The fortunate ones: Herero who escaped the German genocide, c. 1907
The Herero and Nama genocide (1904-1908) was carried out by Germany in South West Africa, now called Namibia. It killed 60,000 Hereros and 10,000 Nama, 50% to 70% of them. It featured concentration camps, skin-and-bone people, mass graves, medical experiments and good German record-keeping – more than 30 years before the Jewish Holocaust.
People who blame the Jewish Holocaust on Hitler and the Nazis alone need to think again: Germany showed itself to be a genocidal nation when Hitler was just 15.
There is no guesswork about this being a genocide: we have the orders, the letters and the diaries that leave no doubt that the Germans meant to wipe out the Herero and Nama and take their land. It was not just a case of a general gone mad or a war gone wrong.
present-day Herero woman, 2010
In the late 1800s there were 80,000 Herero and 20,000 Nama. Both had land and they herded cows. The Herero were Bantu and lived in the middle of Namibia, the Nama were Khoisan (Hottentots) and lived to the south. They were armed with rifles.
The Germans were badly outnumbered and outgunned. They were in constant fear of an uprising, which in turn put the Herero in constant fear that war was about to break out. And so it did in 1904.
At first the Herero were winning: the Germans were not just outgunned, but the governor was away in the south fighting the Nama.
General Lothar von Trotha
Germany, afraid of losing face, sent General Lothar von Trotha with men, cannons and machine guns – weapons the Herero had no defence against.
The Herero were defeated and massacred at the Battle of Waterberg. Most Herero escaped and fled across the desert to British Bechuanaland (Botswana), men, women, children and cows. The German army pursued. Only 1,000 Herero made it across the border to British territory. The rest died of thirst or were gunned down by the Germans. It was senseless and gruesome but when questioned Von Trotha said he wanted their “total extermination”.
Von Trotha was a dark angel of Darwin:
Where the climate allows the white man to work, philanthropic views cannot banish Darwin’s law “Survival of the Fittest”.
The Nama were next. They fought a hit-and-run guerrilla war. The Germans fought back by burning down all their houses and granaries.
Studies on Nama, Herero and mulattoes at the camps supported German ideas about race and genocide. About 3,000 skulls were sent to Germany for further study.
About 17,000 Herero and Nama, some half-white, were sent to concentration camps along the coast, like Shark Island. They were forced to build the Otavi railroad – men, women and children, underfed, some skin and bones, raped and whipped, worked till they dropped. Conditions were so terrible almost half never made it out of the camps alive.
Those who lived through the genocide were tattooed and forced to wear an identity badge around their necks. Their movements were controlled by the government. With land and livestock gone they had little choice but to work for Germans in the new racial hierarchy.
And yet still the Germans feared them.
A hundred years later Germany apologized but did not think they owed the Herero and Nama anything more than their fine words.
Source: “Forgotten Genocides” (2011), edited by Rene Lemarchand
See also:
- genocide
- How to deny a genocide
- Armenian genocide - about ten years later
- Scramble for Africa - what the genocide was part of
- human zoos - big in Germany at this time
- Sarah Baartman - a Khoisan woman
- An Open Letter to King Leopold II
- black people according to the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica - educated American opinion of the time
- Philippine-American War - how America took over the Philippines just years before. Features massacres, camps, naked racism but not explicit genocide
I believe that this genocide is directly connected to human zoos – treating Africans and other Indigenous peoples as animals:
From that thread:
Reblogged this on innerstanding isness and commented:
The Herero and Nama genocide
Wow… YOU REALLY RILE ME UP!!! TRUTH HURTS. Keep peeling back the layers. It is appreciated. Thank you Abagond.
Now I’m intrigued; what is it about 17th-20th century European culture to have caused them to go bat$hit-crazy-killer-ape? On day I will trek into Darkest Deutschland to discover the root of this misanthropic pathology.
Being German this horrifies me more than you could realize. I remember being pretty young (probably 3 or 4) and my grandmother told me stories about the Hottentots. But unlike most German stories, the Hottentots she talked about weren’t “boogeymen” that came to “get” bad children. She told me that they were people who had things that the Kaiser wanted, like land and cows. She said there was a big fight and Kaiser sent all his men with guns to shot all the Hottentots. She told me this was a very bad thing and that her father went to France because he was a solider and didn’t want go far away and kill Hottentots. I asked my father about this years and years ago, because I didn’t know if I remembered what she told me correctly. He said that my great-grandfather did sneak off to France rather than get sent to Africa. He strongly disagreed w/ how the natives were being treated and thought that Kaiser Wilhelm II was a greedy, war monger.
I’m lucky to come from a family with a strong conscience. Did they protest what was happening to the Herero and Nama? No. But my great-grandfather left Germany and his family rather than do something he knew was wrong. I respect him for that.
Having just reread what I’ve written (I often have spelling issues), I hope this story doesn’t come across as flippant or dismissive, for it was definitely not meant as such! I was not trying to belittle the gruesome genocide of the Herero and Nama by saying that since my family didn’t personally participate it somehow made it okay.
@ Jenn
Thanks for sharing your experience
Given Germany’s history it’s safe to say that Germany is definitely a troubled nation.
DESPICABLE moment in history. How funny it is that we don’t get the history of the Herero massacre in our contemporary history classes – high school or university. White revisionism at its finest. They have no trouble milking the African as weak, barbaric, disease-ridden ‘other’ archtype, but when it comes to whites in contemporary history books you are either a victim of the nazis or you are not a victim of the nazis. When it comes to German victims, the ally soldiers, Jews are the only sufferers.
And history should only recall that bleak moment in extremity and racist animus until we get to the next genocide, the African on African genocide (Rwanda, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo etc.) Contemporary tellings of history have a funny way of fastforwarding, slow motioning and then fastforwarding again when it conveniences Canadians/Americans/W.Europeans. They love to skip the innumerable points in history when white = evil. It allows them to sleep at night.
Thanks for this post Aba.
People often forget the horrors of colonization in Africa. There was nothing pretty, good or christian about it. It was a dominant culture believing they were superior and entitled to Africa’s natural and vast resources simply because they were white and more technologically advanced.
Funny thing is if you go to Namibia right now the whites control 80% of that economy most of whom are of German descent. Hell, the capital Windhoek looks bloody German/European. The blacks? Overglorified slaves in THEIR OWN country.
This is what makes me angry when i see some white posters on here being dismissive of OUR history. Its ours. We learn about yours, why should we sweep ours under the rag esp since we suffer from the effects of your war mongering ancestors to this day???
Is it sad the part where Germany actually recognized it’s genocide surprised me? Germany is just so mum about practically it’s entire history that hearing them fess up is kind of a shock.
I grew up in Sweden, a country that shares alot of it’s history with Germany and the rest of Europe. But it’s never talked about how popular the ideas of white (Arian rather) Supremacy were, on the whole continent really! Even the royals dabbled in it.
When we were taught history in School it was completely avoided. It was never explained how Swedes had been apart of the “movement” from inception. This is probably the reason Germans love vacationing here.
There is perhaps a sense of kinship because even if the average Swede knows nothing of this the average German knows enough to feel safe coming here. Heck,our Queen is half-german!
Wow! This is just like the jewish holocoust. Thanks for the knowledge.
In 500 years, Black folks will just be a fairy tale White folks tell their kids to get them to behave.
Yes, thanks for this information, Abagond…
It is amazing how much people wilfully forget or neglect to tell later generations. How deep we must dig to learn everything. Who is ever taught about such a genocide during an education in the western world? I wonder if the average White westerner would view racialised people differently if they knew their history of colonisation more in depth?
@mary burrell
Interesting observation. There is a book about the Jewish Holocaust, “The Cunning of History” by Richard L. Rubinstein, that makes essentially that argument. The Jewish holocaust in Germany was not an abberration at all. Genocide was being carried out against “natives” all around the world. Western European nations had been clearing “undesirables” and “subhumans” out of their own ancestral lands for centuries. The only difference was that the Jewish Holocaust took place right there in Europe and the people who were slaughtered were German citizens. Given their genocidal history, everyone should be very, very nervous when white people start talking about human “overpopulation” and resource starvation. Hint: they are NOT talking about themselves. These ideas are as old as Malthus. And they are invariably promulgated by people who control more resources than they really need.
