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Namibia ‘Let’s die fighting rather than die of maltreatment’

“If we rebel, we will be annihilated in battle since our people are practically unarmed and without ammunition, but the cruelty and injustice of the Germans have driven us to despair and our leaders and our people both feel that death has lost its terrors because of the conditions under which we now live,” wrote the Herero chief, Samuel Maherero, in 1904, on the eve of the Herero uprising against German colonial rule. On the 104th anniversary of the rebellion this month, Anna Rosenberg traces native resistance to German rule in South West Africa (now Namibia).

On a midsummer day in early 1913, a German missionary walked down a dusty road in Windhoek, South West Africa (GSWA). The missionary, Gustav Becker, was on his way to hold a wedding in the church of the Namaspeaking parish. He had good reason to anticipate nothing more than an uneventful ceremony for, since his arrival in Windhoek one year earlier, relations with the parishioners had been smooth or at least without audible discord. “When Becker entered the church, however, he was disturbed by what he saw. He

faced a crowd crowned with top hats, despite his order days before not to wear them. He had claimed that the hats made Africans the laughing stock of Europeans, but now he felt little inclination to laugh himself. He reported to his superior that this was ‘open resistance’.” The historian, Philip Prein, recounts this incident as an example for how African resistance in German colonial South West Africa continued seven years after the native population had been heavily defeated in war by the Germans. The conflicts of 19031907 had killed more than half of the native

population and had forced the survivors into a status of semi-servitude, but still their willingness to resist was not broken. The history of Namibia under German colonial rule has often been looked at from the perspective of the victims who died during the Herero Genocide of 1904. But as the story of the top hat-wearing Namas suggests, Africans were not just helpless victims. Colonialism in Africa could not have ended without native resistance. Africans did not just stand by watching while they were gradually dispossessed, enslaved and even killed. Some were victims, some were collaborators and agents

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Supporters of the frontrunners are out in force advertising their candidates

Grandsons’ peace mission (13 Oct 2007): (Left) Wolf-Thilo von Trotha, a descendant of the brutal German general, Lothar von Trotha who led a German campaign in 1904 that nearly wiped out the Hereros of Namibia, shakes hands with Chief Alfons Maharero, at the graveside of his grandfather, Chief Samuel Maharero in Okahandja

of imperialism, but others rebelled. Since the beginning of the German colonial intrusion into what was then South West Africa, the Africans gave the colonial power a hard time. Between 1884 and 1915, there were numerous rebellions which kept the colonial power in constant fear and alert. Hardly a year passed when the Germans did not have to face an indigenous rebellion of some kind. The resistance came from a profound discontent with the prevailing situation, but different ethnic groups had different motives to rebel. Economic problems resulting from the

gradual expropriation of cattle and land were a driving force. Social factors, like the inequality in treatment of black and whites, maltreatment of Africans and racial and social discrimination were other reasons. Internal power struggles also played a crucial role as did religious motivations. German colonial ambitions Europe was in a colonial fever during the 18th, 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries. The possession of colonies was an important manifestation of power, and Germany could not stand idly by. In fact, it

did not want to lose its colonial territories to Britain. It had become a matter of prestige to govern over South West Africa. Initially, German contact with Namibia was confined to missionary activities and trade. As the colony became more and more important to Germany and resistance more threatening, the colonisers had to find means to pacify the country and raise the benefits of trading. Increasing European settlement was to make this possible. But the natives were highly experienced warriors and would not allow the Germans to seize power so easily. Initially, the Germans

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