My readings of Namibia’s history of the indigenes exposed me to the at best cordial relations between the Nama and Ovaherero long before I met Pastoor Hendrik Witbooi. His Great Grandfather !Nanseb, that Namibian revolutionary par excellence, had his tussles with Ovaherero and he had remained the most respected of all the Nama warriors by Ovaherero.
The story goes that an expedition of the Nama ran into an Ovaherero ambush near Rehoboth, at the time known as Otjomevamomutumba. The Nama warriors fell and one from the Ovaherero warriors recognized Hendrik Witbooi and pleaded for his mercy. He was saved and returned to Gibeon to break the sad news. Ever since Witbooi declared war on Ovaherero. Once a battalion of the Nama warriors launched a surprise attack on Okahandja. Samuel Maharero the supreme leader of Ovaherero, had shot himself in the foot while cleaning his riffle and on this fateful day he was left alone in the homestead. Realizing what had befallen Okahandja, he went hiding and the Nama warriors did not suspect that Samuel had been left alone. Ovaherero warriors tended their chores at Osona twenty kilometers south of Okahandja. When they learned of the attack they suspected that the Nama warriors must have received a tip-off that Maharero was left alone. They sped to the homestead, broke through rearguard of the Nama warriors and the Nama fighters were repelled and pushed into disarray. Among the captured horses there was Stompoor” Hendrik Witbooi’s legendary horse. Some Ovaherero warriors pleaded for Stompoor amid emphatic decline with fears that Stompoor would if left to go, return with !Nanseb in the saddle. Stompoor fell, but Hendrik Witbooi lived long thereafter.
Pastoor Witbooi was a versatile multi-skilled person. He was ordained pastor, traditional leader, politician of high repute and petagogist. During the struggle for justice in Namibia Witbooi was protector and benefactor to so many people. At the height of the tensions between SWAPO as liberation movement and the South African Regime in Namibia, Witbooi was among those traditional and religious leaders who initiated the creation of the three English medium schools at Hoachanas, Vaalgras and Gibeon in order to stem the tide of the Afrikaans language that was forced on the black population by the Apartheid South African regime. Many of the children who went to these schools were from parents in areas such as Aminuis, Okakarara, Otjinene, Okamatapati and other places where SWAPO, the movement that Witbooi served as Vice President was virtually banned.
Hendrik Witbooi was a church man and there was church service every day in Gibeon. He loved his piano and was an accomplished music composer. He developed music for the church and for the private schools, the kind of music that struck a nerve in a sensitive ear. I once stayed over at his house in Gibeon on my way from Keetmanshoop to Windhoek. He gave me a bird’s eye view of the community with his car and we ended up at the private school. The principal, Johannes Kariseb, assembled the learners in the school hall and after some introductions, the learners sang Gibeon’s all-time sensational song “!Nanseb” to Witbooi’s piano accompaniment. This was the revered name of the Great Hendrik Witbooi. I developed chills, became emotional and broke down. Some eighteen years later we gathered in the Gibeon church to pay our last respects to Pastoor Witbooi’s wife. A mourner from the back rows of the church broke out in the song “!Nanseb”. Pastoor Witbooi accompanied the congregation with his piano. My memory tumbled back to that day at the private school and again, I inadvertently broke down and cried profusely. Chief Stefanus Tjikuirire of Vaalgras handed me a white handkerchief.
He wrapped his left arm around my shoulders and joined in the emotions. Minister Saara Kuukogelwa, fighting her own tears, looked at us somewhat undecided on how to relate to these two men seated on her right, who were so deeply moved.
