#herero

[folkfashion]

Herero woman's dress, Namibia, by The Atlas of Beauty

[artist-ellen]

Herero Inspired Mermaid

In Namibia, Botswana and Angola, Herero women take pride in their community and their cultural dress. Their ancestors modified the late 1800s German colonial fashions to suit their own identity. Their otjikalva hats reference the shape of cattle horns.

I am the artist! Do not post without permission & credit! Thank you! Come visit me over on: instagram, tiktok or check out my coloring book available now \ („• ֊ •„) /

https://linktr.ee/ellen.artistic

These mermaids all made it into a mermaid colouring book!

There are also PDF copies available!

https://linktr.ee/ellen.artistic

[viagginterstellari]

Herero women at the supermarket - Opuwo, 2022

[viv-hollande]

Alright, Let's Try This One Last Time

I sincerely hope this is the last time I have to do this.

I've now made three posts about this, and each one has turned into a remake of Episode V: Piss on the Poor Webbed Site Strikes Back. I acknowledge that I am partly at fault for failing to fully articulate my points, but fourth time's the charm? Here fucking goes...

The Post

Go read the other posts above for the background, I won't reiterate it all here. The essential theses of previous posts were 1) the death rate in Gaza was enormously lower than previous genocides, which I found at odds with Israel's military power and thus circumstantial evidence against intent of genocide, 2) overall death toll is less important than death rate, contrasting Gaza with Srebrenica, a much smaller death toll, yet one whose death rate exceeded Gaza's despite the Army of the Republic of Srpska's greatly inferior resources and organization as compared to the IDF, which I posited again as circumstantial evidence against genocidal intent, and 3) Gaza's death rate is well in line with both historical and contemporary examples of urban wars and can we please call a spade a spade and a war crime a war crime?

I may have focused overmuch on the death rate itself instead of emphasizing why it think it matters. The heart of the issue is context.

Death rate alone means nothing without an understanding of the perpetrator of an alleged genocide.

Today's example is the Herero-Nama genocide. In brief, the German Empire waged a four-year campaign (1904-1908) of genocide against the Herero and Nama peoples of Namibia, then German South West Africa in response to an attempted revolt. The method of genocide was primarily indirect: the Herero and Nama were driven out of their lands and into the Namibian deserts, where many of them died of starvation, dehydration, and disease. Many others were forced into concentration camps, where they were killed by means of neglect (starvation, dehydration, disease) or being worked to death. A small number of them were also subjects of human experimentation. Hooray!

I hate Wilhelmine Germany with a passion that burns with the heat of a hydrogen bomb, for this and other reasons. A story (really several) for another time.

The death toll was between 24,000 and 100,000, though most likely around 65,000, Herero and about 10,000 Nama, representing 80% of the native population.

That's a very slow rate of death—between about 23 to 75 deaths per day—both of which are well below most of the figures I calculated for Gaza. So did Israel commit a genocide in Gaza?

No.

In my opinion.

Let's look deeper into the ~context~.

The ~Context~

If you were surprised to learn that Germany had a colonial empire... well that's not good, but it is understandable. Germany isn't really known for their colonial prowess. By the time of German Unification in 1871, most of the accessible (and valuable) pickings had been claimed by Britain, France, Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands.

Congo Free State was in 1885.

What's more, Germany actually wasn't that interested in colonization. I know, it seems wild, but there actually was a European great power (Austria-Hungary doesn't count) that wasn't totally gung-ho about Empire. Otto von Bismarck, who held a stranglehold on German foreign policy from its Unification to his dismissal in 1890 by Kaiser Wilhelm II, saw imperial ambitions as at best a boondoggle and at worst a potential source of unnecessary conflict with Britain and France. Domestic pressure eventually forced him to push for a German colonial empire, albeit with great reservations.

German colonial ambitions really got going with Kaiser Wilhelm's ascension in 1888 and his aforementioned 1890 dismissal of Bismarck as Chancellor. Wilhelm was a pitiable, insecure, racist antisemite who pined for Germany's "place in the sun", an ambition that, by its very nature, brought Germany into conflict with the established colonial powers and personally helped cause World War I. For more on why he is bad, see the post I just made on why he is bad.

The essential point of the matter is this. Germany aspired to be a colonial power that could challenge Britain, but lacked just about everything it would need to have to do so successfully. Locked in a ruinously expensive naval arms race with Britain that they started and would eventually lose, Germany's annual budget deficit in 1908 was €3.6 billion (2024 euros) as army spending simultaneously ballooned in response to colonial crises, the Franco-Russian Alliance, and Anglo-French Entente Cordiale. Their total spending that year was €10 billion.

Unlike Britain, Germany didn't have a large merchant marine it could press-gang into military service. It's navy was overwhelmingly centered in the North Sea in a vain attempt to offset their numerical inferiority against the Royal Navy. Their army was focused at home to counter the Anglo-French-Russian bloc. Their resources were limited.

The campaign against the Herero and Nama increased German South West Africa's budget expenditures tenfold. It cost Germany €4.5 billion over four years, and they only committed a maximum of 20,000 soldiers to the campaign.

For context, British troop presence in the Second Boer War peaked at 600,000, and the war cost Britain €23 billion (2022) in total. The British Empire suffered 22,000 war dead, more than the entire German allocation to Namibia. For more detail on that, see the comment thread that inspired this post, though fair warning that much of this is a repeat of that.