@Pashasbaby
Even the royals dabbled in it.
“even”? “Even”??
I do not understand why you would say “Even”?
You wish to suggest that Royals can and historically could be relied upon to be the paragons of decency and morality and all things proper? Why in the world did you use the word “even”?
Racism from it’s inception was a development of the mercantile class (the business people or traders or money makers of the day), the Catholic Church (the religious/political power of the day) and whatever intellectual thinkers were around. It is the upper eschlon or power centers of a past era that developed racism because it was useful for them. We would, if we are sensible, expect“Royals” to “dabble” in racism.
I have not yet read Mein Kampf. I don’t know that I ever will But reading this post reminds me of the quote, of Hitler’s, that is fashionable for historians and those who consider themselves informed to mention: “Who will remember the Armenian genocide?”
You’re all familiar with the context of the quote of course: Hitler was weighing the risk of going through with the progrom to wipe out Jews/Gypsies/Slavs/disabled persons I find it very hard to believe that Hitler wouldn’t also have talked about this Herero and Nama genocide in just the same way. But the noble historians don’t much talk about it do they. I have never heard of this genocide until this post, thank you Abagond. Mayhap one day, I will check Mein Kampf to see if Hitler did mention this particular genocide.
Lemarchand’s book is misnamed. But it is just the sort of title that respectable scholars or publishing houses would give to a book of this sort. It should be called ignored genocides. The people to whom it happened, they have not forgotten what took place.
I didn’t know about this, It shows what can happen when one nation thinks of it’s self as the MASTER RACE. Mind you I think if Germany thought they could get away with it now they would do it again. It’s in their makeup.
An iextract from previous comment about the Herero and Nama earlier this year;
” It took Germany more than a 100 year so apologize for what it did, but still refuses to pay any compensation to the Herero survivors, although it does provide foreign aid to Namibia.
In fact, German has fought the Herero lawsuit which seeks compensation for the genocide. The damages are €3.3 billion ($4 billion).
The lawsuit lodged by the Herero Peoples’ Reparation Corporation is also seeking $2 billion in damages from several German companies including Deutsche Bank, the mining company Terex Corporation, formerly Orenstein-Koppel Co., and the shipping company Deutsche Afrika Linie, formerly Woermann Linie, all of which allegedly profitted from German occupation of Namibia.
Last year, the Herero sent a delegation to Berlin to collect 300 skulls confiscated by the German colonialists. The skulls were used as part of medical experimentation of the kind used to prove African racial inferiority.
These ‘experiments’ were also carried out on living subjects, measuring head and body measurements, eye and hair examinations to ascertain human-ness, and intelligence.
And the conclusion of these studies? Genocide.
Herero children (some the product of rape of Herero women by German men) were part of wider history of abusing Africans for experiments, and echoed earlier actions by German anthropologists who stole skeletons and bodies from African graveyards and took them to Europe for research or sale.
An estimated 3000 skulls were sent to Germany for experimentation. The return of 300 of those skulls in October 2011, after 3 years of talks, were the first skulls of ancestors remains to be returned to Namibia for burial.
Other experiments were made by Dr Bofinger, who injected Herero that were suffering from scurvy with various substances including arsenic and opium; afterwards he researched the effects of these substances by performing autopsies on dead bodies.”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/there-was-injustice-skulls-of-colonial-victims-returned-to-namibia-a-788601.html
The above quote is an extract from Abagond’s thread on racism in Europe:
http://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/grada-kilomba-on-racism-in-europe/#comment-118748
You beat to me the BWE, and now this. I’ll probably write this one over at my place in after I finish my two week hiatus. The only thing disappoints me about this post (other than the word limit) is your tone. It’s almost as if you believe that the German people should feel sorry about genocide, instead of being proud to fu[k up a bwoy an tek weh him tings. Sometimes , people have things that you want, and well, they can’t be reasoned with. But you already knew that, I’m sure
This post just scratches the surface. Something I find chilling is how Germans did nothing to save their own half-black children. Instead these children became the object of scientific studies that supported a policy of killing them! How ice cold can you get?
@ Satanforce:
General Von Trotha noticed that too:
The Germans of the time were just so out there with their racism. There are tons of quotes I could have wallowed in but did not have the space for. Partly because Germans back then did not speak in soundbites either. I was doing good to work in that one Von Trotha quote about Darwin.
@SW6
On 22 August, 1939, Adolf Hitler is alleged to have said:
“I have given orders to my Death Units to exterminate without mercy or pity men, women and children belonging to the Polish-speaking race. It is only in this manner that we can acquire the vital territory which we need. After all, who remembers today the extermination of the Armenians?”
This text of this speech was intended for storm troopers to kill men, women and children in Poland so Germany could have Lebensraum, (or living space).
Hitler was wrong about the killings of Armenians as about so many things.
He was no historian, and he was certainly no expert on Turkish-Armenian relations or on the “Armenian question”. He didn’t even concern himself primarily with Foreign Affairs, because that was less important that absolute control over
1.the party,
2. the German state and,
3. rearmament and economic expansion.
Even so, Hitler’s reference to the Armenians is disputable.
Yes, the speech does form part of a transcript recorded at the Nuremberg Trials, and became famous with repetition, but it was not established that Hitler made that “statement”. And, as you can see, the statement itself is not directed at the Jews, but the Poles.
From what I collect of Mein Kampf , there is no mention of Armenia.
This very tedious book expresses young Adolf’s thoughts on every conceivable subject from history to the movies or from culture to syphilis. To syphilis, for instance, he devotes pages and pages, describing it as the most important problem of the country.
AFAIK, Hitler probably made only one reference to the Armenians – in a talk delivered on December12,1942, in which he described them as unreliable (unzuverlassing) and dangerous (gefahrlich). Likewise, Hitler’s only reference to Turkey in his speech on August 22 1939, was in the following words: “After Kemal’s (Ataturk) death, Turkey will be ruled by morons and half idyots”.
This link is the English version of the German document handed to Louis P. Lochner in Berlin in which Hitler made this alleged statement regarding the forgotten Armenian genocide.
http://www.armenian-genocide.org/hitler.html
The reference (on page 46) where which HItler mentioned the Armenians is in
Helmut Heiber’s book: Lagebesprechungen im Führerhauptquartier: Protokollfragmente aus Hitlers militarischen Konferenzen: 1942-1945.
@SW6
I don’t wish to imply that although Hitler did not speak about Armenia and discussed syphilis at length, that he didn’t talk about “race”. A lot.
He believed that:
*The “Germanic race” was superior, they were the “master race”.
*The best way to keep this race pure was by practicing “racial hygiene”.
And how was this enacted when Hitler rose to power?
Well, the template-model (its viability, implementation) was already in place due to the atrocities and genocide of the Herero and Nama of Namibia some decades before. Thus:
beginning in 1933, German physicians were allowed to perform forced sterilizations, operations making it impossible for the victims to have children.
The racial groups targeted were:
- Romani (Gypsies), people descended from Asian East-Indians, numbering about 30,000 in Germany;
- 600 African-German children, the offspring of German mothers and African colonial soldiers (the Senegalese Tirailleurs) in the Allied armies that occupied the German Rhineland region after World War I;
- And, Hitler viewed the Jews not as a religious group, but as a poisonous “race,” which “lived off” the other races and weakened them.
After Hitler came to power, teachers in school classrooms began to apply the “principles” of racial science. They measured skull size and nose length, and recorded the colour of their pupils’ hair and eyes to determine whether students belonged to the true “Aryan race.” Jewish and Romani (Gypsy) students were often humiliated in the process.
And here is a photo from this period from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Genetics, and Eugenics showing a racial hygienist measures a woman’s features in an attempt to determine her racial ancestry:
http://www.ushmm.org/lcmedia/photo/lc/image/78/78569.jpg
These events are most certainly horrible and reprehensible, but what surprises me is the lack of context within the greater historical narrative. Group A inflicts such atrocities on Group B with regularity.
