Carrying the Sun on Our Backs: unfolding German colonialism in Namibia from Caprivi to Kasikili (review)

With her imaginative and emotionally engaged style Effa Okupa could have added a fresh and lively touch of colour to existing Namibian historiography, in particular to the darker chapters of German colonial rule there. Unfortunately, this book fails to meet basic standards of scholarship and makes exhausting, at times surreal, reading.

Throughout the book, Okupa appears to be struggling to reconcile a nostalgic affinity with a supposedly pure pre-colonial African heritage and a fascination with the deadly accuracy and enduring legacies of German colonial conquest and administration. This tension energizes her presentation. However, Okupa has failed to set clear priorities for a thorough selection and analysis of her scattered sets of data. The volume under review consequently lacks a specific focus. It makes no contribution to existing theory, has no clear argument, thematic or narrative main line, and presents little fresh evidence not already available from other published sources. We are given an excessively long and poorly structured compilation of largely unrelated anecdotal evidence fraught with factual inaccuracies throughout.

In the opening chapter Okupa speculates on the creation of Stone Age rock art in Namibia by prehistoric ‘super artist’ women, followed by anecdotes of Portuguese explorers and fragments of Germany’s early military presence in Southwest Africa. A long excursion into the life and (mostly domestic) politics of German Reich Chancellor von Caprivi leads into the negotiations that resulted in the 1890 Anglo-German territorial swap that created the German access corridor to the Zambezi known as the ‘Caprivi Zipfel’. Okupa has some interesting points to make here, and with issues of international law she is clearly on more familiar scholarly ground.

The next 150 pages are concerned with the scandalous atrocities and war of extermination committed by the German colonial military against the Herero, Nama and other indigenous groups between 1904 and 1908. Much of this has already been covered extensively by various other scholars more capable of working with the available archival material. Long sections are taken up by details of, for example, German colonial military award medals, railway and firearms technology, Herero social organization and chiefly genealogy, polygamy and Christianity. Okupa’s key contribution here lies in her emotional and engaging narrative of the Herero’s ordeal in the Omaheke Desert following the appalling Waterberg massacre of 1904. But while the acknowledgements indicate she has collected interview material from recently repatriated descendants of survivors, the author neither names nor quotes her Herero sources directly.

The book then shifts to another legacy of German colonialism in Namibia: the Caprivi Strip. Okupa’s discussion of the pre-colonial and colonial administration of Caprivi, the history of the area and its people again contains little new material, while failing to exclude unnecessary excursions and various inaccuracies. The last two chapters are concerned with the colonial origins and 1999 settlement by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) of the boundary dispute between Namibia and Botswana over the Kasikili/Sedudu island. Long sections of treaty texts, official communications and hearing transcripts appear with little analysis. Scholars interested in Caprivi or working on the historical origins and current disputes over African boundaries, international and African customary law may find some interesting leads to further material here, but the ICJ website provides most of this in a well-organized manner.

While the appearance of the book is neat and balanced most of the maps, diagrams and photographs add little value. The main title and some chapter headings offer no clue regarding the contents. There are countless mistakes, inconsistencies and omissions in references, footnotes and quotations throughout the book. The same lengthy section of text from the 1890 Anglo-German agreement appears in full no less than three separate times. That the publisher should have sent a manuscript in this under-edited and uncorrected form to the printers is utterly surprising.