How Germany sanitises genocide – the Joint Declaration has turned 'green'
After Namibian independence, political struggles to address the impacts of German colonialism became stronger among the Nama and Ovaherero communities. A parliamentary motion was endorsed in 2006 and from the onset, Nama and Ovaherero communities rejected any inter-state negotiations. Yet the two governments went ahead with a bilateral negotiating process and, in 2021, announced a negotiated settlement that was rejected in Namibia. In 2023, the Landless People’s Movement (LPM), NTLA and OTA filed an application to the Namibian High Court to declare the negotiations and Joint Declaration null and void, while seven Special Rapporteurs of the UN officially informed the two governments that the Nama and Ovaherero are legally entitled to their demands.
What’s interesting about the entire process is Germany’s refusal for a trilateral process. This is a key defence mechanism used by Germany not to account for the crimes committed during its colonial rule, and therefore also a mechanism to deny the Nama and Ovaherero people justice in the true sense of the word. One of the reasons why Germany will not negotiate with the victim-descended communities is because the German collective conscience is afraid of looking into its own mirror. Direct negotiations would mirror back the exact horror of what happened and the lasting pain and material loss suffered. The Nama and Ovahereo people lost all their land and property, which has been inherited by the descendants of the perpetrators. German colonialism reverberates in the souls and material existence of the victim descendants. Germany therefore uses our government to act as a defensive smokescreen meant to filter and sanitise this immeasurable generational trauma and material losses inherited.
Sanitising mechanism
The refusal to allow direct participation of the Nama and Ovaherero people also reflects their objectification of the communities. Just as our ancestors were invisible objects who could be killed at will, so too are we invisible objects whose souls and material lives are irrelevant in any discussion about us. Just as the Berlin Conference felt at liberty to seal the fate of Africans in 1884, so too does Germany feel at liberty to seal our fate again as Africans in 2024.
The fundamental philosophy of not being truly human beings who can sit eye-to-eye with superior beings remains the same. Nama and Ovaherero people are not human enough to be heard, and the Namibian government becomes the smokescreen to make it look as if we are being heard.
Another defence and sanitising mechanism is Germany’s insistence on referring to its colonial crimes as “genocide from today’s perspective."
As far as Germany is concerned, it has acknowledged and even apologised for its crimes. But the diplomatically hidden fact is that Germany has justified genocide. If it is genocide only from today’s perspective, what was it at the time this crime took place? Was it not genocide at the time? The official German argument is that the law allowed the colonisers to kill Africans because they were savages. What then would the former colonisers apologise for if the law allowed them to kill African savages?
These defence mechanisms are not only evident in the behaviour of governments but also in the behaviour of the descendants of the perpetrators, both in Namibia and in Germany.
Something that has struck me during my regular talks in Germany is the question, “what can we do to support your struggle? ... I feel so bad as a German."
The question implies that the person asking the question brings some sort of generosity or act of kindness, which is a voluntary gesture. It immediately puts me in the unequal position of a beggar for a favour. Just as the German government is putting the Namibian government in a position of beggar of favours through development aid, which is presented as a gift.
Former colonisers all watching
Here in Namibia, a German-speaking Namibian descendant will say publicly that his great grandfather bought the land on which his family lives.
This descendant will, however, not tell you that the land bought with heavy subsidies is land that was expropriated from Nama and Ovaherero at the height of genocide. Germany imprisoned the Nama and Ovaherero people in concentration camps for purposes of extermination and expropriated ALL their land without any compensation.
This is how the land was acquired. German-speaking descendants have inherited that privilege of wealth through generations, while the typical Nama has inherited poverty through generations.
These considerations also made me realise how traumatised the German collective conscience is, both in Namibia and Germany.
But this traumatised conscience prefers to help me rather than help itself by truly confronting the fact that its history and wealth are based on the immense suffering of a people.
To me, it reflects a psychological defence mechanism that somehow has a sanitising effect and which allows the ordinary German not to feel too bad but to feel as if she/he could be the saviour of my problem.
Yet Germany seems to have a very big problem of increasingly leaning to the right and becoming more and more suppressive of critical voices, while generally becoming politically intolerant of diversity.
Nurture a universal reparations movement
We are aware that the former colonisers are all watching what Germany will do and are obviously actively advising Germany what to do.
A full recognition of genocide by Germany and repairing the damage that has been institutionalised through our national and international legal, political and economic systems would mean reappraising the entire global geopolitical and international trade systems that govern global north/south relations. If Germany agrees to reparations, so too will the entire former European colonisers be forced to reappraise their colonial past.
Interestingly, the rest of Europe and all former colonisers see Germany as a role model for coming to terms with the past. A past that Germany and indeed Europe justifies using racist colonial law as the justification?
So, development aid and foreign investments through trade are offered as a gesture of reconciliation and coming to terms with colonialism. This offer becomes the dangling of a carrot to soothe the egos of all former European colonisers and to reproduce an unjust world in contemporary
global geopolitics. This becomes so glaringly obvious in the current “green colonialism” invented through green hydrogen.
