Predictions

This blogging thing is really taking off, isn't it? My two blogging predictions:

1. In five years blogging will be dead (in the sense that the Citizen Band radio is dead).

2. In five years blogging will be a hundred times bigger than now (in the sense that the kinds of collaborative knowledge work that blogs make possible will be pervasive.

That is the word from ye olde wise guru.

Andie posted this in reply to Martin 1/23/03:

Kind of like the Rand, innit, Martine?

Ancient Art of Haranguing

I should have known it was only a matter of time till you started blogging! You can rely on me to contribute some (a)musings (hopefully!) from time to time, and some theory on this eccentric online sport. See the The Ancient Art of Haranguing Has Moved to the Internet.

Herero to file atrocity claims against Germany

It was reported today in the Mail and Guardian (South Africa) that the Namibian Herero are to file atrocity claims against Germany. A four-billion dollar claim against Germany and two firms for alleged atrocities committed against Namibia's Herero people in colonial times may go to court within two months, The Namibian daily reported on Wednesday. The German government, Deutsche Bank and shipping company Woermann Line (now known as SAFmarine), stand accused of forming a brutal alliance "to commit atrocities and exterminate more than 65,000 Hereros between 1904 and 1907". The full article reads:

Herero to file atrocity claims against Germany

Mail and Guardian Online / SAPA , 22 January 2003 14:23

A four-billion dollar claim against Germany and two firms for alleged atrocities committed against Namibia's Herero people in colonial times may go to court within two months, The Namibian daily reported on Wednesday.

The German government, Deutsche Bank and shipping company Woermann Line (now known as SAFmarine), stand accused of forming a "brutal alliance" to commit atrocities and exterminate more than 65 000 Hereros between 1904 and 1907.

Germany colonised Namibia in 1884 and prime grazing land was given to whites, leading to bloody wars with local tribes. In 1904, German General Lothar von Trotha issued an extermination order, stating that "every Herero, whether found armed or unarmed, with or without cattle, will be shot."

The Herero People's Reparation Corporation is now charging in court that two German companies helped the Berlin government to relentlessly pursue the enslavement and genocidal destruction of Hereros.

Herero Paramount Chief Kuaima Riruako told The Namibian that the corporation was still awaiting the final dates for the court case. But he added that the two cases could be heard in the United States, where the Herero People's Reparation Corporation is registered, in March or April.

The two cases -- the first against the government and the second against the two companies -- are worth two billion dollars each. The papers before the court stated: "The defendants and imperial Germany formed a German commercial enterprise which cold-bloodedly employed explicitly sanctioned extermination, the destruction of tribal culture and social organisation, concentration camps, forced labour, medical experimentation and the exploitation of women and children in order to advance their common financial interests."

The claims were originally also made against a third German manufacturing company, Terex Corporation, but were withdrawn after Terex claimed it was under different management at the time of the alleged atrocities.

The Herero is a collective term for a group of tribes -– the Himba, Herero, Tijimba and Mbanderu -- and there are more than a 100 000 Herero people living in Namibia, southern Angola and Botswana.

Sapa-AFP

My blog goes live!

Project to help North come to terms with past

RITE AND REASON:  Time is running out for submissions to the Healing Through Remembering Project in Belfast, writes Brandon Hamber.

Although the conflict in and about Northern Ireland has its own particular manifestations, the challenge facing the society about how it deals with its past is not wholly distinct.

Most countries in conflict have had to, at some point in time, face up to and deal with the hurts that have taken place. Questions about truth, justice, compensation and reconciliation are inevitable.

After the second World War, the Nuremberg Trials were a mainstay of attempts to address what had happened. Truth-commission processes have been attempted in over 20 countries including Chile, Guatemala and South Africa.

These have attempted to paint as complete a picture as possible of the causes and extent of the conflict, and in so doing learn from the past so that mistakes will not be repeated. International tribunals, like the current Hague tribunal, have also become more commonplace in an attempt to entrench the rule of law globally.

