An Irishman's Diary

WHEN I received an e-mail yesterday featuring a photograph of the so-called “Nama people”, I thought at first it must be a scoop. Were these the panel of experts chosen by the Government to run what Ruairi Quinn has described as “the biggest property company in the world” and what Richard Bruton calls “an enormous gamble by the Fianna Fáil Government on bankers, developers and the future of the Irish property market?”

Well, no. It turned out that reader Pat Talty had merely sent me a picture from his recent trip to Namibia, where the “Nama” are an ethnic minority. Divided between southern Namibia and South Africa, these are the people once known in the west as “Hottentots”. Indeed, back in the 1800s, an unfortunate female member of their community became famous when, as the “Hottentot Venus”, she was hawked around the sideshows of Europe.

Another famous Nama was Hendrik Witbooi, a chief of the tribe, who led a revolt against German colonists until he was killed in 1905. Among his feats of daring was the theft of horses owned by the German imperial commissioner Henrich Goering, father of the Nazi. For his role in this first Namibian independence struggle, Witbooi is now immortalised with a portrait on the Namibian one-dollar note.

It is very doubtful whether a different Nama chief – the 21st-century interim Irish version Brendan McDonagh – or any of his successors can aspire to be similarly remembered on banknotes in due course. This despite the vast numbers of them they will be spending on our behalf. But could it be that Hendrik Witbooi’s people, that ancient race from the land of the Orange River, have anything to teach us here in modern Namaland?

Well, closer inspection reveals that the African Nama also have a culture that prizes “music, poetry, story-telling” and the oral tradition generally; just like ours. Interestingly too, they believe in communal land ownership, which is something we are only belatedly getting into.

Unfortunately most of their land is desert, and not very valuable. So again, at least since the property crash, we in Irish Namaland can empathise.

Their nomadic and pastoral traditions notwithstanding, the African Nama are no strangers to modern-style litigation: something their Irish counterparts may have to get used to too. Only two years ago, a group of seven Nama elders successfully concluded an epic, nine-year case against the South African state and a mining company which had combined to force them off their lands in the 1920s when diamonds were found in the area.

In the settlement, they won 84,000 hectares of land, a 49 per cent share in the state-run mining concern, and SA$19 million in reparations. I suggest the elders of the Irish Nama (the board will also number seven, coincidentally) familiarise themselves with the case books as soon as possible.

Like the Government (when it suits), the African Nama have a very complex and, to our ears, incomprehensible language. One of its features is the use of tongue-clicking for certain sounds: there are several different clicks,

apparently.

Perhaps with a view to discouraging legal challenges, Pat Talty suggests the Irish Nama legislation could be translated into African Nama (although, from my attempts to read the bill, somebody

seems to have done this already).

In any case, he offers this example of written Nama (I understand the exclamation marks correspond to tongue clicks): “Xam-i ke ’a lgúrún hòán tì gàó’ao káíseb ’a lgaísa, lóm llxáí, xápú kxáó, tsi !háése ra !khóés !áróma”. Which translates as: “The lion is king of all the beasts because he is very strong, thick of chest, slim of waist, and runs fast.” Pat adds: “Don’t mention the Tiger.” There is one other important link between Ireland and the African Nama: Seán MacBride. The former IRA man, Clann na Poblachta founder, and Nobel peace prize winner was also UN high commissioner for Namibia in the 1970s, during its transition from South African rule to independence. For this and his human rights work generally, he is remembered as a hero in the region.

MacBride having been a socialist republican, it’s hard to know which Nama he would have been more impressed with: the South African ones for successfully suing the state, or the Irish version for buying vast amounts of property with tax-payers’ money. Maybe what would most amaze him is that, while a mere mother-and-child scheme brought down the first inter-party government, the mother-and-father of all bank bailouts shows no sign yet of doing for the current Coalition.

But enough about MacBride and 1940s Ireland. It’s Namaland we live in now. We can only wish our chiefs and elders well as they go about their task of discounting the €90 billion loans, while also assigning them a “long-term value”, and yet somehow not paying over the odds. This is a tall order by any standards. It is to be hoped that the great story-telling tradition, of which the bankers and property dealers of Namaland are proud inheritors, will not confuse the elders unduly.

fmcnally@irishtimes.com