Mimicry as Resistance and the Aesthetics of Genocide Memory in Namibia Pedzisai Maedza (Dublin) German colonization of lands and people in what is today known as Namibia was consolidated by a war of conquest led by General Adrian Dietrich Lothar von Trotha. From 1904 to 1908, German forces and the indigenous population fought a war that ended in what has been dubbed the first German genocide of the twentieth century. This “ forgotten ” war and genocide left an estimated 80 % of the Herero and 50 % of the Nama population dead. Using the annual Red Flag Day commemorations as a case study, this account argues that Herero communities have developed distinct public performance practices to remember, commemorate, contest, and transmit the memory of this genocide. This account suggests that Red Flag Day can be read and understood as a cultural performance, which represents and shapes the memory of the past and the community ’ s relationship with the genocide. Introduction In May 2021, the German government announced a departure from a 117-year policy of denial about the extent and nature of the 1904 - 1908 state violence and terrorism in one of its former colonies. The German government signalled that it would formally acknowledge that its colonial military committed genocide in present day Namibia. This acknowledgement brought the official German position into closer alignment with how this colonial violence and terrorism is remembered and understood by the descendants of the victims and in academia. The memory and legacy of the colonial violence and genocide have been the subject of both private and community-led public commemoration for decades. This is particularly so in Central Namibia where the genocide was unleashed. I use the notion of “ Undoing Mastery ” to investigate how the genocide has been publicly remembered and commemorated within Namibia since 23 August 1923. I focus my attention on the annual Herero Red Flag Day as a cultural memory performance. I interrogate how this cultural performance represents and shapes the memory of the past and the community ’ s relationship with the genocide. This is done through a close and critical reading of how Herero communities have developed and executed Red Flag Day as a distinct public performance practice. I pay particular attention to the use of mimicry as resistance to the erasure of colonial genocide. I foreground the role that the Red Flag Day commemorations and the performativity of Herero dress as cultural and identity symbols play in remembering, commemorating, contesting, and transmitting the memory of the genocide. These elements constitute a form of undoing mastery in remembering the Namibian Genocide. To better comprehend the place of the 1904 - 1908 colonial genocide in contemporary Herero memorial culture, it is not enough to pay attention only to what is remembered. It is equally essential to reflect on how that remembrance is framed and constituted. To do this, the events that mark Red Flag Day as remembrance culture are described. I do this to capture the main features of the memorial ’ s dramaturgy and Forum Modernes Theater, 34/ 2, 214 - 228. Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen DOI 10.24053/ FMTh-2023-0021 to investigate three interlinked themes. Firstly, I trace which aspects of the past are remembered through the annual commemoration. Secondly, I investigate how this past is performed. Lastly, I explore the potential consequences of these performances in remembering. Drawing on my observations and close reading of the 95 th anniversary of Red Flag Day, I argue that the colonial war and genocide have had an enduring influence on Herero identity and memory. This influence is particularly evident in Herero dress, and in the Red Flag commemoration. Red Flag Day as a day of commemoration Red Flag Day is an expression of a political imaginary that uses performance, verbal and written narratives, ceremony, ritual, symbols, paintings, and sculptures to produce an affective response to the past through space and time. It is a three-day gathering and celebration by Herero people at the Kommando in the city of Okahandja, which is located 70 km north of the capital Windhoek in Central Namibia. Red Flag Day stands in dialogue with other genocide remembrance commemorations. For example, some Herero people resident in central Namibia and the surrounds hold a complimentary assembly at the Cultural Centre on the edge of the town of Okakarara. This minor gathering commemorates the 1904 Waterberg battle where General Adrian Dietrich Lothar von Trotha ’ s extermination order was proclaimed. 