Lessons of the Namibian War 1904-1907

• SHAUN WHITTAKER and HARRY BOESAKTHE GREAT uprising by the African people of Namibia on 12 January 1904 was momentous.

It was an historic form of resistance by Otjiherero-speakers and others against the dispossession of their land and cattle. Within a few days, the whole of central Namibia was under their control and they had destroyed most settler farms in the region.

Samuel Maharero and his sub-chiefs planned the insurrection well and along non-tribal lines. In his famous letter to the Witboois (Khowesin) and the Basters, Maharero exhorted “let us die fighting”. The “us”, without a doubt, included other language groups. A fundamental point raised by Marion Wallace in her ‘A History of Namibia’ is that “the diversity of the settlement patterns in central Namibia also meant that, even here, the war was never a purely Herero-German affair”.

The Damara and San language groups, for instance, could not avoid the war situation. It was not a tribal event, but a regional reality. In any case, mixed-language parentage was already the norm at that time. The notion of homogenous and undifferentiated social groups was actually a deliberate divide and rule strategy of the colonisers.

As the Germans were unable to deal with the revolt effectively, the extermination order (like the order against the so-called Hottentots/Khoi in the Cape) was intended to punish and send a strong message to the colonised. The 6 000 fighters of the Ovaherero and others at Ohamakari on 11 August 1904 could not have had enough rifles, and the one-sided incident was over within a day.  The 4 000 German soldiers had six canons and 14 Maxim machine guns. It ought to be admitted, though, that the colonised were always at a disadvantage with conventional warfare. Even so, although the extermination order was formally rescinded in December 1904, the genocide continued in the five concentration camps until 1908.

NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS

The South African left-wing intellectual, Neville Alexander, in his ‘Three Essays on Namibian History’ – Jakob Marengo and Namibian History, Responses to German Rule in Namibia or The Enigma of the Khowesin, and The Namibian War of Anti-colonial Resistance 1904-1907 – declares that Hendrik Witbooi (!Nanseb) was the first to realise the danger of German colonialism, and that the primary resistance phase of Namibian history ended in 1894 with the defeat of the Khowesin. 

Once the Khowesin, an Orlam group, were defeated, Theodor Leutwein could focus on the Ovaherero. The December 1903 Bondelswarts uprising was the last isolated uprising of the primary resistance phase. The 1904-1907 war was therefore the beginning of the secondary phase of the anti-colonial struggle in Namibia, preceding the current national liberation movements by decades.

We might add that when the great uprising began, King Nehale of the Ondongo immediately attacked the German fort at Namutoni and the Oshikwanyama-speaking warriors prevented the Portuguese colonisers in Angola from coming to the aid of the Germans. Wallace asserts that the Aawambo polities “… acted as a conduit for the supply of arms and ammunition to the forces opposing the Germans, and received Herero refugees after the defeat at Ohamakari”. Surely this ought to be included in our national dialogue about the war. 

In his seminal essay on Marengo, Alexander avers that when Marengo’s fighters launched their guerilla war in July/August 1904, they “delayed and probably prevented the final solution of the Herero problem as the General Staff saw it”.  In other words, Marengo’s armed struggle possibly averted the total annihilation of the Ovaherero. The anticolonial resistance throughout the country hence represented a nation in the making.

Marengo’s guerilla fighters consisted of both peasants and workers, and many language groups – Nama, Ovaherero, Damara, San, Baster, isiXhosa, etc. The initial followers of the fighting force came from the diverse community of Riemvasmaak in the northern Cape of South Africa. In fact, the leader of the Riemvasmaak community today, Toortjie Damara, is a direct descendant of Marengo and could definitely be one of the main spokespeople of the colonialism reparations movement.

Marengo’s army even included a ‘white’ Australian, Edward Presgrave, who died in battle at age 24 in 1906. As with Marengo, Kaiser Wilhelm himself put a hefty bounty of 20 000 marks on his head. What would Presgrave’s family say about reparations?

THE AUDACITY OF JAKOB MARENGO

So, Marengo’s fighting force was a proto-national army that represented an emerging national consciousness. For them, it was not about restoring the power of the tribal chiefs (traditional pre-capitalist relations), but all about getting rid of the settlers and taking back their land, cattle and rights. 

Marengo’s guerilla army fought an unconventional war and scored the biggest single victory against the Germans on 24 October 1905 when 43 colonial soldiers were killed with no loss of life to the anticolonial fighters. About 2 000 Marengo guerillas – with only a few hundred rifles – kept 15 000 German soldiers busy for almost four years with a protracted war strategy from their internal base in the Great Karasberg mountains – especially from their key hideaway at //Khauxa!nas. This was incidentally the location of the first town of Jonker Afrikaner, and thus a monument could be erected there and it might be declared as the foremost heritage site in Namibia. 

In the final analysis, Marengo was arguably the main leader of the war and the confrontation was effectively over when he was killed by the British on 20 September 1907. He stood out above all the others because of his resolve, audacity and astuteness.

Be that as it may, the Namibian war of 1904 to 1907 cannot simply be called an uprising or rebellion by the Ovaherero and Nama. Couching it in tribal terms diminishes its historical significance and mischaracterises it. The German colonisers would obviously not have admitted to the colonial nature of the war, but it is crucial that the formerly colonised don’tmake the same mistake. The tribal categories emphasised by the coloniser were to isolate and crush the battles of different colonised groups. The extent of the events and the great loss of life from 1904 to 1907 also suggest that it was indeed a ‘war’, while describing it as merely an ordinary ‘uprising’ or ‘revolt’ might in fact imply that colonial rule was justified. In conclusion, the 1904 to 1907 war was undoubtedly one of the most important events in Namibian history.

REPARATIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

The war also has implications for the reparations debate. Besides the question about whether it might be reparations for colonialism, war or genocide, the discourse about ‘affected communities’ contains tribal connotations which does not make sense in the context of an anticolonial war that exemplified a nation in the making. 

It would accordingly be more appropriate for reparations to be used to develop the central and southern regions first – as the genocide occurred there – and for us to completely discard the tribal arguments. In fact, it is relevant to ask if the northern Cape could not be included as a region in this discussion. And why should the demand for reparations be limited to the German government? What about the British government, private businesses and the churches?

In the final analysis, the deafening silence of the reparations movement about the return of the remains of Marengo is disturbing. If anything, Namibia’s valiant fighter should be buried at Khauxa!nas.

* The authors are members of the Marxist Group of Namibia.

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