A Glance at Our Africa – Open Access Download

This book contains the facsimile reprint of the first African newspaper published in Namibia, “South West News – Suidwes Nuus. The only non-racial newspaper in the territory. Mehindi o’Tajitonga Indji aijerike andjihina ‘mbangu komihoko”.

 

Issued in 1960 in Windhoek, it has to be regarded as the earliest example of independent African journalism in Namibia.

 

South West News was the only newspaper in Namibia at the time with a non-racial and nationalist concept. It was also a community paper for the Old Location, the African township in Windhoek, whose residents were threatened with forced removals. The paper was launched shortly after the shootings in December 1959 at the Old Location. It published statements by Hosea Kutako, SWANU as well as OPO/SWAPO and the testimonies of Mburumba Kerina, Jariretundu Kozonguizi and Sam Nujoma at the hearings of the UN Committee on South-West Africa in New York. It reported on social events in the Old Location, on the Maharero-Day in Okahandja and on the funeral of Chief Josaphat Kambazembi.

 

South West News was one of the few public documents representing African issues to Africans themselves, and to the colonial society in Namibia at large. Today, the newspaper is largely forgotten. This book makes South West News accessible again and examines its history and contents.

 

Zedekia Ngavirue (1933–2021) was a co-founder and former editor of South West News (1960). At the time he was the only social worker in the Old Location of Windhoek and a leading member of SWANU. Twelve years later he obtained his PhD at the University of Oxford, on the political history of Namibia. After Namibia’s independence in 1990, he held numerous government and diplomatic positions.

 

Dag Henrichsen is a Namibian historian at the Basler Afrika Bibliographien (BAB), Namibia Resource Centre, in Switzerland.

 

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