Namibia is a small country. Or so it seems. It barely registers in the Western media imagination, if only as the maternity ward for Hollywood superstars like Angelina Jolie or as a hide-out for American white collar criminals.
But there is more to the country as these recent reports in the Christian Science Monitor (surprise) about unfinished business from its recent past that does not want to go away (missing soldiers from its liberation struggle) or the negative effects of the politics of development confirm.
There is also the matter of Charles Burnett‘s biopic on Sam Nujoma ( the first president of an independent Namibia), Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation‘ (who came up with this unimaginative title?), which opened the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles last weekend) but about that later once I have seen it. I am hearing good things about the film (since I admire Burnett’s work), although some mainstream critics have problems with it already, for example see here )