The Bantu have been fast and slow-motion genociding the Khoi, San, and Pygmy peoples for a millenia, and it’s widely believed to persist to this very day, propelled by as virulently racist beliefs as you’ll find anywhere.
It’s interesting to read comments from European-descended people expressing historical guilt but rarely if ever any comments from African-descended people expressing historical guilt.
Why the disparity?
@ Randy
Thanks for giving an example of one of the main ways to deny a genocide:
http://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/how-to-deny-a-genocide/
@ Randy
You need to support that claim. It is not common knowledge.
@ Randy
Probably because, like the Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon scenario, this so-called genocide is, at best, an hypothesis?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantu_expansion
The Herero genocide, on the other hand, is well documented.
It is important to stress that it is the only thing which sets this apart from other crimes against humanity committed during the colonial era. Similar campaigns of terror occurred regularly throughout all Africa, but were labeled under the euphemism of “pacification”.
For instance, the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya also saw the mass deportation of Kikuyu fighters to concentration camps. This happened less than 2 decades after WW II.
I believe that instruments used to measure the human races were first made in Germany. This link shows a field kit used for this purpose:
http://tiergartenstrasse4.org/From_our_collection_Anthropological_field_kit.html
Who would have thought that a century later these “findings” made from using these instruments would cause Africans to slaughter each other in the name of “race”?
******************************
The German colonialists also had territory in East Africa, and the impact cannot be underestimated how these very tools were used to measure and classify Africans. The Germans used them to order the Africans’ society, and then after they went, Belgium’s King Leopold, used this method for fomenting the hatred between Hutu and Tutsi.
To the best of my limited historical knowledge about this region of Africa, the Tutsi and Hutu had the same language, the same belief systems, intermarried, and it was even possible for one’s identity to change from one group to the other during their lifetime. However, their government was a centralized administration under a Tutsi monarchy and aristocracy, and this had been so for centuries – with relative stability. The European rulers – who declared themselves owners of the territory after deciding that Africa should be under their stewardship – had other plans.
The Germans employed divide and conquer methods,
But when the Belgians took over Rwanda, they wanted to organize their new land, and control its population. To achieved this by creating a census, officially categorizing the identities of the Africans.
So: out came the calipers, measuring tapes and scales to measure the Africans’ skulls and rib-cages!
All in order that each could be issued with an identity card, so that every Hutu and Tutsi was required to carry and produce this mark of their ethnicity at all times..
If the situation arose, in which a person physical characteristics were not distinct enough to determine proper race, the Belgians simply counted those earning 10 or more cattle as Tutsi.
The result? The creation of a firmly entrenched ruling Tutsi class, with an unequal access to education, wealth, and positions of power.
http://www.preventgenocide.org/edu/pastgenocides/rwanda/indangamuntu.htm
It may have been just a matter of time for tensions to boil over. Especially in the waves of Independence.
What strikes me about this crucial factor is that although:
A. the difference between the 2 groups was apparently enough to warrant the wholesale slaughter of one at the other’s hands,
B. it was not enough for those wielding the machetes and the clubs to tell who was who without FIRST looking at their identification cards (the same identification cards that had been in use since the Belgian era.
Really?
Randy, which study/studies can you point to that concludes those patterns of migration and population dispersion prove that?
Abagond:
I’m not denying the Herero / Nama genocide at all, just trying to frame it within the broader sweep of history.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo alone there have been 5+ million deaths since the mid-1990s. In recent history you also have mass atrocities in Rwanda, Darfur, Liberia, Sierra Leone.
http://www.genocideintervention.net/educate/crisis/democratic_republic_of_congo/
What makes these 70,000 deaths more objectionable than that of say 5-6 million Congolese, many of whom suffered unspeakable crimes against humanity?
I’m not denying the Herero / Nama genocide at all, just trying to frame it within the broader sweep of history.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo alone there have been 5+ million deaths since the mid-1990s. In recent history you also have mass atrocities in Rwanda….
What context would you put the Herero/Nama genocide and the Rwandan genocide then, Randy? Aren’t they both the direct outcome of a European pseudo-scientific base? I think your brush is sweeping very broadly indeed.
The context is clear.
The historical data is there for all to see.
The evidence is right there (in my previous comment).
Abagond:
This is just a cursory survey of sources describing anti-pygmy discrimination.
“DRC: Displacement and discrimination – the lot of the Bambuti Pygmies”
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/90354/DRC-Displacement-and-discrimination-the-lot-of-the-Bambuti-Pygmies
———-
“Pygmies in Central Africa massacred by warring factions”
http://www.un.org/en/africarenewal/newrels/indigen.htm
According to Ms. Njuma Ekundanayo, a DRC government representative to the Forum specializing in pygmy issues, other Congolese see the pygmy people as sub-human. “Military tools today include rape, live burial and cannibalism, all aimed at extermination so that the perpetrators can have access to minerals and timber.”
———-
“Minorities under siege: Pygmies today in Africa”
http://www.irinnews.org/InDepthMain.aspx?InDepthId=9&ReportId=58647
According to Minority Rights Group International (MRG), such crimes against humanity continue. In addition, MRG stated that rebel groups in DRC deliberately target pygmy communities, who are considered “subhuman” or seen as beggars and thieves by other ethnic groups.
———–
“DR Congo pygmies appeal to UN”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2933524.stm
Sinafasi Makelo, a representative of Mbuti pygmies, told the UN’s Indigenous People’s Forum that during the four-year civil war his people had been hunted down and eaten.
[...]
“In living memory, we have seen cruelty, massacres, and genocide, but we have never seen human beings hunted down as though they were game animals,” he said.
“Pygmies are being pursued in the forests. People have been eaten. This is nothing more, nothing less, than a crime against humanity.”
[...]
Both sides in the war regard them as “subhuman”, and some say their flesh can confer magical powers.
———
“Pygmies in the Congo Basin and Conflict, by Raja Sheshadri”
http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/pygmy.htm
In most countries of Central Africa Pygmies are not considered citizens and are refused identity cards, deeds to land, health care and proper schooling.
[...]
After being targeted by rampaging Interahamwe Hutu militias who sought out the creation an ethnically pure Rwanda by eliminating the all Tutsis and Pygmies, observers estimate that at least 10,000 Pygmies were killed with a further 10,000 forced to flee their homes, leaving that population at less then a third of what it was before 1994.
@ Randy
Whoever said otherwise?
You are:
1. Conflating genocide with other things so you can say it is common. Genocide is NOT common despite what racists WANT to believe.
2. You are deflecting – I suspect because the guilty party in this case is white.
What context would you put the Herero/Nama genocide and the Rwandan genocide then, Randy? Aren’t they both the direct outcome of a European pseudo-scientific base? I think your brush is sweeping very broadly indeed.
@ Bulanik,
Adeptly put!
@ Randy
What about the genocide against the Khoisan? I mean, this post was not about Pygmies.
Bulanik:
I would say these fall under:
- Competition for resources
- Statism
- Tribalism / Otherism based on perceived ancestral superiority manifested by military or technological disparity
This context covers documented intra-African “racism” (e.g. Bantu vs. Pygmy) as well as intra-European “racism” (e.g German vs. Slav).
@ Randy
Please stick to genocide.
@Bulanik Thank you very much for all your posts they are so informative.
@Randy The difference with this genocide Randy and the Rwandese genocide, Sierra Leone and Congo Wars is justice. Wasn’t Charles Taylor convicted? Wasn’t the Congolese general (forget his name) convicted by the ICC? Is that not what the ICC is for? Convict those evil genocidal Africans? Tell me who convicted the Germans? Do they still not benefit from the war of their ancestors economically? How is that justice? How many people know about this genocide and the various evil things Europeans did in Africa? Very few. Its a glossed over history. But every year here in Africa the Rwandese remember the genocide. Its evening news in East Africa every year. Did we forget? Never. Have you? No, as evidenced by every time a white commenter like you uses it as deflection.
