Living on the Edge of a Deadline: A Dialogue with Filemon Iiyambo

Davina: I like what Masande Ntshanga said about imagination, how he believes that “imagination is an important instrument for revolution. Not only for strategy, but for its aftermath, its thinking.”

For Idza Luhumyo, the most moving writing “tends either to be imaginative (as in revealing one’s unique and singular vision of the world) or to address itself, somewhat, to something/someone outside of the writer’s own subjectivity”:

“Double points if both elements are present. I’m probably conflating many things here, but I guess what I’m trying to get at is this: there is something specific that we are looking for when we go towards stories. If I wanted to read about the intersection between race and gender, for example, a quick online search would reveal quite a few treatises on the subject. But when we go to stories, to fiction, my sense is that we’re not necessarily looking for a political pamphlet, or a manifesto, or a lecture. We’re looking to be moved—literally, to be shifted from one position to another, whether emotionally or intellectually. We’re looking for imagination; we’re looking for a bridge, if you will, out of our own specific subjectivities and into other ways of seeing and being.”

Filemon: There are things that are universal; there are human truths that span the world, from absent parenting to discrimination. These things are everywhere. I have learnt from Rémy Ngamije that the more specific a story is, the more it captures the reader’s mind, the more it resonates, and the more it teleports them into the world you have created. 

Readers don’t need to be told: just create a doorway for them and the rest will take care of itself. They will find meaning in the story, they will make their own interpretations, and it will touch them in different ways. As a writer of fiction, create an alternative to reality, or create a whole different world, while still enabling the reader to connect to what you are saying, and you have done your job.

Davina: I read the yellow Irises in the garden outside the ward, and the leopards in Ezekiel’s dream, as symbols of the natural physical world: stark but welcome contrasts to the artificial, and built, environment of the town.

In your story, chicken, like the leopard in my culture, enjoys sacred status; December is forbidden from eating it for reasons that Ezekiel doesn’t explain.

Long before she finds herself confined within a psychiatric ward with windows reinforced by bars, she’s confined within dietary restrictions that are rooted in the old ways. (Again, here, I encounter that note of powerful contrast: the rigidity and toughness of the iron bars vs. the unraveling – like a thread coming loose.)

Were the irises and leopards meant to be read solely within the context of the story or do they speak to something[s] in the world outside the story, too?

Filemon: A Namibian story where the symbols are coincidental? Aaye! That could never happen. Once the plot of the story was settled, I weaved the symbols into the story so that they would be inconspicuous yet still essential when you try and piece the parts into a sum. Even though every reader will get a different sum. 

In December, the leopard connects Ezekiel to his brother through a dream; it also shows him what he thinks is the source of his brother’s ailment. This spiritual connection is important because it forms the basis of Ezekiel’s belief that if he restricts December’s diet, he will be able to stop what happened to his brother from afflicting her. 

Outside the context of the story, although the leopard is not one of the Aawambo totems, it is highly regarded by the chiefs of the Aawambo tribes as an important part of their regalia. It is the symbol of many royal houses from other Namibian ethnic groups as well. 

The leopard also forms the name of the town where I attended high/secondary school; the name of the town, Ongwediva, loosely translates to ‘leopard pond,’ which inspired the scene in Ezekiel’s dream. It is poignant when you consider that when December begins to unravel, both she and September are in high school/secondary school, since they are born two years apart. 

The flowers are something I thought up to represent the relationship between the siblings; the perceived ‘pureness’ of sibling affection. Symbols are interpreted differently, so I was deliberate in making them vague to allow the reader to make their own conclusion.

Davina: Indeed! For the pureness of sibling affection, for instance, I’d have chosen Calla Lilies! Irises would never have crossed my mind!

