Notes
- On 1 June 2002, the authors organized a workshop on “Posters in Namibian History” at the University of Namibia (UNAM) in Windhoek. The workshop was attended only by invited guests, that is, historians, political scientists, printers, archivists, poster designers, artists, community activists, and political party activists who were either involved in the production, distribution, and consumption of Namibian posters before 1990, or in collecting posters or researching Namibian poster history. Statements made during the workshop are hereafter quoted in this paper as “poster workshop, UNAM, 2002.”
- Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Rev. ed. (New York: Verso, 1991).
- John Hartley, Popular Reality: Journalism, Modernity, Popular Culture (London: Arnold, 1996), 199.
- There is some literature on the reception of posters written from a more economic point of view. For a theoretical approach see, for example, Martial Pasquier and Jürg Sager, Plakatwirkungsforschung: Theoretische Grundlagen und Ansätze (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag, 1997). See also the Poster Performance Index (PPI), regularly published by the Swiss Allgemeine Plakatgesellschaft (APG).
- For comparison, see Timothy Burke, Lifebuoy Men, Lux Women; Commodification, Consumption and Cleanliness in Modern Zimbabwe (London: Leicester University Press, 1996).
- [In sympathy with this historic struggle for self-determination, the authors purposely use the term “Namibia” throughout their own text, to refer to the nation that was occupied as a colony by Germany (1884–1915) and by South Africa (1915–1990) and was previously officially called “South West Africa.” Their use of the terms “white” and “black” refers to the official racial definitions enforced under apartheid during the period of South African occupation, but their larger discussion also seeks to unravel and to contest this dichotomous terminology.—Ed.]
- These are located today in the Basler Afrika Bibliographien, the National Archives of Namibia, the Namibia Support Committee (UK), and in private collections.
- For an exploration of the comparative dynamics of viewing images of Africa and images in Africa (in this case a photography exhibition), see Corinne Kratz's work on the Okiek of Kenya, in The Ones That Are Wanted: Communication and the Politics of Representation in a Photographic Exhibition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). For a discussion of the ways in which a single poster could be read as both colonizing and anticolonial, see Greg Gow, “Viewing 'Mother Oromia,” Communal/Plural 9, 2 (2001).
- Malcolm Barnard, Art, Design and Visual Culture (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998), 18.
- Even art from the “Apollo 11” site in southern Namibia, which dates back to 27,000 B.C., was painted on small rocks that could be easily carried around.
- For example, posters provide the core of the exhibition in the “Gateway” building that all visitors to Robben Island in Cape Town must pass through, and the National Museum of Namibia uses posters prominently in its evocative display about the UN-monitored transition to independence during 1989–1990. The problem of written sources being favored vis-à-vis visual ones has been addressed in the case of photographs, and there is a growing interest in the historiography of photography in Africa. See Hartmann et al., The Colonising Camera: Photographs in the Making of Namibian History (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1998).
- Giorgio Miescher and Dag Henrichsen, Political Leaders, Heroes and Nation Building in Namibia: Posters as Visual Communication and Historical Sources (BAB Working Paper No. 2: Basel, 2001).
- See Berit Sahlstöm, Political Posters in Eritrea and Mozambique: Visual Imagery in a Revolutionary Context (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wicksell International, 1990), 17–42. For the Cuban-influenced international solidarity context see Richard Frick, The Tricontinental Solidarity Poster (Bern: Comedia-Verlag, 2003).
- See Sahlstöm, Political Posters; Poster Book Collective, Images of Defiance: South African Resistance Posters of the 1980s (Braamfontein: South African History Archive, 1991); Julie Frederikse, None but Ourselves: Masses vs. Media in the Making of Zimbabwe (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1982); Flora Soremekun and Sibyl Moses, “An Exhibition of Angolan Posters: Documenting the History of the Struggle, 1961–1980,” Current Bibliography of African Affairs 16, 1 (1983–1984): 9–20; Tobias Wendl, Afrikanische Reklamekunst (Wuppertal: Peter Hammer Verlag, 2002); Judy Seidman, Red on Black. The Story of the South African Poster Movement (Johannesburg: South African History Archive, 2007).
- There is a broad literature on visual history in Africa, yet the focus is mainly on photographs. It nevertheless gives helpful insights for an analysis of posters. For the Namibian context see Hartmann et al., The Colonising Camera; and Wolfram Hartmann et al., Hues Between Black and White: Historical Photography From Colonial Namibia 1860s to 1915 (Windhoek: Out of Africa, 2004).