I am sorry but you seem to be sweeping it under the rag by saying well they do it too. This isn’t about the war in Congo. Something millions of people around the world and countless organizations are involved in stopping. But what does it have to do with this post? Whats your point? Not one of your links have to do with the Herero people in Namibia.
Abagond please delete my previous comment. Commenting on phone is a mine field.
@Randy
I am not sure if you are not reading right, being obtuse or just trying to be downright offensive.
Which one?
Why would the Germans use out calipers, measuring tapes and scales to measure the Africans’ skulls and rib-cages in their territories?
Because of:
No, dear.
This was done to steal African resources and exploit African labour, by having their societies ordered and controlled in the way the colonialists wished….
I am not sure if some people understand the difference between genocide and war. About 2.8 million non-Jewish Polish citizens perished during the course of World War II. This huge loss of life was not the Nazi genocide of the Poles.
There is a difference, why doesn’t Randy get that?
Genocide is rare. It is not “natural” – except to a racist. Tens of thousands of women and children of a particular race, religion or ethnicity do not just up and die by “accident”, not even in war. It is done on purpose, thought out in advance by sick minds.
http://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/how-to-deny-a-genocide/
abagond:
“How Africa Became Black”
http://discovermagazine.com/1994/feb/howafricabecameb331/
Thus linguistics tells us not only that the Pygmies and the Khoisan, who formerly ranged widely over the continent, were engulfed by blacks; it also tells us that the blacks who did the engulfing were Bantu speakers.
“The genetic legacy of western Bantu migrations”
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2005/06/western-bantu-expansion.html
(paywall blocks access to the source doc)
This study reveals (1) a dramatic displacement of male and female Khoisan-speaking groups in the southwest, since both the maternal and the paternal genetic pools were composed exclusively by types carried by Bantu-speakers;
“Guns, Germs, and Steel”
http://www.humanjourney.us/gunsGerms4.html
They [Bantu] spread through most of sub-equatorial Africa and replaced, surrounded, and pushed south the other groups.
Amazing how the Military code that Kaiser Wilhelm created helped to foster acts of genocide.
For some while now, Randy, you have been itching to talk about Bantus.
You identified Kwamla as a Bantu on a previous thread, again to prove a point about black behaviours and black intellectual dishonesty (?), and here you are again, on a thread about Herero and Nama – the Germans – talking about,…..BANTUS. Ta-daaa!
In that thread, about teen girls making a racist rant, not BANTUS, you introduced BANTUS into it in this way:
Here is the conversation in full:
http://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/racist-white-teen-girls-goes-on-a-rant-about-blacks/#comment-117555
*******************************************
Thus linguistics tells us not only that the Pygmies and the Khoisan, who formerly ranged widely over the continent, were engulfed by blacks; it also tells us that the blacks who did the engulfing were Bantu speakers.
I notice, with all due respect to the author of your first link, that neither you (nor he) have defined what “engulf” means?
What the paper points to is linguistic and phyto-archaeological proofs.
What should one extrapolate from this, as to engulf means to bury or submerge…?
Are you writing HISTORY for us now?
***************************************
Regarding DNA, the excerpt from the 2 link states:
“..apart from the very limited available data on the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) side, there are not, however, Y-chromosome studies revealing–if any–the male contribution of western Bantu-farmers…
It also says this: “.. a clear bias in the admixture process towards the mating of male Europeans with female Sub-Saharan Africans…”
Hmm. What is THAT really saying, I wonder, since the word “mating” is used?
The accompanying paper (same link) also begins thus:
Africa is the homeland of humankind and it is known to harbour the highest levels of human genetic diversity. However, many continental regions, especially in the sub-Saharan side, still remain largely uncharacterized (i.e. southwest and central Africa).
What does “largely uncharacterized” mean?
Would that mean then, that commentary about it would be speculative in nature?
****************************************
The last link, regarding guns, germs and steel is in fact titled the Human Journey, NOT the Genocide of the Khoi/San by the Bantu.
Thus when Prof. Diamond says “pushing out” is it very the same acts of land theft, and labour exploitation as this:
“When Europeans arrived in South Africa…it took 9 wars and 175years for the Boers to subdue the dense populations of farming Bantu, even with superior technology, literacy, and political organization….” ?
@ Randy
I have lived much of my life in places that saw a dramatic displacement of male and female white groups in metropolitan New York, since both the maternal and the paternal genetic pools were composed exclusively by types carried by blacks. Does that mean there was a genocide?
Abagond:
I would contend against the “rare” claim. In just the past 20 years in Africa there were genocides in Rwanda, Darfur, Congo, Sierra Leone, and probably other smaller-scale events which a bit of research could uncover.
And, I am still not sure if this has anything to do with the Herero and Namo Genocide at all.
Although the “a bit of research could uncover and HAS uncovered that the Herero and Namo Genocide has EVERYTHING to do with the one in Rwanda…..
Abagond:
No, since there doesn’t appear to be the additional criteria of forced displacement, killing, causing bodily / mental harm, or creating conditions which would bring about the above.
Bulanik:
Whether or not one considers such an event a “genocide” by modern definition depends on intent. Were those killed just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or were they deliberately targeted due to group (national, racial, ethnic, religious) affiliation?
Bulanik:
It was a meta-observation about the manner in which genocides are discussed, and the opinions that people (both in-group and out-group) have towards the perpetrators.
I’ve observed that the level of accountability accepted / demanded of perpetrators correlates to the race of the perpetrators.
If such a meta-discussion is off topic, then I apologize and will continue on the open thread for those interested.
@Bulanik
Thank you B. I have erred. So I was wrong about the context of the “Armenia” statement. I see my mistake clearly, from what you’ve posted.
Less clear:
1.) … Hitler’s reference to the Armenians is disputable.
Yes, the speech does form part of a transcript recorded at the Nuremberg Trials, and became famous with repetition, but it was not established that Hitler made that “statement”.
It was not established that Hitler made this statement So, the document was a fabrication?
2.) Hitler was wrong about the killings of Armenians as about so many things.
He was no historian. . .
If we assume that Hitler did indeed make the statement about the forgotten Armenian genocide, and it is his only statement on the topic, then in what way was he wrong about the killings of the Armenians?
@Randy
Yes, there many ways to make observations. And it is useful.
But as you appear to describe your comments as meta-observations and bring up the matter of BANTUS again, I must ask why and what makes you characterize yourself as meta-observer of all things?
AFAIK, the purpose of meta-observation is to provide feedback to the observer and the other aim is that the meta-observer learns observation from observing an observer… Yes.
You pointed at Kwamla as a Bantu to make observations before, and you appear to point at “Bantu Expansion” as an example of an argument you appear to nurse about black people,
Or, so it would seem.
I am not sure if this qualifies you as a meta-observer.
You are not objective, and you don’t even strike me as dispassionate, either, despite the anti-septic words and turn of phrase….
What is meta-observation, and its use in epidemiology:
http://www.vits.org/publikationer/dokument/606.pdf
ow. I don’t think that I’ll be writing about the Hereros. I think I ‘ll be writing about his guy instead. I think I know who I want to be like when I grow up.
@SW6
“It was not established that Hitler made this statement So, the document was a fabrication?”
SW – from my fecollections of past reading, no, it was not concluded that the document was fabricated. What did emerge was that not everything attributed to Hitler actually came from his mouth or his pen.
“Hitler was wrong about the killings of Armenians as about so many things.
He was no historian. . .” to this, you said:
“if we assume that Hitler did indeed make the statement about the forgotten Armenian genocide, and it is his only statement on the topic, then in what way was he wrong about the killings of the Armenians?”
Yes, I think he was wrong about the killings of the Armenians because, relatively speaking , the mass death of the Armenians, is not unknown or forgotten.
The reason primarily is in plain view:
Even if it’s forged version, that “statement” of Hitlers’ does not refer, directly or indirectly, to the Jews. Even in the way it is quoted, the reference is actually the Poles, instead.
But, because this statement has a “connecting link” with The Holocaust, it benefits from the influence of the Jewish community and Jewish political agency.