The leopard (‘ngo’) is the secondary totem of the Mpologoma (lion) clan and Kasimba (Genet cat) clan, which are two of over thirty clans that are officially recognized where I’m from:

“The clan essentially forms a large extended family and all members of a given clan regard each other as brothers and sisters regardless of how far removed from one another in terms of actual blood ties. The Baganda took great care to trace their ancestry through this clan structure. A formal introduction of a Muganda includes his own names, the names of his father and paternal grandfather, as well as a description of the family’s lineage within the clan that it belongs to. The clan has a hierarchical structure with the clan leader at the top (owakasolya), followed by successive subdivisions called the ssiga, mutuba, lunyiriri and finally at the bottom the individual family unit (enju).

“It is a curious fact that the clans are not known by the names of the respective clan founders. Instead, totems were adopted by the clans, and the names of those totems came to be synonymous with the clans themselves. Each clan has a main totem (omuziro) and a secondary totem (akabbiro). The clans are usually known by the main totem and they are listed above by that totem. The royal clan (Abalangira) is a unique exception in that it has no totems whatsoever. For a proper understanding of the culture however, it is important to distinguish between the totem and the clan. The clan is a matter of genealogy and it is through the clan that the Baganda trace their ancestry. A totem on the other hand, is just a symbol to represent the clan. Although the two are intimately associated with one another, they are in fact different. In the west, a totem would be similar to a court of arms.”

How is the clan system where you’re from organized? 

My mother is from the Njovu (elephant) clan while my father is from the Kkobe (a kind of climbing yam) clan, which means that my siblings and I are considered to belong to the latter clan. 

If it was a matter of choosing a clan for yourself, I’d already have crossed over to the Ngo clan! I’m a fierce admirer of leopardine solitude and elusiveness, so of course I consider the leopard to be my spirit animal! Plus, I like to associate with fantastically good-looking animals! 

What do you consider to be your spirit animal, Filemon?

Filemon: Aawambo clans are identified by their totems; there are 10 totems that I am familiar with (elephant, snake, lion, dog, locust, grain/millet, cow/cattle, zebra, rabbit, and hyena); the totem usually represents the wealth of the clan. 

The lineage is paternal, the child is identified by the father’s totem, but it is common practice that the child belongs to the mother’s clan. Essentially children would inherit their paternal uncle’s wealth and not their father’s wealth. The Aawambo clan system was important in preventing inbreeding; the further apart the paternal totems are, the better.

With globalisation and urbanisation, knowledge of this clan system is dwindling but it is still very important and highly regarded to know one’s clan and connect with them as they form your extended family; they form your support system and gather for weddings, funerals, births, etc. 

My spirit animal is the wildebeest: it migrates, is a nomad, and searches for greener pastures. And those are things I identify with. 

Davina: The world December inhabits is very familiar to me, for I too exist in a society where religious beliefs often override other categories of belief. Say you’re feeling low-spirited, for example, and eight out of ten times someone will immediately offer to pray for you. It can’t be that your sadness has ordinary causes (perhaps a loved one has terribly misunderstood you, and you’ve run out of ways to make yourself understood): it must be that there’s a mysterious or supernatural force at work that must be fought back with a visit to a pastor or traditional healer.

But why can’t sadness, despair, or hopelessness be valid and honest reactions to the experience of being alive? Must life be one endless episode of happiness and excitement? 

When I was a child, a few adults regularly cautioned against talking to oneself: “people will think you’re mad,” they said to me. So, for a long time, talking to myself was taboo. And yet like most forbidden acts it retained the power to entice me. As an adult, I mostly wonder why talking to oneself can’t also signify health or healing. (I guess that’s what writing essentially is to me: a way to talk to myself about things others aren’t willing to talk about.)

We are terribly mistrustful of people who talk to themselves; it doesn’t even matter if they do so while fully dressed. Others will still whisper about them. I was talking to a friend about this, recently, and asking what she makes of it. She said maybe it had to do with the fact that we are primarily such communal cultures; and that perhaps the act of talking to oneself is perceived as the ultimate transgression of communality. I thought that was very interesting. I’d never thought of it that way. What do you think, Filemon?

Filemon: I find it very humorous. You must not even dare to talk to yourself, because there are others around that you could talk to. I find that hilarious: that something as harmless as talking to yourself can be perceived as sacrilege against one’s culture.

