The 1% in Namibia

Issue #389: This week focuses on Namibia. I am not German; I only hold a German passport. But living in Germany and doing what I do, I've always noticed that Germany doesn't particularly talk much about Namibia. I didn't learn much about the genocide that happened there between 1904 and 1908, so I've been doing my own reading for years.

Last week was Genocide Remembrance Day in Namibia, and I went through different Namibian news outlets to understand where the country stands politically, culturally, and socially right now. I hope it makes you more curious about what justice looks like more than 120 years later.

Also this week: Pia has been busy. She brought us a new worm in Costa Rica, food security projects in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and (unfortunately) the news that the Yagua Indigenous group in Peru have dangerously high levels of lead in their blood. She has also been working on a Colombian election explainer (there's going to be a runoff in June), and we are getting Colombian journalists involved. I can't wait to show you! Plus, I've included a Dominican female rapper for your playlists, why Kazakh children love Turkish gum, and "three Chinese people".

This newsletter has been edited by Jonathan Ramsay.

More than 120 years later, Namibia remembers the genocide Germany committed. There's still no justice.

Refresher: Between 1904 and 1908, German colonialism killed tens of thousands of Ovaherero and Nama people in a campaign of massacres, forced displacement, and deliberate starvation that historians now recognize as one of the first genocides of the 20th century. Germany only formally acknowledged this in 2021, offering €1.1 billion over 30 years in a Joint Declaration. Many descendants and opposition lawmakers rejected it, saying they weren't consulted during negotiations. Plus, the money comes framed as "development aid" rather than reparations, which matters legally and symbolically. The country remembers all of this on May 28, which is officially known as Genocide Remembrance Day in Namibia.

What happened:
Last week, Namibia held its official Genocide Remembrance Day. All over the country, there were commemoration events held.

Why this matters: Namibia is the world's second-most unequal country (after South Africa). A lot of that inequality has something to do with colonialism under Germany (and the genocide Germany committed) and apartheid under South Africa. Some 3 million people live in Namibia.

Did you know that the reason there is an official Genocide Remembrance Day in Namibia is because the descendants of the people who were killed made sure there is one? It didn't come from the government itself. The two names of interest are Kuaima Riruako (who formally raised the issue in 2006) and Usutuaije Maamberua (he raised it again in 2016; and that's also when it was officially established). If you're interested in why this is the case, you need to follow some Namibian politics. The short version: the SWAPO (the country's ruling party for many, many years, dominated by the Ovambo ethnic group) would like a different official founding story: "We liberated Namibia from apartheid South Africa," so they haven't been pushing too hard on genocide recognition.

Tell me more:
I want to give an overview of the national debates as reflected in The Namibian (the country's main independent news outlet), New Era, and NAMPA (the country's national wire service):

• "Document, document, document": Prime Minister Elijah Ngurare called for the continued documentation of the genocide through books, archives, universities, museums, and films.
• "Hello?! We're still here, and we still don't approve": Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro, journalist and descendant of the survivors of the Ovaherero, Ovambanderu, and Nama genocide reminds the Namibian government and public that the Joint Declaration between the German and the Namibian government is bullsh*t, because literally nobody has been elected specifically as representatives of genocide descendants in a reparations negotiation. So, who's negotiating with whom on whose behalf?
• "We want a law that makes it illegal to deny what happened": Maamberua, one of the descendants who initiated Genocide Remembrance Day, agrees with Matundu-Tjiparuro. He also wants a lot of other things: a law criminalizing genocide denial (because many German-Namibians, as the New York Times reported in 2017, still openly minimize or deny the genocide. I don't know if that's still very much the case today), mandatory genocide history in schools, that human remains still in German universities are returned, that there are reparations not only from the German state, but also from those private German companies that profited from camp labour, and that the missionary church (which he says handed survivors over to the military and became one of the biggest landowners in Namibia) returns the stolen land.
• "This is not only about what happened between 1904 and 1908. This is about why people in Namibia today are landless and poor": Nama politician William Minnie (who is from southern Namibia, historically where the Nama live), from the Landless People's Movement (one of the country's newer opposition parties founded in 2018; talks a lot about land redistribution), writes in New Era that "remembrance without justice is meaningless".
• Some demand different commemoration events for different affected communities, writes Uakutura Kambaekua in NAMPA.
• "We are part of this fight too": The Forum of German-speaking Namibians, representing the descendant community of the colonial settlers, formally stated that they consider the events of 1904--1908 to be genocide, not merely "atrocities," and reaffirmed their support for reparations and restorative justice. "Germany is ready to issue a formal and unconditional apology upon conclusion of the Joint Declaration," said former chairperson Harald Hecht in New Era.
• "A step forward, but not enough": National Assembly Speaker Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila (the most senior parliamentary voice to speak on the day) said the 2021 Joint Declaration between Namibia and Germany was a step forward, but that concerns raised during negotiations still need to be fully addressed.

How much of Germany's colonial era is still visible in Namibia today?
A lot. Here are a few examples:

• Buildings: For example, there's a huge church in the center of Namibia's capital, Windhoek. It is called the Christuskirche (Christ Church in German), and was built between 1907 and 1910 (Remember: the genocide happened between 1904 and 1908). The Germans called it a symbol of "peace and reconciliation". Next to it used to stand a bronze statue of a German soldier on horseback (they put that up in 1912) to honor the German soldiers and civilians who died during the genocide. The statue was removed in 2013 and was replaced with the Independence Memorial Museum. The church is still standing, writes Andreas Thomas in The Namibian. It is now one of Namibia's most visited tourist attractions. There are also other colonial era buildings, like the Alte Feste fortress (this is being turned into a National Genocide Museum; the German government is contributing €160,000), the railway station, and the entire capital's...