Ramsay remarks at Nama Cultural Festival at Lokgwabe
Jeff Ramsay | Wednesday August 31, 2016 15:38
No community suffered more during the last century from the racist ideology of imperialism than the Nama. By the same token no community, in this region or elsewhere, put up a stouter resistance. This is a history of extreme suffering an extraordinary heroism that is too important to forget.
The location of the festival is appropriate. While Lokgwabe may appear unremarkable to some, it’s founding, in 1909, was the very remarkable the outcome of high level negotiations between London, Berlin and the people of this community to bring a final end to the Nama-German War.
While the conflict started in Namibia, our presence here today is testament to the fact that it ended up being fought in western Botswana as well. In the process it drew in people from local communities, Bakgalagari, Barolong, Batawana etc. as well as Nama and a mass exodus Ovaherero.
For those unfamiliar with what can rightfully be described as the ‘Kalahari Holocaust’, between 1893 and 1908 the Nama in Namibia, along with the Ovaherero and others, repeatedly took up arms in resistance to the German policy of depopulating large areas for European settlement.
Measured in terms of the affected territory’s demographic loss, the final 1904-1908 was the most horrific of Africa’s many anti-colonial uprisings. Its impact can be summarised by the fact that it claimed the lives of not less than half of the Nama, as well as over 70% of the neighbouring Ovaherero.
One cannot fully appreciate the roots of Nazi horrors, in terms of the emergence of master race ideology as well as the industrial genocide, without knowing the story of the brutal German occupation of Namibia, and its cross border legacy.
In this respect, let us recall that while the genocide was instigated by the German state of Kaiser Wilhelm II, they were not alone in their crime.A few years ago the Namibia Scientific Society published a booklet entitled: “German Medals, British Soldiers and the Kalahari Desert”. The value of this publication lies in its exposure of an all but hidden aspect of our shared history with Namibia: the proactive role played by British imperial forces in the near destruction of the Nama.
In 1907 and again in 1908, the Germans awarded the ‘South West African Commemorative Medal’, with the bars ‘Kalahari 1907’ and ‘1908’, to those members of the British forces who had assisted them. As the publication observes: “This was the one and only time that such an en-bloc awarding of Imperial German medals to Imperial British forces occurred and as such is unique in history”.
A leading figure in the Nama resistance was the founder of this community Simon !Gomxab Kooper (also often rendered as Kopper or Cooper).
From 1863 until his death, Simon Kooper was the Gaob/Kaptein or leader of the Kharakhoen (Kai//khuan) or ‘Fransmen’ branch of the Nama-Khoe. The date of Simon Kooper’s birth at Pella in the Northern Cape is uncertain. One can rather confirm that by the 1850s he was with his father Kaptein Piet Kooper in central Namibia.
Traditionally reliant on livestock and hunting, by the early 19th century the Nama, who came to include so-called ‘Orlaams’ groups of mixed racial origin, had acquired guns and horses, giving them an edge over neighbouring groups such as the Ovaherero.
The Nama were by then divided into sub-groups or clans, each of which was led by its own Kaptein. In addition to the !Kharakhoen, the major clans included:
Khaiǁkhaun (Red Nation);
ǃGamiǂnun (Bondelswarts);
ǂAonin (Southern Topnaars);
ǃGomen (Northern Topnaars);
ǁHawoben (Veldschoendragers);
ǁOgain (Groot Doden);
ǁKhauǀgoan (Swartbooi);
Kharoǃoan (Keetmanshoop);
ǀAixaǀaen (Afrikaners); ǃAman (Bethanie);
Kaiǀkhauan (Lamberts);
ǀHaiǀkhauan (Berseba); and
ǀKhowesin (Witbooi)
Simon assumed leadership of the !Kharakhoen after the death of father Piet on 15th June 1863, following an attack on Kamaharero’s Ovaherero. Thereafter Simon brought relative peace to his people, ruling from Gochas, with additional !Kharakhoen communities at Aranos, Aroab and Koes (all in Namibia). During this period his hunting parties were also active in south-western Botswana.
