Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro
Since June 2, with the sad news of the passing on of the Ovaherero Paramount Chief and Namibian Statesperson, Dr Kuaima Riruako, the Ovaherero people, as indeed many Namibians have been mourning, and at the same time celebrating this quintessential African patriot, folklorist, nationalist, statesperson and foremost champion of the Namibian people for their atonement by the government of the Federal Republic of Namibia for the atrocities committed by its predecessor imperial government.
To the detractors of Chief Riruako in his quest and campaign for Germany to acknowledge the atrocities committed against the Namibian people during their resistance against the occupation of their motherland, especially during the periods starting with 1896, and subsequently in the years 1904-1908, and to ultimately commit to restorative justice in this regard, whatever the form, nature and format of it, the passing of Chief Riruako may be seen as a welcome relieve. Yes, a temporarily relieve his passing on may be, but it shall never be a long-lasting reprieve for them nor their exoneration, let alone of Germany for the atrocities committed in the past. It is a temporary relieve only, as far as those who have been among those who have been spearheading such restitution of justice, shall remain pre-occupied by paying a befitting tribute to their fallen fighter for justice, Chief Riruako. But those who may be thinking that they are off the hook as far as the issue of genocide of the Namibian people by Germany’s colonial authorities, and subsequent atonement to such, are completely mistaken and misguided. Yes, many such detractors, opponents, protagonists and saboteurs, from within and from outside, antagonistically and agonistically, have been for long been wishing the demise of Chief Riruako hoping this would also diminish the just call for reparation, and/or even dampen the fighting spirit of Chief Riruako and thereby weaken the reparation movement and eventually extinct it.
How mistaken and misguided can they be? If anything the struggle for the blood many shed, and the lives they lost for the liberation of this country, is far from over and never shall be until those who are vicariously liable for the sins of their forefathers and mothers, first acknowledge such atrocities by their forebearers. Yes, such forebearers may only be vicariously liable for such sins. But in the same way that they are enjoying the fruits of such sins today such as inheritances and heritages, they must equally somehow help the descendants of the victims of such atrocities, get Germany to atone to such atrocities, and eventually pay for them. That is all the descendants of the victims are asking and have been pleading for. Because one liability and legacy, uncomfortable and detestable as it may be, is the colonial burden that Chief Riruako and his people, as indeed many other Namibians, have been carrying, courtesy of the colonial exploits of Imperial Germany more than hundred years ago in the then Deutsche Südwes Afrika, as Namibia was then know to colonial Germany and her fellow imperialist conspirators. Chief Riruako is one of the descendants, who, more than hundred years after, has literally been carrying this colonial burden, by virtue of having taken upon himself the baton of the unfinished business that his forefathers and –mothers bequeathed him. This has been to restore the dignity of their people that had been taken away by colonial Germany, and that, to this age and day, has far from having been restored. Even in their deaths, many of Chief Riruako ancestors have been without dignity, because the bodies of some of them had been left and even dumped in the wilderness and deserts, headless, with the skulls taken to Germany where many in this day and age, are still barbarically decorating German museums.
Like the undignified death that many of the Namibian ancestors endured, their bravery and fortitude notwithstanding, likewise Chief Riruako, to his very end have been suffering such humiliation in life by the sheer arrogance and intransigence of successive German governments, including the incumbent one, to let alone listen to his and his people’s plea. Testimony to such continued humiliation of Chief Riruako and his people, and indeed fellow Namibians by the German government, and indeed all those who have been conscientious to Germany’s insensitivity, arrogance and intransigence, is their outright scornfulness not to deal with the descendants of the victims they genocided. One cannot but recall the utterances of the former German Ambassador to Windhoek, Egon Kochanke, in 2011 with the return of the first skulls from Germany. This has been to the effect that Germany does not deal with “tribes”. How audacious of Germany with its predecessor having massacred Namibian people? One cannot but deduce that they were massacred because they were “tribes”, and thus savages.
Now that Chief Riruako is joining his ancestors, there cannot be any other befitting tribute to him then for those who believe and subscribe to his ideals, especially pertaining to genocide and reparation, to continue to seek for the requisite and appropriate acknowledgement to the untold humiliations and indignities, even lost of lives and properties, by his ancestors at the hands of German colonial authorities and their backers, agents and implementers. To this day ramifications of such atrocious indulgences are visible among many Namibians, as much as the descendants of the perpetrators continue to bask in the fruits of colonialism, and equally that of an independent and free Namibia, all fruits of despicable acts of aggression and genocide against Namibian ancestors. Chief Riruako has been offering the German authorities an olive branch that has been bluntly rejected and even arrogantly scoffed at. Now Chief Riruako is now joining his ancestors in their eternal indignity, there is no way Germany and fellows realistically can see his departure as the beginning of the end of an era. The Namibian people shall continue to bear such indignity some of the time but not all of the time. This is only the beginning of the beginning!