MOTHERING A NATION ROSA NAMISES Rosa Namises played a heroic role in Namibia’s liberation struggle. Both as a politician and an activist, she has made a selfless contribution to the lives of many Namibians.
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former Member of Parliament, and founding member and former Secretary General of the Namibia Congress of Democrats, Rosa is a prominent voice on gender issues, human rights and violence against women and children in Namibia. From the halls of power to the Dolam Residential Child Care Centre for vulnerable children, Rosa has spent her life giving to the nation. This is her story.
But there was this doctor who spoke to me. I told him that I wanted to ride a bike and he said, “I have a bike.” So I said, “Can I go with you?” He says, “Ja, I’ll pick you up at four o’clock in front of the hospital door.” Now, four o’clock was visiting time – matrons, everybody is out, and here I was with my uniform. So, here I was, a nurse in uniform on the bike, this black woman with this white man – it has never been heard of. The next morning, I was called to the matron’s office. It was now the talk of the whole hospital. But we were really not bothered about that, so we continued with the friendship. I was a rebel and I needed to speak about this unfairness, so I joined the SWAPO Youth League and I became first the secretary and then the chairperson of the Youth League. It was also a very hard time. SWAPO was not banned, but it was not allowed to have rallies and meetings. But I organised a rally, and that rally really caused trouble. We, the young people, were up in arms. The executorship was saying, “Don’t do rallies; don’t get together,” but we were saying it was too quiet, we needed to raise our voices, and so it happened that I got arrested regularly. I was targeted. I remember when the Cassinga people were released and we needed to reintegrate them into the community, so we had a welcome and orientation party. It was not a party for the SWAPO Party – it was just SWAPO members having a party. The security would not allow it. I was honest, and told them it was a party for the detainees. I was arrested. Those things really make you look at things differently. The torturing was really severe, like standing up against the wall the whole day and not being allowed to sit. So many questions you are being asked, and sometimes the armyuniformed guys that you don’t know would come and with a gun and threaten to shoot you dead that night. I decided it was too much and went on a hunger strike. They would ask me, “Do you believe in Sam Nujoma? Do you believe in this and that? Who organised this braai?” Some officers would come in the night and say that I must just tell them what they want. Sometimes, they beat children in the next room, and because I had one son at that time, they would say, “Today we are going to beat your child.”
MYD: Let us start at the beginning. Tell us about yourself. RN: I am a child of the old location. I was born at the time of the second forceful removals and I experienced that. I also think my birth tells quite a lot about me. My father came from Angola, a different culture, where things were in order: your child is born in a maternity hall, in a hospital. My mom was Namibian. She would collect and eat wild berries and drink sour milk. My dad was very worried about their child being born at home with midwives. But when my mom got labour pains, I was not waiting. I was born under a tree. It’s a sour tree. I usually go back there on my birthdays and have fruits and wild berries there. I grew up and went to school in Katutura, but this was also the time of school boycotts. My dad was very angry. He said, “I didn’t call you to do boycotts – I called you to go to school.” So he put me in a place where I would do a bit of office work, cleaning and helping. I must have been around seventeen. One morning at work I made a proposal, asking people to bring their cup to the kitchen. I was dismissed without pay. My dad was like, “You don’t go and tell people that.” I said, “No, I was just making a proposal,” and that’s when I realised there was something in me that was looking for fair practices. Still today I really believe it was just a beautiful cooperative kind of a proposal that I was making. So my dad got me a job at the Katutura Hospital. It was 1974. I was studying and went on to become an enrolled nurse. I worked there up until 1985. One thing that happened at the hospital – it was again about colour and power. Now, in the hospital, as a black nurse you only talked to a doctor when you interacted about a patient – that’s all. It was really very strict. Of course, it was apartheid then and that was it.
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