The Coronavirus and Social Justice in Namibia

ABSTRACT Over the past 30 years, the successive SWAPO regimes that governed Namibia always followed a neoliberal policy path. Co-existing with the neoliberal elites are thousands of Namibians living in squalors in a country that has been declared as one of the most unequal nations on the face of the earth. Over the years, social justice activists never gave up the fight for a just and equitable society. They fought for better shelter, housing, economic equality, land, water and sanitation, free tertiary education and income grants to cushion the poor. The successive SWAPO regimes have been indifferent. Interestingly, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, government ended up implementing the very initiatives it rejected over the years. This text explores several social justice struggles over the years and demonstrates how these were implemented by government as a Covid-19 response in 2020. It thus argues that social justice is possible and the state has demonstrated its capacity in implementing these programmes. It then calls on social justice activists to use the Covid-19 currency to ensure that social justice becomes central in a post-Covid-19 economic order.