- Here we further develop concerns first raised by Karin Barber in, “Preliminary notes on audiences in Africa,” Africa 67(1997): 347–362.
- The Windhoek Carnival (Wika) was started in 1952 and followed the model of similar burlesque festivals in Germany. See, for example, “What's a German Carnival Doing in Namibia?” Namibian Weekender, 19 April 2002.
- Günther Kesselmann, E-mail correspondence, 4 May 2006.
- Interview with Adelheid Lilienthal, Windhoek, 16 June 2002. Adelheid Lilienthal was one of the pioneering poster designers in Namibia. She is the author of Art in Namibia (Windhoek: National Art Gallery, 1997).
- See, for example, Klaus Rüdigger, Die Namibia-Deutschen. Geschichte einer Nationalität im Werden (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1993); and Daniel Walther, Creating Germans Abroad: Cultural Policies and National Identity in Namibia (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2002).
- Burke, Lifebuoy Men, 99.
- A more recent manifestation of this trend can be seen in Zwelethu Mthethwa's photographs of the insides of shacks near Cape Town.
- On the significance of production and consumption of images for a society to perceive itself as “modern,” see Susan Sontag, On Photography (London: Penguin Books, 1979). Our interpretation was confirmed in an interview with Carl Schlettwein, Basel, 9 November 2002. Schlettwein lived and worked in Namibia in the 1950s and early 1960s, where he was responsible for the marketing of local meat products.
- Robert Gordon, Inside the Windhoek Lager: Liquor and Lust in the Making of Namibia, unpublished paper, Windhoek Scientific Society, August 2000.
- Don Stevenson, poster workshop, UNAM, 2002.
- Information on the insurance adverts for “Damara” was given by Don Stevenson, poster workshop, UNAM, 2002. Stevenson was one of the first professional graphic designers in Namibia, where he has worked since the early 1980s.
- Ambrosius Amutenya, poster workshop, UNAM, 2002. Amutenya is a long-time SWAPO activist.
- Don Stevenson, poster workshop, UNAM, 2002. In fact, the brewery management hesitated to remove the Reiter logo. The idea was first suggested by their graphic artists. The management's reluctance to change their label showed their insecurity in their reaction to a changing political climate in the country.
- Information given by Heinz Schlusse, Namibia Breweries, April 2002.
- Dag Henrichsen, Herrschaft und Identifikation im vorkolonialen Zentralnamibia. Das Herero und Damaraland im 19. Jh. (Ph.D. thesis, Hamburg University, 1997).
- The popularity of the Reiter is also underlined by Robert Gordon, who mentions cases of people from various Namibian regions coming to Windhoek and visiting the Reiter monument. See Gordon, Inside the Windhoek Lager.
- An important connection we have not explored in this paper is the field of sponsorship. Namibia Breweries and, previously, SWA breweries, sponsored and still sponsors cultural and sports activities in the country. Beer advertisements would therefore also be displayed during concerts, football matches, and similar events.
- Daniel Olwagen of the SAP, cited in “Trial of 12 Workers in Connection with SWA Strike,” notes, n.d. (Cooperative Africana Microform Project: SWAPO Documents of Peter Katjavivi, Reel 5, 14, “SWAPO Internal Documents,” File 4, 1970–1979). This archive is hereafter cited as “CAMP.”
- “Mission to Namibia, 18–20 February, Report, 1975,” Johannesburg, 21 February 1975 (CAMP).
- “Namibia 11–17 June 1975, Johannesburg and Lusaka, 17–19 June 1975” (CAMP), 7.
- Ibid., 10.
- Karl Gowaseb, “‘What's Happening in Namibia To-Day?’ 16 June 1979” (CAMP).
- Victor Ivanoff first worked for Die Vaderland and (from 1977 onwards) for The Citizen (both in South Africa), and for Die Republikein (Namibia). See Miescher and Henrichsen, Political Leaders, 10. The Ivanoff poster series for the 1978 election is comparable to posters produced in the last years of the Weimarer Republik and in the 1930s by the NSDAP in Germany. Thanks to Till Förster for this suggestion. For Swiss examples from the interwar period see Charles Tirnimann and Rolf Thalmann, Weltformat. Basler Zeitgeschichte im Plakat (Basel: Christoph Merian Verlag, 2001).
