Where In The World? Namibia!

Courteous officials. What more could you want?

 How many times have you been looking at a globe and come across a place you've never heard of? We've all done it! Who can blame us? Ouagadougo can't be real, surely? I want to profile some of Africa's lesser known nations, and here I'll be shedding some light on the jewel of south-west Africa. Welcome to Namibia!

 Although three times the size of Germany, the tiny population of 2 million means it’s the second-least densely-populated nation on Earth, (behind Mongolia, for all you Pub Quizzers.) but with no civil wars, famines or coups, it’s rare to see Namibia on the 10 O’Clock news.

But Namibia’s history is a dark one. The 20th century’s first genocide took place here, committed by the fathers of the perpetrators of the Holocaust. Hermann Goering’s Papa was a key figure in the extermination of 100,00 Herero and Nama between 1904 and 1907 as the Germans drove a whole people into the desert to die. The German occupation ended with the South African invasion during the First World War, and the nation formerly known as German South-West Africa remained occupied until independence from the Apartheid regime in 1990. Since then, the country has gone from strength to strength, with one of the most stable and democratic regimes in the region. Not wanting to alienate any of Namibia’s many linguistic and cultural groups, the government chose English as the official language at independence; a language sparsely spoken before and demonstrative of the brave new world that emancipation brought. Most Namibians are bi-, tri- or even quadrilingual!

There are few famous Namibians, but her most notable citizens, runner Frankie Fredericks and supermodel Behati Prinsloo, show the nation’s diversity. It could be argued that Namibia is the ‘real’ Rainbow Nation. With economic disparities widening and a breakdown in race relations across the Orange River in South Africa, Namibia has gone from strength to strength in the 23 years since independence from its larger neighbour. Herero and Nama live peacefully alongside Afrikaners and the 20,000 German-speakers whose antecedents found their ‘Platz an der Sonne’ in Germany’s short-lived colonial empire. Unlike in Zimbabwe, land reform has been gradual and peaceful, as colonial wrongs are righted.

Forgive the cliché, but Namibia really is a land of contrasts. Where else could you come across quaint German towns in the scorching desert, forage with the world’s last hunter-gatherers, or meet a people who proudly call themselves “Bastards?”

Obscure, hidden and quaint, Namibia could be worth a visit.