Speaking for the dead: the memorial politics of genocide in Namibia and Germany

Abstract

This paper discusses the politics of the material commemoration of mass crime, with a focus on the Ovaherero and Nama descendants of the victims of a 1904–1908 mass ethnic killing in German Southwest Africa. My approach to monuments emphasises their place as artefacts that mark changes of regime after war or revolution, and as focal points of resistance to state regimes of commemoration. Tracing the material forms of memorialisation in Germany reveals the significance of both a ‘remembrance culture’ of the Holocaust and, at the same time, resistance to recognition of the Ovaherero/Nama genocide. In Namibia, the success of the Ovaherero/Nama activist campaign in Germany prompted the government to shift positions and take up the cause of genocide remembrance, asking Germany to officially recognise that its actions constituted genocide, to issue a formal apology and to pay reparations. By framing the mass violence of imperial Germany in terms of its enduring legacy in heritage, Ovaherero and Nama activists and their supporters were able to cross into different geographies of commemoration and bring distant wrongs, without living witnesses, into the present.

Keywords:

• Genocide
• Namibia
• Germany
• activism
• memorials

Notes

1. Government spokesperson, Martin Schäfer, expressed the government and parliament’s recognition of the genocide in the following terms: ‘Der Vernichtungskrieg in Namibia von 1904 bis 1908 war ein Kriegsverbrechen und Völkermord’ – the war of elimination in Namibia from 1904 to 1908 was a war crime and genocide (Deutsche Welle 2015). All translations are by the author.

2. In this article, I have used the term ‘Ovaherero’ in preference to the more common ‘Herero’. The ‘ova’ prefix in Bantu languages commonly refers to ‘men’ in general or ‘men spread over the earth’, which makes the distinction the same as that between the ‘Herero’ and the ‘Herero people’.

3. Esther Muinjangue offered such a view in a press conference in Berlin on 13 October 2017: ‘If you acknowledge that it is genocide, on which basis do you decide that there is no reparation?’

4. Such views are supported by Kössler’s (2007, 364–365) historical perspective, which finds that the genocide committed in Namibia and the colonial violence of Tanzania have been ‘expunged from national memory’.

5. In the words of founding president Sam Nujoma, ‘We are leaving the sad history behind us and working progressively together’ (Die Welt 2002) [Wir lassen die traurige Geschichte hinter uns zurück und arbeiten fortschrittlich zusammen.]

6. Because of incomplete records, the 80% figure is of course an approximation. Olusoga and Erichsen (2010, 229) put the death rate of the Nama in captivity higher, at 90%. Accounts of camp conditions and death tolls are also provided by Hull (2005, 88–90) and Kuss (2004).

7. In this article I make use of the common shorthand, ‘Ovaherero-Nama genocide’, mainly for reasons of expediency. There is a tendency to refer to this genocide in strictly ethnic terms, which tends to exclude the less concentrated, but ultimately catastrophic, victimisation of other groups such as the Damara and San.

8. Sarkin and Fowler (2008) offer an analysis of the first effort by the Herero and Nama claimants and their lawyers to sue Germany and German corporations for the mass killing in German Southwest Africa, under the Alien Torts Claims Act. Their argument relies on evidence of violations of international law that were already in force in 1904, since the Genocide Convention cannot be applied retroactively.

9. Press conference organised by Berlin Postkolonial, Hotel de France, Berlin, 13 September 2017.

10. My research for this section and the one that follows took place in Namibia from May to September 2015 and in Berlin, Germany from May to September 2017 My method consisted of visiting and recording the exhibits and monuments relating to state sanctioned identity as well as the dissenting material expressions of grievance I also met with and interviewed activists and lawyers involved in the Herero and Nama claims, and explored their online expressions of their purpose and methods on Facebook and their interconnected network of Web sites

11. http://www.stolpersteine.eu/fileadmin/pdfs/STOLPERSTEINE_STEPS_2017.pdf, accessed 25 August 2017. The information included on the Stolpersteine can vary according to circumstances. For example, ‘here lived’ can be replaced by ‘here worked’, ‘here practiced’, ‘here studied’, etc. and the stones can commemorate suicide (Flucht in den Tod), liberation (befreit), or ‘fate unknown’ (Schicksal unbekannt), all following carefully selected wording.