1 Red Flag Day was first convened on 26 August 1923, for the burial of Paramount Chief Samuel Maherero. Maherero ascended to the Herero chieftaincy in 1894 with the aid of German settlers, whom he later turned against in the 1904 to 1908 war. This war ended in genocide, with an estimated 80 % of Herero and 50 % of Nama people dead. Maherero and around a thousand followers survived the flight across the Omaheke desert into exile in present-day Botswana. An unknown number died of hunger and thirst en route across the desert and in concentration camps set up to house Herero prisoners. Maherero was granted asylum in British-occupied Tsau, Botswana and later in the Transvaal, South Africa. After his death in exile on 14 March 1923, Maherero ’ s remains were repatriated back to Okahandja on 23 August 1923. His body lay in state for three days before being accorded a state funeral on 26 August 1923. Samuel Maherero ’ s funeral procession was an elaborate mass spectacle. It was comparable to the funerals accorded to high-ranking German military officers who died in combat. One hundred and seventy Herero soldiers on horseback, riding four abreast led the procession. A military brass band playing German funeral marching music followed behind. The pallbearers were accompanied by a guard of honour of Herero soldiers attired in German military uniforms and ranks. Herero soldiers executed German military marching drills before the sea of assembled Herero and other mourners. Maherero ’ s funeral brought together over 2500 Herero soldiers, who came in military uniforms, and an unspecified number of women and children. 2 The assembly brought together many Herero people who had been scattered and displaced across the country and region due to the war and genocide. In attendance were Herero people and their allies from across Namibia, those exiled in Botswana, South Africa, Togo, and Cameroon. The funeral was the first occasion on which the locally based and diaspora Herero people gathered en masse after the 1904 - 1908 genocide. Also present at the funeral were representatives of the Union of South Africa. The white-run Union of South Africa government allied with the 215 Mimicry as Resistance and the Aesthetics of Genocide Memory in Namibia British to occupy and control Namibia from May 1915 to 1990 when the country gained political independence. South Africa ’ s attacks ended Germany ’ s 31-year reign on 9 July 1915. South Africa annexed and effectively colonized Namibia on behalf of the British. This was part of the stripping of all German-held colonies in the aftermath of its First World War defeat. 3 The mass assembly at Maherero ’ s funeral in 1923 was possible for many reasons, the primary one being that the German colonial regime had lost control of the territory in the wake of its World War I defeat. The Britishbacked Union of South African government had invaded the country with support from Maherero ’ s soldiers and was yet to consolidate its grip on the territory. 4 Allowing Herero people to congregate and bury their last Paramount Chief was therefore a politically astute move for the new occupying administration. It was a move designed to curry favour with Herero people by allowing them to celebrate the symbol of their resistance to German occupation and genocide. The Union of South Africa government sought to ingratiate and present itself as different from the defeated repressive German establishment. This was done by not only allowing, but also endorsing the funeral. The endorsement was publicly manifested by sending a high-powered delegation to the funeral to stand as an ally of Herero people. For their part, the surviving Herero who gathered for the burial used the occasion to assert their presence and refusal to be erased or to be mastered. This was visible to all in the way they appropriated and fashioned themselves in the costumes and military rites that had marked their domination. Locally based and diaspora Herero men displaced from Okahandja by the genocide turned up attired in 20 th century style German military garb. Herero women turned up dressed in long Victorian era inspired dresses accompanied by distinctive cow-horn hats. The uniforms and other symbols of the German establishment were assimilated by Herero people in the post 1904 - 1908 military defeat. This outward identification with the aggressor became a way to undo mastery through mimicry, which I outline in more detail in the sections below. 5 The Herero assembly then under the leadership of Chief Hosea Kutako decreed to meet annually to remember and organize as a community. Secondly, there was a time lag of a decade and a half between the end of the genocide in 1908 and Maherero ’ s death in exile in 1923. This pastness is vital in that it enabled remembrance to occur, since it is difficult to memorialize ongoing trauma. The passage of time allows trauma to recede into memory, creating a boundary between the present and the past. The content of the public speeches reflects historical as well as contemporary societal concerns and dynamics. For example, recent editions of the commemoration have paid attention to the reintegration of the community. This has included discussions about the repatriation of community members dispersed by the genocide across the country and the region. The return of Herero diaspora domiciled in Botswana as well as the reclamation of human remains exported to Europe have become a running theme in the commemorations. Red Flag Day as Performance Red Flag Day can be described as a “ cultural performance ” in that it possesses a “ limited time span, a beginning, and an end. It has an organized program of activity, a set of performers, an audience, and a place and occasion ” . 