As Curt Falls

There’s something entirely satisfying about the statue of Curt von François, wrapped in plastic, dangling in the air.

Two years ago, many of us in the crowd gathered amid the cold and Covid-19’s first winter wave to demand the removal of the bronze memorial honouring the German colonial commander, inaccurately celebrated as the founder of Windhoek.

Oorlam captain Jonker Afrikaner established a settlement, replete with a church, in Windhoek decades prior and it’s his name that is murmured by some watchers considering who to honour in Von François’ wake.

The misattribution is perhaps the least of the sins associated with the controversial German commander.

In 1893, in a bid to tame rebellion by the Nama people, Von François oversaw a military operation at Hoornkrans which resulted in the mass murder of scores of indigenous people, many of them women and children. This grim history isn’t included on the informational plaques that have been pried off the statute’s plinth and which lay feebly on the grass after more than 50 years of taking pride of place.

The crowd which comes to bid Von François a curt farewell is a relatively modest one but they respond to the hoots from passing cars with raised fists, enthusiastic waves and anticipatory grins.

As we wait, energy ebbs and flows.

It takes time to correct history.

At least two hours for the removal team to dislodge the plaques, loosen the statue, wrap it in plastic and finally reach up for the hook of the bright yellow crane that lifts Von François in the air, cameras whirring, as people cheer, jeer and feel heartened by the power of protest.

Hildegard Titus, who in 2020 initiated the petition to remove the statue, flashes a smile as bright as the future that awaits if the Namibian youth continue to band together to build the country of their dreams. A decolonised and affirming space where the landscape and country’s memorials honour unity, community and democracy, rather than sow division, trigger real and latent trauma or gloss over brutal history.

The decolonial discussion is one that was had just the night before.

At Goethe-Institut Namibia, a group comes together to listen to decolonial artists and activists Nicola Brandt, Gift Uzera and Muningandu Hoveka expand on new ways of remembering, on novel forms of cultural memory, innovative practices of self and on inclusive futures.

About a week later the Swedish embassy, in partnership with Sister Namibia, hosts an evening in which former activists during Namibia’s struggle for independence contrast their experience with that of today’s youth activists railing against Namibia’s dystopian rates of sexual and gender-based violence and advocating reproductive justice, including access to safe abortions, decolonial space and for the recognition of LGBTQIA+ people’s human rights.

To see Curt finally fall is to inject a little more energy into these intersectional youth movements.

It is a symbol of what is possible when the youth organise, protest and relentlessly follow through.

By some metrics, the removal of a statue is a comparatively simple thing. In the end, it is the loosening of screws, the entombing in plastic and cranes.

It takes much more to change society.

Perhaps lifetimes and generations to truly alter hearts and minds.

But as Namibia’s LGBTQIA+ Pride calendar begins in the city before heading to the coast, the Voices for Choices and Rights Coalition announces the Reproductive Justice Centre, which will offer contraceptives, counselling, transgender community support and health screenings, and as Curt falls, there blooms a precious, rousing and irrepressible thing.

Hope.

– martha@namibian.com.na ; Martha Mukaiwa on Twitter and Instagram; marthamukaiwa.com