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4. Factory Act No. 20 1948. Designed with stringent conditions for registration to exclude blacks.
5. Public Health Act No. 19 of 1924 [Chapter 328]. Designed to protect the established white businesses, while black small businesses were subject to harassment for failure to meet the standards required.
(New Africa, 2013:np).
The discussion above demonstrates clearly the importance of a state in shaping economic forces.
The African farmers initially had the advantage over the whites because of their farming experience. The advantage was eliminated in a systematic manner by the white colonial government which wanted European led development. Nicholas (1994:100) noted that: “The severe control of the expansion of African capitalism and the redirection of African rural surpluses into the European agricultural sector helped to create a strong European bourgeoisie and a small very weak indigenous capitalist class.”
Nicholas’ (1994) assertion summarises the past colonial injustices and discrimination which formed the basis of the current indigenisation drive in Zimbabwe. Allowing the indigenous African capitalist to start competing openly in a neo-liberal national or global economy may not yield the desired results without the deliberate government intervention measures as was called for by President Lyndon Johnson of the United State of America.
The focus now moves to the Namibian historical case which is similar to the Zimbabwean experience.
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least to bring about socio-economic improvements, which included education for all, a fair wage system and the redistribution of land. Namibia’s first president, Sam Nujoma pointed out that it was important that: “those who are seeking to bring about a fundamentally new social order in Namibia should understand fully the events which helped in the last hundred years or so to shape the present social order.”
While it is not the intention of this study to find ways of changing the social order in Namibia, the current researcher is of the view that to be able to analyse the economic ethic of indigenisation or affirmative action critically it is essential, as President Nujoma said, to understand the events which brought about the calls for indigenisation fully. In order to understand the arguments that are made in calling for these controversial polices of indigenisation and affirmative action, this section will delve into the related historical issues of Namibia.
In Namibia the pre-colonial economy was characterised by communal ownership of land with subsistence agricultural practices which were based on family labour. There was also division of labour on the basis of gender and age. Hunting and cattle herding were the preserves of the male while field cultivation, fishing, child rearing and the preparation of food were in the work domain of women. Some of the main ethnic groups which were there were the Namas, Hereros, Damaras, Ovambos and Okavangos. The Hereros were pastoralists while the Okavangos were agro-pastoralists and the San were hunters and gatherers (Jauch, 1998:25-26).
According to Jauch (1998:25), in the second half of the 19th century the political and economic structures which had developed in these ethnic groups or communities were eroded by intertribal wars between Hereros and Namas. He also attributed the greatest destruction of these structures to the arrival of missionaries, traders and concessionaires. Mbuende (1988:38) noted that the trade between the African communities stopped when the European traders arrived and monopolised trade in Namibia. Unfortunately, the European traders did not contribute to the development of production in Namibia.
In the early days on colonialism, Namibia was German West Africa and later South West Africa before it got its independence in 1990. During the period of Germany colonisation from 1884 to 1915 the colonial traders in German West Africa were engaged in small trade in beef, cattle and
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animal products like hides and ostrich feathers. Jauch (1998:26) noted that the intention of the German policy was to make German West Africa a settlement colony, in which case they reduced the financial engagement to minimum levels. This on its own had the effect of limiting the growth of the local capitalist economy.
To allow more farming space for themselves, the whites, who were mainly ex-soldiers, artisans and technicians, called for the takeover of African grazing land (United Nations Institute for Namibia, 1986:31). The situation of continued impoverishment of the black Africans worsened over the period 1896 to1897 when German West Africa experienced drought, famine, wars and the rinderpest epidemic. This affected mainly the Nama and Herero communities. Some chiefs were forced to sell their land to the Germans for their survival. No doubt the Germans seized this opportunity to extend their farms. Fraudulent agreements with the chiefs were signed and, in some cases, land was taken violently from the natives (Gann and Duignan, 1977:174).
According to Mbuende (1986:59), Paul Rohrbach, the German imperial commissioner, declared that 75 percent of the land owned by Africans had to be sold to Europeans. The remaining 25 percent had to be proclaimed native reserves. The loss of land cattle by the native Africans led to the war in which they resisted colonialism. This was between 1904 and 1907. During this war Jauch (1998:26) and Helbig and Helbig (1983:168) noted that the Germans committed genocide in which 80 percent of all Hereros and 50 percent of all Namas became victims. The same observations were made by Katjavivi (1988:10) of a war that completely dispossessed Africans of their land, livestock, and property. In the end Germans had gained control of over two thirds of the land in the country. Only the northern regions of German West Africa were left out as a way of managing the possibility of protracted wars and huge loss. Furthermore, the areas in the northern region were spared in order for them to continue supplying cheap migrant labour into the German controlled area they called the ‘police zone’ (Moorsom. (1980:21-24). By the end of German colonisation in 1915, Africans who were in the German controlled areas had lost most of their land and livestock to the whites. They were forced to work at white owed farms, railways or emerging companies in the mining industry.
