“I could not imagine living without a gun…”
Johanna Wilkie | Posted June 24th, 2009 | AfricaTags: guns, independence, Namibia, South Africa
Yesterday I met Hans Pieters, a relative of my host here, Talita. We started talking about my work here and he told me that one of the reasons there are as many guns as there are in Namibia is the war for independence that was fought with South Africa. Many ex-combatants continue to carry guns, and Hans told me that he himself carried a gun for years after the war was over, for purposes of self-protection. It was only when he realized that the people who were most likely to get shot with this gun were his friends and family, and not criminals, that he got rid of the gun. In this brief video he tells his story:
