of factors. The United Nations announced that the International Decade for Women would take place between 1975 and 1985 and, in 1976, SWAPO adopted a more radical ‘Political Programme’ based on the principles of ‘scientific socialism’ (Soiri, 1996, pp. 67, 85).
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    A history of Namibia
    (University of Namibia, 2012) Akawa, Martha
    A History of Namibia: From the beginning to 1990 by Marion Wallace, with John Kinahan (Hurst, London, 2011), is a long overdue and comprehensive national history of Namibia. Although Namibian historiography has grown substantially since independence, Wallace has brilliantly managed to 'bring together what has been written on Namibia's past, covering the period from the beginning to independence in 1990' (p. 2) and to draw on new research to expand and deepen our understanding of the events that shaped Namibia.
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    Mukwahepo: Woman, soldier, mother: As told to Ellen Ndeshi Namhila. Windhoek: University of Namibia Press, 2013; pp 141.
    (University of Namibia, 2013) Akawa, Martha
    Unlike many stories that deal with high ranking and public fi gures, Mukwahepo is a book about a humble and unknown personality who made outstanding and remarkable contributions to the liberation of Namibia, popularly called The Land of the Brave. Mukwahepo is an ordinary woman who performed extraordinary duties for her country. This book is a clear testimony that the contributions, especially those made by women, did not have to be ambassadorial or political.
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    Waking the dead: Civilian casualties in the Namibian liberation struggle
    (University of Namibia Press, 2015) Silvester, Jeremy; Akawa, Martha
    One day in early January 1984, an old Ford truck set out from Ruacana. Twenty-five workers stood crowded in the back. After travelling just five kilometres from the small town the truck drove over a double landmine. The explosion left a huge crater in the ground and immediately killed ten of the people in the truck, whilst another six were severely injured, losing hands, arms and legs. None of the names of those who had died were provided in the press coverage of the incident. On 23 January 1988, four young people were driving a Toyota Hilux van near their home when a unit of the Koevoet paramilitary police unit opened fire on their vehicle riddling it with bullets and totally destroying it. Cornelius Nghipukuula, aged 27, was killed immediately and two of the other occupants were wounded. The three survivors were told to report to the police station the next day to pay a R100 fine as an ‘admission of guilt’ for driving during a curfew. These were just two incidents amongst many that occurred during the Namibian war of independence in which the casualties were not soldiers, but civilians. Yet the absence of the names of those killed in one of the largest landmine explosions that took place during the war seems symptomatic of the way in which civilian victims of the war remain unrecognised in accounts of the liberation struggle.
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    Waking the dead: Civilian casualties in the Namibian liberation struggle
    (University of Namibia, 2012) Akawa, Martha; Silvester, Jeremy
    The liberation Struggle is marked by an absence of archival sources. This absence leads to an impossibility of systematic historical analysis of conflicting archival evidence; as a result, history is created with a broad brush on a monumental landscape. In terms of public history, the emphasis has been placed on the memory of the soldiers who died fighting in the liberation struggle. A post-war publication has listed their names, although those who died on Namibian soil remain buried in anonymous graves. The internet provides a virtual graveyard, which attempts to unite all those who died on the South African side during their "Border War'. Such lists suggest that the compilers have been able to enter inaccessible archives and/or contact knowledgeable informants. Yet many of the soldiers who died, on both sides, during the Namibian liberation Struggle died in Southern Angola and the community memory of the war in Namibia is more closely linked to the many incidents in which civilians were killed inside Namibia during the conflict. In Namibia, almost a generation after the end of the war, it remains unknown how many Namibian civilians died during the Namibian Liberation Struggle. Where estimates are provided, the victims are reduced to nameless numbers. The absence of a consolidated archival record of these deaths means that an important dimension of the war remains hidden. This article will present the work that has been done to create an archive of Civilian Casualties of the Namibian liberation Struggle and discuss some of the challenges and difficulties associated with the project. It will argue that combining a range of sources into a new collection of consolidated information on individual deaths can challenge one of the archival absences on the liberation struggle and shape the historiography of the Namibian liberation struggle that is being created by a new generation of Namibian historians.