It is against the law in many countries to deny the Armenian Genocide:
@SW – I am not sure if that link has come out – I’ll try it again:
(cross fingers)
Bulanik,
I think my challenge about double-standards is a reasonable one. If people think that the race of perpetrator should influence accountability then let’s have that discussion. If not, then an encompassing theory should be developed to include the full spectrum of group-on-group atrocities without introducing contradictions.
Whatever one might say about the nature of Europeans who enslaved and genocided Africans can surely be said of Africans who enslaved and genocided fellow Africans.
Perhaps someone can explain how the dehumanization of Africans by Europeans is morally different from the dehumanization of the Pygmy by the Bantu, or the dehumanization of the Twa by the Hutu and Tutsi.
Again, I’ll move this meta-discussion if it’s OT.
Randy,
“Whatever one might say about the nature of Europeans who enslaved and genocided Africans can surely be said of Africans who enslaved and genocided fellow Africans.”
Thus, this is your thrust and the point of your contributions to this thread is?
Whatever we say, or anyone says about white folk in Africa and their killing of Africans, it is pointless because….your mission is to say it’s no big deal.
@ Randy
It did not seem like meta-observation or challenging double standards to me. It seemed more like a deflection of the old “blacks do it too” sort. Maybe I missed something but I do not remember anyone saying or implying that those who carry out genocide should be held to a different standard according to their race.
I was going to do a post on this genocide sooner or later. I did it now to follow the human zoo post to help make the point that that sort of dehumanization was not harmless. It opens the way for just this sort of thing.
And Randy,
It is not the first time you have brought in that “you people are Bantus” thing before to drive this “blacks do it too” line…
Abagond:
Black people should not be shocked by this. Wicked folk may hide the truth, but, they can’t hide it forever.
Tyrone
Why is it that white people ONLY hold blacks to the same standard, when it comes to downplaying the bad things whites have done?
@Franklin
Good question.
I guess it’s part of fearing white guilt. They don’t want to be known as people who are capable of something so vile. So, they point the finger at other groups, especially black people, and say “Look! They’ve done it too.” And the old “black crime” excuse is the usual avoidance of shame.
It seems almost blasphemous to white people to know from their victims that they have a problem.
@brothawolf
But what is with pointing the finger and naming a black person “Bantu”?
This word is loaded with something – what?
“Bantu” itself means the people or humans – but that interpretation and usage is not what I mean in this context.
Too long that word became associated with the policies of S. Africa’s apartheid.
And in the 1970s the word was discredited – “Bantu” as an ethno-racial designation .
For this reason, I don’t like how it can be used by white people, for instance, when Randy used it as racial identifier to expose’ and pin-down Kwamla, as in here:
http://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/the-herero-and-nama-genocide/#comment-140452
When it’s used like that, it almost sounds as if “Bantu” is a code word for
“brute-oppressor” – like a way to shame a black person for a dirty secret or some such. Especially those black people who discuss issues like the colonization of Africa, the conquest of the Americas, and so on.
This Bantu word is ‘loaded’ because of
1. its with association to Apartheid’s ethno-racial designation,
2. the desire to shame, and,
3. the need to deflect white guilt – and all in the name of sounding like educated in African history….
Linda says,
No, Randy, your challenge is not reasonable.
If you truly were as objective as you claim to be, you would acknowledge this historical event for what it is and stop bringing up incidents that have absolutely nothing to do with the colonization of Namibia by Germany and the murder that was committed.
The Germans used the Herero and Nama as guinea pigs to advance their supremacist theories. They also did this a few years later with the Jews and other people in the concentrations camps.
The German’s are held accountable by the Jews and the rest of the World til this day for the atrocities that were committed in WW2. The Germans publically took responsibility and financially compensated (reparations) the Jews, and until this day, Germany continues to subsidize projects for Israel and also sends compensation for items such as stolen personal property or other various claims against Germany by Jewish victims.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/israel-pressuring-germany-jewish-ghetto-workers-still-waiting-for-money-a-742577.html
http://www.thelocal.de/money/20091023-22775.html
So, yes, it is very reasonable to expect that the world should also hold the Germans accountable for the atrocities they committed in Africa in the name of expansionism and race supremacy.
To be fair, the Germans did offer compensation back in 2005 but the Germans did not want the compensation package to be called “reparations”, they wanted it called “reconciliation initiative”–so they were willing to pay but did not want to be publicly held accountable for the genocide committed–even though their atrocities are documented Facts.
http://www.namibian.com.na/index.php?id=28&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=13300&no_cache=1
This is a very interesting blog. I’m glad I came across it. This type of post is so necessary. This is hidden history. It helps to explain a lot when it is uncovered. However, that’s A LOT to read with all the comments ! But I’ll try to find time…
Well, absolutly, we white people have to be able to look at this and the other systematic actions that were done on a large scale , without fear and guilt, but absolute horror and a realisation that holding on to “whiteness” is what is going to continue in some way this horror. And, we have to not need to compare it to diminish it.
We have to look into the eyes of that general and realise its the same eyes as the klansman, and the eyes of white people grinning at a lynching, and feel disgust over that and a resolution to expell this attachment to a “race” and a ” color”, and know we are responsible for creating this racial codification and are forcing everyone else to have to play it too, and, defend themselves from it
Others peoples story is other peoples story and is independant and we all have to look in the mirror anyway, but, there are aspects of this racial dynamic that really need to be confronted and let go of as white people, exactly because the ones holding on to it are holding us back as people, not building us up
Abagond:
I am not seeking to deflect at all. Truly these were undeniably horrible events. However, if you read the comments above (and others from similar posts), you’ll see implications that these events suggest a particular character of either culture or race. Numerous commenters have alleged that racism is the invention of Europeans, and one commenter in this thread suggesting that racism was invented by the Catholic Church.
Tell that to the Pygmy.
The “blacks do it too” argument, as you’ve called it, serves to illustrate that such behaviors are common human behaviors, and are most accurately understood as such.
In the same manner, the production milk is not a peculiar characteristic of cows, but of the broader mammalia class.
B R I am 100% on the same line and I’ll say it: it feels good to find people who think in the same direction as I do.
Bulanik:
I’m not familiar with these negative associations of the name Bantu, and am not using them as such. Rather, I think the Bantu migration historical event serves to expose what I perceive to be double standards with regards to moral behavior.
If European-descended peoples are expected to acknowledge, disavow, and remediate “white privilege” based upon a history of supremacy, then why shouldn’t Bantu-descended people also be expected to acknowledge, disavow, and remediate “Bantu privilege” based upon a history of supremacy?
Linda,
Do you propose that all ethnic / national groups who have committed atrocities pay reparations, or only the Germans?
B R And I even suggest that as light-skinned people who do not share the “white”-mindedness of our look-alikes, we deny them the right of labeling us “whites”, as this is and has been and was meant to be a political statement (and therefore entered in the laws of Virginia and the Code Noir of Louis XIV as a legal fact that the opposite of “white”, “black” meant slave for live and forever) with all kinds of implications. This kind of stance is rarely if never reflected in mainstream literature, on the web or elsewhere, but I think we need to impose it as a reaction to this too-long-lasting theory of races that has lead to the destruction of so many peoples and their cultures.
Watch this. When I saw it, I was so glad, so glad someone (Walter Mosley) with such talent would say the things I think in such a powerful way: http://vimeo.com/21501057
@Randy
Regarding the negative association with the word Bantu, you say:
Now, that is a crock.
How you are indulged on this blog, and insult the intelligence of others…smh
Let’s see: you’re familiar with Finland’s Winter Wars; you seem fairly familiar with Confucian Ethics; meta-observation epidemiology, etc,….and you have read somewhat about Africa’s Bantu Migrations – yet, you claim not to know very much about racial segregation in Africa’s recent past?
That’s quite a revealing lacuna in your knowledge, Randy.
Further:
Randy, sorry – but the Bantu Migrations is not a clincher to nail black folks.
The grounds for “Bantu-privilege” is inconclusive, at best.
Why not compare like-for-like? Why research the genocide and land-grabs in Europe engineered by Africans and tell us all about it?
