Two modes of amnesia: complexity in postcolonial Namibia
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Date
2015
Authors
Kössler, Reinhart
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of the Free State
Abstract
Public commemoration of past atrocity, mass crime and particularly genocide
has drawn attention both in the public realm and in scholarly debate, meeting
general acceptance in recent years. However, the seeming opposite has also been
advocated – forgetting. Variously, such forgetting is presented as a wiser approach
in contradistinction to painstaking and evasive truth-seeking. Taking this tendency
as a point of departure, I discuss here two cases that seem relevant to what might be
called a strategy of amnesia, both relating to Namibia: (1) reference to the genocide
perpetrated by the German colonial army in 1904-08, both in post-World War II (West)
Germany and in the independent postcolony, and (2) the debates and conflicts within
Namibia around the gross violations of human rights committed under the auspices
of SWAPO during the 1980s. Without suggesting that these cases are in any way
equivalent, I contend, however, that they are related in the minds of a fair number of
Namibians and further, that there are certain connections in the ways both cases have
been and are addressed within the public spheres of the two countries concerned.
I argue that in both cases, debate on how to ‘work through’ or otherwise pass over in
silence violent acts and large-scale crime arose only with the Namibian independence
process in 1989/90. In the first case, we can observe a transnational dynamic, which
has resulted in shifts in the positioning of both governments concerned, but at the same
time refers back to more long-term official images of history. This concerns in particular the construction of national identity as a decisive framing of the transition process,
which, in Namibia, was intertwined with achieving independence. In the German case
as well, memory politics are closely related to transition to democracy, even though
this transition was the result of the cataclysmic defeat of Nazism. In such contexts,
strategies of amnesia or of repressing memory appear fragile in face of the ever-present
possibility that interested or concerned actors may raise seemingly forgotten issues.
Precisely because of their relative volubility, such strategies also pose questions about
political culture. In a closing section, I therefore consider the societal power relations
that influence the prospects of enduring amnesia in the cases discussed.
Description
Keywords
Genocide, Forgetting, Human rights abuses, Namibia
Citation
Kossler, R. (2015). Two modes of amnesia: complexity in post-colonial Namibia: special issue. Acta Academica: Silence after violence and the imperative to'speak out', 47(1), 138-160.