Finally, over 115 years, Germany has found the courage to agree that the atrocities their country carried out against the Herero and Nama peoples of Namibia was a clear act of genocide for which they are sorry. This is certainly some courage for the people in power in Germany now. For years, the authorities of that country have adamantly refused to accept responsibility for what took place in the early 2oth century precisely between 19o4 and 19o8.
But Germany has not been as nearly as courageous as it ought to have been if the offence had been carried out against fellow Europeans or members of other superior races. In accepting blame, Germany went one step short of what it ought to have done if the crimes had not been committed against poor, powerless Black people. Germany said while accepting responsibility, it was not ready to pay reparations but that it will only give about 1.3 Dollars for the over 1oo,ooo Herero and Nama its brutal colonial forces killed and the horrific rape, dishonour and indignities the Germans visited on our Black brothers and sisters in Namibia. The Germans have not gone far enough in their restitution move at all. They have merely reminded of the horrendous colonial injustices that were committed against a people they left their continent several thousands of kilometres to come and dominate and exploit.
About a year ago, I watched an Aljazeera documentary recreation of some of the atrocities of the German forces against those two tribes of Namibia who led the anti-colonial protest against Germany. In it, it was stated/shown that nubile Nama girls who would be hanged until they be dead, would be undressed and hanged on a tree. Down below, lecherous German men have taken prime seats and would be ogling the naked girls, visibly salivating at the cruel pornographic show taking place! Now, what kind of compensation can ever be enough for this and many other act of cruelty and humiliation against the Namibian subjects and many others for which the Germans took some sadistic glee?
Yet, the Germans have ruled out payment of reparations. This is where I think the Black Lives Matter movement should step in. Already, the Namibian Government has lamely called this German admission of grave wrong doing ‘a step in the right direction’. A step in the right direction when the Germans said arrogantly that the Namibians should not think of reparations? The Black Lives Matter group has been called I here because it should not limit its campaign to the violation of the human rights of one or two Black souls in some modern countries. Rather, it should widen its mandate or concerns to fight even centuries and millennia of the ill-treatment of the Black race. Some indelible scars have been imprinted on the soul of the Black man. Some sensible action must be taken to provide, even if it is merely psychological, relief to us self-respecting Black people.
Consider the reparations Germany was forced to pay to European nations after the First World War. Consider that even among the Germans, it is a serious offence to deny that six million Jews were killed in the gas chambers of Germany during the Second World War. Consider what Germany exploited from the land of Namibia in order to build up Germany.
For me, the most painful aspect of the German arrogance is that Black Lives do not matter as much as White or other ones. If not they would not have agreed to pay for the damage done powerful Whites and dictate to us how they will pay for the harm done us. If the Germans were truly remorseful, it is they who will listen to our terms of settlement and will plead if we name a price they consider too high or unpayable.
Perhaps, people like the Germans think that colonialism was some kind of favour done us; that they came to ’civilise’ us, to make human beings out of the savages they thought we were. If that is what they think that they seem reluctant to pay adequate reparations, let them look back at the type of savage tactics they used in ‘civilising’ us. What sort of people on a civilising mission will cruelly deny the humanity of a people they met using such brutal tactics on them that it is they who ended up looking like savages?
I used to respect the Germans for their machine-like efficiency. They should, therefore, not do anything to lose my respect by showing that they lack the moral force that would compel them not to embark on full restitution for a crime they have freely accepted they committed. It should also worry the Germans that their country is the villain-nation of the 2oth century. It carried out three horrific crimes against humanity in the First and Second World Wars and in 19O4-19O8 against honourable Africans who resented and resisted colonialism.
In fact, the EU should engage in some soul-searching and do something colossal to atone for the collective unimaginable crimes Europeans have committed against the rest of the human family. European civilisation has been the most bestial civilization in human history. When they emigrated to the Americas, they nearly wiped out the indigenous Indian populations they met there. Criminal Europeans who were shipped out from the continent to Australia where, again, they nearly wiped out the Aborigines they met there. Their encounters with other peoples have not been a happy tale at all.
