The colonial legacy of the Herero Genocide in Namibia

Résumé du document

What is the relationship between Namibia at the dawn of the XXth century, Mein Kampf and UNO? The Hereros establish the link; this community of Southwest Africa who, in spite of it, took part in the ideological elaboration of the genocides century. It is not a very common history which, for unknown it is, deserves to leave the shade. In the last quarter of the XIXth century, several European powers, mainly Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy, launched out in a hard competition in order to extend (France, Great Britain) or to constitute (Germany, Italy) their colonial empire, mainly in Africa, Asia and in the Middle East. In Asia and in the Middle East it was especially a commercial fight, the positions already being in general acquired. It is in Africa, especially, that the confrontation was the hardest, because around 1880, except Belgian Congo and a part of Southern Africa and North Africa, only the coastal zones were under colonial domination and 80 % of the continent was free. The massacre of Hereros by the German army since 1904 is considered by much, since the end of the XXth century, as the first attempt of genocide of this century, before the Armenian one. It is located in a context of tension between European colonial powers but also in a series of similar actions carried out by the German army between the end of the XIXth century and the beginning of the First World War.

Extraits

[...] Indeed, the possession of the beasts meant the social position in the Herero group, and so if the cattle were confiscated, the whole Herero society was in a mess. The white men really looked down upon the natives, and regarded them as mere animals: settler holds that the native has a right to exist only in so far as he is useful to the white man. It follows that the whites value their horses and even their oxen more than they value the natives.”8 All that - Johannes Neitz was convinced of it - contributed to the outbreak of the Herero revolt, on January 12th 1904. [...]

[...] - Furthermore, it was a rational and programmed organization of the massacre, and a clear intention to annihilate a population (according to the “extermination proclamation” of von Trotha). The figures of casualties often say that around 80% of the group has been killed, whom 25% directly Genocide Convention of 1948 takes as a decisive criterion for mass crime the intention to annihilate a group. - Finally, some evidences of all that can be found through an available documentation with archives, and reports of operations made by von Trotha, and his subordinates. [...]

[...] The history of the genocide A. Historical background of the German colonization in Namibia B. The history of the genocide II. The reparation issue around the genocide A. The fight of the Herero community for a recognition of the genocide B. The German position German amnesia The actions done to repair the genocide I. The history of the genocide A. [...]

[...] That statue (Reinterdenkmal) is located at the very site of the first concentration camp and thus is in the top centre of the city. In a park of Windhoek remained as well an obelisk held in 1907 for the memory of the German fighters, called the warriors' monument (Kriegerdenkmal). As usual, any monument lists the indigenous victims of the massacres. Although, all these monuments confirm the thesis of a failed decolonization of the urban landscape, some efforts have recently been done by activists of anti- colonization and anti-apartheid groups, (the previous German names of the streets have been changed, some monuments for free Namibia have been held, and even some previous colonial monuments have been transformed by new artists). [...]

[...] Finally, he changed his attitude for economic reasons and domestic policy (the colonial lobby officially got what they wanted at the Berlin Africa Conference in 1884). The main traders claimed cheap raw materials; they sought to sidestep the tariff barriers of the traditional colonial powers. The business factory leaders, fearing a fast expanding revolt of the proletariat, and some nine million people unemployed, demanded the opening of trading posts abroad, in which they saw new outlets for the emigration and where they intended to found "penitentiary settlements" for "the worse" social democrat agitators. [...]