12. https://www.gustav-rust-berlin.de/3-vernichtung-von-spuren-des-bolschewistischen-terrors-durch-den-veb-aufarbeitung-v-i-s-d-p-rust/, accessed 22 August 2017.

13. Namibian Tourism Board, Celebrating the Heroes of Namibia, http://www.namibiatourism.com.na/blog/Celebrating-the-Heroes-of-Namibia, accessed 8 September 2017.

14. Das neue Namibia und das neue Deutschland beschäftigen sich nicht mehr mit der Vergangenheit. Wir lassen die traurige Geschichte hinter uns zurück und arbeiten fortschrittlich zusammen.

15. http://afrika-hamburg.de/denkmal5.html, accessed 30 August 2017. The plaque later provoked the ire of right wing extremists, who defaced it with paint in the black-red-white colors of the German state flag of 1871 and of the National Socialists.

16. Interview in Berlin, 12 October 2017.

17. The web site Revolvy offers an online version of this discussion, titled Reiterdenkmal, Windhoek, 11 September 2017 Topics: https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Reiterdenkmal,%20Windhoek, 11 September 2017, accessed 17 September 2017.

18. Interview with Esther Muinjangue and members of the Ovaherero/Nama delegation, Berlin, 13 October 2017.

19. Not surprisingly, the numbers of those killed in the colonial war are contested. A thorough discussion of the conflict as genocide, including the numbers killed, is offered by Marion Wallace (2011).

20. The stone marks the end of the conflict as 1907, and there is similar ambiguity in the literature about the dates of the war, with some authors using the years 1904–1907 and others marking the end of the conflict in 1908. Because, in my view, the continuation of ethnic extermination marks a continuation of the war, in this article I will use the year 1908 to mark the end of the conflict.

21. http://www.africavenir.org/advocacy/german-genocide-in-namibia.html, accessed 31 August 2017.

22. The groups involved the first level of support for this resolution, listed on its web page are: AfricAvenir International; Afrika-Rat Berlin-Brandenburg; Afrika-Rat Nord; AFROTAKT TV cyberNomads; Arbeitskreis Panafrikanismus München (AKPM); Artefakte//anti-humboldt; Berliner Entwicklungspolitischer Ratschlag (BER); Berlin Postkolonial; Deutsch-Afrikanische Gesellschaft Berlin (DAFRIG); Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland (ISD-Bund); Solidaritätsdienst International (SODI). http://www.africavenir.org/advocacy/german-genocide-in-namibia.html, accessed 2 September 2017.

23. See, for example, Florian Fischer and Nenad Čupić, Die Kontinuität des Genozids: Die Europäische Modern und der Völkermord an den Herero und Nama in Deutsch-Südwestafrika (2015).

24. Unser Ziel ist es, das zivilgesellschaftliche Engagement für Demokratie und Toleranz in unserem Land sichtbar zu machen … http://www.buendnis-toleranz.de/ueberuns/, accessed 26 August 2017.

25. http://afrotak.com/2016/08/24/no-amnesty-on-genocide-deutschland/, accessed 25 August 2017.

26. Das Projekt bringt den 1. Völkermord der Moderne im heutige n Namibia (1904–1908) durch Deutschland in den öffentlichen Raum ein, der als Vorläufer des NS-Holocausts in Deutschland prägend auf den Umgang mit ‘Den Anderen’ gewirkt hat. http://afrotak.com/2016/08/24/no-amnesty-on-genocide-deutschland/, accessed 25 August 2017.

27. http://isdonline.de/buendnis-voelkermord-verjaehrt-nicht/, accessed 25 August 2017.

28. Die langjährige Weigerung aufeinanderfolgender Bundesregierungen, den Völkermord in Namibia anzuerkennen bleibt ein Armutszeugnis für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland und passt in keiner Weise zu deren Selbstbild als ‘Erinnerungsweltmeister’ und dem damit verbundenen beispielgebend kritischen Umgang mit der eigenen Geschichte. http://isdonline.de/buendnis-voelkermord-verjaehrt-nicht/, accessed 25 August 2017.