Are the descendants of the great warriors of the war of resistance against German colonialism busy relegating their own and the history of their ancestors to the dustbin of history?
One is compelled to pose this question, not as a desperate act of hopelessness, but as a matter of introspection, given the way the descendants of these great warriors are today jostling for a place under the sun by re-writing this history.
This is apparently in an attempt to enhance it, but on the contrary only spiting it, thereby relegating it to the dustbin of history – if not to inaccessible archives to gather dust.
Tuesday this week – August 11 – was the 111th commemoration of the Battle of Ohamakari. But except for the efforts of Kenaendo Kaapehi and a few others in Otjiwarongo, who organised some commemorative activities and sporadic, erratic reminders on the Omurari Wondjivisiro Ombaranga (NBC Otjiherero Language Radio Service) on the day, it seems to have come stealthily and gone equally unnoticed.
This, despite the lyrics we sing every day in our national anthem to the effect “that their blood waters our freedom”, which today seems more fashionable than anything else – and somewhat meaningless in the face of the continued disregard of this important day.
The descendants of some of these great heroes and heroines, especially those who engaged Imperial Germany’s Schutztruppe in the Battle of Ohakamakari on August 11, particularly cannot escape the blame, if not the wrath of the ancestors.
Typical of the signs of the times, what was supposed to have been a day of civil and solemn commemoration and observation looks bogged down in the internal rivalry and bickering between brothers and sisters.
Initially the day was scheduled for remembrance this weekend, only to have to give way to the annual pilgrimage to Okahandja, albeit by one section of the Ovaherero and Ovambanderu community. This is because – typical of the divisions and disunity that have been tearing the community asunder – no consensus has been reached for a uniform and united pilgrimage, as was the case historically until father-politics got the better of the community and its various cultural structures.
It has been more than a year since an out of court settlement between the various traditional-cum-political role-players over this pilgrimage was reached, that by now must have paved the way for them to actualise the agreement made an order of the High Court, thereby restoring the pilgrimage to its former glory and consequently the pride of the community.
But a year or so down the line, the community still seems chronically at odds with itself and its various constituents with their usually belligerent – and far from being ready to bury the hatchet – stance and stage one pilgrimage to Okahandja.
As it appears currently – until perhaps another last-minute bid at brokering peace, it seems we are stuck with two separate pilgrimages, one this weekend and another the next – with lingering threats of yet another court bid. It is really hard to believe (without taking away from anyone’s genuine intention to broker an understanding in terms of one pilgrimage) whether such a bid at this eleventh hour can really produce any rapprochement in this regard, while the parties have had more than a year to resolve the matter.
Whoever the initiator at this last hour, one cannot but see this as mere pretension and showmanship. I think it is time the communities led by the leaders concerned awaken to the bluff of their leaders that they are interested in peace and rapprochement without any genuine and consequent action to put deeds to their words.
More often than not the committees that have been championing the issue of genocide and its recognition by the world and by the government of the federal government of Germany in particular, have been blamed for their inability to achieve practical cooperation in this matter.
It appears that those blaming the said committees are oblivious to the fact that more often than not, the traditional leaders are the ones stifling these committees, with what now seems to have become traditional and customary differences, but in reality are just banal political differences.
Yet the descendants seem to be ignoring these signs of the times. These signs surely cannot be and are not about the German authorities eventually coming around to acknowledging genocide, as has been generally speculated in certain quarters.
The ancestors simply have no reason to let Germany see things differently now, tomorrow and who knows when, until the current chaos and anarchy among their descendants subside – and eventually completely recede and cease to exist!