Mbuende’s (1988:38) observation suggests that there were extractive and exploitative economic practices during the period of German West Africa. Such practices were never designed to
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develop the indigenous capitalist economy or native entrepreneurship. As Jauch (1998:26) also noted, the terms of trade were much skewed in favour of the European traders in a way that saw Africans losing productive resources like cattle in exchange for cosmetics and non-productive consumables like liquor, sugar and coffee. Here, Jauch demonstrated how the Europeans exploited the Africans by taking advantage of their relatively weaker essential elements needed to survive in capitalism such as elaborate business management skills for the creation and accumulation of wealth. While others might argue that this was a free market setting as required in liberal capitalism, the strong signs of exploitation in the trade arrangements raises many ethical questions. No doubt the resultant effect was the intentional suppression of the development of the African or indigenous capitalists.
During the period 1915 – 1990 Namibia was under the colonial rule of South Africa and became known as South West Africa. The earlier part of the period from 1915 to 1948, as identified by Mbuende (1988:72) was a period of segregation. In this period South West Africa was a
“peripheral South African colony with a tiny fishing and mining industry.” The labour laws remained essentially as they were during the German rule. However, a study by the United nations Institute for Namibia observed that South West Africa became an easy outlet for the increasing number of rural Boers who had become landless and destitute as a result of the rapid commercialisation of the South African agriculture industry (United Nations Institute for Namibia, 1986:37).
The observation by the United Nations Institute for Namibia shows that there was continued pressure by the whites on the Africans to surrender their land and give way to the new settlers.
The whites were given government support in the form of generous loans, boreholes, expert advice and drought relief. The government policy was also aimed at ensured that the disposed Africans offered their labour to the white farmers. This was achieved by imposing hut and dog taxes to impoverish the pastoralists and force them into paid labour. It would appear the hut tax was designed to encourage labour immigration into the white owned farms as establishing a home in the village attracted costs which could be unsustainable compared to being accommodated at a white farmer’s compound. Similarly, the dog tax would limit the number of dogs one could keep. Knowing that dogs were used extensively by Africans in hunting, a reduction in their numbers implied a reduced animal catch both in size and number of catches.
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Naturally, the supply of food was to decline systematically forcing more and more Africans into offering their labour to the white farmers. Clearly ethical issues arise in this conduct which will be covered in detail later.
Gottschalk (1983:73-75) noted that the government of South West Africa spent very little on the development of the native reserves. Funds for development were left to what the residents could raise themselves. It was further noted that between 1922 and 1946, 90 percent of African or native Namibians were allocated only 3, 6 percent - 10, 6 percent of the national budget. During the period in which South African Government practiced segregation in South West Africa, racial policies which were put in place by the Germans were maintained. The same laws were entrenched further during the South West Africa period which Mbuende (1998:72) defined as the apartheid era, from 1948 – 1977. In addition to these laws in 1962, the colonial government appointed the Odendaal commission to make recommendations on how homelands for various ethnic groups could be created. These recommendations became widely known as the 1963 Odendaal Plan. The plan proposed that 40 percent of the total area in South West Africa be allocated to ten black homelands, 43 percent was to be allocated to white farmers as farm land and the remaining part consisting of diamond areas and game reserves would be not be allocated but remain state land (Mbuende, 1998:91-93). The artificially created homelands were not economically viable, thus further suppressing the emergence and development of indigenous African capitalism. Instead, the natives were forced to look for wage employment in order to allow their families to survive.
In the later part of the 1970 there was an increase of pressure on South Africa from the South West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO), the liberation movement, and the international community. This led South Africa to pursue the policy of internal resettlement. The strategy in this policy was to divide the black Africans “…by buying off its most skilled and educated components plus some ‘traditional’ and ‘self-made’ political leaders-cum-body guards, ‘home guards’ and Koevet” (Green, 1984:5).
At a conference in 1975 aimed at promoting collaborative African bureaucracy which was attended by invited homeland leaders, a proposal was made of a federal structure of government which consolidated the existing inequalities and the protected the privileges of the white
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minority. SWAPO rejected both the proposal and the conference. As a result, the liberation struggle continued from outside the boarders. (Jauch 1984:29).
The colonial history of Namibia as discussed above was shaped by the state in a way that discriminated against the black people. They were systematically disposed of their wealth and discriminated against and marginalised from mainstream economic activities. These racist colonial practices were exercised for around a century. This left the black Namibians out of the capitalist economy. At independence the inequality of accumulated wealth resulted in the call for wealth redistribution through policies such as indigenisation or affirmation action.
2.5 Ethical Issues Relating to the Colonial Discrimination of Indigenous African Capitalists