6 As a three-day polyvocal performance, Red Flag Day commemoration follows a set and established structure to form “ islands of time ” that transmit memory. 7 216 Pedzisai Maedza The annual nature of Red Flag Day make the commemoration a creative memory bridge for contemporary Herero generations. The repetitive nature of the commemoration fills the temporal and spatial gap between experiencing the colonial genocidal war and Maherero ’ s 1923 funeral. This is achieved through dress, ritualized performance of song, dance, elaborate paramilitary infantry and equestrian drills and marches, speech acts on communal history, and genocide reparation claims. The Red Flag commemoration reaffirms and celebrates Herero culture, history, traditions, and fallen heroes. It is a performative genuflection to the memory of Samuel Maherero who led the colonial resistance. It frames him as a symbol and surrogate of the Herero war against German colonial occupation and terrorism. This is evident in the fact that the commemoration usually takes place on the weekend closest to 23 August to coincide with the anniversary of Maherero ’ s burial. The colonial genocide and Samuel Maherero are cast as a “ master narrative ” that arouses a sense of a “ collective autobiography ” 8 . The commemoration is an immersive experience that renders memory perceptible. Through bodies, images, and space, it affords audiences and participants a second look at history. It enables them to walk the same route and participate in the same activities as their forebears. Herero people use Red Flag Day not only to commemorate and mark the death of Maherero, but also to re-affirm the Herero constitution as a distinct community and nation. Samuel Maherero stands as a surrogate for all the dead and displaced who led the resistance against colonial occupation. Red Flag Day is also a visual, aural, and gastronomical cultural spectacle. Through dress and costume, Herero men and women bear or wear the burden of ethnic representation. The image of Herero people in cultural vestments has become the de-facto icon of Herero culture and postcolonial Namibia as a country. Observers of Red Flag Day who encounter Herero people in cultural costumes are often struck by and comment on the similarity of the men ’ s costumes to 19th century Imperial German army uniforms. Equally striking are the Victorian-era inspired dress and the cow-horn hats worn by Herero women. The dress highlights the wearer ’ s height and mass, making her look fuller by means of several layers of puffed mutton sleeves and billowing skirts. The headdress occupies pride of place in the costume. It is created from a base scarf that is intricately curled together with a smooth and exquisite top scarf that is rolled up to form a horizontal cow horn design. It is unclear when the dress was adopted by the Herero. One suggestion is that the dress with its many undergarments offered some degree of protection from the wanton rapes and sexual assault women were subjected to by German colonial officers. It has also been suggested that Herero people began to wear the dress in the 19th Century, adopting it from Nama people who migrated from the Cape Colony in South Africa and settled among the Herero. 9 A third suggestion is that Herero people who converted to Christianity adopted it from missionaries and other families who were trading with Europeans before colonization and acquired the dress from this contact. 10 It is also possible that all these factors contributed in varying degrees to the intertwined influence and processes that marked the adoption of the dress as a cultural artefact. After the war and genocide of 1904 - 1908, large sections of Herero survivors began to wear the outdated Western fashion. 11 The dress is worn at all formal social and cultural occasions like the annual Red Flag Day commemorations, funerals, weddings, and other community gatherings. A few Herero women wear the dress every day, 217 Mimicry as Resistance and the Aesthetics of Genocide Memory in Namibia varying the fabric quality depending on the occasion. The dress is a distinct feature at the Red Flag Commemorations. Wearing the dress at the Red Flag Day commemoration is considered as more than observing tradition, gender, or style but as a manifestation of identity and culture. The Herero dresses for women and uniforms for men are often complimented with symbolic accessories and insignia, including medals, images, badges, scarfs, quilts, shawls, neckties, flags, posters, and banners. These accessories form part of the material culture that is put on display at sites of memory and monuments. The symbolic accessories are worn on different occasions during the annual commemoration. They aid in the recollection, retelling and embodiment of Herero history and memory. These material objects often mark landscapes where Herero people lived and sought sanctuary. Some mark places where battles were staged and recall the key figures involved in the battles. Other accessories call to mind important sites like prisons, torture chambers, deportation, and execution sites. Some of these symbolic accessories like medals have become heirlooms that are passed down across generations. They are part of a symbolic cultural memory register that is selective, shared, negotiated, interpreted, and re-interpreted by the attendees. This memory is transmitted to the younger generations. The symbols are also used to mark gender, status, and rank, particularly in the equestrian riders known as Oturupas, and family lineage, clan, and club affiliation. Kommando as a Site of Memory The place called the Kommando in Okahandja is the stage upon which most of the Red Flag commemoration rites are staged. The place is significant to Herero memory, as it was the site of Samuel Maherero ’ s funeral wake in 1923 and serves as a bridge linking the past and the present. The site recalls the past and is used to create contemporary experiences that foster the memory of the genocide. The main attraction of the Kommando in Okahandja as a site of memory is that as a space it fosters “ the illusion of not changing across time and of finding the past in the present ” 12 . This enables the Herero as “ a group to organize its actions and movements in relation to the stable configuration of the material world ” . 13 Red Flag Day fosters memory as “ a representation of the past embodied in both historical evidence and commemorative symbolism ” 14 . The Kommando in Okahandja produces a “ mental geography in which the past is mapped in our minds according to its most unforgettable places ” 15 through ritualized performance, commemorations, and monuments. At the Kommando, speeches, openair re-enactments of battle and flight scenes pitting Herero and German soldiers are staged. Speeches about Herero history, aspirations, virtues and culture are given. The speeches are delivered with song, battle formations, fighting sequences, dance reenactments and horse-riding intermissions. The re-enactments and speeches showcase and eulogize the heroics of Herero soldiers in the colonial war. Different age-specific regiments, from the very young to senior citizens, conduct marching contests at the Kommando. The best marchers among the troops are decided by the watching public who indicate their approval and admiration through loud cheers. One of the highlights of the 95 th commemoration was a change of guard ceremony arranged for retiring oturupas too old to continue marching. The retiring regiment presented a horse head taxidermy to the Paramount Chief. The Chief in turn awarded them with long and loyal service medals. Those who were scheduled to partake in the 218 Pedzisai Maedza retiring ceremony and had passed on were represented by their sons who received the medals in their stead. The sons wore their fathers ’ medals, uniforms, and rank in the regiment ’ s final march. The sons participating in this final parade were not merely representatives of the dead, but they become their fathers. We can understand the process of sons marching in their deceased fathers ’ stead as substitutes using Roach ’ s notion of “ surrogation ” . “ Surrogation ” entails “ auditioning stand-ins ” and “ trying out various candidates ” that can serve as imperfect but adequate alternates for missing and absent bodies and erased details about the past. 16 At Red Flag Day, the sons stood “ into the cavities created by loss through death or other forms of departure ” . 17 The sons stood in as substitutes to “ represent ” their absent fathers. The sons “ represent ” in the literal etymological sense of the word, which means “ to cause to reappear that which has disappeared ” . 18 Through their corporeal bodies, the sons are understood as being the surrogates through which their dead fathers reappear in the commemoration. 