Frederick B. Philander--Maverick Playwright of Namibia (Critical Essay‪)‬

Introduction Namibia is a remarkable country with a large number of cultural groupings both scattered across a vast territory and also concentrated in a few urban centres. The apartheid laws of the past, imposed whilst the territory was administered by white-ruled South Africa are now the subject of memory but the social divisions remain. As in South Africa today legally and officially individuals are equal but socially tribes tend to stick together and the sharp division between black and white cultures plays itself out in the form of unofficial group areas in the urban landscape. Philander would have been classified in the old dispensation as a 'coloured' person and this has a very specific meaning which begs clarification. In other parts of the world a 'coloured' person could be a negro, an Indian, an aborigine, and so on but in southern Africa a 'coloured' is a person of mixed race, or a melato (not a term in common use in South Africa). Specifically it implies a mixture of black and white races. What finer genealogy could a maverick playwright claim?