May 7, 2017
Gabriele Stellfeld
Sekretariat Senator Dr. Carsten Brosda
Behörde für Kultur und Medien
Hohe Bleichen 22
20354 Hamburg
Dear Dr. Carsten Brosda, Senator of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,
On behalf of the Ovaherero, Mbanderu and Nama Genocides Institute (ONGI), I am writing to you and the City of Hamburg to express our sincere gratitude for the official reception, and your recent apology issued on April 6, 2018 at the occasion of the 2nd Transnational Herero and Nama Congress. We also appreciate your acknowledgment of the crucial role that the City of Hamburg played during German colonialism in Africa and the continued impact of that colonial policy on present day African countries. Hence, we share your call for working “together for a united future in peace, dignity and justice”.
We would like to underscore the importance of your assurance to us that Hamburg will be “urging the government of the Federal Republic of Germany to expand cooperation in partnership with your country at all levels, and this includes the level of civil society.” In the spirit of this partnership, we propose that the City of Hamburg commits to cooperating with the Ovaherero and Nama genocide organizations, with your city’s African/Black community and supporting civil society groups concerning the following measures aimed at an efficient decolonization of the City of Hamburg:
1. Make use of Hamburg’s seat in the Bundesrat and your political influence on the German government to bring about full recognition of the genocide committed against the Ovaherero and Nama and the inclusion of their self-chosen representatives in the negotiations on an apology and reparations;
2. Extend the coverage of the genocide 1904-08 as well as Hamburg’s entanglement in colonialism in the city’s school and university curriculum as well as in Hamburg’s text books in a just and accurate manner, focusing on the marginalized perspectives of the colonized;
3. Establish a permanent exhibition and education center on Nazi-colonial propaganda, German colonialism and the genocide 1904-08 in the infamous “Trotha Haus” in the Lettow Vorbeck barracks in Wandsbek-Jenfeld;
4. Rename the two Hamburg streets honoring the criminal profiteer of colonialism and of the Ovaherero and Nama genocide Adolph Woermann in dedication to an Ovaherero and a Nama resistance fighter;
5. Facilitate and take over the costs for the restitution of the Ovaherero and all other African human remains in possession of the UKE Hamburg-Eppendorf and elsewhere in Hamburg;
Remembrance, Justice, Empowerment
6. Re-open the University Department for Postcolonial Studies that has been closed down, including regular scholarships for Ovaherero and Nama students, including cultural exchange of high school students;
7. Influence the city’s churches to critically reflect upon their role in German colonialism and the Ovaherero and Nama genocide in order to counter the colonial message of the shameful commemoration plaque for colonial perpetrators as displayed in St. Michael Church by honoring the opponents and victims of Hamburg’s colonialism instead;
8. Erect memorial places for the opponents and victims of Hamburg’s slave trade, the city’s colonial politics and particularly the Ovaherero and Nama genocide in the city center designed with the full participation of the descendants of the victims;
9. Digitize the about 1000 photographs from the former “German Southwest Africa” in Hamburg’s “Völkerkundemuseum” and exchange this information with Ovaherero and Nama institutions as well as Namibian institutions of higher learning;
10. Digitize the about 1700 objects from the former “German Southwest Africa”, exchange information about them and offer the objects taken from the Ovaherero and Nama who have lost almost all of their material culture by the genocide 1904-08 for restitution;
11. Cooperate with the postcolonial city states Bremen and Berlin as well as other federal states in financing a commemoration and education center for the cultures and history of the communities of the Ovaherero and Nama – who fell victim to German colonialism and the genocide 1904-08 – in Namibia;
12. Cooperate with the Federal State of Germany in financing excavations on the sites of the concentration camps that were erected both by the German colonial state as well as by private profiteers of the genocide, such as Adolph Woermann.
In conclusion, we would like to thank your city for providing resources and security personnel that facilitated a smooth, peaceful and orderly march on Sunday, April 8, 2018. Hence, we are extending our invitation to you and your office to visit our country Namibia in order to experience not only her unique beauty but also her historical contradictions and injustices shaping our current day life. We hope that you will accept our invitation.
We look forward to hearing from you soon about the proposed measures.
Sincerely,
Dr. Kavemuii Murangi,
President
OvaHerero, Mbanderu and Nama Genocides Institute, Inc. (ONGI)
13217 New Hampshire Avenue #10025; Silver Spring, Maryland 20914
kavemuiimurangi@theongi.com
https://theongi.org/