- Rosa Namises and Andre du Pisani, poster workshop, UNAM, 2002. Namises is a former community activist and member of SWAPO who became a prominent member of the Congress of Democrats, an opposition party formed in the 1990s. Andre du Pisani is a political scientist at the University of Namibia.
- On aerial surveillance (and aerial photography), see Patricia Hayes, “Vision and Violence: Photographies of War in Southern Angola and Northern Namibia,” Kronos (November 2002): 133–157.
- The visual message that opposition will mean death has been repeated in recent American leafleting drops over Iraq.
- The hyena was used variously in anti-SWAPO propaganda in the late 1970s. For example, in 1977 a postcard showed Sam Nujoma's head with a hyena's body. See Giorgio Miescher, Guide to the SWAPO collection in the Namibia Archives of the Basler Afrika Bibliographien, Rev. ed. (Basel: Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2006), 71.
- It was reported that Toivo Shiyagaya, a leader of the Ovamboland Independence Party, was describing SWAPO activists in the region as “nocturnal jackals.” Jackals and hyenas are both animals who scavenge for their food and this was linked to the circulation of horrific cartoon images in propaganda leaflets that showed Nujoma gnawing on old bones, with the implication that SWAPO was preying upon its own people. “Accounts of the elections in Ovamboland (January 13–17) prepared by SWAPO officials in Namibia” (CAMP). See also the leaflet illustrated in Sam Nujoma, Where Others Wavered. The Autobiography of Sam Nujoma. (London, PANAF books, 2001), 303.
- See Frieda-Nela Williams, Pre-Colonial Communities of Southwestern Africa. A History of the Owambo Kingdoms, 1600–1920, 2nd ed. (Windhoek: National Archives of Namibia, 1994). According to Vilho Shigwedha (poster workshop, UNAM, 2002) the snake (eyoka) is a totem for the Aakwaanyoka/Aakuusinda clan and the hyena (Embungu/Haulamba) is a totem for the Aakwanekamba clan. Vilho Shigweda was the History Research Facilitator at the Northern Campus of the University of Namibia, 2000–2005, and during this time hosted the popular radio programme, Ongushu yomuthigululwakalo on the history and culture of northern Namibia.
- Vilho Shigwedha, poster workshop, UNAM, 2002.
- Christo Botha and Ambrosius Amutenya, poster workshop, UNAM, 2002.
- Rosa Namises, poster workshop, UNAM, 2002.
- It is noticeable that the logo adopted by the party in exile was not used on the calendar. The black and white reproduction would also not have been able to illustrate the SWAPO colors.
- The Medu Art Ensemble's posters were banned in South Africa, and the ban was later extended to Namibia under the Publication Control Act of the early 1980s. The apartheid regime had such a fear of posters and the role they played in resistance politics that when they launched their raids into Botswana in 1985, one of their main targets was Medu. See Poster Book Collective, Images of Defiance, ix, 4. See also the comments on Medu by Judy Seidman in this issue.
- David Kunzle, Cuba's Art of Solidarity (Santa Monica: Smart Art Press, 1996), 76. See also Carol Well, “Images of Women in War,” IRIS 33(1995): 34–38.
- Werner Hillebrecht, poster workshop, UNAM, 2002. Hillebrecht is the Acting Head of the National Archives of Namibia.
- W. Classen, poster workshop, UNAM, 2002. Classen was a member of DTA.
- Rosa Namises, poster workshop UNAM, 2002.
- Poster Book Collective, Images of Defiance, 112.
- For instance, The Namibian newspaper was launched in 1985.
- Interview, Tshombe Ndadi, Windhoek, 26 August 2000. Ndadi was a SWAPO member and a printer and designer of SWAPO posters in exile. He became director of NamPrint after independence.
- For a visual comparison see, “For the Motherland” by I. Tordze (1943), in W. Bruce Lincoln, “Soviet Political Posters: Art and Ideas for the Masses,” History Today 26, 5 (1976): 307.
- Rosa Namises, poster workshop, UNAM, 2002.
- Rosa Namises, poster workshop, UNAM, 2002.
- DTA posters were printed free of charge by a local South African-funded printer. See “Mudge spills beans on DTA funding,” The Namibian, 26 September 2000.
- Josef Madisia, poster workshop, UNAM, 2002. Madisia is a Namibian artist who designed 1989 United Nations election posters. He is now Director of the Namibian National Art Gallery.