Red Flag Day

I know this is only my second Namibian post, but it’s going to touch on some heavier topics, like racism, colonialism, and genocide. Even though I’ve been here for such a short time, I’ve come to realize very quickly how Namibia’s history still very much affects the lives of people here and how it’s going to affect my being here as well. So in an attempt to communicate this importance to you folks back home, I’m going to try to regularly blog about events in Namibian history as I become more aware of them. 

I typed most of this post weeks ago after the weekend of August 14^th. That weekend was a huge celebration for the Ovaherero people here in Namibia. This year marked the 111^th year since the ending of the German genocide of the Herero and it was commemorated on Red Flag Day. People dress in the clothing of the Ovaherero, which has been a pretty hot topic among the other trainees and non-Namibian Peace Corps Staff. The men wear outfits reflecting German military uniforms from occupation while the women wear Victorian style dresses. One of our trainers said the reason for the women’s dress was because during the colonial times, Ovaherero women working in German households were commonly raped, so the German women would give them dresses fluffed by a bunch of petticoats as a deterrent to assault. I had read about the clothing online before coming here, but no one had explained it with this story, so I feel like it’s something important to get out there. Stories like this one make a lot of the volunteers and other staff wonder why the Ovaherero as a culture continue to wear these clothes, but I feel like it’s not something we have any right to have a say in. However, I think we should be aware of the history around the clothing.

This year, there was quite a kerfuffle at the festivities. So much so that we actually were asked by our local trainers to abstain from Saturday’s festivities. In Namibia there is an ethnic group called the Herero, which is divided into many different groups or tribes or clans or what you will. The Himba people who are probably the most well documented group by foreigners are members of this group, as are the Ovaherero. The Ovaherero have many different chiefs, but since the late 1800s there has also been a Paramount Chief who has more power and is chosen by the Paramount Chief before him. The first Paramount Chief was Hosea Kutako, who the Namibian airport is named after. For the past three years, the purpose of a Paramount Chief has been called into question and a lot of people want to go back to only having a group of chiefs on the same level. There have been many court cases about this apparently, and this year on Red Flag Day another group of Ovaherero said that the Paramount Chief and his supporters couldn’t use their land for the festivities. In the end, they had the festivities, just in another area right next to the problematic one. I also heard through the less reliable trainee rumor mill that part of the controversy was over changing the dress, but the trainer I talked to about the event didn’t make a comment about that. However, some people did arrive at the festivities Sunday morning in what we all figured was a more “traditional” style of dress.

For the festivities on Sunday, we went to the cemetery near the hostel where we’re staying. They were commemorating the death of the last chief and some other key community members. The reception to our group was mixed. The racial makeup of our group in general is overwhelmingly white, so naturally the smaller group that went was also mostly white. I found out from the trainer who went with us afterwards that a lot of people came up to him and made comments. They asked him why he brought so many Germans and mentioned economic compensation for the wrongs committed. Even after explained that we were Americans and Peace Corps Volunteers, there was still some animosity felt towards the group by those individuals despite Peace Corps overwhelming positive reputation in Namibia (which I’ll talk about in a later post). However, as I said, I only found out about this after the fact when I asked my trainer to review this post. To our faces, everyone there was super kind and really welcomed us into the festivities, especially towards the end when a lot of people began to clear off. Once all the Herero who wanted to venerate the graves had finished, they allowed us foreigners in to pay our respects as well. To me, at least, this was a huge honor and I was so grateful for the kindness showed to us by the members of the Ovaherero community despite our obviously problematic presence.  

I thought to end this post I should say a little about the Herero genocide that this event is commemorating. According to the above mentioned trainer, the town of Okahandja is where a lot of key events took place. The church next to our compound is where a massacre took place. The Germans locked a bunch of Ovaherero people inside, told them to close their eyes, and then shot them all. The church now stands as a memorial. I have walked past it every single day and never known its horrible and tragic history. According to this article my friend Anna Shilongo linked me to, the genocide started when the Germans claimed new territory for farmland in Namibia. The Herero’s living there not in immediate employment by the Germans were told to leave or else. When they didn’t, they were killed on site or rounded up into concentration camps. The article says there were 80,000 Herero in Namibia before the genocide, and after only 15,000. Even now most of the land suitable for farming is owned by a small minority of Whites while many of the displaced Herero and other groups have little or even no land. This land issue is still a huge problem in Namibia today and up for quite a lot of political debate.

To end on a happier note, here’s a picture of some goats I saw on the way to school one morning:

Festivals and Some History

Now that my asthma has finally chilled out, I have time to write about my awesome festival experience on Tuesday.

After a hellish midterm, Claire and I skipped afternoon classes and went to Kyoto. The 22 happens to be a pretty big day in terms of festivals. In Kyoto, there is the Jidai Matsuri, or Festival of the Ages, and just up the mountain from Kyoto is the Kurama Hi Matsuri, or Kurama Fire Festival.