The God Damn Point

The Herero and Nama genocide was a very slow genocide. But it was slow because Germany lacked the means to carry out a fast one. Germany was forced to adopt a strategy of attrition in which more Herero and Nama died to the desert than they did the the Germans.

The rate of death in Namibia is not evidence against a genocide because Germany was limited by means, not by intent.

When evaluating historical genocides, I have generally found that génocidaires carry out their genocides as fast, or nearly as fast, as their capacity to do so. When intent is present, the limiting factor is usually capacity. When capacity greatly exceeds the rate of destruction, the limiting factor is usually a lack of intent.

I have said it before, so I'm just going to quote myself this time.

Netanyahu is the Prime Minister of a modern, developed nation with one of the most powerful and technologically advanced militaries in the world, operating mere tens of kilometers from their home soil, with absolute, unopposed air supremacy, completely unchallenged armored combat units, and supported by the unquestionably effective intelligence capabilities of Mossad.  Israel, with the co-operation of Egypt, has absolute control over movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza. They decide, alone and unchallenged, what aid has made it in, and what aid - by far the greater quantity - has been refused entry.  Most importantly, they have, since January 2025, the unconditional backing of THE SOLE global military hegemon, the United States.  The maximum destructive power the State of Israel could theoretically bring to bear on Gaza is unfathomable. If Netanyahu were really determined to genocide the people of Gaza, there would not be any of them left by now. 

— viv-hollande

Also I swear to fucking god if one more person accuses me of defending war crimes I'm going to track down your home address and pour quick-cure concrete in your ears while you sleep.

[yearningforunity]

Conversation Through A Window - 1953

photograph by Margaret Bourke-White

[tinyuglyworld]

Herero women near Uis, Namibia🇳🇦

Photo credit: Hans Hillewaert (Source)

[longliveblackness]

The German missionaries began working in Southern Africa in the late 1820s and experienced significant success in evangelizing and educating their converts.

But toward the end of the 19th century, a new gospel' was increasingly introduced to Africa. Germans, many indoctrinated in Social Darwinian ideas, colonized South West Africa (Namibia today) in the 1880s.

They generally regarded the Herero people as primitive and frequently referred to them as 'subhuman' and 'baboons!' The very first genocide of the 20th century occurred in Namibia perpetrated by Germans on the Herero and Nama people in concentration camps.

The body parts of these dead prisoners were used in racial studies trying to prove the inferiority of blacks. Before the skulls were sent off and sold to German universities, the female prisoners (Herero Women) did all the horrendous preparatory work.

Eugen Fischer, a geneticist and avid eugenicist, was sent to Namibia for one main purpose--to evaluate the physical characteristics and intelligence of several hundred interracial children and prove that interracial relations would be detrimental to European culture. It was Fischer's work that led to the victimization and sterilization of blacks (and other groups) in the Third Reich.

They also perpetrated inhumane acts toward the Herero: they progressively seized their land and cattle, shot people for no reason at all, sexually abused and raped the women and because of their interest in evolutionary theory and missing links they dug up the graves of the Herero's ancestors and stole their skulls. Not surprisingly, localized reactions to this from the Herero led to efforts to drive the Germans out of their land.

•••

Los misioneros alemanes comenzaron a trabajar en el sur de África a fines de la década de 1820 y experimentaron éxito significativo en la evangelización y educación de los convertidos.

Pero a fines del siglo XIX, un nuevo evangelio se estaba introduciendo cada vez más en África. Los alemanes, muchos de ellos adoctrinados en ideas sociales Darwinianas, colonizaron el suroeste de África (hoy conocida como Namibia) en la década de 1880.

Generalmente, consideraban que los Herero eran personas primitivas y frecuentemente les llamaban “infrahumanos” o “babuinos”. El primer genocidio del siglo XX ocurrió en Namibia, perpetrado por los alemanes en campos de concentración hacia las personas Herero y Nama.

Las partes del cuerpo de estos prisioneros muertos eran utilizados en estudios raciales que trataban de demostrar la inferioridad de los negros. Antes de que los cráneos pudiesen ser enviados y vendidos a universidades alemanas, las mujeres prisioneras (Herero) tenían que hacer un trabajo de preparación horrendo.

Eugen Fischer, un genetista y ávido eugenista, fue enviado a Namibia con el propósito principal de evaluar las características físicas y la inteligencia de cientos de niños interraciales y demostrar que las relaciones interraciales serían perjudiciales para la cultura europea. Fue el trabajo de Fischer el que condujo a la victimización y esterilización de los negros (y otros grupos) durante el Tercer Reich.

También perpetraron actos inhumanos hacia los Herero: se apoderaron progresivamente de sus tierras y ganado, disparaban sin motivo alguno, abusaron sexualmente y violaron a las mujeres y por su interés en la teoría evolutiva y los eslabones perdidos excavaron las tumbas de los antepasados de los Herero y robaron sus cráneos. No es sorprendente que las reacciones localizadas de los Herero a esto condujeran a los esfuerzos para expulsar a los alemanes de su tierra.

[allweknewisdead]

Der vermessene Mensch (2023) - Lars Kraume

Sie werden sehr viele schöne Dinge zurücklassen auf ihrer Flucht.