This is why solidarity movements across the globe should purposely nurture a universal reparations movement because universal solidarity is right now probably our most powerful weapon. If Namibia decides to sign this racist, disempowering reconciliation agreement with Germany to settle all colonial debts owed by Germany, it will set a terrible precedent for other European former colonisers to hail Germany as the supermodel for coming to terms with the colonial past. We can already see how Germany has entered Tanzania with claims of coming to terms with its colonial past in that nation. For Germany, it uses its success in Namibia as the benchmark for reappraising all its colonial crimes in all its former colonies.
Green hydrogen concerns
Let me come to what feels so wrong in my gut about the green hydrogen hype. The rhetorical focus by the EU and Germany on 'green' alliances and 'sustainable' raw materials seems to be aimed at outsmarting other world powers in the race for economic primacy without giving any detail on how extractive industries will ever turn sustainable or make north/south relations more symmetric. What is also interesting is that while green hydrogen / colonialism are exactly as materially expropriating as colonial relations, they complicate resistance by proclaiming themselves environmentally friendly and therefore indispensable for granting humanity a future. It seems like a journey for humanity in which racialised populations of the global south apparently still have no seat.
The global north produces the invisibility of the global south in debates on a renewable energy transition by naturally assuming that all the critical raw materials and extensions of land necessary for the green transition to giant solar and wind farms will come from somewhere. These practices are continuously fed by colonial imagery and ideas of empty spaces, which are typical of imperial geopolitics. These are the imageries used by governments and corporations to complement the Ratzel philosophy of “living space", which generated ecocide and indigenous genocide and later served to promote theories and policies of civilisation, development and colonisation.
Today, it is used to justify territorial expansionism through the guise of green hydrogen, rather than addressing the question of reparation and a fundamental shift in geopolitical and economic relations, as well as trade regimes. We all know, at least those of us who are keenly aware of German colonialism, which we naturally inherited, that the former Sperrgebiet or Tsau ǁKhaeb National Park is land that was fraudulently expropriated by German companies and banks before and at the height of genocide committed against the Nama people. Instead of addressing these facts and realities through true and genuine reparations, Germany and its companies have again entered our ancestral land with promises of pastures so green that your soul will feel it has reached the heaven that Christianity promised during German colonialism.
What is heartbreaking is that we are so disparately in need of material wealth that anything that sounds like it will take us out of poverty is okay.
The promise that comes with green hydrogen is so grand and full of hope given to desperate people that we do not even sit back for a moment and think or question anything, other than claiming a stake in the pie or being counted in the beneficiation process.
Most of my highly learned friends and politicians would say, stop rocking the boat; we need jobs; we need houses; the train is in full motion; let’s jump on it, while they have no idea where this train is going.
Whether this train will crash is irrelevant. Others will label you as a force that opposes development.
I ask development for who? Green for who? Humanity for who? Most of all, has the Christian civilisation of expropriation turned into a green civilisation of expropriation?
What’s interesting about the entire process is Germany’s refusal for a trilateral process. This is a key defence mechanism used by Germany not to account for the crimes committed during its colonial rule, and therefore also a mechanism to deny the Nama and Ovaherero people justice in the true sense of the word. One of the reasons why Germany will not negotiate with the victim-descended communities is because the German collective conscience is afraid of looking into its own mirror. Direct negotiations would mirror back the exact horror of what happened and the lasting pain and material loss suffered. The Nama and Ovahereo people lost all their land and property, which has been inherited by the descendants of the perpetrators. German colonialism reverberates in the souls and material existence of the victim descendants. Germany therefore uses our government to act as a defensive smokescreen meant to filter and sanitise this immeasurable generational trauma and material losses inherited.
Sanitising mechanism
The refusal to allow direct participation of the Nama and Ovaherero people also reflects their objectification of the communities. Just as our ancestors were invisible objects who could be killed at will, so too are we invisible objects whose souls and material lives are irrelevant in any discussion about us. Just as the Berlin Conference felt at liberty to seal the fate of Africans in 1884, so too does Germany feel at liberty to seal our fate again as Africans in 2024.
The fundamental philosophy of not being truly human beings who can sit eye-to-eye with superior beings remains the same. Nama and Ovaherero people are not human enough to be heard, and the Namibian government becomes the smokescreen to make it look as if we are being heard.
Another defence and sanitising mechanism is Germany’s insistence on referring to its colonial crimes as “genocide from today’s perspective."
As far as Germany is concerned, it has acknowledged and even apologised for its crimes. But the diplomatically hidden fact is that Germany has justified genocide. If it is genocide only from today’s perspective, what was it at the time this crime took place? Was it not genocide at the time? The official German argument is that the law allowed the colonisers to kill Africans because they were savages. What then would the former colonisers apologise for if the law allowed them to kill African savages?
These defence mechanisms are not only evident in the behaviour of governments but also in the behaviour of the descendants of the perpetrators, both in Namibia and in Germany.
Something that has struck me during my regular talks in Germany is the question, “what can we do to support your struggle? ... I feel so bad as a German."
