Reflections on Okakoverua bones!
YEARS back a periodical carried an article on Zimbabwe with pictures of that country’s war veterans demonstrating with posters to air their grievances. One poster read: ‘Born poor, grew up struggling; will die disappointed.’ Another read: ‘Light at the end of the tunnel? We do not see the tunnel.’
When I watched the reburial of the bones on television I recalled many things and in the end I agreed with the veterans from Zimbabwe. Is there a glimmer of hope in resolving outstanding issues with regard to the after effects of colonialism in our part of the world? Or, does it matter anyway and to whom?
This question seems wrapped in timeless bounds. Twenty years ago we attained Independence and granted ‘Rome was not built in one day’, every time a new situation presents itself that is reminiscent of the colonial past, one wonders whether in fact the world, and in particular, the hitherto imperialist nations are indeed committed to redressing our painful past.
Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper, of Oxford University, once said to his history students, in the sixties, when they demanded to be taught African History: “In truth there is no African history to teach… there are only activities of Europeans in Africa… the rest is darkness and darkness is not a subject of history.”
These are some of the misapprehensions that impelled Europeans to nurture the mentality, among themselves, that there are no human beings in Africa but darkness, and darkness is not part of the human race.
This philosophy, and its after effects to the human race, in our part of the world, deserve further exploration and since there is not enough space in these pages, it will be interrogated in due course.
When I saw the bones on television on the eve of August 26 2010 I recalled many things. I remembered a story that my father, Katuutire Kaura, told me. His grandmother and his father were shipped to Luderitz as prisoners of war. They were fed mule meet. His grandmother refused to eat this meat and she died. His father ate the meat and he survived to later escape, and returned to the Omatjete area, where he worked and died.
This is how we came to have Hiskia, Rapanda and Katuutire Kaura. My grandmother, Tapita Kandanda, told me the story of the Katjipohokas.
A German soldier would return from a hunting expedition or neighbourhood bar, walk into the shed of a Herero family that was fast asleep, wake them up and order the wife to follow him to a place of his choice. The wife could disappear for days. When she fell pregnant and later gave birth, the real husband would be reluctant to catch the baby because he believed it was not his child and when the family insisted that he does, he would exclaim angrily: “Tjeso tjirumbu tjiuire pehi, katjipohoka.” Granny was one of the Katjipohokas.
As if this pain was not complete, guess what Uazuvara Katjivena’s grandmother taught him: Uazuvara was brought up by his grandmother.
She told him how her own mother was captured at the age of thirteen ,during the war, when both her parents died, and was stripped of her traditional attire and brought to work in the kitchen, as well as be exposed to all forms of human degradation.
Uazuvara’s grandmother said to little Uazuvara: “Muatje Uandje! Go and attend the white man’s schools and know how he thinks and do things… go and learn his ways, so that you can learn not to repeat his mistakes.” What a wonderful foundation for any home!