Source: The Conversation – Africa (2)
Celebrated Namibian liberation leader Andimba Toivo ya Toivo played an important role in his country’s development. Beyond Namibia, however, he remains unknown to many. Anthropologist Heike Becker has written a biography of ya Toivo, finally telling his story in full.
We asked her four questions about the man and the book. Why is he little known outside Namibia? It’s true, few know about ya Toivo, even though his legacy includes one of the most powerful speeches from the dock ever made during the struggles against settler colonialism in southern Africa.
His contribution remains overshadowed because he never became the official leader of the liberation movement that he’d founded in 1957, Swapo (South West Africa People’s Organisation). Nor did he become Namibia’s president. These positions were occupied by Sam Nujoma, who is regarded as the official “founding father” of the nation.
During the decades of the Namibian liberation struggle, Nujoma, who had lived in exile from 1960, had become internationally well-known. Ya Toivo was jailed on Robben Island until 1984. Unusually for his generation, he did not clamber for power.
He influenced people through his “stubborn” example, as his lifelong friend and fellow political prisoner Helao Shiyuwete remembered. Although I met ya Toivo informally in the 1990s, the book is based on speaking with his peers and young Namibians, along with extensive archive and film material.
Many who knew him recall his defiance, his self-discipline, his determination to reach his goals, and his friendliness. (Though he could be very strict, as one of his daughters recalled during his memorial service in 2017.) My book begins to highlight his central role in shaping the Namibian liberation struggle.
It also shows that he continued to advocate for social justice, fighting corruption and tribalism, after Namibia’s independence in 1990. Who was Andimba Toivo ya Toivo? Ya Toivo was born in 1924 in Omangudu in northern Namibia, where his father was a lay preacher and teacher under the Finnish Lutheran mission.
His mother was from the royal family of Ondonga, one of the historical Owambo kingdoms. As a boy he herded cattle and received primary education from the mission. During the second world war, he was a soldier with the South African Native Military Corps, a unit of the racially segregated South African army.
Although Namibia was officially administered under a League of Nations mandate, South Africa governed it as a de facto fifth province, so about 5,000 black Namibians were recruited into the neighbouring country’s army. After his discharge in 1943, ya Toivo went back to school in northern Namibia.
In the early 1950s, ya Toivo moved to South Africa. In 1957, he and other Namibians formed the Ovamboland People’s Congress, the forerunner of Swapo. Their inaugural meeting was held at a Cape Town barber shop owned by Namibians.
The founders adopted a petition, demanding that the administration of Namibia be transferred from South Africa to the United Nations. They also called for the end of Namibia’s detested contract labour system, established under German colonial rule.
The petition included demands for the rights of women in the workplace. At the time, the South African government had extended its apartheid policies of racial and ethnic separation to its colony, Namibia, then known as South West Africa.
Because of his activism, the South African regime deported ya Toivo. In northern Namibia he continued to play a vital role in organising anticolonial resistance, despite the regime’s severe measures to contain him. Read more: A man called Hope: the legacy of Namibia’s Andimba Toivo ya Toivo In 1967, the South African regime clamped down.
Ya Toivo and 36 others were charged with “terrorism”. On trial in Pretoria he drew international attention to the Namibian liberation struggle with a formidable speech in the court room.
He told the judge, the apartheid regime and the world about the determination of the Namibian people: I know that the struggle will be long and bitter, but I also know that my people will wage that struggle whatever the cost.
Sentenced to 20 years in prison, ya Toivo spent 16 years on Robben Island, where he continued his defiant resistance alongside his fellow Namibian prisoners. He also made friends with South African resistance leaders like Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu.
In 1984 he was released and joined Swapo in exile. Between the 1960s and the much delayed implementation of the Namibian independence plan in 1989, Swapo’s political-diplomatic and armed struggle was led mainly from southern Africa’s frontline states, particularly Zambia and Angola.
What did you learn writing this book? Researching the biography, I realised that it could bring attention to lesser-known dimensions of the Namibian liberation struggle. I became particularly interested in the experience of, and the role played by, about 200 Namibian workers who, like ya Toivo, found themselves in Cape Town in the 1950s.
Their experiences of displacement and migration were significant for early nationalist politics, as were their political contacts in Cape Town. This transnational aspect deserves more attention. Ya Toivo’s first sojourn in South Africa, as a soldier, had raised his political awareness.
One Namibian activist, Leonard Lidker, was 11 when he met ya Toivo in Odibo in 1944. He recalls him spending evenings telling young students about the importance of standing up for equality and justice. Later, in Cape Town, ya Toivo became involved with South African anti-apartheid organisations, left-wing intellectuals and activists.
This influenced the ways in which he organised his fellow Namibians, workers, and also a handful of students studying at the Cape. When Namibians like ya Toivo joined the migration to South Africa, they managed to break through what had previously been a sealed door to the outside world.
In Cape Town, the mid-1950s were a period of blossoming life and activism. Despite the apartheid restrictions, social intermingling remained possible. Easter weekend camps, for instance, brought people together in seaside suburbs. Ya Toivo recalled that these were an eye-opener because it was the first time that he saw people of different racial categories mingling freely.
The events were organised by the Modern Youth Society, a multiracial left-wing group of activists. Ya Toivo would become the group’s vice-chair. What is his legacy and why is he still so relevant? Throughout his long life, ya Toivo remained committed to the fight for justice, against inequality, poverty, tribalism and corruption.
As an internationalist and opposed to ethnic politics, he forged connections and solidarities across national, cultural and social divides. His farewell speech in the Namibian National Assembly in 2005 reminded Namibians to continue the struggle for social justice.
He issued a stern warning against greed and self-enrichment to those who had come to power after liberation. Ya Toivo’s life and vision remain relevant a decade after his death at 92. His legacy continues to inspire those devoted to social justice and unity.
This includes a new generation of Namibian activists, who never met him in person and who have been given voice in the book.
They have taken up ya Toivo’s call to complete the “unfinished struggle”.
Heike Becker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/18/who-was-andimba-toivo-ya-toivo-the-namibian-leader-who-chose-justice-over-power/