19 Staging Red Flag Day Red Flag Day ’ s form and dramaturgy alongside its content make it a mnemonic device for genocide memory. The event kicks off on Friday and on Saturday with the arrival of the guests and participants, while the main ceremony is held on Sunday. On the first day and through the second day, the Herero set up tents, caravans and other temporary shelters and stables for the horses around the Kommando centre in Okahandja. The tents and mass gathering do much more than provide accommodation. They are acts of land occupation, albeit temporarily, that use history and memory to lay claim to space and community. They are symbolic acts of resistance that undo colonial displacement and mapmaking through performance. Attendees register their presence and are introduced to the ancestors as and when they arrive. Family heads add their names annually to record their presence in a book of attendance. This textual register complements another ritual register whereby all visitors individually report their presence to a traditional High Priest who sits at the Sacred Hearth/ Holy Fire. The High Priest sits facing south with his back to the Kommando. A bucket of water and a cup are placed at his feet. Every visitor pays the High Priest a courtesy call and kneels, sits, or crouches at his feet. Through this posture, every visitor embodies and makes visible their subordination to the authority of the community. The visitor introduces themselves and states their family line, origin, and where they have come from. The priest cleanses the visitor who faces the Kommando by saying a prayer of welcome and protection. He finishes the ritual by rubbing water and ash on the visitor ’ s forehead and behind the left ear with his right hand. This connects the supplicant to the spirits of the land. After being cleansed, attendees are permitted to participate in one of the most important and sacred features, the commemoration which revolves around the ancestral holy fire. The location, direction, and handling of the holy fire and fire sticks used to light the holy fire are controlled and guided by strict codes of confidentiality. Congregants gather around the fire to pray, seek guidance, protection, and to avow their loyalty to the Herero nation. Attendees then greet and mingle with friends and relations and conduct rehearsals of their performances. Horsemen groom their horses and ride around the Kommando in various battle formations. Attendees share the evening meals together. After the meal, men and women sing and dance. The gathering sing praise songs, traditional odes and dances that can be 219 Mimicry as Resistance and the Aesthetics of Genocide Memory in Namibia traced to precolonial times. In former times, some of these songs were sung after successful hunting and war raids. The culinary, linguistic and performance practices that mark Red Flag Day are “ vortices of behavior ” 20 that have been passed across generations from the precolonial era through the genocidal war to today. Dance and dancing as cultural performances play a constitutive role in the articulation of Herero identity. The corporeal bodies of the dancers are considered as a producer, not just a reflection of identity and a contribution to its preservation. This is because dance embodies the memory and knowledge of community values, beliefs, cosmological, and philosophical worldviews. The all-night dances at Red Flag Day echo those that alarmed colonial European missionary sensibilities into banning Herero cultural dances. The account of a Rhenish missionary who witnessed the revival of cultural dances and singing in 1915 reveals the contested space Herero song and dance occupied under German colonialism. The missionary in question made the following remarks in the wake of the South African Union Army ’ s advance and rout of the Germany army: Most [Herero] believed that the golden age of Omaere (fermented milk) drinking had dawned, an age in which they could, as they had in the past, live in the field and on cattle posts, without being drawn into labor. [. . .] heathendom resurfaced [. . .] heathen dances once again became fashionable, even amongst the Herero who usually seldom indulged in dancing. Whole nights long one could hear the howling (Gejohle), it also happened that on Sundays they danced in church. My rebukes had little effect. As soon as the people saw me they walked away, only to return later to make things worse. Eventually I asked the native commissioner to take steps against the ever-increasing dancing. 21 Procession The Red Flag Day procession serves as the highlight of this theatre of memory. The procession to the graves and back is a mass spectacle of crowd choreography. Every year the historical military escort march of 1923 is repeated. The march to the graves is staged as a procession through the streets from the Kommando to and from the Okahandja cemetery. Herero pilgrims emerge at the break of dawn on Sunday, singing in costume, and assemble in marching formation at the Kommando parade grounds. At sunrise with the blessing of the priests and spiritual leaders, the gathering heads off to visit graves at the Herero cemetery. The gathering is led by the spiritual leaders followed by mounted horsemen. Herero people who partake in the commemorations manifest their identity and resistance to erasure through performance, mass participation, and annual procession. The procession re-enactment