Holiday in Namibia (1): introduction
I am about to go on a holiday to Namibia with the company Voyages Jules Verne. This will be the ninth country in Africa that I have visited and the 86th nation worldwide. It will be a challenging trip, especially for someone who is almost 75.
I will be away for just over two weeks. There will be four long haul flights: two there and two back. The country is huge and all the internal travel will be by road, so there will be a total of seven vehicle journeys, each between five-eight hours. We will stay in nine locations: hotels, lodges and camps.
Let me provide a short introduction to the country.
It is located in south-west Africa with the Atlantic Ocean to its west, South Africa to its south and south-east, Botswana to its north-east and Angola to its north. It is bisected through the middle by the Tropic of Capricorn.
In 1884, the German Empire established rule over most of the territory of Namibia, forming a colony known as German South West Africa. Between 1904 and 1908, it perpetrated a genocide against the Herero and Nama people. The Germans systematically killed 10,000 Nama (about 50% of the population) and approximately 65,000 Herero (about 80% of the population).
This atrocity has been called the “first genocide of the 20th century” by British-Nigerian historian David Olusoga. This year, a film about this genocide has been released in Germany. Called in English “Measures Of Men”, this two-hour work has been written and directed by Lars Kraume.
German rule ended in 1915 with a defeat by South African forces. In 1920, after the end of World War I, the League of Nations mandated administration of the colony to South Africa.
Following a war of independence from 1966 to 1990 fought between the South African Defence Force (SADF) and the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), an armed wing of the South West Africa People’s Organisation(SWAPO), today’s Republic of Namibia gained its independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990.
Namibia is the world’s 34th largest country. It is almost three and a half times the size of the UK. But it has a population of a mere 2.5 million. This means that, after Greenland and Mongolia respectively, Namibia is the third least densely populated country on the planet. The main ethnic group is the Ovambo who comprise just over half the total population. The official language is English which, of course, is a great advantage for our group. But German and Africaans are widely spoken and the country’s 15 ethnic groups speak some 27 languages and dialects.
Politically Namibia has a democratic system. The president – elected for a term of five years – is both the head of state and the head of government. Since 2015, the position has been held by Hage Geingob of SWAPO.
In spite of being such a small country in terms of population, the legislature is bicameral with a National Assembly of 104 as the lower house and a National Council of 42 members as the upper house. Although the constitution envisaged a multi-party system, the SWAPO party has been dominant ever since independence in 1990.