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Memorial politics: challenging the dominant party's narrative in Namibia *

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 September 2012

Elke Zuern
Elke Zuern*
Affiliation:
Politics Faculty, Sarah Lawrence College, 1 Mead Way, Bronxville, NY 10708, United States of America
*
Email: ezuern@sarahlawrence.edu
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Abstract

Greater international attention to human rights, particularly genocide, has offered activists opportunities to draw on transnational networks and norms. Many examples have been documented of the varying successes of domestic movement organisations employing international support. Much less attention has been paid to cases lacking significant organisations, but small groups and even individuals can draw attention to their demands if they effectively engage transnational interest. Genocide offers a particularly potent means of generating attention. Namibia is engaged in domestic debates over crimes committed by German forces over a century ago. In a country with no large opposition party and no significant social movement mobilisation, a number of relatively small groups of activists are indirectly challenging the power of the dominant party by correcting its one-sided narrative of the country's anti-colonial heroes. German efforts to respond to crimes committed in the past offer further opportunities for activists to draw attention to heroes and histories beyond those celebrated by the dominant party.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , September 2012 , pp. 493 - 518
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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Footnotes

*

Thanks to the Namibians, both those named in this paper and those who chose to remain anonymous, for talking to a researcher new to Namibian politics and answering many questions; to Joshua Forrest, Larissa Förster, Robert Gordon, Wolfram Hartmann, Jake Short, Jeremy Silvester, Peter von Doepp and Joachim Zeller for helpful suggestions on contacts in and resources on Namibia; to Alana Sliwinski for excellent research assistance; to Maria Elena Garcia and the Comparative History of Ideas Program at the University of Washington, and Jim Jasper, John Krinsky and the Politics and Protest Workshop at CUNY for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper; to three anonymous reviewers for their detailed comments and to Sarah Lawrence College for financial support.

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