Theo-Ben Gurirab – The Intelligent Modest Man

• JOSHUA KAUMBISURELY, death must be having a sting, if even Theo-Ben Gurirab could not convince the gatekeepers.

Swapo’s only diplomat, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah’s mentor and a friend of Nahas Angula and I, Theo-Ben Gurirab disappeared into the back stage, and left us only with memories of our late-night interactions.

The iconic son from Hakhaseb’s ear caught the birds singing ‘/­awihe tama !guruhe tama !as ge !usa !hosa’ in that perpetual dry and hot river. The man who must have known that he was an actor bowed out as his walk started to echo his talk.

Gurirab was a modest man who was in love with himself, and knew that he was exceptional. He was a man who never projected what bothered him, in his daily interaction, and rather enjoyed playing dice with the Queen’s language. He went on to those who could match his language, the late Moses Katjiuongua and Nora Schimming-Chase. To him, all else were sideshows.

The future has been robbed of a diplomat par excellence, an orator of exceptional quality. A boy born to a clan, but died a national leader. Whilst he would agree to the anomaly in our system, he would look for the positives and magnify them. He agreed that the country he gave his all, changed.

Whenever I touched base with him or he with us, he would greet with both hands, the top softly, yet consistently, tapping my hand, or a tap on the one arm for goodbye. I came to realise that was his way of talking, or his typical well and fine and keep it up in his rusty voice, whilst staring most of the time away from you, letting you make up your own mind.

Amongst the three of us, he would be the one speaking less, forever in his mode and own world. Whenever he would talk about Hanganee Katjipuka, out of own volition, his eyes would stare into the past to this character I never met. I realised he must have been impressed by this man, to such an extent that he named his child after him, or perhaps wanted me to exhume that past.

He would warmly sing praises of Andreas Guibeb for reasons never shared. Towards the end, he spoke about a young fellow he met at Walvis Bay, Ngii Kaumbi, my late mother’s only brother, an organic intellectual who would apparently debate him to the core in the early 1960s.

I still struggle to find the answers to most, if not all, of my questions, even though he answered them all.

The man who taught me that we only rise to greatness if we pursue the collective…that, though born as tribes, we are safe and secure when we belong to the greater part…who taught me that one cannot control all the events that happen …but…can decide not to be reduced by same (Maya Angelou edited), will forever remain the principal diplomat, with a pan-Africanist flair. Through his words and actions, he taught me that whatever you are, be a good one. (Abraham Lincoln)

Uncle Ben, as Nahas Angula would call you, even if we forget what you have said yesterday, what you did for our country at the critical time, we will never forget how you made us feel with your words and hands: citizens of your utopia.

Inderdaad, President Hage Geingob het bevestig, dat Usakos, die Erongo berge en die Gurirab familiestam nie groter aanspraak het as die van die Namibië wat hy help skep het nie, toe hy besluit het, en reg so, dat die leeu op ons heuweltjie moet tuiste vind.

Though you will be missed, you deserve the rest more than our company, as we will contemplate the question of your time. All’s Well That Ends Well. (Shakespeare).