Ideas of Racism in the late 19-20th centuries & Namibian Pseudo-scientific Racism Flashcards
How was pseudo-scientific racism used to justify colonial atrocities in Namibia?
In different countries across the world pseudo-scientific racism was used in various ways to justify settler treatment and oppression of the indigenous nations, as ‘subhuman’, ‘primitive’ and an ‘inferior race’.
What is race?
A group of people identified as distinct from other groups because of supposed physical or genetic traits shared by the group.
What is racism?
The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against
someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.
How could one describe cultural racism?
The cultural images and messages that affirm the assumed superiority of whites and the assumed inferiority of people of color is like smog in the air. Sometimes it is so thick it is visible, other times it is less apparent, but always, day in and day out, we are breathing it in. None of us introduce ourselves as ‘smog-breathers’ (and most of us don’t want to be described as prejudiced), but if we live in a smoggy place, how can we avoid breathing the air?
Where did ‘race’ come from?
Ideas in the “Age of Enlightenment” in the 17th and 18th centuries promoted reason and ‘evidence of the senses.’ Major developments were made in new sciences. In 1735 Carl Linnaeus introduced the Linnaean Taxonomy, which divided humans into four variants:
European, American, Asiatic, African.
What was scientific racism?
Europeans started applying sciences to people - identifying, analysing, and classifying different groups.
Define pseudo-scientific racism.
The false theories/ideas that were used to try and prove one group of people were superior to others.
These were often used to justify economic and social relations between people (e.g. colonisers and colonised), and helped to rationalise old prejudices held by Europeans.
Who was Samuel Morton?
A scientist who believed that each race was created with different abilities, and that intelligence was linked to brain size. He measured skulls from around the world and concluded that Caucasian skulls were bigger and therefore intellectually superior to other races. Greatly influenced important economic/religious/political figures who believed it was based on science.
What is social Darwinism?
A adapted version of Darwin’s theory about the animal kingdom and ‘survival of the fittest,’ adapted to apply to human races in belief that only the strongest could survive. This was used to justify racism and genocide.
What’s ‘eugenics?’
The science of improving the qualities of the human race, especially by selective breeding. Positive eugenics encourages reproduction between people with desired traits. Negative eugenics inhibits reproduction between people with undesirable traits.
To where can the roots of Nazi Germany’s racial rhetoric be traced, and when?
To German South West Africa, 30 years before Nazi Germany.
When was the Berlin Conference?
November 1884 - February 1885
How did Germany come to ‘own’ what is now Namibia back in the late 19th century?
Namibia, South West Africa at the time, was officially made a German colony at the Berlin conference in 1884- 1885.
According to what notion did the Germans feel the need to expand was vital.
Lebensraum, or living space. German expansion was seen as vital to the survival of their “superior race”, where the natives would need to be removed for the German race to continue to grow.
How did colonisation affect the indigenous people of Namibia?
- Nama and Ovaherero were deprived of their nomadic freedoms.
- Indigenous people were dispossessed, impoverished and subordinated.
- Colonialists implemented rules for cattle keeping, fenced off the best grazing areas and enslaved local people.
- In the 1890s the cattle epidemic (rinderpest) escalated the suffering of the native people.
What was the German’s retaliation to the native’s uprising?
General Lothar von Trotha was sent with hundreds of reinforcements. The struggle cumulated in 1904 at Waterberg. The German army attacked from three sides, driving the indigenous people into the Kalahari desert, where the Germans had poisoned the water. Thousands died of starvation and dehydration.
