Adolf Hitler Uunona: Namibian civil rights activist
Adolf Hitler Uunona is a Namibian civil rights activist and politician.
He has been a councillor and member of the South-West Africa People’s Organization since 2003. He received much attention in 2020 when he won a local election and news sources wrote about how he shared a name with Adolf Hitler, the former dictator of Nazi Germany.
Adolf Hitler Uunona | |
|---|---|
 Adolf Hitler Uunona (portrait) | |
| Councilor of the SWAPO | |
| In office Since 2004 | |
| President | Nangolo Mbumba (acting) |
| Prime Minister | Saara Kuugongelwa |
| Vice President | Nangolo Mbumba |
| Opponent(s) | Mumbala Abner |
| Constituency | Ompundja constituency, Oshana Region, Republic of Namibia |
| Personal details | |
| Born | December 3, 1965 South West Africa (now Namibia) |
| Citizenship |  Namibia |
| Political party |  SWAPO |
| Other political affiliations |  MPLA |
| Occupation | Political activist and politician |
| Known for | Sharing the same name as former Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler |
| Website | https://oshanarc.gov.na/ompundja |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | People’s Liberation Army of Namibia |
| Battles/wars | South African Border War |
Career
Southwest Africa
Uunona joined politics as an activist and as a member of SWAPO. He was also a member of the militant organization People's Liberation Army. At the time, South Africa had a system which separated black and white people named apartheid.
Post-independence Namibia
He has been elected as a councillor several times since 2004 at the constituency of Ompundja in the Oshana regional council elections in year 2010 and 2015. In November 2020, he won a local election in northern Namibia with 1,196 votes, which was 85% of the vote. The other person in the election, Mumbala Abner of the IPC party got only 213 votes. Uunona continued to be the councillor of the Ompundja constituency of Namibia.
Name
German names like “Adolf” are common in Namibia, in part because Namibia was a German colony called German South West Africa between 1884 and 1915 under the German Empire, and later a mandate of the Union of South Africa.
International news sources wrote that Uunona has the same name as Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Germany during World War II. Adolf Uunona says his father probably did name him after Adolf Hitler, but does not think his father knew who Adolf Hitler was at the time. "It wasn't until I was growing up that I realized: This man wanted to subjugate the whole world," he said. Uunona usually goes by the first name "Adolf" alone or "Adolf Uunona" while in public. He says he has no plans to change his name, since it is already on so many government documents. Uunona is known to take his name light-heartedly, saying that he has no goals of "world domination."
There are some memes about how his name is similar to the dictator Adolf Hitler. These memes generally have a picture of an article with a title like "Man named Adolf Hitler wins election in Namibia," and a caption about Uunona not being related to the Austrian German Adolf Hitler.[source?]
References
This article uses material from the Wikipedia Simple English article Adolf Hitler Uunona, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license ("CC BY-SA 3.0"); additional terms may apply (view authors). Content is available under CC BY-SA 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
®Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wiki Foundation, Inc. Wiki Simple English (DUHOCTRUNGQUOC.VN) is an independent company and has no affiliation with Wiki Foundation.