Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro
So what about May 28, Genocide Remembrance Day?
This question, ironically, some descendants of the survivors of the GENOCIDE of the Ovaherero, Ovambanderu and Nama have increasingly been asking themselves since the official inaugural commemoration of this day.
GENOCIDE Remembrance DAY, which since last May, has been officially observed by the Namibian government. But some descendants have been commemorating it since 2024 and shall once again be commemorating it for the fourth successive year this year. While the commemoration of the DAY by some descendants this year is a foregone conclusion, as they have become accustomed to doing for the past four years, its commemoration on the national level, as spearheaded by the government of the day, is not a foregone conclusion to and by some descendants, especially those who have been crediting themselves with having been supporting its genesis and eventual proclamation, is not a foregone conclusion.
If the experience of the said descendants regarding the official inaugural commemoration is anything to go by. That has been a thorny and topical issue since. Given that against their best expectations, they and/or their leaders, traditional and otherwise, as the sovereigns in the cause of GENOCIDE, Apology and Reparations, were discarded and reduced to mere onlookers during the inaugural ceremony at Parliament Gardens last May.
It seems there is a huge difference in interpretation, let alone outlook, regarding this day between the government and the descendants, who have not only campaigned for its proclamation but have since its proclamation embraced it without hesitation. While some of their fellows have totally rejected this day in favour of different dates, as may be relevant to their own historical epochs pertaining to GENOCIDE.
Those who have embraced the DAY are and have been of the opinion this must literally and practically be their DAY. Contrary to officialdom’s perspective and twisting of it being a national day, whatever this means. The descendants feel they do not only need to and must set the agenda but also deliver the key narrative, undiluted by officialdom. As far as they are concerned, officialdom is at best only duty-bound to support the day and the cause it is linked to, which is GENOCIDE, Apology and REPARATIONS. A cause which, for all intents and purposes, officialdom, that is, the government that be, belatedly joined in its strides, having gained momentum and traction following the 2004 centenary commemoration in Okakarara.
Since then, the government has only been seeming to give it lip service, belatedly pretending to come on board in 2015 during the administration of Tate Hifikepunye Pohamba. That too is up with the issue with its German counterpart. That was eleven years after the centenary commemoration and 13 years after the National Assembly Resolution on GENOCIDE. Until then the descendants had been fighting their own battles with Germany and the world.
It is still none other than the descendants who are still suffering from the trauma of the GENOCIDE committed against their forebears. As the famous song by Robert Nesta Marley, aka Bob Marley, goes, ‘Who Feels It Knows It‘. But this is not all that is to the commemoration of GENOCIDE Remembrance DAY: DISAPPOINTMENT and MISTRUST and lack of CONFIDENCE. By some, if not most, descendants, especially those who have embraced the DAY, kin the government. Having worked, if not campaigned and lobbied for it through my own trials and tribulations and meagre means, as part of the broader cause for restorative justice, only now to find the government usurping it for its own parochial agenda with Germany. Giving rise to suspicions and fears that it is now destined to be relegated to the dustbins of history, if not obliterated totally.
For these descendants, GENOCIDE Remembrance DAY is not just simply about commemoration jamborees and political cluttering, rhetoric and mumbo jumbo. It is fundamentally and intrinsically deeper than that. Linked and intertwined with what is turning out to be a long-drawn campaign for restorative justice. Which, for the Namibian government, by and with its Joint Declaration (JD) with its German counterpart, is a quick-fix done deal. An outcome of negotiations which have been dragging on. But some of these descendants have never been part of nor ever bothered to become part of it. Not because they have been left out by the government but as a matter of principle. As the said negotiations have never been intended and designed to fulfil their aspirations and ambitions for truthful restorative justice.
Thus, notwithstanding the proclamation of GENOCIDE Remembrance DAY, all these descendants, given their views diametrically opposed to that of the government that has reduced REPARATIONS to development aid, commemorate the DAY on the same platform with the government, which is a travesty to the noble and just cause of restorative justice.
The scars of the GENOCIDE, more than 120 years later, are still deeply engraved in their unhealed souls and psyches. Hence, it matters not when restorative justice shall be attained. ONE DAY IT SHALL. Without the JD for that matter.
Thus, as the day approaches, the descendants are deeply and earnestly engaging one another. With the profound question of if it is worthy to continue to observe the day under the auspices of the government. Especially given its misinterpretation of it as national. Which, as it seems from the government and its apparatchiks, means the government usurping it for its own hackneyed concept of national unity. With the descendants of GENOCIDE, destined, if the inaugural commemoration last year is any awakening lesson, for a long haul of isolation and alienation from the DAY. Their isolation and alienation are just what the agenda is: to let it die a natural death. As few of Namibia’s administrations have profoundly embraced this cause, if any. Hence their lacklustre approach to the whole matter of GENOCIDE, Apology and REPARATIONS.
But against the best wishes of some, notably officialdom, descendants seem adamant this is their DAY. And come hell or high water, they shall never allow it to die a natural death like many other days. Subsumed and submerged by national days like Heroes Day. Like Workers’ Day is to the workers, GENOCIDE Remembrance Day is sacrosanct to the descendants. Who are this year readying themselves against any official manoeuvres to subdue them in obliviousness in commemorating their GENOCIDE? Thereby seizing the occasion and usurping it only to dump it in the Namibian and world wilderness. Herewith the question “What about 28 May?” may now be clearer.
*Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro is a descendant of the survivors of the Ovaherero, Ovambanderu and Nama genocide, a veteran and freelance journalist, a reparations advocate and an adherent of restorative justice.
