Namibia - Part 1

We arrived in Namibia yesterday after a seven-day crossing of the Atlantic. During the crossing, our Global Studies classes focused on Namibia and South Africa's experiences with colonialism and white minority rule. Our interport lecturer, Mohamed Adhikari, presented lectures in both Paul Groner's class and mine describing how the Dutch settlers, and then the British diamond and gold-obsessed land-grabbers, displaced and marginalized the Khoi Khoi and San populations in South Africa. He also described how independence from British rule in 1910 simply meant that it would now be the white minority local powerholders that would oppress these people, along with the blacks and coloured (mostly South Asian) people imported into the area as slaves and forced laborers in earlier years. Mohamed's own ancestors were among that latter group.

The day before arriving in Namibia, Mohamed focused on how colonialism played out in that territory, in particular under German colonial rule from the 1880s to 1915. The Germans were, if anything, more brutal. After facing resistance to their land-grabs from the Herero people, they set out to exterminate this population, killing a majority of them in a horrific battle in Waterberg in 1904 before driving the women and children into the desert and poisoning the watering holes so that their cattle (and many of them) would die. By 1908, 80% of the Herero had been killed in what historians call the first German execution of a genocidal plan. Those who remained were herded into concentration camps, deprived of the right to own land or cattle, and pushed into forced labor. This photo shows a group who survived their time in the desert only to be herded into the camps.

This episode was presented in my class on "The Rise of New Great Powers" as a stark example of how local peoples were affected by Great Power politics. Britain and Germany were in Southern Africa in large part because the other was there and they were competing for power in Europe. My own contribution to the lecture on Namibia looked at how that territory later came to be caught up in the Cold War conflict between the US and the Soviet bloc. Namibia experienced 15 years of strife and civl war from 1975 to 1990 when Castro sent thousands of Cuban troops to support the socialist government in next-door Angola and South Africa intervened in favor of a rival faction (with support from the United States). Namibia was caught in the middle as their own independence movement (SWAPO) engaged in an insurgency that provoked brutal South African efforts to suppress it.

With such a recent history of genocide and racist rule, it has been somewhat eery to see (in this part of Namibia at least) a society that is marketing itself as a "clean, safe" Africa. We spent the day today in Swakopmund, a tourist-oriented town that is home to a large white population descended from the original German colonial settlers. Much of the architecture in the town is German-style. We had lunch at a Brauhaus. Shop-owners we spoke to spoke English with a German accent. Mike Timko, who spends a lot of time in West Africa, remarked that the town was so clean and new, it seemed completely "out of Africa." And in fact, the coffee shop we stopped at this morning used this phrase as its slogan.

While we enjoyed the coffee and German food, it was a little disturbing to see maps on the wall of the Brauhaus from the imperial era and stamps for sale in tourist stores from imperial Southwest Africa (as it was then known). Then we found this memorial to the German soldiers who died putting down the Herero rebellion at Waterberg--the way the Herero genocide is remembered by at least some in the area.

On the other hand, it was nice to see locals of all races playing together in the beautiful park that borders the sea. The cool sunny weather, palm trees, and landscaping all made us feel we could have been in La Jolla, California!

Of course, there are many reminders that we are actually in Africa. One of them is the menus featuring things like crocodile (shown on Isabelle's plate) and kudu (Melina's choice last night). Both thought the dishes were delicious.

And then there are the dunes. I haven't taken a picture to do them justice yet, but they were beautiful today on the taxi ride back from Swakopmund to Walvis Bay right at sundown. The curves of the dunes, in the stark light of the dry air here, are like nothing I've seen. And they tumble from the inland horizon right down to the sandy sea shore. More in my next post....