On 21 September 2018, Mr Nakatana visited our history lesson and told us about his life and his attitude to current problems and their origin in the past.
Mr Nakatana was born in Katutura in 1965, after his parents had relocated from the north to Windhoek. At a young age, he helped his father with simple tasks such as cleaning office buildings. At the age of 15, he fled to the north with his brother, due to the ongoing independence struggle. In 1984, he went to Germany where he learned German and the principles of forestry in frame of a government programme. A year later, he went to India, where he gained an insight into furniture production. Further stations were Italy and the USA, before he returned to Africa in 1990 and via Angola to Namibia for the first parliamentary election. Shortly afterwards he moved to Namibia with his family. Today, Mr Nakatana is employed at the National Youth Service in Windhoek and is the father of three children. Since he has visited so many countries and gained experiences in each of them, Mr Nakatana describes himself as a “global citizen".
He has a clear opinion of current political and social situations. On the subject of today's racism and black oppression in the apartheid, he says that we should forgive each other and focus on developing our country together. He believes that the future is decisive and that it is pointless to blame the Germans or South Africans of what has happened in the past.
With regard to the Federal Republic's compensation payments to Namibia, or, more specifically, to the Herero and Nama communities, Mr Natakana says that it would be better to agree on some kind of development aid. Building kindergartens and schools, suppliyng livestock such as goats and cattle to aspiring farmers or selling land to the government to make it available to the locals are just a few of his ideas. According to Mr Nakatana, other solutions to combating racism would be open dialogue between the parties involved, promoting exchange of views and improving the education system to address racist attitudes of different population groups from an early age, for a peaceful coexistence in future so that we can build our country together.

(Report Gerrit Pchalek, Gr. 12)