reminds the community and outsiders that the marching community, as individuals and collectively as Herero people, embody a distinct identity and past. By annually asserting bodily presence and continuity in a place that sought their extinction, Herero people stage a performative undoing of their colonial mastery and subjugation. The attendees serve as the Boalian “ spect-actors ” in the cultural performance. Non-Herero visitors, tourists and townspeople who gather to witness the spectacle serve as on-site audiences. The assembly forms part of the collective scene that is experienced by virtual audiences that follow proceedings via television, radio broadcast, and social media. The mounted horsemen who form part of the procession and conduct equestrian drills and battle formations at the Kommando are known as Oturupa regiments. They march behind the priests and spiritual leaders to and from the graves and at the 220 Pedzisai Maedza Kommando. The Oturupa are a Herero adaptation of the “ troop players ” in colonial German army regiments. These regiments were disparagingly called play/ wannabe soldiers by German colonialists. Despite the disparaging term, the performances of these Herero regiments were cause for alarm for some German farmers and settlers who feared the possibility of another uprising. The first documented reference to “ troop playing ” comes from 1906. Jakob Irle, a missionary operating at Otjosazu Mission in Okahandja, observed young Herero men “ playing soldiers ” from the mid-1890 s. 22 Irle suggests that Chief Samuel Maharero instigated the movement by distributing red hat bands to young Herero men. For Irle: It was as if these red bands introduced a spirit of rebellion among the youth. People drilled, swore, drank excessively, and aped the German soldiers. Our young girls were also affected by this evil spirit 23 Some oral sources suggest that the Oturupa emerged in German military camps where some Herero were conscripted into the German Imperial army. It has also been suggested that the Oturupa movement “ was a symbolic resurrection of the Herero army in the eclectic style which it adopted before the risings of 1904 and 1907 ” 24 . The presence and proliferation of the Oturupa was a cause for concern and a source of discomfort for the German colonial establishment in Namibia. In 1917, a worried German settler wrote an official letter of complaint to the military magistrate. The farmer alleged that the Herero had mobilized 17 companies, spread over the whole country. Here in Okamatangara there is part of the 8th company. I am of the opinion that this forming of companies is due in play and for love of playing at soldier. Still in serious cases the Hereros might use their organization for turning against the authorities. 25 The farmer ’ s concerns were probably widely shared, since a response was issued two months after the letter was sent. This official circular to military magistrates and native commissioners ordered a ban on Oturupa drills. According to the circular, the “ drilling of Herero natives has assumed extensive proportions ” such that, “ a state of unrest and suspicion has been occasioned amongst other native tribes and the farming population ” 26 . This supposed unrest was used as a pretext for the ban. Present-day Oturupa are age-specific regiments that receive instruction about Herero history and memory and undertake communal work for the survival of the community. The Oturupa observe their ranks in the marching arrangements during Red Flag Days. Higher ranked officials march ahead of lower ranks. Strict gender and age lines are also observed. Men march ahead of women, with the youngest ones bringing up the rear alongside a sizable group of tourists and town-folk who gather for the spectacle. Maintaining the same marching formation and the same route is considered essential to give attendees direct contact with close to a hundred years of history, linking the memories of the past with present-day actions. Cemetery At the Okahandja cemetery, Herero priests and spiritual leaders pray for permission for the assembly to enter and pay homage inside the fenced grave enclosure of the Tjamuaha- Maherero royal family. The procession enters in single file, touching, and weeping at every grave in turn. Herero people pay homage to every individual grave and commune with the deceased. The solemnity, marked with literal weeping for the dead, and the prominence of the grave visits and maintenance during the Red Flag commem- 221 Mimicry as Resistance and the Aesthetics of Genocide Memory in Namibia orations speak to the value that deceased forebears and ancestors are given over the living. Portraits of dead chiefs are hung on their graves while that of the reigning Herero Paramount Chief is printed on t-shirts, clipon badges, and wrap around cloths. The chiefs, particularly those who died in the colonial genocide, are eulogized as martyrs