In November 1876 Simon was among the Nama Kapteins who met with the British Special Commissioner William Coates Palgrave at Berseba. There he joined his peers in giving Palgrave’s proposal for a British Protectorate the cold shoulder, bluntly observing that accepting it would be like swallowing a raw piece of meat.
As it was, Palgrave’s efforts to expand British jurisdiction into Namibia in the guise of a Herero and Namaqualand Protectorate was ultimately vetoed in London, opening the door for German imperial expansion.
Although the Germans proclaimed their own Protectorate over most of Namibia in 1884; their first governor being Ernst Goering, the father of Hermann Goering. It was, however, another decade before their authority reached Gochas.
Having already used force to crush ǀKhowesin (Witbooi), many of whom were massacred, and the Kaiǀkhauan the German military commander Major Theodore Leutwein set out to subdue the rest of the Nama. In this context, his troops had surrounded Gochas by dawn of March 17, 1894.
Even with 600 armed men at his disposal, Kooper was outgunned and outnumbered, but prepared to resist from a number of defensive strongholds. In this respect Leutwein was also eager to avoid battle, perhaps motivated by the !Kharakhoen reputation for marksmanship.
The Major recalled: “I bade him a friendly ‘Good-morning’ and offered my hand.” A short discussion followed, during which Kooper, avoided Leutwein entreaties that he sign a document accepting German protection. The standoff was broken three days later when the Major trained his artillery on the Kaptein’s headquarters. Simon, he recalled, then signed the document with unconcealed reluctance asking, “For how long is this to hold good?” “Forever,” said Leutwein, who further observed “This he did not like.”
The arrangement nearly fell apart ten months later when Leutwein once more led a punitive expedition against the KaiIkhauan that also drew in the !Kharakhoen as well as the !Gamnum or Bondelswarts. The expedition had been provoked by mounting unrest following a German patrol’s killing of unarmed Kaikhauan at Aais in September 1894.
Peace was restored after the Kaikhauan were defeated in a battle at Gobabis, which resulted in the death of their Kaptein Eduard Lambert and many others. Their survivors were interred at a concentration camp located at Windhoek, where they were used as forced labour. The existence of the camp in 1895 contradicts the assumption that such facilities first appeared in southern Africa as a result of Lord Kitchener’s mass detention of blacks as well as Boers during the Anglo-Boer War.
The fate of the Kaikhauan is thus clear evidence that the genocidal nature of the German occupation of Namibia predates the final 1904 Herero-Nama uprising. In this respect, it was the threat of literally being wiped out as a people that ultimately drove most of the rest of the Nama, including !Kharakhoen, as well as the Ovaherero into their desperate rebellion. In other words, genocide was the very cause, rather than an extreme by-product, of the rebellion.
The 1894-96 repression of the Kaikhauan, along with the Ovambandero, also resulted in the first considerable flight of refugees into the Bechuanaland Protectorate.
In 1896 the Nama, like other pastoral communities throughout Southern Africa were also hard hit by the rinderpest epidemic, which is believed to have wiped out not less than 50% of their livestock as well as wildlife populations they depended on. The catastrophe coincided with an influx of land hungry German settlers.
In July-August 1896 a section of the IAixalean led by Kividoe, rose up in southern Namibia, initially defeating the Germans before being overpowered in a battle at Gamsib Ravine.
Kividoe with the remnants of his men then sought refuge in British Bechuanaland. But, they were subsequently extradited back to Namibia, where they were executed by the Germans.
Further to the north, in 1896 the Ovambanderu ruler Kahimema and Ovaherero leader Nikodemus were also executed along with others after having been taken prisoner while under a flag of truce. Thereafter, many of their followers fled to Ngamiland, where they were given refuge by the Batawana Kgosi Sekgoma Letsholathebe.
