This Week In The Khuta – “Struggle kids”: The children that no one wants

As Namibia celebrates 23-years of self determination this week, it is rather unfortunate that the so-called struggle kids still blame Government for the unfortunate circumstances that they find themselves in. Debate has been going on in recent weeks on whether Government should treat these “kids” as a special group of people. For some strange reason, some amongst us have sympathy for these struggle kids while others are indifferent to their plight.
It goes without saying that these so-called struggle kids sealed their fate when they recently pissed off some very powerful people in Government by trying to march to the Prime Minister’s office. From what I have read and seen in the past few days, it seems there is now little, if any, Government sympathy left for these “kids”. The writing is clearly on the wall for them. For all our sake, what the “struggle kids” need to do is simply take a hint.
But believing that these “kids” will take a hint is having too much faith in their collective conscience for these are the people who, year after year, keep re-appearing on the spotlight from literally nowhere with seemingly no strategy save to making a nuisance of themselves. What I fail to understand is what gives them the right to believe that they, unlike other children, deserve special treatment? Someone should convince the nation why this group of people should be treated differently from the rest of us mere mortals.
Whereas there was an urgent need to look after the welfare of the veterans of our liberation struggle because of the huge sacrifices they made during the war, I fail to see why government should bend over backwards for the struggle kids. Is it because they are God’s greatest gift to Namibia? I thought these kids were given equal opportunities to attend school even in exile. I have read of centres such as the Namibia Education Centre for Namibian Refugees in Zambia under the leadership of Nahas Angula that gave these exiled “kids’ the opportunity to attend school like everyone else so that they could not be disadvantaged later in life. So what really is their issue with the Government?
While I acknowledge that Government should indeed create opportunities for every citizen to prosper, I, however, don’t subscribe to the notion that people who have suddenly realised that they are not going anywhere in life, can just wake up and decide that Government must treat them as royalty simply because they were born outside the country during the war of independence. This culture of entitlement amongst the youth must end. Why should able bodied people wait for the Government to do everything for them? What gives them the right to demand jobs without the requisite education and training?
Government is already spending almost half of its annual income on civil servants’ salaries which means there is simply no room for the state to go on a recruitment drive simply to satisfy the demands of these “special” members of our society. It will also be suicidal to appoint the “struggle kids” to positions in which they are not trained for. Recruitment without production is a futile exercise even for central government.
Going forward, I think Government should continue showing decisive leadership on this issue as demonstrated recently. The state should refuse to be hold to ransom by these people. They must be told in no unclear terms that the era of jobs for the comrades is well and truly behind us. They have to earn their living like the rest of the nation. It is that simple.