Germany′s Namibian genocide apology could miss the mark
dw.com
dw.com
How are rules around these apologies and reparations decided? Seems it’s super popular right now but there’s basically an endless history of one human group occupying and killing another. I’d much prefer forgiving and moving on, but that seems to be off the table.
So can Eastern Europe get some cash and apology?
Not to mention my post was also about mongols, ottomans, and Soviet occupations.
We can talk about other incidents you think are similar in nature and how we should deal with those. Multiple things can be bad at the same time. Can you be any more precise than "the Mongols" and "the Soviets"? Which incidents would you like to talk about, who were the victims, what was done to them, who did it and who today do you think benefits/suffers from what happened?
That said, most Germans aren't even consciously aware Germany ever had colonies or what that meant. The awareness of war crimes in WW2 is much more widespread, despite the concerted post-war effort to shift the blame away from the Wehrmacht (both by Germans and by the Western Allies who benefited from West Germany not purging its entire military as Europe entered the Cold War).
Without necessarily understanding every nuance and knowing of every single war crime Germany committed during WW2, Germans in general and the German government specifically have spent more than seven decades acknowledging the Third Reich's wrongdoings and contributing financial aid to various forms of reparation. Germans and their government have done no such thing for Africa: the exploitation and massacre of Africans is barely even taught in history classes.
As an Eastern European who’s countries been fucked over countless times, these reparation discussions are bordering on insulting.
It actually sounds like you have been the victim of injustices but feel disgust towards other victims of injustices because you don't want to be thought of as a victim. This is a perfectly normal reaction, but you might want to talk to a therapist. I'm not saying this to insult you. Mental health is a seriously overlooked issue and many people avoid seeking professional help because they don't want to be seen as vulnerable, even if it ruins their lives.
EDIT: Interesting that someone would read the first paragraph and conclude that I'm talking about personal beliefs. Or accusing me of calling people "mentally ill", which literally reinforces my point of people avoiding therapy for its stigma.
This sums up the west nicely as of 2021.
The difference between reparations and gifts of pity/guilt is not just in the wording - if you're unwilling to call what you're doing reparations (along with all that that entails), then frankly any amount of money you're offering is an insult.
As I just said elsewhere in the comments, it's similar to having a company wrong you and then offer an out-of-court settlement. Offering settlements like that is most often a way to buy silence and dodge the actual work that goes into making amends (of which money is the least part).
"We know we wronged you but oh no [our PR/our stock/other possible claims/the cost of possibly having to change our processes so it doesn't happen again]" is insulting enough when it's only coming from a company that screwed you over materially; it's so much worse when it's an attempted apology for actual genocide.
An example I'd consider reasonably well done (if understandably contentious then and even now) would be the reparations for the Holocaust. Note how it wasn't just throwing money at the problem to assuage guilt, but also an entire nation re-assessing itself, its past and its future (see: vergangenheitsbewältigung).
My understanding is that the genocide in Namibia was perpetrated more than a 100 years ago. None of the Germans alive today, which for a non negligible portion, do not have their ancestors from Germany nor Namibia, participated in it.
Surely, this means that the same exact process cannot be replicated. For example, I don't think that the German administration is being manned by anti-herero functionaries. I don't think that we could have Nuremberg style trial of living criminals.
The rest of the vergangenheitsbewaltigung: monuments, museum, emphasis on this genocide in history class, remembrance day, etc. are not really "reparations", at least in my understanding of the term.
So when you talk about reparations, if it is not money, what do you have in mind precisely?
> The rest of the vergangenheitsbewaltigung: monuments, museum, emphasis on this genocide in history class, remembrance day, etc. are not really "reparations", at least in my understanding of the term.
I'm not sure what understanding of "reparations" excludes those things? Both from a pure legal perspective and from a transitional justice perspective, monetary restitution is just one possible aspect of reparation.
Plus it's particularly interesting in this case because addressing the Namibian genocide should have been a part of non-monetary reparation efforts. In many ways the Namib desert was the sandbox for the Holocaust.
Another comment in this thread says that giving money to the Namibian government was wrong because it was not going in the hand of those who suffered the consequence of the genocide which seems to indicate that for reparations to be considered "valid" it must be addressed directly to the wronged people. I don't see how a museum in Germany is going to repair the degradation of the descendant of the Namibian people who where massacred.
But anyway, let's assume that all these things could be considered reparations.
> To stretch the company/settlement analogy a little, I personally think it's rather clear that offering an out-of-court settlement rather than facing civil judgment is still cowardly/insulting (with an added helping of weaselling) if it comes from the successors of the company execs/staff that committed the wrong rather than the actual perpetrators.
But all the actual perpetrators (the killers or those who gave them orders) are dead. Justice in the case of dead perpetrators is moot. What remain is civil actions against the company itself. But as far as I know, there are no judicial framework to trial countries for "historical" acts. If this was the case, it would open many questions. What are the "historical" acts that can be brought to that court? Another commenter was talking about the invasion of eastern Europe by the Golden Horde ; should it be a candidate of a trial? Of course not but it means that there are some criteria that will be hard to get an agreement on.
Anyway, my beef with this is that the goalpost is not defined. And probably some people have qualms taking extensive (and expansive) steps to a moving goalpost.