L'appartenance, la nationalité et la citoyenneté - la Namibie

This essay is based on the article of Lalli Metsola (2009): The Special Field Force and Namibian ex-combatant 'reintegration'. In Jensen and Jefferson (eds): State Violence and Human Rights: State Officials in the South.
This article focuses on the study of organized violence in the contemporary Namibia. Thanks to the description of two inhabitants of this country, we are provided with a study of the links between structural and experimental violence.

The life of the two men is interesting because it illustrates a specific mileage in the Namibian society: after the war, both of them have been recruited in the paramilitary Special Fielf Force unit of the Namibian Police. The expressed objective of the article is to give structural explanations of the decisions and the itineraries of these two men. However, we also get evidences that the life of those men has been strongly affected by the political context of the time and this context is to be understood as well as the structural explanations. In the post-independence Namibia, the State and the society were facing an: '' uncomfortable coexistence of a structural legacy of violence alongside attempts at liberal, human rights-oriented reform''.