As it is, you simply sound like the same Randy who said he doesn’t think Adolf Hitler was a racist, like here:
http://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/ent-emotional-negro-thinking/#comment-123840
On that occasion, when other commenters noticed you didn’t think Hitler was a racist, you could only answer that we had failed in our reading comprehension.
Correction: that should be “Why not research the genocide and land-grabs in Europe engineered by Africans and tell us all about it?
Linda said:
“The Germans publically took responsibility and financially compensated (reparations) the Jews…… So, yes, it is very reasonable to expect that the world should also hold the Germans accountable for the atrocities they committed in Africa in the name of expansionism and race supremacy….”
What you are describing has a long history, and over many nations.
If memory serves, one of the first recorded instance of this was Rome imposing large indemnities on Carthage after the First and Second Punic Wars…
Making the defeated party pay a war indemnity was common practice.
Germany has also been paid reparations.
Following on from one of its wars with France – according to conditions of the Treaty of Frankfurt – France was obliged to pay a war indemnity of 5 billion gold francs in 5 years. German troops remained in parts of France until the last installment of the indemnity was paid in September 1873, before the obliged date. No messing about there!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War
In WW1 – Russia agreed to pay reparations to the German Empire.
After that, Germany agreed to pay reparations of 132 billion gold marks to the Triple Entente (France, Britain and Russia) under another Treaty.
And of course this goes much wider than Germany:
Look at Italy after WW2:
Italy agreed to pay reparations of about US$125 million to Yugoslavia,
US$105 million to Greece,
US$100 million to the Soviet Union,
US$25 million to Ethiopia, and,
US$5 million to Albania.
Finland agreed to pay reparations of US$300 million to the Soviet Union; (Finland also was the only country which fully paid its war reparations.)
Hungary agreed to pay reparations of US$200 million to the Soviet Union, US$100 million to Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
Romania agreed to pay reparations of US$300 million to the Soviet Union…
The list goes on and on. The Soviet Union seemed to do well out of reparations…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Peace_Treaties,_1947
Bulanik:
Another lacuna in my knowledge is that I don’t know what “lacuna” means. As for the Bantu, my understanding of them is as a tribal / linguistic group, not as pejorative term.
Bulanik:
The evidence regarding the displacement of Khoi, San, and Pygmy peoples by Bantu peoples during the Bantu Migrations seems conclusive, but if that assessment is erroneous I’m open to hearing counter-evidence. However, the modern abuse and dehumanization of Pygmy peoples by Bantu peoples is quite well documented.
As for equating “like-for-like” as you mention, you seem to be implying that forced displacement, discrimination, dehumanization, and genocides are somehow less immoral if performed by perpetrators who originate from a land mass contiguous with that of the origination point of the victims.
How does that make it any better?
Regarding the comment about Hitler, the issue was whether or not the term “racism” only applies between peoples who are classified as being different races by the common western definition, or if it can apply between peoples who have different tribal / ethnic affiliations but would still be classified within the same broad “race”. And yes, the original problem was a failure of reading comprehension.
Also, Godwin’s Law.
“Randy
Linda,
Do you propose that all ethnic / national groups who have committed atrocities pay reparations, or only the Germans?”
Linda says,
Randy, your closed-ended question is loaded and designed to further feed whatever reason you have to actually not discuss this post as it pertains to Germany’s colonization of Namibia.
You are being disingenous by speaking about intra-African ethnic conflicts, as well as belittling a historical event that shaped a Nation.
As Bulanik pointed out, European tribal Ethnic groups also had conflicts leading one group to subjugate the other with mass murders being committed.
And as you can see, Bulanik took a bite out of your carrot and posted reparatons and loser’s fees paid out by various European countries.
If you truly want to do a Tit-for-Tat, then you should bring up genocidal events committed by Africans after they invaded and colonized a European country and exterminated more than half of that European countries population…that’s comparable.
@ Randy
As I stated earlier, the “bantou genocide” theory, like the Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon scenario, is just a hypothesis. There is not a single material evidence to support it. Ironically, the very links you posted do not support your claim, as Bulanik demonstrated. And apparently you did not get Abagond’s sarcasm when he mentioned “dramatic displacement of male and female white groups in metropolitan New York”… Linguistic influences do not necessary imply genocide.
You also posted links about alleged acts of cannibalism against pygmies during the war in Congo. Despite what the hundred of thousand links discussing this ad nauseam all over the net might lead you to think, said allegations turned out to be fake and were officially refuted years ago:
http://www.irinnews.org/printreport.aspx?reportid=51346
At the time, a press conference was held, attended by some of the pygmies who were supposed to have been eaten. It did not stop the story from circulating, mind you. As far as Africa is concerned, the more gruesome the story, the more believable it is, it seems.
By the way, not long ago, Bulanik and I had a discussion on the open thread about how the western media were quick to apply the g-word to any African conflict. White folks seem to have a hard time maintaining their objectivity when it comes to their beloved “Dark Continent”:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1155
@ Randy
To read the Bantu Expansion as genocide without any proof is to read your own genocidal racism into it.
@ Dahoman X
“…{the press conference was} attended by some of the pygmies who were supposed to have been eaten.” LOL.
.”..the “bantou genocide” theory, like the Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon scenario, is just a hypothesis. There is not a single material evidence to support it…”
Wishing ‘evidence’ of ethnic cleansing into existence about a people to confirm a theoretical bias doesn’t make it true. Wishing isn’t proof of anything except one’s desires and biases.
I also note that now that Randy has changed a goal-post: the Memo reads:
- Don’t say “ethnic-cleansing”.
- Use “displacement” instead.
- Slip in “ethnic cleansing” at a later date.
@ Randy
Randy said:
” ..displacement by…Bantu Migrations seems conclusive, but if that assessment is erroneous I’m open to hearing counter-evidence..”
You mean, you want someone to prove that Migrations did not take place on the continent of Africa?
That makes as much sense as asking someone to disprove Migrations on the Euro-Asian continental land-mass.
AFAIK, knowledge of the Proto-Indo-Europeans of the Bronze or Neolithic Age comes chiefly from the linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeo-genetics. Linguistic reconstruction is riddled with significant uncertainties and room for speculation. Why wouldn’t the same rule of study apply to Africans and African Migrations from that period?
http://indo-european-migrations.scienceontheweb.net/map_of_indo_european_migration.jpg
Randy said:
“..you seem to be implying that forced displacement, discrimination, dehumanization, and genocides are somehow less immoral if performed by perpetrators who originate from a land mass contiguous with that of the origination point of the victims.”
No, I did not imply that at all.
You inferred that.
You inferred that to the muddy the waters by bringing in unrelated speculations and false parallels in the hope that it’d plant seeds of doubt….
Randy said in mentioning Hitler, this was:
“Godwin’s Law”?
Google says Godwin’s law is the observation that “given enough time, in any online discussion – regardless of topic or scope – someone inevitably makes a comparison to Hitler and the Nazis.”
Are you suggesting that I am doing this by speaking about Hitler here?
The topic of this thread is about the genocide of the Herero and Nama.
The genocide of these people was administered by Germans in German-made concentration camps – precursors to the German-made Nazi-era concentration camps of the Jewish Holocaust.
Are you aware of this, Randy?
If you’re not, then the lacunae in your knowledge are gaping holes.
Even though Adolf Hitler was an Austrian, he was extremely ‘associated’ with the Jewish Holocaust, and he is forever ‘associated’ with discussions about genocide. This means allusions to Hitler on this thread are on-topic.
It comes as no surprise then, that you don’t believe Hitler was a racist.
abagond:
Admittedly, that claim is a bit of a stretch, though not an unreasonable assumption given the evidence. Even if you leave that aside, the current “racism” against the Pygmy by Bantu peoples is well documented, as is “Bantu Privilege”, so I believe the general principle stands.
@randy:
Don’t be so childish, man. One would think that being a proud white racist you would be proud of these achievements instead of whining and makin up imagined stories about “bantu” conspiracies.
The thing is: ever since the romans, white eurasian cultures have been racist and warlike, and this combination created a culture of genocides as part of normal power plays or practises of war.
