The myth of German genocide against the Herero

Originally posted by Omar al Hashim So the one who actually butchers a whole ethnic group is a criminal, while the one that might of done it if they could've is innocent. If you are in the position of power, you have the responsibility to act morally. You can't refuse to act morally because your enemy might not have.

The problem is always the same, but what constitutes a moral course of action is not. In some cases sparing your enemy is the moral choice, in other cases exterminating your enemy might be preferable even from an ethical perspective.

Originally posted by Omar al Hashim After the defeat of their enemy militarily I do not see what advantage is gained by wiping them out.

An absolute guarantee you won't have trouble with that enemy again, as well as a satisfying sense of completion.

Originally posted by Omar al Hashim We cannot blame someone for something that they did not do, even if they expressed a desire to do it.

out of context, i do totally not agree with this at all. what constitutes a genocide? last time i checked there were still Jews & gypsies, does that mean there was no Holocaust? how many times in the last 200 years there was a "sucessfull" genocide, where a people where completely whiped off the map?

so what constitutes a genocide? industrial killing of people? if so, how does that compare to ww1 trench warfare? doesn't that make almost any war a genocide on someone else? if a political or militarical leader expresses his wish to exterminate a particular ethnic group? so we come back to the herero uprising. who expressed his views to do what? both Botha and Maherero claimed to go down the road of Total War. it was obvious, even in advance who would come out on top of that, nevertheless the Herero started it for a reason that completely evades me.
coming back to my initial argument, how mayn people do you need to kill to "fullfill" the case of genocide? let's play this scenario: Austrians descide to exterminate all Liechtensteiners, and they suceed. then we have, whatever, les than 1 million deaths but a whole group whipped out. then we take China and assume Bhutan invades China in an invasion and kill 10 million ethnic chinese. do we have a genocide here? like 1 % of Chinese got killed, is it a genocide? then we come back to the question if it was intended to whipe out the entire group or was it a result of war in which we naturally have such casualties. do we have in war only militarical casualties or also civilian? i cna hardly think of a war where there were no civilian casualties or as we popularily call them today "collateral damage".

so i think the question of genocide overall comes down to this question: was there any official intention of genocide? we can surely answer this question for both sides as true...


and since the Armenian "genocide" was brought up here, SIGH: well, some people like to victimize themselves to commit crimes themselves. as reference: modern Israel (on the danger of antisemitism here, but certainly this accusation works both ways, Palestine), as well as Hitlers Casus Belli vs Poland. victimization is a favourite tool of people to further their aims.

Originally posted by Carcharodon Hello Temu   Even if Samuel Maherero used strong language when he expressed his hate for the invaders of his country that doesn´t mean that the Germans had the right to commit genocide and indiscriminately exterminate women, children and old people.   And as Al Jassas says many opressed people have started rebellions against their opressors. That doesn´t justify that the opressors answers with genocide.   As in the case of the Herero genocide many colonial opressors have used local disagreements  in order to divide and rule.

interesting, so Samuel Maherero used "strong language", but when Botha said the same it constitutes a genocide? double-standard found!

as you know, there were so many uprisigns and rebellions in hsitory. do you know about the Taiping rebellion? an essentially civil war bewteen Chinese, which turned out to be the second bloodiest war in history, afetr ww2....would youc all that a genocide as well, committed on Chinese...by Chinese?

in fact Germans also used divide e imperia, Hereros were one of those tribes favoured over the others, check this picture of Samuel Maherero in German Schutztruppe uniform:



he was one of the most favoured chiefs in SWA, go figure...

i'd like to quote myself from this thread about the definition of total war: http://www.allempires.net/forum_posts.asp?TID=14063&PN=4

yeah thats exactly where i wanted to get to. so all conflicts ever that involved tribal forces are Total Wars according to definition because in tribal societies each able man is a warrior and tribal forces like Huns deliberately also kill civilians, or for example natives killing settlers in their lands. therefore we can exclude the ACW as first Total War unless we restrict the definition to "civilized" industrial societies.

this is relevant in regards to my statement above regarding the status of Civilians vis à vis combattants as well as the potential thread of any individual of an entire nation at war.


Edited by Temujin - 28-Apr-2009 at 20:33

Originally posted by ArmenianSurvival So you admit non-combatant Hereros (mostly women and children) were systematically rounded up into camps, and that the majority of them ended up dying?

