I admit, I must have missed a few more history lessons in my time. Not only was Namibia far away during my school years in the 60s and 70s, but the country was also called German South-West Africa until it officially gained independence in 1990 from South-Africa.

Brief history from Worldatlas:

South Africa occupied the German colony of South-West Africa during World War I and administered it as a mandate until after World War II, when it annexed the territory.

In 1966 the Marxist South-West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) guerrilla group launched a war of independence for the area that was soon named Namibia, but it was not until 1988 that South Africa agreed to end its administration in accordance with a UN peace plan for the entire region.

Namibia won its independence in 1990.

So when I met Kyra many years ago, I did not know much about German colonization nor Deutsch-Ostafrika. In my childhood, I had heard about African poverty as we used to collect money in church, but I did not expect whites to live in wealth down there either.

I was perplexed to hear her speak German, speak of white settlements, of German schools, of anything German down there. But she and her family, like many others at that time, decided to leave Namibia for safety reasons after it won its independence in 1990.

She spent several years in Germany, but missing Africa, her siblings, and parents made her move back with her family in 2003. This past Sunday, once more she was sitting in my kitchen and telling of the abject poverty which reigns the country.

Approximately half the population live below the international poverty line of U.S.$1.25 a day, and the nation has suffered heavily from the effects of HIV/AIDS, with 15% of the adult population infected with HIV in 2007.

Her daughter called her while she was at my place and I heard them talking in Africaans.

While the official language is English, most of the white population speaks either German or Afrikaans. Even today, 90 years after the end of the German colonial era, the German language plays a leading role as a commercial language. Afrikaans is spoken by 60% of the white community, German is spoken by 32%, English is spoken by 7% and Portuguese by 1% (More on German Namibians).

She told of rich whites driving around in their Mercedes Benz while others are starving on the road side.

The coming elections in Namibia on 27/28 November are another scary date in Namibia’s history. Maybe this is why her husband and children will come and join my friend in Germany this Friday, 27 November for a brief holiday.

If I were white, I could not live there, whether rich or poor. The feeling of oppressed revenge must be too great, by justice.

What if some foreigners came and exploited your country’s natural resources, used your humankapital for cheap labor, watched your family die from hunger, paraded around you in wealth, called you ignorant and uneducated?

What if some country came to invade YOU?

I can hear your voices: You can’t do this to me – I am an American! You can’t do this to me – I am white.

I just don’t see how this can be politically correct in our modern times. This is the year of 2009.

I would not be surprised if the 2010 FIFA World Cup should end up in some kind of massacre.