Work
‘Home guards’—South African backed policemen guised in civilian clothes—reveal a hand grenade to mark their authority amidst rising opposition in the town of Oshakati in the northern area known as Ovamboland. 1979
A store, locally known as a kukashop. Oshakati, 1979
A secret meeting by South West Africa Peoples Organization (SWAPO) is held at midnight on a farm on the outskirts of the capital, Windhoek. A portrait of exiled leader Sam Nujoma hangs on the wall. In 1991 he became the first president of the Republic of Namibia. 1978
Members of SWAPO Woman’s League mourn the death of Steve Biko, charismatic leader of the Black Consciousness movement in S.A, who died in detention months earlier. 1978
A South West Africa National Union rally near Windhoek. SWANU is the oldest political party in Namibia, formed in 1959. Most of its members came from the Herero people. 1978
A South West Africa National Union rally near Windhoek. SWANU is the oldest political party in Namibia, formed in 1959. Most of its members came from the Herero people. 1978
Sheep farmer. Keetmanshoop, 1979
Karakul sheep farmer, Reynard Steinberg with his wife Aletta and daughter Helen, youngest of 12 children, listen to news on the radio on the stoop of their farmhouse at Onanis on the edge of the Namib Desert. 1979
The Beukes family in their home in Rehoboth. Hermanus Christoffel Beukes, aka Oom Maans, left, was one of the first activists to petition the United Nations protesting apartheid South Africa’s illegal occupation of its mandated territory, Namibia. His son Hewat, right, is a founding member of the Workers’ Revolutionary Party, and continues to be active in politics. 1978
Atti Beukes, grandson of Samuel Beukes who fought the Germans in 1915 and the South Africans in 1925, here photographed as SWAPO leader of the Baster people of Rehoboth. Prior to independence in 1989 he formed the Workers’ Revolutionary Party together with cousin Hewat and wife Erica. They continue to be active in politics. 1978
A ǂAonin woman harvests !narra melons in the Kuiseb Delta, where little has changed since this photograph was taken in 1978.
Ovambo Miners on one year labour contract at the Tsumeb copper mine. 1978
A diamond miner on one year labour contract at Consolidated Diamond Mine at Oranjemund near the S.A. border. The bed rock sweepers must reach the yellow stone marker before they can down tools for the day. 1983
Kolmanskop, once a small but rich diamond mining village. 1983
A Baster woman uses a coal iron outside her shack. Rehoboth Basters are a Namibian ethnic group descended from European settlers and indigenous African women from the Dutch Cape Colony. Rehoboth, 1978
Farm labourers Simon and Marta Khasab on Bergkrans farm in the Khomas Highlands. “Sometimes we earn R15 from our baas when he visits from Windhoek… after grazing rights for our goats and two donkeys have been deducted”.
Tommy (standing in the doorway) a Hai||om – an indigenous San group of Northern Namibia – was raised by my grandparents and then worked for my parents until the late 60s. Years later I returned to take this photograph of him with his wife Christine, their children and the nanny. Katutura, Windhoek, 1978
Amalia Klaasen on the stoop of the farmhouse at Black Ranch Pos #3. Her daughter Susanna currently resides in the same house and continues farming goats. Spitzkoppe, 1978
A Himba woman mourns the death of a family member. Opuwo, 1978
An ǂAonin (Topnaar) family, Carolina Garamus with her daughter and grandmother Aletha. Carolina, now 65 and a mother of two sons, still resides in the same shack along the Kuiseb river where she gathers !narra melons and seed pods to eke out a living. Armstad, 1978. In March 2017 I found her in the same home at !Upas. Her grandmother and her daughter have died.
Bethuel Xoagub at his shack in the Kuiseb Delta during the !Nara harvest in 1978…and in 2017, deaf and almost blind.
South West Africa (Namibia) 1978-1983
These photographs were taken during the 70’s and early 80’s while on assignment in what was then South West Africa, to follow anti-apartheid freedom fighters – assignments that led to my being monitored by BOSS, the Bureau of State Security, endless interrogations, the confiscation of all but a few negatives and my persona non grata status.
In 1989 I was commissioned to photograph the ‘guerilla’ conflict on the border between SWA and Angola. I snatched the opportunity to re-enter my country of birth under the auspices of UN forces, claim citizenship and register as a voter for the liberation of my country.
I returned recently to take up permanent residence in a free Namibia.
Margaret Courtney-Clarke