The planned agreement between the German government and Namibia reparations is in danger of falling apart. Namibia generously accepted an official apology from German President Steinmeier, but rejected the amount of 1,1 billion euros. Instead, they want 477 billion euros.
The new demand was reported by the daily tabloid Bild.
It would however be premature to dismiss the demands from Windhoek as adventurous and unprovoked: Just under a year ago the German government offered the black tribes 10 million euros to “heal wounds” and there was no talk of “genocide” at the time according to German daily the FAZ. Then the Africans suddenly rejected the offer as offensive – clearly a successful move because in response, Berlin increased the offer 110 times and offered 1,1 billion euros instead of 10 million. The Namibian tribes, now increasingly confident, are currently asking for more than 40 times as much.
The tribal chiefs association of the African ethnic groups of the Herero and Nama rejected the compensation offered by Germany for the suppression of the rebellion some 100 years ago. According to the news agency dpa, representatives of the organization recognized by the Namibian government emphasized that the sum of 1,1 billion euros offered by the federal government was “unacceptable” and “shocking” in the eyes of the chiefs.
The planned payments over a period of 30 years were an “affront to our existence,” said the chiefs. They called the billion dollar offer an offensive amount and called for the reparations issue to be negotiated again.
Herero and Nama uprising failed
The Ovaherero Traditional Authority had previously named the German government’s agreement with Namibia signed last week as a PR coup for Germany and a fraud by the Namibian government.
Germany recognized the suppression of the Herero and Nama uprisings in the former colonies of the German Empire as genocide. Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) announced that the African country should be supported “as a gesture of recognition of immeasurable suffering” with a program worth 1,1 billion euros for reconstruction and development.
Before the First World War, the German Empire in Africa owned the colonies of German East Africa, German South West Africa, Togo and Cameroon. In Deutsch-Südwest, today’s Namibia, colonial troops responded to Herero and Nama uprisings between 1904 and 1908. It is estimated that 50 000 to 70 000 members of the ethnic groups were killed in the process. Notably, no written order by Wilhelm II ordering or authorising genocide has ever been found, according to historian Jeremy Sarkin.
Namibia, home to the driest desert in the world, has no short-term accessible oil wells. The country’s gross domestic product in 2020 was just over 10 billion US dollars, or around 8,5 billion euros. Therefore, wealth must come from Germany. The Association of Ovaherero Genocide in the USA has been driving the demand for reparations.
Even if less than one percent of all people globally own more than 50 percent of all material goods and the remaining 99 percent share the remaining less than 50 percent of the prosperity, most tax-paying Germans do not belong to the less than one percent. But the majority of the population will inevitably be asked to pay in order to raise the billions for Namibia.
In his recently published book Defense of German Colonialism, the US political scientist Prof. Bruce Gilley argued that the campaign against the Herero and Nama was an individual war crime and not a systematically organized genocide. Billions in payments for left activists are a big mistake, according to the leading international researcher. Markus Frohnmaier and Petr Bystron, the two AfD parliamentarians had invited Gilley into the Bundestag
“Germany made a major historical and political mistake in apologizing for the alleged genocide allegedly committed by colonial forces more than a century ago,” said the professor of Political Science at Portland State University.
“The tragic events in German Southwest at the beginning of the 20th century were neither a deliberate nor a foreseeable genocide against the Herero and Nama rebels,” explained Gilley.
“Germany is doing the historical truth a disservice by succumbing to the blackmailing mafia of Namibian activists and radical German academics,” said Gilley.
“The protection money that is squeezed out for the descendants of the victims will not harm the demands of the professional activists and undermine the ability of those born later to be productive and independent individuals. Giving away tax money with the watering can in corrupt third world countries – or in the case with the fire hose – has never worked. If we really want to help, then we have to help people learn to take responsibility and not cement dependencies through a policy of alms,” said the development policy spokesman for the AfD parliamentary group, Frohnmaier.
“The supposed financial blessing of the German federal government will not go down well with ordinary Africans. The profiteers are a corrupt elite and anti-German NGOs. As a result, there will be no real processing of the German colonial heritage. That is a shame, because the possibilities would be there. Remarkable scientists like Prof. Bruce Gilley have long drawn a differentiated picture of the German colonial heritage. If the mainstream believes that all of the leftist’s demands will now be met, then they will be deeply disappointed. The victim competition has only just begun,” Frohnmaier pointed out.
The issue of reparations has becoming fashionable in France too
Emmanuel Macron’s trip to Africa last week was part of his strategy of tension around the theme of identity one year before the presidential election as it has become clear that the French assimilationist model is no longer working. Macron addressed young French people from immigrant backgrounds in a speech in Pretoria delivered on Saturday, May 29, 2021: “You are a opportunity for France.”
His choice of words is not trivial, especially as this expression has flourished in pro-immigration circles. The problem is that these notions feed a fact-free fantasy. In the suburbs, where immigrants are overrepresented, the unemployment rate of young people under 25 with an immigrant background is often around 50 percent, or double the national average. Delinquency is omnipresent, candidates for jihad are commonplace as is an aversion to France.
But Macron relies on an idealized image of Africa, whose fantasized unity only exists in the West. As examples of “living together” he chose Rwanda, where ethnic tensions led to genocide, and South Africa, where the white population is suffering from a reverse apartheid forcing them to live in closed, protected communities, facing the expropriation of their land and the mass killings of white farmers.
Macron asked Rwandans to forgive France for its role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which 800 000 ethnic Tutsis and Hutus massacred each other. And while France’s budget deficit is expected to reach 9,4 percent in 2021, Emmanuel Macron is committed to a Marshall Plan… for Africa.
An extension of BLM
The notion of reparations to be paid by whites is being advanced by BLM in the US. Black Lives Matter Chicago organizer Ariel Atkins defended the mass looting in the city, describing it as “reparations”.
The Daily Mail reported in the same vein that the flagship commemoration event to mark the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre was annulled after three survivors demanded $1 million each to appear. Monday’s Remember & Rise event was called off at the last minute after survivors increased their appearance fee from $100 000 each to $1 million each.
Lawyers representing the three also demanded that a reparations fund be boosted from the agreed $2 million to $10 million. Oklahoma State Senator Kevin Matthews said in response that organisers were unable to meet the latest demands.
In Canada, the remains of 215 indigenous children were discovered on the property of a former Catholic boarding school allegedly set up to integrate children into European society. The remains of children were found during radar investigations of the property near the city of Kamloops in western Canada. Headlines in Canada announced the “cultural genocide” missing the important failure of integration.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau noted on Twitter. “It is a painful memory of this dark and shameful chapter in the history of our country,” pointing to a blanket indictment of whites for a singular crime. This discovery will undoubtedly also lead to demands for reparations paid by all Canadians, including those who never had any part in this incident.