![Is Germany really ready to apologise for genocide?]()
Is Germany really ready to apologise for genocide? SIMA DEIDRE LUIPERT
The entire reconstruction and reconciliation agreement made between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Namibia, on the genocide committed against the Nama and the Ovaherero people, by its underlying tone and content, is a non-apology because there is no admission of guilt.
When one listens to the tone and content of the agreement, the only reference to genocide is written in the present tense, i.e., “genocide from today’s perspective”. By implication, it means naturally that the crimes committed were not genocide at the time they were committed, and therefore Germany had the legal right to kill native Nama and Ovaherero people because the latter had no legal right to exist.
The startling observation one senses in the agreement, merely by its tone and content, is that the agreement is reflective of the incompleteness of both German and Namibian history. On both ends the German colonial period is erased.
Within Germany, its own atrocities start to be narrated with the Jewish Holocaust. Any crime that Germany therefore committed before the Jewish holocaust, was not a crime, because it was within the right of Germany to kill anyone who is not Caucasian. Only mass murder against Caucasians counts as crime.
By remembering its atrocities only from the period of the holocaust, Germany tries to create the impression that what happened during the Jewish Holocaust is so un-German and for this reason it was necessary to make amends for the holocaust. The German narrative refuses, despite glaring historical evidence, to even make the connection between the Auschwitz gas chambers and Shark Island.
Historical evidence shows that the pseudo-scientific research on people other than the so-called pure German race, actually started at Shark Island in the then Great Namaland, or that stripping people naked and getting them ready for showers before they are doomed to extermination chambers, actually started at Shark Island and across Hereroland. Shark Island and all concentration camps in the then Great Namaland and Hereroland, served as the experimental guineapig for a greater project aimed at somehow proving German supremacy to the world.
Colonial narrative
In the Namibian historical colonial narrative, there is a quick skip to the formation of the Owambo People’s Organisation, which subsequently became the South West Africa People’s Organisation in the 1960s. Here one sees an astonishing resemblance between the historical amnesia of Germany and Namibia.
Just like no atrocities existed for Germany before the Holocaust, no atrocities existed for Namibia before the formation of Swapo. The history narrative instilled in the Namibian child makes it seem as if there was no colonial presence in present-day Namibia before the formation of Swapo, and if there was colonial presence, the colossal atrocities committed before 1960 are not as atrocious and criminal as those committed after the 1960s.
Therefore, the lives and deaths of people against whom colonial crimes were committed after 1960 are glorified in present day Namibia, while those before 1960 are obliterated. The Namibian historical narrative also glaringly omits the 1970s Tanganyika crimes and the 1980s Lubango crimes committed by Swapo. The historical records become relative instead of factual, depending on who has the political power to determine which narrative should be told. And so, the lives and deaths of some become significant, while others become insignificant, depending on which lives and deaths yield more political power.
Affirmative action
At independence, the Namibian government created a special programme coined Affirmative Action and created specific legislation which was aimed at reconstructing the lives and restoring the dignity of war veterans of the Swapo-led liberation struggle. These war veterans became the only heroes and heroines. Who would be a war veteran was determined by the ruling party through the national government, and the qualification criterion was and is that you must have supported Swapo.
Whether there were heroic calculated wars of anti-colonial resistance before the formation of Swapo became irrelevant, because it would seem as if the lives and deaths of those who supported Swapo were more significant than those who existed and died before the formation of Swapo and or those who did not necessarily carry a Swapo membership card.
When one therefore reads the Joint Declaration between the Namibian government and that of the Federal Republic of Germany, one notes the incompleteness and denial of colonial crimes committed by Germany, and by extension, exile crimes committed by the ruling Swapo elite through its stooges. In fact, the coloniality of the Joint Declaration becomes blatantly evident, such that the German state bullies the Namibian state into hiding German crimes, and the Namibian state willingly agrees to protect the German state in exchange for pitiful pennies. That is a colonial relationship of servitude between Germany and Namibia.
The colonial servant must appease the colonial master for both have skeletons in their cupboards which they would rather forget.
The declaration refers to a 1989 Bundestag Resolution and a 2005 Resolution, in which Germany declared a special relationship with Namibia, without specifying the nature of that relationship.
Based on this undefined special status and relationship, the German Government states in the declaration that it is willing to give the Namibian government support in its infrastructure development projects, provided the Namibian government does not take Germany to court for crimes against humanity. All must be done in a very hushed manner, in order to cleanse Germany of its guilt.
Covert discussions
Meanwhile, the Swapo government and its ruling party has over the years silently been discussing or attempted to discuss settlement deals with Lubango survivors, in order to quietly give them some perks in return for their silence on the crimes against humanity committed by Swapo in exile against these survivors.
On both ends, there is refusal to reckon with historical reality, and so, the crimes must be settled through quiet under table deals, both states being keenly aware of the crimes of the other. Memory must be erased in exchange for financial reward. Hence the Joint Declaration becomes a public relations exercise nursed by spin doctors of both negotiating teams, because the criminal tracks of both need to be removed from public memory.
Any admission of the crime of genocide and crimes of humanity would mean to truly search into the past, reveal what happened, and rewrite a century and decades of lies we have been feeding the world and our nations. The curious thing about a lie retold repeatedly is that somehow it becomes the concocted truth of one’s mind.
Clear demands
The Nama and Ovaherero people and their leaders have been consistently clear about their demands.
These demands are: an admission of guilt about atrocious genocidal crimes, an apology for those crimes, reparation and compensation for material and immaterial losses and damages, restitution of stolen goods and finally commitment to non-recurrence of such crimes.
However, the German government has consistently maintained that the crime committed at the time was not a legal crime because international law of the time did not protect the human rights of people considered “uncivilised savages”.
Meanwhile, the ruling political elite in Namibia are held hostage because their masters are well aware of their own crimes, and therefore the former beg the generational survivors of the Nama and Ovaherero genocide for silence on the matter, by excluding them deliberately from the negotiation table.
Through the Joint Declaration, Germany dangles an irresistible carrot to poverty-stricken black people through their own regime and equally insists on maintaining its superior, financially driven negotiating power. We of course all know that development aid is not an act of goodwill, but an act of subtle enslavement through institutionalised dependency.
An impression is created that only a government can negotiate on behalf of native peoples who seemingly do not have the mental, spiritual and intellectual capacity to think, let alone negotiate for themselves.
These very colonial and racist undertones of paternalism in the joint agreement between the two governments become laughably patronising, sending a message that the Nama and Ovaherero people have no ability to make decisions on their own behalf in the 21st century, just as they did not have the mental capacity to make decisions in the 19th century during German colonialism.
This dangling of a carrot becomes an act of burying a dirty deed. It also reflects both Germany and Namibia’s inability to look in the mirror and face the demon that so clearly reflects back. Therefore, the easiest is to remove the mirror, remove the Nama and Ovaherero people from the table, so that they do not reflect back the historical facts and horrific consequences. Both states have therefore designed the negotiation process in such a way that it suppresses history. The entire negotiation process is designed to be a public relations exercise aimed at creating the impression that something is being done, while actually a decision was already made in 1989, therefore nothing will be done. Actually, one sees a subtle type of aggression through the joint agreement, which reopens the generational trauma of the genocide committed by Germany against the Nama and Ovaherero people.
The Joint Declaration on genocide between Germany and Namibia was not only a lost opportunity, it actually backfired to reveal an entrenched colonial relationship between the two states. The German government is not ready to apologise for anything, and the Namibian government is not ready to hold Germany accountable for anything.
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