ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
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The opposite of forgetting is justice
BOB NEWLAND recommends a history of German colonialism whose history has been obscured by a selective focus on the Holocaust and a new wave of revisionism
Chained Herero and Nama prisoners during the campaign of ethnic extermination and collective punishment waged against the Herero (Ovaherero) and the Nama in German South West Africa (now Namibia) by the German Empire, between 1904 and 1908. Between 65,000 and 100,000 Africans were killed, approx 80% of the indigenous population
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MICK McSHANE rubs shoulders with Mod legend Steve Craddock and joins in with the joyous Glasgow choir
DENNIS BROE sifts out the ideological bias of the newest TV series offerings, and picks out what to see, and what to avoid
The Long Shadow of German Colonialism - Amnesia, Denialism and Revisionism
Henning Melber, Hurst, £30
HENNING MELBER moved to Namibia (former South West Africa) with his family of German immigrants, in 1967. He joined the South West Africa Peoples’ Organisation in 1974 remaining an anti-colonialism activist ever since.
Germany’s colonial period was short compared to those of its European neighbours, lasting from 1884 until 1914. Following defeat in WWI, Germany’s African colonies, South West Africa (Namibia), Cameroon, Togoland (Togolese Republic and Ghana), German East Africa (Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi) and those in the Pacific, the Mariana, Marshall and Caroline Islands were distributed among the victor nations.
German companies continued to operate in these territories, often coming into conflict with those of the victors.
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