The question implies that the person asking the question brings some sort of generosity or act of kindness, which is a voluntary gesture. It immediately puts me in the unequal position of a beggar for a favour. Just as the German government is putting the Namibian government in a position of beggar of favours through development aid, which is presented as a gift.
Former colonisers all watching
Here in Namibia, a German-speaking Namibian descendant will say publicly that his great grandfather bought the land on which his family lives.
This descendant will, however, not tell you that the land bought with heavy subsidies is land that was expropriated from Nama and Ovaherero at the height of genocide. Germany imprisoned the Nama and Ovaherero people in concentration camps for purposes of extermination and expropriated ALL their land without any compensation.
This is how the land was acquired. German-speaking descendants have inherited that privilege of wealth through generations, while the typical Nama has inherited poverty through generations.
These considerations also made me realise how traumatised the German collective conscience is, both in Namibia and Germany.
But this traumatised conscience prefers to help me rather than help itself by truly confronting the fact that its history and wealth are based on the immense suffering of a people.
To me, it reflects a psychological defence mechanism that somehow has a sanitising effect and which allows the ordinary German not to feel too bad but to feel as if she/he could be the saviour of my problem.
Yet Germany seems to have a very big problem of increasingly leaning to the right and becoming more and more suppressive of critical voices, while generally becoming politically intolerant of diversity.
Nurture a universal reparations movement
We are aware that the former colonisers are all watching what Germany will do and are obviously actively advising Germany what to do.
A full recognition of genocide by Germany and repairing the damage that has been institutionalised through our national and international legal, political and economic systems would mean reappraising the entire global geopolitical and international trade systems that govern global north/south relations. If Germany agrees to reparations, so too will the entire former European colonisers be forced to reappraise their colonial past.
Interestingly, the rest of Europe and all former colonisers see Germany as a role model for coming to terms with the past. A past that Germany and indeed Europe justifies using racist colonial law as the justification?
So, development aid and foreign investments through trade are offered as a gesture of reconciliation and coming to terms with colonialism. This offer becomes the dangling of a carrot to soothe the egos of all former European colonisers and to reproduce an unjust world in contemporary
global geopolitics. This becomes so glaringly obvious in the current “green colonialism” invented through green hydrogen.
This is why solidarity movements across the globe should purposely nurture a universal reparations movement because universal solidarity is right now probably our most powerful weapon. If Namibia decides to sign this racist, disempowering reconciliation agreement with Germany to settle all colonial debts owed by Germany, it will set a terrible precedent for other European former colonisers to hail Germany as the supermodel for coming to terms with the colonial past. We can already see how Germany has entered Tanzania with claims of coming to terms with its colonial past in that nation. For Germany, it uses its success in Namibia as the benchmark for reappraising all its colonial crimes in all its former colonies.
Green hydrogen concerns
Let me come to what feels so wrong in my gut about the green hydrogen hype. The rhetorical focus by the EU and Germany on 'green' alliances and 'sustainable' raw materials seems to be aimed at outsmarting other world powers in the race for economic primacy without giving any detail on how extractive industries will ever turn sustainable or make north/south relations more symmetric. What is also interesting is that while green hydrogen / colonialism are exactly as materially expropriating as colonial relations, they complicate resistance by proclaiming themselves environmentally friendly and therefore indispensable for granting humanity a future. It seems like a journey for humanity in which racialised populations of the global south apparently still have no seat.
The global north produces the invisibility of the global south in debates on a renewable energy transition by naturally assuming that all the critical raw materials and extensions of land necessary for the green transition to giant solar and wind farms will come from somewhere. These practices are continuously fed by colonial imagery and ideas of empty spaces, which are typical of imperial geopolitics. These are the imageries used by governments and corporations to complement the Ratzel philosophy of “living space", which generated ecocide and indigenous genocide and later served to promote theories and policies of civilisation, development and colonisation.
Today, it is used to justify territorial expansionism through the guise of green hydrogen, rather than addressing the question of reparation and a fundamental shift in geopolitical and economic relations, as well as trade regimes. We all know, at least those of us who are keenly aware of German colonialism, which we naturally inherited, that the former Sperrgebiet or Tsau ǁKhaeb National Park is land that was fraudulently expropriated by German companies and banks before and at the height of genocide committed against the Nama people. Instead of addressing these facts and realities through true and genuine reparations, Germany and its companies have again entered our ancestral land with promises of pastures so green that your soul will feel it has reached the heaven that Christianity promised during German colonialism.
What is heartbreaking is that we are so disparately in need of material wealth that anything that sounds like it will take us out of poverty is okay.
The promise that comes with green hydrogen is so grand and full of hope given to desperate people that we do not even sit back for a moment and think or question anything, other than claiming a stake in the pie or being counted in the beneficiation process.
Most of my highly learned friends and politicians would say, stop rocking the boat; we need jobs; we need houses; the train is in full motion; let’s jump on it, while they have no idea where this train is going.
Whether this train will crash is irrelevant. Others will label you as a force that opposes development.
I ask development for who? Green for who? Humanity for who? Most of all, has the Christian civilisation of expropriation turned into a green civilisation of expropriation?
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