I Remember the Day of Independence

An open letter to president Hage Geingob:

Dear Mr President,

I remember Independence Day.

I was barely seven years old and had started primary school just a month earlier.

We remained glued to our TV until midnight for the old South African flag to be lowered, and the new Namibian flag to be hoisted to deafening cheers.

It was a big moment full of promise – that much I could understand.

Thirty-three years later I am fighting for the legal recognition of my family, because we are not equal citizens in the country of my birth, or what you like to call the Namibian House.

I am a man, married to another man, and we have three beautiful children: This is our crime.

Since 2011, I have been living in Namibia with my Mexican husband, Guillermo, recognised as spouses by a vast array of institutions.

But ever since we presented ourselves to the government as a family, the Ministry of Home Affairs, Immigration, Safety and Security continues to subject us to discrimination and harassment, which has severely disrupted our work and family life.

This includes two times that my family has been separated against our will. First, for about three weeks in January 2020 when my husband was unlawfully expelled from the country without warning.

The second time lasted for more than two months in 2021, when the then minister of home affairs refused our newborn twin daughters entry to Namibia.
Three years and two Supreme Court judgements later, we have not found recourse.

On 20 March, the Supreme Court overturned a 2021 High Court judgement which confirmed our son’s right to Namibian citizenship.
The Supreme Court based its unanimous decision on a dubious technicality, with disregard to the merits of the case and the best interest of our child.

This is but the latest twist in a bureaucratic merry-go-round with an immense emotional, mental, and financial burden to my family.

Two years ago, it brought me very close to going into exile – previously inconceivable in a constitutional democracy such as ours.

Today, we find ourselves less than a month away from the expiry date of my husband’s and children’s right to be in Namibia, and the spectre of exile looms large once again.

Despite the promise of our Constitution that all members of the human family are equal before the law, this is not true for the experiences of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) community.

We hear of the assault of trans women by the police for expressing who they are; we read about men being beaten up for wearing a dress; we grieve for those who could not carry the burden of denying their true selves any longer; we experience harassment of same-sex spouses of Namibian citizens; we know of the deadly impact of the government not distributing condoms in correctional facilities; and of course we remember the founding president stating publicly that homosexuals should be imprisoned and deported.

But most importantly, we hear the deafening silence – and thus the consent – of your administration and Swapo amid continued discrimination of LGBTQI+ people in this country.

You were the chairperson of the historic Constituent Assembly which drafted Namibia’s progressive Constitution: Why are you seemingly unwilling to give effect to the momentous promise of equality for all that was enshrined in the supreme law?

For 33 years, parliament, with its duty to make laws to give effect to the inclusive tenets of the Constitution, has failed to even repeal some of the most glaring unconstitutional laws inherited from apartheid, particularly the crime of sodomy.

Instead, current lawmakers insist that only domestic partnerships of the opposite sex are to be protected under domestic violence legislation.

Recently, the attorney general submitted that homosexuals undermine their own dignity by contravening (unsubstantiated) majoritarian morals.

Now it is becoming clear that the Supreme Court – guardian of the bill of rights – is unwilling to provide constitutional guidance on a substantive aspect of LGBTQI+ rights.

This is, despite all that your administration wants us to believe, state-sanctioned homophobia.

We, the queers, are your sons, your daughters, your aunties and brothers.

We are good enough to contribute to society, to be teachers, to provide shelter for orphans, to entertain, to serve at the highest levels of government, to be doctors, lawyers and architects; we’re good enough to be gay best friends and co-workers, and above all we are good enough to be taxpayers.

But we are not good enough to be equal citizens.

We do not need historians to remind us that the Bible and homophobia, not homosexuality, are the original colonial import. Queerness has always existed, evidenced by indigenous terminology to express it.

The oppression of diverse identities and sexual practices in Africa was, like violence and dispossession, central to the colonial project.

Wisely, you and the drafters of our Constitution insisted that Namibia become a secular state. Christian morality is therefore welcome to stand alongside equal rights for sexual minorities, but not above. The long-standing intersectional and transcultural struggle of gender and sexually diverse persons is global and tolerance is growing the world over.

Personally, we have received support from people of all walks of life, across income groups, cultures, ages, and political inclinations, which continues to reinforce our wish to live in this country and contribute to its ongoing transformation.

Mr President, Namibia’s society stands ready to expand its notion of freedom and equality. It may not lie within your personal power to undo historical socio-economic inequality: That is our collective generational task.

But it lies within your power to lead your administration towards ending state-sanctioned homophobia and fulfilling a key promise of independence.

Legal equality must be extended to all, or there is no equality.

Let us make the Namibian House truly inclusive.

• Phillip Lühl is an architect and senior lecturer at the Namibia University of Science and Technology. As associate dean, he heads the School of the Built Environment.