Originally posted by ArmenianSurvival So the seizure of a few farms thousands of miles from Germany, gives German authority a blank check to round up women and children of an entire ethnic group, put them into camps where almost all of them starved to death or died of disease, poison the wells and water sources of Hereros and prevent them from reaching arable land? Genocide cannot be justified by a small-scale attack. Genocide simply means you are attempting to destroy a nation through direct extermination. It either took place, or it didn't. It doesn't have pretexts or exceptions which nullify the application of the word to describe a particular situation. You're employing the logic of someone who, in an act of self-defense, not only kills someone who is threatening him, but then goes off and starts rounding up all members of the person's family, uncles aunts cousins nephews and neices, locks them in his basement, and then says hey, they died of starvation and disease. Gee, you think?

weather or not those farms were thousands of kilometers from Germany is irrelevant here, we live in a democratic free world (not everyone, Ok) where peopelc an go where they want and make a living how they want, i think no one with a midn for liberty will argue against that. so do Hereros have a divine right to kill harmless farmers just because soem power-hungry chief is not content by what the Colonial Power can offer him? does that, in my case allow me to kill any immigrant who came here and got a job? like i have some divine right on "my lands" and "my jobs"?


you said genocide is if group A descides to extermiante group B. first of, how do you know there was an intention to do so, in other words, how is not every war a genocide? and what happenes if group B for some strange twist fo fate suddenly become perpetrators themselves and revenge themselves on group A's civilians? don't we have a counter-genocide?

if you want to continue this discussion i'd welcome you to answer those questions first.

Originally posted by gcle2003 Originally posted by ArmenianSurvival So you admit non-combatant Hereros (mostly women and children) were systematically rounded up into camps, and that the majority of them ended up dying? I think the point he was trying to make is the same one I wold. Setting up camps to hold non-combatant individuals (aka to 'concentrate' them in one spot) is not the same as killing anyone, let alone deliberately.

Oh thats a grey area. holding them in a spot where they will be lucky to survive is like killing them slowly and in a more inhumane way. If they ring fence the civilians and do not give them adequate basics for survival over a considerable time that's is darn close to rounding them up and shooting them.

Originally posted by ArmenianSurvival It was also Botha that carried out the killing orders. He managed to wipe out the vast majority of Hereros, to the point where it would be statistically impossible for most of these victims to be able-bodied. I don't really see the significance of the German government revoking the killing order when it ended up taking place anyway.

you've put that like you knew exactly what has happened...

it always comes down to this: we have on one side a huge empire and on the other a small tribe, and the huge empire is always evil and tries to take away something and the small tribe is always innocent noble savages that never hurt anyone, like neighbouring tribes. cool that people still think in black and white, at least my TV is in colour, so hollywood can shape my perception in HD...

Originally posted by Temujin it was already in full swing and hereros probably didn't knew it was revoked. but the thing is this, there was no government organized genocide, that's all. Botha was an over-enthusiastic militarist and maybe took orders from the German governor of Namibia at that time.

So the commander of the forces AND the governor of the province intended to exterminate the Hereros, but this is not considered a government organized genocide? Just because the orders didn't come from the highest authority in the German imperial system, doesn't mean it cannot be considered a state-sponsored genocide. If a genocide is made possible by forces within the state, then its a state-sponsored genocide. The state is responsible for the actions of their subbordinates.

 

 

Originally posted by Temujin it's not the question if they're capable of doing so, i mean the Herero at no time had a realistic chance any way, the question si if those women and chidlren are willing to fight and pose a danger. mind you we have nowadays child-soldiers and female suicide bobmers amongst other things.

So we have to assume one of two things: Despite having no realistic chance, Herero women and children decided to provoke the German soldiers, which warranted a response from them (which is basically what you're saying).

Or, the German forces carried out announcements their commander made about killing all Hereros, which they were quite capable of doing, and in fact, they DID end up doing. I'll leave it to the reasonable reader to figure out which scenario is more plausible.

 

 

Originally posted by Temujin well this is interesting, does that means there are by default evil people/empires that always comitt crimes on weaker pwoers and innocent, good people who always get oppressed?

No, we are not on the same page. When I said that only certain groups have the ability to commit genocide on others, I am referring to power. For example, a relatively weak/powerless minority or tribe cannot commit genocide against a formidable state. However, the formidable state, under certain circumstances, can commit genocide relatively easily on the weak/powerless minority or tribe. This doesn't imply that all powerful states are genocidal or evil, and it does not imply that all weaker peoples are perpetual victims.

