Namibia: The German Roots of Apartheid

In: Race & class: a journal on racism, empire and globalisation, Volume 27, Issue 1, p. 63-77

Abstract

Various contemporary & secondary sources are drawn on to summarize the process of colonization & German colonial rule in southwest Africa (Namibia). Dealing with the phase of indirect colonialism, the social dynamics of the Namibian society from 1800 to 1850 are outlined to sketch the background necessary for explaining the decisive influence of missionaries' & traders' activities from 1850 onward. During the 1890s, direct colonialism -- proclaimed by the German empire in 1884 -- became by its policy of divide & rule an existential threat to the African societies. Their resistance, culminating in the German-Namibian War of 1904-1907, was met with uncompromising violence. Rigorous destruction & subsequent regulations paved the way for an administrative system of colonial-capitalist relations, which aimed at segregation instead of integration, & by its nature created the system of apartheid. As a legacy of German colonialism, apartheid in Namibia was simply continued by the South African state. AA