Book 157: Namibia (English) – Born of the Sun (Joseph DIESCHO)

“Do you have any questions?”

There are no questions. The men are hungry for more information about what they will soon experience, but how do you ask questions about what you don’t know, have never experienced and do not have the foggiest idea about? In any case, you simply do not ask your mother what she will cook tomorrow, you wait graciously for the food, eat it, and then ask your questions. The future will have its own rules. You do not ask today what you will do to the bridge tomorrow – you will either cross it, or burn it, when you get to it.

This is one that I picked up in the Windhoek. Namibia was colonised by the Germans (as South West Africa), then ruled by South Africa (supposedly on behalf of its people) who tried to impose their own apartheid system. It finally gained independence after a long guerrilla struggle and international sanctions pressure.

Muronga is a (perhaps too perfect?) young man who grows up in an isolated village with little knowledge of the world, and that coming through German Catholic missionaries. The book portrays Catholicism very negatively, which (as author himself remarks in a note) “is more accurate for an earlier period in history than for the time frame in which this novel is placed.” It seems like more of a send-up, with threats to “un-baptise” those who are not good… The natives can’t even remember or pronounce the baptismal names they’ve been given.

When South Africa took over, it made the people pay taxes for the first time. This meant that their young men had to go to work in the horrid conditions of apartheid South Africa’s mines. Their recruitment process was reminiscent of slave processing and they were separated from their family and friends for years, maybe forever. Eventually Muronga comes to fight for the miners’ rights against the exploitation. Yet somehow he still seemed to me rather naive at the end.

Born of the Sun was an uncomfortable read – apart from the horrible conditions and racism suffered by the ‘Blacks’, they themselves came across against ‘Whites’ who are all portrayed as bad (and lumped together as ’the white man’).

Because of the simplicity of the writing, treatment of the issues and the plot, I felt like this first novel by a native Namibian was really a children’s book, although a friend of the author that I spoke with assured me that he didn’t intend it to be. But we need to be reminded of this cruel time in history.

Joseph DIESCHO (1955 – ) with Celeste WALLIN, Born of the Sun, Windhoek, Gamsberg Macmillan, 2002, ISBN 99916-0-386-7 (first published in US 1988)