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• ANDRE OF PISANI
AFTER Theo-Ben was sought after by the final truth that has no complement: death, much has been said and written about a lifetime of many achievements – some of them between them moving, enlightening;
Theo-Ben's life was the story, the biography, the mind and the conscience.
Born in Usakos in the embrace of the imposing and spiritual Erongo Mountains along the Khan River with his invigorating water snaking around the city, his childhood was conventional. He himself saw life in apartheid Usakos and South West Africa from then on, as the expression of a story, a reality, which was to be broken and which could and should be transcended.
Here, and at Augustinium College of Okahandja, he and others have lived the life of the spirit, debating subjects of power, justice, d & # 39; emancipation, freedom, unity and ultimate independence for Namibia. the country of his birth to spend 27 years in exile, the subjects of power, justice, emancipation, freedom, unity and the nation have been understood from different angles: liberalism , socialism, communism, nationalism and pan-Africanism
unfair to limit its intellectual biography to that of nationalism only. Yes, he was nationalist and pan-Africanist, but he understood the limits and possibilities for renewal of the nationalist creed, as well as the moral failures and duties of politicians and intellectuals in politics.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND DIPLOMACY
Although it is widely acknowledged that his contributions were formative and fundamental to Swapo's exile diplomacy and to the foreign policy and international relations of the new republic his ideas came from different intellectual traditions.
At the time Theo-Ben was a student at Temple University in the United States, where he read politics and international relations, realism was the dominant paradigm for the badysis of the world. The focus was on national power and its constituent parts, the national interest, the balance of forces to ensure stability in an anarchic world and the building of alliances.
The realistic prism gave centrality to nation-states and diplomacy as the substance and means of state-centered international relations, respectively.
The rise of black power that finds its expression in the ghetto riots and civil disobedience In the United States, in a post-World War II world with its bipolar Cold War logic and its celebration of world capitalism, illustrated by Roosevelt 's "New Deal," found separate outlets in Theo – Ben' s critical mind.
Thus, too, the first wave of decolonization in Africa was inaugurated by the independence of Ghana in 1957 under the charismatic and intellectual Kwame Nkrumah. It was also the time of the Algerian War of Independence, the Hungarian Revolution, the Suez Crisis, the Cuban Revolution, Mao's "Great Leap Forward" in China, and the the destructiveness of the Vietnam War
. armed struggle in many areas, including Namibia. Theo-Ben experienced all this and at the United Nations (UN), he badyzed and reported what all this meant for Swapo and Africa. Collectively, these key global events have led to the ideas and ideology of non-alignment (especially since the 1955 Bandung Conference) and to the redesign of diplomatic, political and military alliances.
Theo-Ben, Geingob Hage, Hidipo Hamutenya and Sam Nujoma were at the heart of the reconfiguration and consolidation of relations with many socialist countries, while maintaining relations with Western countries, India, North Africa and West Africa.
The 1970s brought new opportunities and new challenges to Swapo, nationally, regionally and internationally. He also saw the long recession and the crises of world capitalism, especially around the energy crisis of the early 1970s and for Swapo and Namibia, the coup of the military state in Portugal, the difficult birth of the world. Angola and Mozambique.
Teo-Ben put his diplomatic teeth in a context of crisis, uncertainty and transition as the neoliberal and neo-realistic approaches to international relations emphasized the primacy of non-state actors such as liberation movements and multinationals. and broader economic relations at the heart of an emerging world.
Again, Theo-Ben read these trends with commendable insight and we witnessed the deepening of relations between Swapo, intergovernmental organizations such as the World Council of Churches and especially multilateral organizations like the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the Commonwealth and the United Nations
The pivot of the 1970s propelled Theo-Ben and Swapo as the party pursued a triadic approach to liberation: internal mobilization and international, bilateral and multilateral diplomacy and armed struggle. These events united biography and history, as Theo-Ben became central to Swapo's diplomacy and emerged as a skilled negotiator and peacemaker.
When the United Nations Peace Plan for Namibia took shape in the 1970s and 1980s, Theo-Ben actively contributed to the development of Security Council 435 (1978) and to the topography of the peace plan United Nations for Namibia.
In the midst of an ongoing crisis in what is now called neo-liberal capitalism, the 1980s brought a different harvest to Theo-Ben and Swapo. China became neo-liberal under Deng Xiaoping and became an industrial and later world economy. While the Iranian revolution of 1987-1988 and the Soviet-Afghan war were accompanied by diplomatic breakthroughs over Namibia and Angola, largely because of the unpopular construction of links, geopolitical and military changes in Angola, new forms of resistance in South Africa, deepened by the oil sanctions and the growing diplomatic isolation of that country.
It is in the turbulent 1980s that Zimbabwe's independence, culminating in the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the former Soviet Union, took place. Thatcher and Reagan ascent in the United Kingdom and the United States. Theo-Ben Gurirab's preoccupations and achievements for peace and justice and the life of his spirit and his life full of spirit have served Namibia and the former liberation movement, Swapo, particularly well.
It is therefore not a coincidence that foreign policy and the international relations of the new state have brought together various ideas and elements of realism (emphasizing the almost sacrosanct character of sovereignty and independence). National interest); liberalism with emphasis on human rights, its faith in international law – peace by law; neo-realism with its concerns for economic and trade relations and for multilateralism; non-alignment based on older forms of solidarity that have been – but have been eroded by neoliberal capitalism and idealism – a large-scale philosophy – that combines problems and challenges big and small in narratives Systematics of Human Success
CONCLUSION
Theo-Ben was recognized worldwide when he chaired the 1999-2000 United Nations General Assembly that led to the Millennium Development Goals ( MDG) and recognition of the role of women in peace and building.
This was an appropriate tribute to a person who lived more than one truth – a mental library of considerable and polite diversity and a person who was simultaneously a Namibian and a citizen of the world ; a nationalist and a cosmopolitan. He cared deeply about both.
While I celebrate his life, the life of a spirit and of a life well lived, I believe, Theo-Ben experienced by more than one truth – the truth of clarity and of erudition, the truth of love, the truth of the politician, the truth of a father, the truth of the principle loyalty. There is no way, however, that none of these forms of truth can be reduced to one truth, for truth and morality require many forms of inquiry and thought.
That is why those who believe in a unique, hegemonic, historical, and political truth usually fail and why Theo-Ben's life was such a breathtaking achievement.
* André du Pisani is Professor Emeritus at the University of Namibia (Unam) and one who has learned a lot of lasting value from Theo-Ben Gurirab.
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