The romans had a three strikes rule: they conquered, you could try to rebel once, but if you did it twice, they tried to wipe you out. Not just you, but your whole friggin culture too (jews and dacians for example, dacians they wiped out completely).
Attila the Hun did not do that. He simply absorbed conquered people into his hunnic empire. And he was not a nice guy at all but he was not a racist.
In the medieval times genocides were normal way of war. Killing off an entire town or village or people by starving and destruction was sometimes achieved but many more times attempted. Just look at how Charles the Great treated his eastern neighbours or how germans did later in the east, or how Edward “The Hammer of Scotts” treated Scotland and Ireland, how Robert the Bruce treated northern England, how the english and the french behaved during 100 years war etc.
Once these guy went abroad, to conquer new lands, they had one thing in mind: we take what ever we want and kill everything in our way. The results are well known.
From those first “white colonists” who usually were mercenaries, robbers and criminals, religious zelost like the taleban today, grew up a certain way to handle the rest of the world. It became normal to kill and do basically what ever they wanted to do. From Pizzarro to king Lepolds Congo there is a straight line. It began with few hundred ruthless bastards who were ready to kill the popes and emperors of other cultures if need be and ended with compelx racial theories which gave a reason to that behavior.
Think about this: the britts thoughed that it was ok to sell drugs to the chinese despite what the chinese government was thinking. And when the chinese tried to stop that, result was the Opium war. A war in which the brittish drug lords along with the birttish monarch were defending the rights for free drug trade in China. How would americans think if the mexican and columbian drug cartels woyuld send gunboats up the Potomac and shoot White house and Capitol just because USA tries to stop them from selling dope?
This is the core, the Thing. Racial theories came later when they no longer could say back home that: oh we found this city of gold and killed the locals and took the gold. They had to create divine reason, an explanation for this type of behavior. They still do. It is now called “democracy” and “freedom”.
And if anyone thinks that this has gone away, think again: in Vietnam US killed some 1 000 000 vietnamese “dinks” ans “slanteyes”. In Irak USA has killed 200-350 000 “rag heads”. No one knows how many has been killed in Afganistan. In the ethnic clensing orgy in Bosnia back in early 1990′s some 300 000 people lost their lives. Just like that, while rest of the Europe was eating macdonalds and watching Premier League soccer.
That is who we are. It is not them. It is us. It is our culture of power. Our religious traditions. Racial theories which, like we see in randy and others, pop up even after all thats being said. We are The Barbarians.
Those germans killings jews during WW2 were not all specially trained and selected SS men. One police batallion which killed 38 000 jews in Poland was a composite of normal reservists from Hamburg area. Oldest were in their 40′s and youngest just below 20. They were teachers, beggars, policemen, office workers, manual laborers etc. Even after their commander told them that if any one does not want to participate in the massacers there will be no punishment, only 5 guys out of 800 stepped out and in the end only 2 guys did not take part in any of the “actions”. 2 out of 800. Everybody else did it.
And they were just normal white european reservists. Just like me.
@ Sam
Nice to see you back.
@ Bulanik
Nothing new under the sun, eh?
Bulanik,
Your referencing of Hitler in this thread has nothing to do with a connections between Germans and genocides and everything to do with ad-hom bashing against me. Your dissembling is unbecoming. And yes, you’re still misreading that point, which in this discussion is OT.
[...] The Herero and Nama Genocide [...]
@Randy. You really must quit trying to pull the wool over other people’s eyes. It simply does not wash!
Okay, you may feel that:
- Hitler has nothing to do with genocides,
- Linguistic trends is good evidence of genocide, and, you may have
- Switched from saying “displacement” instead of “ethnic cleansing” …..
But this does not constitute anyone else’s dissembling.
If you feel “bashed” because these factors were identified, then this was done entirely on the basis of your ideas, which were indulged, and exposed.
You brought in in the subject of Bantu Migrations which was OT.
I was not the only commenter who noticed that.
@ Randy
Bulanik and others, but Bulanik in particular, have thoroughly demolished any pretence of a, so called, “double standard” argument you could make here. Its cynical and disingenuous on your part. And, as Bulanik has correctly highlighted, a re-hash of a previous speculative argument you tried to have with me. Go back and read your own comments here:
http://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/racist-white-teen-girls-goes-on-a-rant-about-blacks/#comment-117574
Admit it you’ve been exposed as the arrogant, non-empathetic racist you are. But you won’t. You would do well to listen to some of the comments left by B.R & Sam on this thread. But again you won’t. In the end my friend it is you who has experienced:
I’m just saying…
Oh…and I don’t have Bantu heritage. I hope we’ve cleared that up! Funny how you concede ignorance about the usage of this term in pre- Apartheid South Africa. But then again is it really?
Bulanik,
Your attempt to put words in my mouth is disappointing, inaccurate, and fallacious. You’re again resorting to ad-hominem attacks instead of addressed substantive questions.
Allow me to re-ask a choice one:
As for equating “like-for-like” as you mention, you seem to be implying that forced displacement, discrimination, dehumanization, and genocides are somehow less immoral if performed by perpetrators who originate from a land mass contiguous with that of the origination point of the victims.
How does that make it any better?
Kwamla,
Bulanik hasn’t addressed the double-standard question above, you haven’t addressed my last double-standard question to you, found here:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/open-thread/#comment-139801
@ Randy
Let me ask you this: Do you think there is a scale of evil or are all evil acts on the same level?
I’m somewhere between 17-27 years old and I JUST heard about this last year. American high schools give a severely edited version of African colonialism.
SomeGuy: Let me ask you this: Do you think there is a scale of evil or are all evil acts on the same level?
Despite the term having varying definitions, I think it’s safe to say that acts which are commonly classified as “evil” do manifest across a scale of severity.
I really enjoyed this documentary about Namibia’s fight for independence from South Africa’s apartheid government.
I believe that til this day Namibia is still about 2% white.
@ Cynic
This documentary is pretty comprehensive – here’s part one:
@Randy
There is no double standard to address. Even though you have resorted to try every trick in the book to fabricate one. Its a delusion and its in your head! And it has been throughout and comprehensively shown to be so in this thread.
Your need and want to find a so called “double standard” emanates from your incapacity to understand and appreciate that racism perpetuates: Inequality and Injustice
Further, you have shown your mindset to operate from a false “equal and opposite” definition of racism – Group A commits acts of racism, Group B commits similar acts of racism. Group A acts of racism-=Group B acts of equal but opposite racism.This is the false equation which persists in your head.
Historical accounts like: The Herero and Nama genocide and many, many others , discussed here and elsewhere on Abagond’s blog, show up this grossly misleading idea of a racial double standard.
Which is why the more you insist in perpetuating this idea that the imposition of inequality and injustice on Group A does not exist the clearer you reveal yourself to be the die-hard racist you are.
Ask yourself why you seem unconcerned to address this point?
And just to repeat once again…since you’ve proven yourself prone to deficiency in your reading skills – There is no double standard question to address!!!
Kwamla:
The discriminatory and dehumanizing manifestations of racism by Europeans towards Africans seems matched nearly point-for-point by that of Bantu-related Africans against the Pygmy.
How are the Herero and Nama genocides any more immoral than corresponding genocides against forest peoples by other Africans?
Answering that question is necessary to quash the suggestion of a double-standard.
The least racist umbrella opinion, which happens to be the one I’m advancing, is that all groups of people have roughly the same proclivities and capacities to commit tribalistic atrocities against one another. That belief doesn’t redeem such acts in any way, but rather it provides a more truthful understanding of human nature.
@ Randy
“…The discriminatory and dehumanizing manifestations of racism by Europeans towards Africans seems matched nearly point-for-point by that of Bantu-related Africans against the Pygmy…”
Randy this is just pure utter ignorance on your part. In the light of everything thats already been said in this thread I’m actually embarrassed to continue debating this point with you!
Kwamla:
How do those events show up my “grossly misleading” idea?
@Bulanik
Already watched it last year, but thank you for the suggestion anyway. I love documentaries
“Randy this is just pure utter ignorance on your part. In the light of everything thats already been said in this thread I’m actually embarrassed to continue debating this point with you!”
*****
LOLOL !!!!!