Yet I also understand why it is frowned upon; more often than not, when people start to unravel, the most visible sign is that they talk to themselves. It also makes me sad how the stress and pressures that come with life and living it take their toll. 

Many people find comfort in talking to themselves, to calm themselves, to convince themselves that things will be okay; I understand how it can be enticing. What is generally taboo is to many people a natural reaction to the rigours of surviving life. 

I have a theory that with children, we take offence at them talking to themselves because we are insecure about our ability to communicate with them. I always assume when adults get angry at children talking to themselves, it’s because they take it personally; the child would rather talk to themselves than talk to me! What am I doing wrong? The same way they take offense at children with earphones on, listening to music, around them, because how dare you isolate yourself? Do you find my company that repulsive? 

We react differently when we know more about things, so my greatest hope is that this short story brings awareness around mental health to the fore, so that discussions around it are normalised. So that mental illnesses are no longer taboo. So that we consider medical treatment before prayer and supernatural intervention. So that perhaps, in the future, the Septembers of the world don’t have to watch helplessly as those they love slowly unravel. 

Davina: I like your theory; I’ve never thought of it like that. Whenever I see a child talking to themselves, I think of this as a form of play. We speak often about the importance of play in early childhood, how without it we might not develop the full repertoire of social, emotional, cognitive, and physical skills that we’ll need later in life. Yet when we talk about play in adults, we mostly limit its importance to the realm of inventiveness; be more playful if you wish to be a more creative creative writer, and so on.

Filemon: I always tell kids that adulting is a trap. Don’t do it. Remain a child at heart for as long as possible. 

Davina: Lidudumalingani Mqombothi’s story, Memories We Lost, is about schizophrenia in children. While discussing the kind of conversations that the story stimulated, Lidudumalingani said:

“There’s been, also, which I think is perhaps the conversation that I am obsessed with right now, the thinking that this is a problem unique to villages, given that the story is set there, but I think not. The stigma and the absence of conversations are present even in urban setting[s].

“Years before writing the story I had been hugely bothered by the way people with mental illness were treated and the views people held of them and that was my first departure, to give nuance, both of mental illness and the way we speak about it. Juggling these in an artistic medium, which is what writing is, is difficult because there is the obvious importance of the politics of it and then one is also concerned about the poetry of it, the beauty of it, and so this is what I was carefully crafting and navigating. I had carried the story for a long time, years before sitting down to write it.”

Lidudumalingani’s reference to “the politics of it” takes me back to the question you asked, earlier, about whether we can question tradition without being disrespectful. Would you frame your question as a political one?

Filemon: You can never question tradition without being disrespectful. In the Namibian context, this is even more pronounced because many traditional leaders have strong political affiliations, and many family elders are political figures. When these two are married, it becomes a revolt to question tradition. 

It’s also a question of neglect, mental disorders are treatable, but the quality of treatment is often poor and this ultimately comes back to the priorities of political leaders: self-enrichment over service delivery. There is also the weaponization of mental disorders in political warfare in Namibia, which further adds to the stigma and discrimination. 

Davina: Do you have a favourite Namibian writer, and what kind of legacy do you hope to leave for Namibian writing, and other Namibian writers?

Filemon: I have two. Rémy Ngamije, the coal seam of Namibian writing; his rise to prominence is exactly what happens when prospectors find a coal seam exposed on the surface – they come to see what is beneath the surface. He basically has kept the door open for the likes of Beauty Boois, myself, Dalene Kooper, Ndawedwa Hanghuwo, and many others, to pass through. 

Dalene Kooper is my other favourite; she has a way of creating child characters that are believable – so believable that you see your childhood friends in them. I, too, tackle trending issues and current affairs in my fiction through teenagers and young adults. She finds a way to weave different themes into her stories (absentee parents, cultural differences, class and wealth divides, etc.) through child characters, and I find that somewhat magical, imaginative, and bold. 

If anything, I’d simply like to get Namibians interested in reading, and get them to support Namibian writers. It’s great to be recognized abroad, but the best thing is to be recognized at home. 

This dialogue was edited by our Editor, Tamanda Kanjaye.