Of Homework, History, and Land

While our students are all doing home stays, we are busy grading the latest critical reflection papers on "The Institutionalization of Racism: Jim Crow and Apartheid."  Yes, they do have reading assignments and homework! (Including a reading assignment over the weekend). It's easy to feel like this is a trip - but in reality it's still a class - a travel seminar - with a great mix of the experiential with readings, videos, speakers, and discussions.  And, because all Global Search for Justice courses are writing intensive (one of four all students must take), there's a lot of writing. It's all hand written while we're in country, and there's a research paper to be completed when we return.  This group has been good about doing the academic work and we're sure they'll appreciate the days coming up where we've scheduled less - such as while we're in Etosha National Park 

On  Friday, before leaving for the home stays, we had a speaker on the history of Namibia, Romanus Shivano (previous director of CGEE Namibia).  He gave us a great overview, starting with a colonial studies analysis -- the drivers behind European colonial expansion, the initial actions that de-territorialize and remove existing culture and authority structures, and those that re-territorialize the colonized land under "white" control.   We're all gaining a strong sense of how important it is to know history.  The ultimate impacts and legacies of European imperialism are far reaching and long lasting.  

Very few Americans seem to know about Namibia and much less that it was parceled out to the Germans in 1884 during the "Sramble for Africa" (Google that one!).  With the German defeat in World War I, the area was turned over to British-controlled South Africa in 1915 and remained under South African control through the their independence from Britain and until Namibia's final independence (from South Africa) in 1990.  Thus, Namibia shared the full apartheid rule instituted by the National Party in1948 in South Africa.  

It was interesting to learn about the various ethnic groups that have inhabited Namibia since before colonization.  The San people (hunter-gatherers) were the earliest Inhabitants, followed by a number of tribes, including pastoralists such as the Herero (cattle) and Nama & Damara (goats, sheep, cattle), and agriculturalists such as the Ovambo (Aawambo), Kavango, and Caprivi.  It will be interesting to hear what the students heard about the various ethnic groups during their home stays.  Apartheid policy was always to divide and conquer, housing people in neighborhoods by ethnicity/tribes and encouraging ethnic/ tribal tensions to avoid the different groups rallying together.  

Romanus Shivano also gave us much information about Namibia under South African apartheid rule and post-independence.  Too much to mention here, but we certainly have a much better understanding of the history of this fascinating country.  

Our next speaker, John Hazam, is from the Legal Assistance Center and has worked in several African countries with parks, community-based natural resource management, and environmental policies and legislation.  His overview of the various kinds of land (state owned land, communal lands, and freehold (privately owned) land) set us up well to understand some of the issues with access to land and natural resources. 

While in Etosha National Park (state land), we'll be learning of the efforts of the Hai//om (part of the San people) to again be allowed to hunt and gather in their traditional hunting grounds.  Issues of indigenous rights are complex, because other than the San (who all agree were first to be in Namibia), the other ethnic groups of African origin came at different times and some not that long before European colonization.   The Namibian government doesn't use the term "indigenous" but instead uses "marginalized" to refer to groups that may need special attention or restoration of land or rights.

Later speakers will give us more depth to the introduction that John gave us to things like community-based natural resource management and the moves of some freeholders to join their lands to create conservancies where instead of growing cattle they raise wildlife for hunting, tourism, etc.  Lots to think about!