Yeah, Kwamla. There comes a time when even well mannered racists – like Randy – should be abandoned and left alone…
The TRUTH could be plainly written on their collective faces, and they still wouldn’t see it (or admit to seeing it). It’s a spiritual/pathological consequence of being totally absorbed into the ways of whiteness – and the white racial frame.
@ Matari
I agree. This is sad but unfortunately so true for people in Randy’s case.. The acronym DBR comes to mind!
Kwamla,
It’s disappointing that you make the effort to comment but do not actually contribute any information.
Stating a belief in your own correctness is not “debating”. Offering arguments to support a claim is “debating”.
We’re waiting…
@ Randy
But your information, which was countered here:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/the-herero-and-nama-genocide/#comment-140521
…was refuted (and predictably ignored by you). So why are you even in this thread and peddling the same nonsense? It’s obvious that you’re just trying to hide the fact that you’re now flailing, and are trying to goad people into creating a new argument for you to hook on to. All so you can drag out this thread by arguing about something that is “slightly related but still overwhelmingly irrelevant” to the topic at hand.
Kwamla,
It’s disappointing that you make the effort to comment but do not actually contribute any information.
Stating a belief in your own correctness is not “debating”. Offering arguments to support a claim is “debating”.
We’re waiting…
”
”
”
@ Randy,
Kwamla might also respond to that:
It is disappointing that you use an obvious capacity for intellectual thought to deny, dispute, and minimize what Black people tell you: the experiences of Black men and women.
It is exactly what they are telling you it is. You can either try and reconcile that with the very obvious bias that you have in your own personal compilation of data or you can acknowledge that you are entirely unschooled in this reality and thus can concede ignorance in good conscience.
So far you have been doing option a) – why don’t you give option b) a try.
We’re waiting…
I’m glad someone is!
@ Randy
I find it surreal that of all the places you could have chosen to make your stand of “blacks do it too” you would choose D.R. Congo – the scene of the greatest horrors of white rule. To quote a page that Dahoman X linked to:
And, of course, as a Good White Person, you believe that Belgian misrule of D.R. Congo and Rwanda has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the continuing horrors there – even after it was spelled out for you. It is just Mere Coincidence. Because everyone is a genocidal racist like you. Just part of the human condition, not of something profoundly sick and fucked up.
Whites are all about power but not responsibility, as your comments show. They would rather DEFLECT threads that talk about the sick evil shit they do in the world. All in the name of Properly Framing History, of course.
@ Randy
And I suppose it is also Mere Coincidence that the people who wiped out half or more of the Herero and Nama in Namibia would later wipe out half or more of the Jews and Gypsies of Europe. Because everyone is a genocidal racist like you. Just part of the human condition, not of something profoundly sick and fucked up. It is “natural” to kill people – men, women and children – who are “different” than you. How nice.
For sure , outside forces looking for raw minerals like copper to run the sound systems and computors we all are using , is driving the conflicts we see in places like the Congo.
There should be some kind of international referendum that would try to deal with this….how , I dont know , but, it seems that the huge corportate profits off the backs of people working like slavery and dying in the conflicts over the rich mineral wealth, could be somehow directed to put an end to slavery and murder over these minerals.
When powers only come in to strip down raw minerals and not buy finished goods , its always a losing situation for those who are being exploited for their labor and dying because of the struggles for the power over these raw minerals….Now its bigger than the West, China is a big player also in this….
Abagond:
My meta-comment in this thread was about the differences in accountability assumed / demanded of groups committing atrocities being based on the race of the perpetrator. Several of your commenters offered corroboration to my assumption. This thread and the 13,000 years of African History thread offered a glimpse into this racially-biased mindset.
I do apologize for the distraction. I have tremendous respect for the opportunity you give people to discuss these topics and do not wish to abuse the privilege.
Abagond:
Something being “natural” doesn’t preclude it from being considered “sick” by common morality.
Acknowledging this does not mean that one shouldn’t fight what is considered “evil”. I would offer that to fight something effectively, you must understand it completely. Thus my continued perseverance to uncover fallacies and double-standards.
Abagond:
Not coincidence, but not unique either.After all, the Bible recounts the Jews themselves committing genocides against the Midianites, Amelekites, and Canaanites. The wheel turns and turns.
@ Randy
Yet somehow, despite the supposedly genocidal nature of man, Jews, though despised and hated, lived for over a thousand years in the heart of Europe. Genocide is the exception, not the rule.
Something being “natural” doesn’t preclude it from being considered “sick” by common morality.
Don’t forget, being homicidal, suicidal and an all round maniac is ‘natural’ also. Try it you’ll like it folks!
Acknowledging this does not mean that one shouldn’t fight what is considered “evil”.
Yes, I am a homicidal, genocidal maniac. Whenever I’m out shopping and there is a fabulous sale on(50-70% off), I feel like slaughtering the other shoppers all over the place and systematically, so I can ensure I am the only one who can enjoy future sales! When out on a lousy date, I want to murder the sucker for having wasted my time. Do I want to fight these ‘natural’ impulses? What for? They are natural and should therefore be indulged in and enjoyed! Now where is my bazooka and grenades?
I would offer that to fight something effectively, you must understand it completely.
Nothing to understand, genocide is ‘inherent’ and ‘natural’ , just give into your natural impulses folks.
Thus my continued perseverance to uncover fallacies and double-standards..
Thus and verily I say unto you, go out, slaughter, murder, commit genocide, in short, all those ‘natural’ things! Make sure you multiply first so there are enough people around to kill! Thus, you need to give your head a shake!
Not coincidence, but not unique either.After all, the Bible recounts the Jews themselves committing genocides against the Midianites, Amelekites, and Canaanites.
You are a piece of work. This post is about a specific genocide but you manage(no surprise), to utilize the argument; Everyone else did it too! The only double standard is the one you subscribe to which is that of a white racist. You are of the worst kind, the ones who cloak their racism in pseudo intellectual babble. Well babble on.
@ Herneith
“….Nothing to understand, genocide is ‘inherent’ and ‘natural’ , just give into your natural impulses folks.
Thus and verily I say unto you, go out, slaughter, murder, commit genocide, in short, all those ‘natural’ things! Make sure you multiply first so there are enough people around to kill! Thus, you need to give your head a shake!…”
As usual this is masterful commentary Herneith!
“…You are a piece of work. This post is about a specific genocide but you manage(no surprise), to utilize the argument; Everyone else did it too! The only double standard is the one you subscribe to which is that of a white racist. You are of the worst kind, the ones who cloak their racism in pseudo intellectual babble. Well babble on…”
Which is where I would have to agree with this assessment. Randy I would regard as a pseudo intellectual. A clear give away with someone invested in this tendency is their habitual usage of an esoteric language. This is used, not for honest clarification but, for obfuscation of the issue discussed. Basically, its used as a deflection or distraction for hiding ones true meaning.
@ Randy
Consider these two statements from yourself…
“…I would offer that to fight something effectively, you must understand it completely. Thus my continued perseverance to uncover fallacies and double-standards…”
And this…
Abagond
“…I have tremendous respect for the opportunity you give people to discuss these topics and do not wish to abuse the privilege…”
Is it conceivable you may actually be squandering this unique opportunity to understand these issues? Instead you seem intent in subjecting everyone to your ill-informed, speculative and quite frankly ignorant theories?
Leaving aside whatever motivations you might have for a second…even you can see you may be arrogantly abusing this privilege.
Get in line for those reparations Hereros, Germans don’t open their pocketbooks for their victims. The most you’ll get is an apology-though that’s more than what the victims of the Japanese and Turks get anyhow.
An aside, Dr.Fischer who oversaw the genocide was a teacher of Dr. Mengele!
Abagond…Asa over at AftoSpear just posted a documentary video related to this post: http://afrospear.com/2012/09/25/the-forgotten-namibian-genocide/#comment-22210 I so appreciate the knowledge you both share!
I’d like to re-post yours along with his, if you don’t mind. Together they tell a history most of us know nothing about.
@ Deb
Great idea. Be my guest.
Thanks!
“Germans” hey!……….say no more.