At about 1:40 Claire and I rushed out of Sanjo Station to the sounds of the procession passing by. The Jidai Matsuri, or what we saw of it, is a giant parade that goes from the Imperial Palace to Heian Shrine. The people in the parade dress as people from Japanese history between the eras that Kyoto was the capital. The festival started in the 1890s when the capital and palace of the emperor was moved to Tokyo. Let me be honest, even Claire and I, who love Japanese history, had no clue what the hell was going on for most of it. The ladies in front of us for awhile would discuss the different eras, but we couldn't quite place them chronologically. What we did know is that after an hour and a half, Heian Jidai popped up and we knew that that was practically at the very beginning, so we figured that this was a very long parade. Well, just tonight at dinner my host mom explained that it goes from recent history to ancient history. So we DID see the Meiji Restoration soldiers~!!! AND SAKAMOTO RYOUMA! And even better, I'm about 99% sure we saw TOMOE, my favourite character in the Heike Monogatari!!!! Her story in short: she was a samurai retainer under Minamoto Yoshinaka and before his death he told her to get lost because he didn't want to die with a girl. So she ran into battle, yanked off some guys head to honor Yoshinaka and then rode off into the hill where she shed her armor and disappeared. Seriously, how cool is she?

After thinking we still had hours of the parade left (when it was probably only a few more minutes), we left to go on a small adventure before heading to Kurama. Where did we go? MIBU DERA. What is Mibu Dera? The headquarters of the Shinsengumi. But who are the Shinsengumi? In short: one of, if not the, most dangerous police forces in Japanese history. It essentially started when a group of guys became friends of the owner of a dojo up in Edo (now Tokyo). The friends all eventually became the owners retainers (kinda, but not really since he's not an actual samurai). Then they all joined this army that marched to Kyoto (the capital at the time) to protect the Shogun. The army returned to Edo when the Shogun left, but a group stayed in Kyoto and became the Shinsengumi. Their job was to police the streets and keep the rogue samurai of other clans from causing trouble. They did a lot of great things and a lot of bad things. If this were any other country in the world, they would probably be villains since they lost the civil war of the Restoration, but they are actually pretty popular here, as is their enemy Sakamoto Ryouma. I love the Shinsengumi. I love reading about them. I'm currently watch a phenomenal drama about them. Seriously, they are just the coolest.

So we went to their headquarters. It was literally just a normal temple. And that probably made it even cooler. Not really a lot of touristy stuff. There was a guy there who I'm pretty sure was dressed as Okita Souji, my favourite member. He was with two friend in kimono and they were taking pictures. Claire and I thought it was hilarious. On the temple grounds they have a garden that costs the best 100￥ I've ever spent to get in. It is a very quite and peaceful place, even if you don't like/care about the Shinsengumi. They have a pond with turtle and koi, a stone with a song carved into it that my host mom just read and said it was quite sad, which, from listening to her mumble it, yeah, it's sad. I mean, seeing as how they pretty much all died horrible deaths during the Restoration.... Yeah.... There is also a bust of Kondo Isami, the founder and head of the Shinsengumi. He would be the guy that owned the dojo in Edo.
On our way back to the train station we passed a place that we realized was the museum. Sadly, things like that close early and it was already 4:30/5:00 at that time so we couldn't go in. But I am planning on doing a project on them, so I'll go back soon probably~

After that we met our friend Ali for dinner at an Indian restaurant. It was yummy but the guys who ran it couldn't hear the difference between 'check' and 'chai' and also couldn't understand us when we tried to explain it in English or Japanese, neither of which they seemed to speak very well. So we ended up with 400￥ chai. Oh well.

The Kurama Hi Matsuri is a huge festival held every year in Kurama. People parade through the streets with lots of fire. They start with small torches and the progressively get bigger until they take two or three people to carry on their backs. It really sucks for the person in back because the fire and ash is falling onto their bare backs. They would shout to the nearby helpers who would help douse them in water to keep from burning. Despite that, everyone seemed to having a great time! The only drawback was the ridiculous amount of police officers crowding people into certain areas. I understand that it's tough to deal with huge crowds flocking to a small village at night, but we were in that village for almost 4 hours and only walked a bit down one road before we had to go home to catch the last trains to Osaka.
Okay, actually there are two drawbacks, the second being I sometimes forget I have asthma? All the ash and smoke triggered it pretty bag and I had a couple fits in the village and quite a few more the next morning. I also lost my voice, which meant I didn't have to talk in class for a day~ Yay~!!

Claire and I had a bit before the train left so Ali, who lives in Kyoto, took us to the palace. We didn't have enough time to really see it, and it was dark and stuff. It was really fun walking around Kyoto at night though, and Ali is a great tour guide!