Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro
REPARATIONS FOR WHAT? This question may sound simplistic to many a descendant of the Ovambanderu, Ovahereo and Nama Genocide, who are and have been endeavouring to reclaim what is rightfully theirs.
Something which their forebears were robbed of by Imperial Germany, and thus consequently their descendants were and continue to be disinherited of. Till this day, despite freedom and independence, they have not seen socio-economic justice, let alone in terms of the return of their ancestral land. Let alone for the fact that the recommendations of the 2018 Second National Land Conference have at best been gathering dust if they are not all together being discarded and/or manipulated towards the interest of the hegemonic class. With increasing doubt if anything shall ever emerge from the Ancestral Land Commission. All these pointers to what may, to many, sound and seem like a simplistic question in the opening of this treatise: REPARATIONS FOR WHAT?
This question is very much pertinent at this stage of the campaign for restorative justice and not as simplistic and/or rhetorical as it may sound and seem. So that the descendants in what Yours Truly Ideologically still consider as very early days and stages of the campaign and quest for restorative justice are on a sound footing and plane, mentally, ideologically and otherwise, as to what REPARATIONS is and why and what it should be about. But ultimately what it ought, should and must be all about – and towards what end?
Because at this early stage, not strangely so, there are all indications that it means different things to many people. Be it all the different descendants themselves or the Namibian government that has, increasingly evidently, been becoming, somehow, a descendant and thus an aggrieved party itself, if not merely perceiving itself as such. Clearly the Namibian government is no longer pretending to be acting on behalf of the descendants as an interested party but sees itself now as a primary actor. Not acting on behalf of the descendants but on its own behalf and for and in its own interest, if not that of its former colonial master, the Federal Republic of Germany. This is borne out by its recent use of taxpayers’ money, taxpayers who include the very descendants of the survivors of Imperial Germany GENOCIDE. Against whom her genocidal pursuits were directed. Against whose best interests – their descendants, today’s Namibian administration’s presumed citizens, the Ovambanderu, Ovaherero and Nama – is the Namibian administration acting? Amongst many other chicaneries and shenanigans, lately it is shielding and defending the Berlin government from coming to answer to the Namibian High Court. For the despicable, horrible and abominable acts of GENOCIDE by Germany’s forerunner administration during its colonial onslaught in the then German South West Africa.
And last but not least, the government of the Federal Republic of Germany itself, and Germany as a state, has been using the Namibian government and Namibian state as a proxy to continue to obliterate its colonial genocidal acts. As evidenced lately by its reluctance and refusal to answer to the Namibian High Court regarding its connivance with the Namibian government on GENOCIDE and its derivative, the 2021 so-called Joint Declaration (JD). Which, essentially, is Germany’s own Unilateral Declaration (UD) of a second genocide on the very descendants, by the two governments against whom Imperial Germany committed genocide.
The question, REPARATIONS FOR WHAT?, is equally opportune at this stage. In view of the fact that the two governments have hoodwinked some descendants into believing that, all along, they have been well-intended and dealing in good faith in delivering REPARATIONS and/or RESTORATIVE JUSTICE to the affected communities. Notwithstanding the hackneyed nature of the negotiations from the beginning. Which ultimately, after a good ten years since 2025, has to this day produced no more than the discredited JD.
A process during which the two governments that have never been forthright in their intentions have been weaning off some descendants from the right and just cause of genuine REPARATIONS towards compensation that the JD represents. Offering no more than development projects, which are ordinarily and properly the domain of the Namibian government.
As the Namibian government itself very much owes all Namibian citizens, the descendants of GENOCIDE very much, TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE. Be that the case as it may, it is still imperative at this early stage for the descendants to define REPARATIONS. Because, notwithstanding the shenanigans and chicaneries of the Namibian government and its German counterpart, for and in their own bilateral interests, to refocus on the substance of REPARATIONS, ideologically and otherwise. To define if not refine it. Lest the realisation of true REPARATIONS sooner or later produce unintended results. Applying it towards one’s own selfish endeavours of self-enrichment. With minimum and peripheral, if there is a totally zero impact on the practical material impact on the socio-economic being of the descendants of the survivors of GENOCIDE.
The actual agitation in the just cause of REPARATIONS must in all earnest run its full course. This is only possible with the requisite ideological clarity about what REPARATIONS are all about. Hence, the criticality and imperativeness for the right frame of mind among the descendants and ideology regarding REPARATIONS. This is if the REPARATIONS they are fighting for are to have any practical and relevant meaning to their conditions. Following years of the destruction of their economic systems; debasing of their cultures and spiritualism; and dehumanisation through mental enslavement and emotional and mental destruction.
Yours Truly Ideologically, thus cannot but take a cue from what happened with the attainment of African political independence, which is said to have been gained by Africa, including Namibia. When the dictum of the first president of Ghana was about first seeking political freedom. In most, if not all, of Africa this political freedom has been attained. But what has been the consequence of this political freedom if Africa still remains enslaved in every aspect of its endeavour, whether politically, economically, mentally, spiritually or culturally? Simple because Africa, Namibia included, did not conceptualise, ideologise and visualise what political freedom means. Whether it was an end in itself or a means to an end, what this end was, would be and should be.
Thus, the descendants of the Ovambanderu, Ohaherero and Nama descendants of GENOCIDE cannot but be best advised, at this stage, to have a clear ideology of what REPARATIONS is all about and towards what end. If they are to guard against gimmicks of REPARATIONS such as the one currently being dangled in their faces by the Namibian government and its German counterpart in the form of the JD. Not only this but also so that they are clear ideologically why they are demanding REPARATIONS. What REPARATIONS cannot, shall not and must never be. Not an act of magnanimity from whoever, least of all Germany or the German government. But that is justifiably owed to the descendants for the crime of GENOCIDE against their forebears, and thus also against them!