 

 

Originally posted by Temujin do you think there are justified invasions? i mean why would a country invade another one. in case of the Paraguayan war, we have both scenarios at the same time. Brazil backed by Argentine was meddling in the affairs of Uruguay and the dictator of Paraguay wanted to help them by invading Brazil. that gives us some sort of dilemma if that war was justified or not, considdering so many Paraguayans died for eventually nothing. the whole Paraguayan war is qutie controversial, even today.

There are a lot of grey areas in many realistic cases. But, being able to justify the invasion does not make up the whole picture--- more important is the intention and conduct of invading forces during the conflict. If the invading force is massacring all innocents in sight within the occupied country, then I don't think you can justify that, whatever the reason for the initial invasion might have been (whether it was noble or heinous). But if they simply secure resources with minnimum collateral damage, then many people can argue that its justified, depending on one's views about ownership and theft.

 

 

Originally posted by Temujin when do individual massacres constiute to genocide?

If there is an intent and ability on the part of the perpetrator to effectively wipe out an ethnic or national group, then its genocide. Its very distinct from a massacre or a warcrime, which is either intended to terrorize the public into submission, or is the result of lack of discipline.

 

 

Originally posted by Temujin how many people do you need to kill to have a genoicde? not many people would argue the Taiping Rebellion or Mao's Cultural Revolution as genocide because a) Chinese killed other Chinese, and b) despite the heavy numbers, that surpass many other alleged genocides, there were still a whole lot of Chinese left.

Theoretically, numbers have nothing to do with genocide. Genocide simply describes a particular crime--- intent and action of wiping out an ethnic or national group.

In the case of the Chinese examples, I agree with you, it can't be considered genocide. Its just a civil war on a much bigger scale. And this is a very crucial point for us to fathom if we want to understand each other--- The same way we have small-scale and large-scale civil wars, there are small-scale and large-scale genocides. The rate of casualties does not define the particular scenario... the intent and actions of the forces involved defines the scenario. So a civil war cannot be considered anything but a civil war, even if 100 million people die. But a genocide cannot be considered anything but a genocide, even if a few thousand people die.

 

 

Originally posted by Temujin Germans stealing cattle is a funny allegation, considdering Germans brought their own horses to Namibia, and that were not the only animals they brought.

Germans seizing or "buying" Herero cattle from 1890-1904 is a very realistic claim. Its the main reason some Hereros decided to rebel in the first place.

 

 

Originally posted by Temujin Germans also constructed a lot of infrastructure and brought other advances of civilization previously unknown to the country, from which Namibia still profits today. if anyhting was stolen then land, which was never marked by the Herero nor any other tribal people for that matter.

This is irrelevent in terms of treatment of Hereros by Germans.

 

 

Originally posted by Temujin the problems of the Herero only begun when there was a draught and the herero couldn't survive by themselves and the Germans either couldn't or wanted to help them, that's the origin of the Herero uprising. and always keep in mind the picture of Samuel Maherero posted above. Hereros were only worst of because they lived in the most inhospitable area of Namibia, that's not the fault of Germany.

Its interesting how the Herero did quite alright in this "inhospitable area" during the few centuries before the Germans showed up. But in the 14-year window of German involvement, they were the victims of a severe "draught", and the size of their cattle (their main mode of survival) decreased significantly each year after the German appearance. I'm sure this was plain coincidence, absolutely nothing to do with German wishes of starting an empire in Africa at the expense of the natives, in order to rival the British.

 

 

Originally posted by Temujin no it isn't but apparently most deaths came by accident rather than purpose, despite Bothas killing order.

So according to you, despite the fact the commander of German forces made it clear he wanted to exterminate ALL Hereros, despite the fact the governor was probably involved, and despite the fact that innocent Hereros were systematically rounded up into camps where most of them died, all these deaths happened by accident?

Again, the reasonable reader can discern whether or not your scenario is plausible.

 

 

Originally posted by Temujin yes, but what if there's a whole people whipped off without any announcement nor military orders? is it then not a genocide?

For this to happen, you would have to assume that everyone in a particular army, independently and simultaneously, suddenly manifests an intent and will to wipe out a particular ethnic or national group. Not likely. For genocide to occur, there has to be a high level of collusion, which is only possible with strong central command.