All the Way to an Independent Namibia

At the age of 87 Dirk Mudge now publishes his long-awaited autobiography. This remarkable man was involved full time in the politics of South West Africa, and later Namibia, for a period of 33 years. He entered the political arena in 1960 as a member of the Legislative Assembly of the National Party of South West Africa. Mudge describes how he initally supported the ideologies of the national Party, but gradually came to change his views and politics. This inevitably lead to his resignation from the National Party and to the establishment of his own party: The Pepublican Party. He had a personal involvement in the drawing up of the new Constitution of the Republic of Namiba and tries to give answers to questions about why it took Namibia so long to reach independance. He also explains the role South Africa and the international community played in this major event. Says Dr Piet Croucamp in his preface: “Mudge's memoir does not relive the past in times of modernity. The reader becomes displaced ? in a way ? to a familiar but awkward if not painful past. The narrative, conceived in stigma and shame, is presented with a “respectability” or even bizarre “reality” which once was “normal” to some and an abomination to others. Dirk Mudge has made a remarkable contribution with a text which merits both literary and scholarly value. The work was not intended as a comprehensive history of Namibia ? it is a memoir about the life and times of Dirk Mudge.”