Kae Matundu Tjiparuro
The Ovaherero and Nama descendants of the survivors of the genocides committed against their forebears by imperial Germany may think that the victory by the Democrats in the just-ended midterm elections is only far, remote, and removed from them but of no consequence to them.
Especially in their quest for reparatory justice. One must emphasise reparatory justice here, as opposed to compensation.
Because reparatory justice denotes a process, a long one for that matter, and not just a quick-fix solution, which compensation is.
Which is what the Joint Declaration (JD) between the Namibian government and its counterpart, the government of the Federal Republic of Germany, which the two governments have been conniving between them to impose on the descendants, is all about.
More than the midterm elections in the United States of America (USA) being just a victory for the Democrats, it has to it more than just a political victory but a very encouraging ideological underpinning, a shift within the American political landscape from mundane retrogressive and oppressive fascist inclination to spirited progressive and ideologically deep-rooted disposition.
Rooted, foremost, in a strong belief in human rights. Human rights, not from an individualistic perspective as you would have it, but pertaining to a collective.
Therein lay its relevance to the descendants of the Ovaherero and Nama in their struggle for restorative justice.
What is strongly resonating and emanating from the overwhelming victory of the Democrats in the Senate and House of Representatives, the two houses of the American Congress, is the resilience of the collective.
A rainbow collective, if you wish. Afro-Americans, Latino-Americans, Muslims, women, Native Americans, united with one aim: to resist fascism and usher and phase in, in American public life, through Congress, a new era of progression as opposed to one of retrogression that has been threatening to reverse years of progression.
The American midterm elections have shown the world something. That the will of the people cannot be taken for granted nor be ignored and suppressed forever.
The Trump administration has not only been taking the will of the people for granted but has literally been trampling on it. But the people have not only resisted but have been resilient.
Not to allow decades of gains in human and civil rights to be reversed. Human rights in the USA, amongst others, cannot but be linked intrinsically to the fight for rights but for survival in the belly of the capitalist belly, led, foremost, by the enslaved Africans.
Predating the civil rights movement in the latter-day era of the likes of Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. Du Bois. Followed in the 1960s by Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Rosa Parks, and others.
Despite the gains, the struggle has by no means been won and it is still a long way before it is won.
Descendants of the Ovaherero and Nama genocides by Imperial Germany in the then German South West Africa, today’s Namibia, do not and cannot know what the recent victory by the Democrats, and particularly respective and various progressive forces in America, may mean to the government of the Republic of Namibia.
Particularly pertaining to the quest of the Ovaherero and Nama for reparatory justice. But the descendants of the survivors of genocides, for the benefit of the Namibian government, do know, and expectedly so.
Because given the intransigence of the Namibian government in their cause, that is the cause of the Ovaherero and Nama for reparatory justice, with the German government hiding behind the Namibian government’s intransigence, the descendants have been and continue to knock on many windows of opportunity through which to channel their demands for reparatory justice.
As the Namibian government, on this score, has time and again proven an unworthy companion. Not only this, but in actual fact has increasingly been proving, instead of advancing this cause for genuine reparatory justice, in the least has been the cook that spoils the broth.
And at best the actual nemesis of the Ovaherero and Nama in their quest for reparatory justice.
All under the pretense of championing this cause, while all that it has been doing is dancing to every tune of Germany, even cushioning the German government against any consequential action to have it account for its historic responsibility towards the descendants.
One of the states in the USA, New York, is the seat of the Headquarters of the United Nations Organisation (UNO).
This March, its main policy-making organ, the General Assembly, adopted by a majority vote of its members, including Namibia, interestingly, a resolution declaring the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans “the gravest crime against humanity.”
Namibia interestingly voted in favour of the motion, which goes against the grain of what it has been doing together with Germany regarding the demand of the Ovaherero and Nama for reparatory justice.
As the JD cannot by an iota be said to be any closer, let alone to start to steer and propel the demand of the Ovaherero and Nama towards genuine reparatory justice, instead of providing a quick-fix compensation.
As alluded to flippantly earlier, there is a world of difference between compensation and reparations. The former being a quick-fix, as indicated earlier, while the latter is a process that needs a plan, a long-term one for that matter.
Unlike the Namibian government has been pretending and trying to make both the descendants and the world believe, that it is seized with the demand of the Ovaherero and Nama on reparatory justice, her doings with Germany, as provided for in the JD, fall far short of international (UN) standards for reparatory justice.
The UN resolution on the slave trade that Namibia also voted for, only to save her face, needless to say, covers the broader issues of colonialism, thereby also encompassing genocide and reparatory justice, a matter that the Ovaherero and Nama have been seized with.
Thus, in tandem with the UN resolution, the wind of change and victory in the USA cannot but resonate well with the Ovaherero and Nama in their cause for reparatory justice.
As much as the elections have delivered many firsts, the Ovaherero and Nama cannot but welcome this political and ideological shift in the US Congress, and generally in the body politic and ideology of America.
Hoping, but most importantly, also diligently working and navigating that Congress delivers a first on the genocides of the Ovaherero and Nama, and ultimately their reparatory justice, like the many firsts it has just delivered.