In 1897-1898 some of the Nama and Ovaherero holdouts forged a cross-ethnic alliance in a vain attempt to continue the resistance. Their final defeat led to a six year period during which the situation within the German Protectorate remained outwardly quiet.
But the seeming calm only served to mask the growing resentment and desperation of local communities. In the face of continued losses of their land and cattle, coupled with an influx of German settlers, indigenous Namibians overcame generations of internal conflict and suspicion to join together in a general uprising.
In January 1904 fighting once more broke out between the Germans and the Ovaherero. While the Germans authorities insisted that the violence was the product of a well orchestrated conspiracy, independent witnesses as well as Chiherero accounts indicate that it has been instigated by trigger happy Germans.
In the wake of the incident the Ovaherero paramount, Samuel Maharero, made the fateful decision to raise the banner of wider resistance by contacting the leaders of the Nama and others, calling on the entire territory to join him in a common struggle against the German occupation.
In this context Maharero sent two letters to his former rival the Nama leader Hendrick Witbooi, both of which were intercepted by the Germans. An extract from the second letter:
“All our obedience and patience with the Germans is of little avail, for each day they shoot someone dead for no reason at all. Hence I appeal to you, my Brother, not to hold aloof from the uprising, but to make your voice heard so that all Africa may take up arms against the Germans. Let us die fighting rather than die as a result of maltreatment, imprisonment or some other form of calamity, we shall not be fighting alone.”
For his part, Leutwine initially welcomed the conflict as an opportunity to finish his vision for the territory: “Once the Herero are defeated and disarmed we will disarm the south [i.e. the Nama]. Destruction of the tribal organisations, the institution of locations and pass laws, will take place after the Herero are defeated”.
The scale of the rebellion, however, soon proved to be too much for Leutwine’s forces. In its first few of days 123 Germans were killed. This was accompanied by considerable destruction of colonial infrastructure and loss of property. By the end of the month the Germans forces had been driven from Okahandja back to Windhoek. They also suffered an additional defeat when their military camp at Waterburg was overrun.
Having not received Maharero’s appeal, the other Nama leaders were initially inclined to sit on the sidelines.
But, by October their stance had shifted dramatically as indiscriminate killings by German troops convinced them and their people that they had no choice but to take up arms for their own survival. This coincided with the new German General Von Trotha’s infamous 2nd of October 1904 Extermination Order against all Ovaherero who did not leave German territory.
At the time the survivors only escape route to refuge in Sekgoma Letsholathebe’s Gatawana Kingdom was across the Omaheke desert (whose few wells were poisoned). An uncounted multitude perished on a trek of tears across the desert.
Von Trotha was now free to concentrate his sanguinary attention on the Nama, who would prove to be more tenacious in their resistance.
Generally operating in fast moving mounted commandos of never more than a few hundred, the Nama ultimately tied down 16,000 German troops over the next four years by avoiding whenever possible pitched battles in favour of stealthy hit and run attacks. In this context the Germans records reveal over 200 skirmishes in which they suffered significant casualties.
By the end of 1904 most of the Nama had taken up arms, with the core of the resistance comprising some 3000 armed horsemen, who were mobilised under the following group Kaptiens:
The /Khoenesen or Witbooi Nama led by Hendrik Witbooi (up to 1000 armed men);
The !Kharakhoen or Fransman under Simon Kooper (700 armed men);
The ǃGamiǂnun or Bondelswarts of Johannes Christian with Jakob Marengo and Abraham Morris (500 armed men);
The !Aman or Bethani under Cornelius Frederiks (500 armed men);
The ǁHawoben or Veldschoendragers under Jan Hendrik (200 armed men); and
The Khaiǁkhaun or Red Nation under Manasse !Noreseb, (100 armed men).
German attempts to force the Nama commandos into open battle led to a series of larger engagements at the end of 1904, which resulted in considerable casualties on both sides. While detailed information about Nama losses is incomplete, the extent and timing of the German casualties are meticulously recorded by the military graves yards that still dot the Namibian landscape, as well as in historical documents.
Jeff Ramsay.