Other societies, however, feel the burden of the past is too difficult to remember and choose to leave it alone in the interests of reconstruction. Mozambique, for instance. Some have chosen to write past atrocities completely out of their histories. For example, the Matabeleland massacres in 1985 in which over 10,000 people were killed by the Mugabe government is largely forgotten by the world.

On a different tack, some argue that the lack of reliable public information on the deaths caused by Western bombing in the Gulf War impede an honest reckoning with what took place there. And many African countries still feel that the legacy of colonisation has never been properly acknowledged.

The problem for societies coming out of conflict, especially where a negotiation has taken place, is that the solution to dealing with these issues is not as clear-cut as it was at Nuremberg and no perfect model exists. Remembering the past can be painful and contentious, especially in deeply divided societies. Each situation is unique.

The Healing Through Remembering Project launched in Belfast last year was set up with the intention of exploring various models for dealing with the past in Northern Ireland. The project seeks to identify and document possible mechanisms and options for how remembering should occur so that healing can be fostered.

The mission of the project is simple: it is to go out there and ask people for their opinions on whether remembering the events of the past - on an individual, community or collective level - can contribute to healing. Options identified will be published in a public report by mid-2002 and presented to the various governments.

In Northern Ireland so far there have been few willing to call for an all-encompassing truth-recovery process in which all parties to the conflict would have to come forward and acknowledge their role in violence. At the same time, endeavours aimed at uncovering the truth of some events are happening, with the most notable of these being the Bloody Sunday inquiry.

But there is growing controversy about how many more inquiries are needed in Northern Ireland, what they should look like and what cases should be selected. There is also a range of local story-telling, documentation and commemorative initiatives underway.

However, most commemorative projects focus on one community and an all-encompassing, cross-community reconciliation and remembering initiative has yet to be proposed.

Accordingly, the Healing Through Remembering Project is taking submissions and practical suggestions on the type of initiatives that people think may be useful. Such initiatives could include, among others, the need for more localised storytelling initiatives; more (or less) need for public commissions of inquiry; or a process like a truth commission that could try and develop an official history of the causes and magnitude of the conflict.

Of course, simply attempting to forget the past and move on because any more delving into it might destabilise the peace process is also an option. But this needs to be compared to the view, albeit optimistic, that a common truth about the past is a prerequisite to a solid future.

From this perspective, there needs be an acknowledgement of wrongdoing from a range of players, including paramilitaries, the state and those who turned a blind eye allowing atrocities to continue, before genuine societal progress can be made.

There are no straightforward answers, or one single option that easily stands out at this point. But there does seem to be a growing recognition - coupled with a high level of anxiety about what the revisiting of what the past might mean - that something in addition to the peace process may be needed if there is to be a sincere reckoning with the past.

To this end, the Healing Through Remembering Project feels it is useful to begin to ask the difficult question and seek answers through eliciting all opinions. Asking questions about the past is, in itself, a way of beginning to address the past, just as finding the public space to debate in a way that no longer involves violence is a prerequisite to lasting peace.

Originally published by Brandon Hamber in the The Irish Times, 26 March 2002

The closing date for submissions to the project is Tuesday 2nd April 2002. For more information on the project and for a submission form:

Got to www.healingthroughremembering.org, or e-mail: info@healingthroughremembering.org.

Brandon Hamber is an Associate of Democratic Dialogue and a fellow in the school of psychology at Queen's University Belfast. He works as an independent consultant to the Healing Through Remembering Project. Contact email: mail@brandonhamber.com

Truth, Justice and Reconciliation in South Africa

Hamber, B.E. (2002). 'Ere their story die': Truth, justice and reconciliation in South Africa. Race and Class, Volume 44, Number 1, July to September 2002, Special Edition: Truth? Bill Rolston (ed), pp.61-79 [Download]