We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, from the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915
by Jackie Sibblies Drury is a presentation of an unsettling conversation between the black actors and the white actors. It depicts a social conflict arising from the disagreement between the black actors representing the Herero people and the white actors representing the German colonizers in Namibia. The focus of the play is to enact to the audience the harrowing history regarding how the Germans violated he lives of the people from Sudwestafrika.
The presentation involves six actors in a theater hall context who are rehearsing a play depicting the phenomenon during the German rule in Namibia that led to the death of the people of Herero. The actors face a fundamental problem of lack of adequate information to enact the social conflict between Germans and Namibians. When the Black actors raises an issues with the German sided history, it creates a sense of deficiency, but actor 4 and another black man create liveliness with their exposition of what African is in their perspective. The presentation does not bring out the actual occurrences in an accurate way, but forms a basis for a progressive conversation on the Herero genocide, that would be critical in exploring the Herero side of the history.
In the late 19th century, German rule in Namibia declared the African country a protectorate. The Germans attempt to develop infrastructure to facilitate their activities in the region led to forceful acquisition of land from the African owns. The people of Herero were pastoralists and they suffered the biggest blow as their land was seized for the railway development. Their livestock was also seized by the German settlers. Herero people resisted the seizure and they were forced into concentration camps by Germans. About 80% of the people of Herero were killed in what is known as the 20th
century genocide and from the German perspective; it was a rehearsal for the holocaust as espoused by the white actor in the play.
The actors attempt to bring to life the history on Herero genocide is however limited by lack of adequate primary sources of information. The only handy sources of information are love letters from the German soldiers addressed to their loved ones. It is this aspect that replays the social conflict between the colonizers and their subjects. The black actors interject the white actors with claims that the story is about Africans and an African story should be presented from an African context. The African complains that what is presented is a love story. The white person attempts to explain the inadequacies resulting from lack of history resources other than the letters.
The theme of social conflicts is further portrayed by the varying perspectives of the same story by the characters in the play. The letters from the German soldiers conveniently omit the social injustices and violence undertaken in Namibia. The white actors therefore have a basis for enacting the historical characters. The African actors however, have no historically recorded basis for enacting the Herero community and hence decide to explore based on their historical knowledge. In the exploration process, the black actors end up centering their actions on the American context of social conflict between the white and the black people. This deviates the play from the context is the early 20th
century to portray the 21st century perspective of social conflict.
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