President Hage Geingob's Legacy

As we all remember the late President Hage Geingob, it is worth looking at his contribution to the state of the media in Namibia.

The relationship between the media and Geingob was often a bit of a mixed bag. He could be stand-offish, sometimes appearing arrogant and rude – a trait put down to his “unique sense of humour” – and his office was not always the easiest to deal with, but at the same time he did open the State House to journalists. In fact, during the Covid-19 pandemic, many journalist friends and acquaintances from elsewhere in Africa would tell me how lucky we were to have a president who not only provided regular updates, but who was prepared to allow journalists to ask questions at these briefings. While some questioned the perceived preference given to the national broadcaster, and him seemingly being much more willing to allow interviews with foreign media than their local counterparts, Geingob was without a doubt a champion of a free and pluralistic media, famously having been quoted as saying: “As long as I am given the mandate to lead this great country, the freedom of the press is guaranteed.”

A passionate advocate and cheerleader for our beautiful country, the late President Geingob understood the role that a free and independent media can play in nation building. His call for the media to report on more positive stories about Namibia was interpreted by some as a call to sugar-coat or ignore the negative, and while I most certainly hold to the dictum that a true patriot is not one who never questions the government but rather one who loves their country enough to hold the government to account, he did have a point!

As long as I am given the mandate to lead this great country, the freedom of the press is guaranteed.

The media has the very powerful ability to shape public opinion, promote democracy and good governance, influence behaviour and advance policies that guarantee a high quality of life. This is not only done through the stories they choose to highlight but the angle they choose to take. Glenn Greenwald famously quoted: “A key purpose of journalism is to provide an adversarial check on those who wield the greatest power by shining a light on what they do in the dark, and informing the public about those acts.” While this still holds true, it is also true that across the planet more and more people are turning towards so-called solutions journalism.

Solutions journalism does not ignore the problems that exist, but rather than simply reporting on them and leaving it at that, it also investigates what is being done to solve the problem. Far from being the “soft” or “saccharine” journalism some old-school investigative journalists believe it to be, solutions journalism does not ignore the problems that exist but can instead complement and add to the coverage of problems by specifically reporting on solutions. If the government is seen to be ignoring a problem, highlighting grassroots efforts to solve the problem, or ways the same problem was solved elsewhere, allows citizens to call for greater accountability or get involved themselves. It can also embarrass officials into doing something. In a world that seems to be becoming more and more polarised, research has also shown that solutions journalism can change the conversation to be less divisive and more constructive.

While I am sure Geingob’s legacy will remain and I am not too concerned about a decline in media freedom in Namibia under his successors, I also believe that he was right when he told local journalists that “we’d miss him when he’s gone!”

As a brief and completely selfindulgent aside before I close off, my favourite memory of Dr Hage Geingob will always be the night we were having dinner with my wife’s former boss and Hage and then First Lady Monica were sitting at a neighbouring table with Nahas Angula and his wife. The boss’s young daughter wanted to go and say hello and, having been encouraged to do so, walked up to the table and gingerly interrupted their conversation. The president and his wife immediately greeted her warmly, engaged her with questions about her education and where she was going to school, and embraced her before she went off again.

My second favourite is when my wife was not paying attention and bumped into him and his bodyguard walking out of the shops, but that is a story for another occasion.

Until next month, enjoy your journey.

David Bishop