The SDP must invite the San and Damara to Germany
The SDP must invite the San and Damara to Germany

The SDP must invite the San and Damara to Germany

Dani Booysen
METUSALEM NEIB WRITES:

The San and Damara did not make war with natives or the Germans and did not sell any land and cattle to the Germans for ammunitions.

The Damara accepted Christianity and became Christians. The Bible were at the center of belief during the German South West Africa (GSWA) colonialism.

Germany’s penetration into the GSWA took place from 1884 to 1892. Kaiser Wilhelm's foreign policy tasked governor Theodor Leutwein to colonise natives using the Bible and Christianity. In case natives refused, they were forced through military means to accept this policy. It was difficult to control GSWA because of the slow acceptance of Christianity.

Dr. Heinrich Vedder’s work substantiates the claim of the Damara people to much of central Namibia, and the Kozonguisi commission on traditional leadership relied on Vedder's definition and description of Namibia's peoples.

Modern Germany is a parliamentarian democracy and a federation of states, which is a set forth in the basic law. It was introduced on May 24, 1949 and several changes have been made since. The Social Democrats (SDP) historically advocated Marxist principles, but in the Godesberg program, adopted in 1959, the SDP abandoned the concept of a class party while continuing to stress social welfare. The SDP has a more powerful base in the bigger cities and more industrialized states of Germany. In modern Germany the basic law acts as substitute for a constitution, which is a result of Germany's history after the Second World War.

The Federal Republic of Germany is also a member state of the European Union (EU), which is an example of “cosmopolitan democracy” based on a kind of imperial rule in accordance with Western values and interests. In an EU context, original member states already belonged to this Western World. According to EU foreign policies, member states must be democracies that protect the fundamental rights of all the citizens of the EU.

In 2002 the SDP achieved a narrow victory and they formed the German government together with the Green Party. In September 2021, the Social Democrat Party (SDP) won the general election and is now the ruling party.

The San and Damara are requesting the SDP and the Namibian parliament to invite representatives of our traditional authorities and the Cross-Cultural Trust of Namibia (CCTN) to Germany to do research, and to discuss reparations for the periods from 1904 to 1908 and 1912 to 1915.

We also request the return of photographs of Chief Cornelius Goreseb and the Damara people held in the Lebzelter photo archive in Berlin. Lebzelter, a photographer was sent from Germany to GSWA and he did fieldwork in the late seventies.

After the battle of Ohamakari further wars were stopped by the acceptance of Christianity by the Herero and Nama.

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