who perished in the struggle for collective redemption. The agony of loss and the lamentation that marks this ritual illustrates that, for the attendees, the past and the present are perceived and experienced as synchronous to each other. This rite of ancestor reverence is one of the most important rituals of the annual commemoration. The graves provide a focal site to observe the rites of remembrance, worship, and to commune with the ancestors. The sanctity of the occasion is reinforced by the fact that collective community visits to the graveyard are only sanctioned on this occasion and for actual burials. The communion with the ancestors at the gravesites is a form of “ praesentia ” , a religious notion that refers to “ a social encounter ” of the living “ with the presence of the absent ” . 27 The sacredness of graves is a time-honoured Herero belief and culture. According to a 1905 account by Ludwig Conradt, a German trader and Samuel Maherero confidante, the “ desecration of the graves of Okahandja ” by German tomb raiders was “ one of the main reasons why the Herero had risen up ” . 28 From the Royal Cemetery, the gathering crosses the road to an adjacent church where German officers and Herero people lie buried in the graveyard. According to oral sources, some Herero people sought refuge in the Church and were welcomed by German Missionaries during the genocide. The missionaries then secretly informed the colonial army about their presence. The church was barricaded from the outside before being set on fire. The gravesite visits are also used to remember those who were killed in the genocide and were not afforded the decency of graves or were buried in mass graves. As part of the shoot on sight extermination order and to terrorize the Herero, some colonial German troops refused to grant Herero people burials and instead burned their bodies. This is most evident at sites of battles from the colonial war where one only finds the graves of colonial German army soldiers and not their opponents. The Omaheke desert is strewn with the skeletal remains of livestock and of those who died from German bullets or were left to die due to injuries, illness, starvation, thirst or after drinking from poisoned wells as the community fled. Remembering the Namibian genocide and preserving the memory of the dead becomes “ an ethical act, a moral duty ” . 29 Participating in the Red Flag Day commemoration, making, preserving, and transmitting genocide memory becomes what Primo Levi calls a duty to remember. This “ duty to remember ” lies not “ only in having a deep concern for the past but in transmitting the meaning of the past events to the next generation ” . 30 It is “ a duty to teach ” and complements “ the duty to forget ” , which “ is a duty to go beyond anger and hatred ” . 31 Red Flag Day contributes to keeping “ alive the memory of suffering over against the general tendency of history to celebrate victors ” . 32 Afterwards the gathering reforms its marching formation and parades back to the Kommando led by the horsemen. The procession and praesentia forms a chain of memory that links the dead to the living. It is a bond of memory that publicly performs Herero identity and heritage. Herero identity is proclaimed through participation rather than simply territorial or birth rights. This is partly due to the forced dispersal of the community locally and into the diaspora during the 1904 - 1908 colonial genocidal war. 222 Pedzisai Maedza Cultural Authenticity Distinct elements of 20 th Century German and Victorian culture colour the Red Flag Day commemorations and culture. This has sometimes led to debates about the authenticity of Herero cultural processes. Authenticity is a fluid and complex concept that is difficult to define outside the context in which it is applied and used. The further the past is perceived to be and the less there is evidence of change, the more authentic tradition is often imagined to be. Applying the notion of undoing mastery to cultural practices like Red Flag Day raises conceptual challenges and unique opportunities. This is primarily due to the complex place and status of mimicry in mimetic forms like dance, marches and dress. This is complicated further by the challenges of reconciling what cultural insiders and those on the outside perceive as authentic. As with most indigenous practices and coupled with the public nature of Red Flag Day and the Herero costumes as cultural practices, we observe that “ cultural outsiders are often quite confident in judging authenticity even when quite unfamiliar with the particulars of the practice in question ” . 33 At the core of the authenticity debate is the often-unchallenged idea that indigenous cultures are not complex, contradictory, and diverse. Indigenous cultures are not envisioned as capable of changing, recreating, or mutating and still retaining their right and claim to be indigenous. 34 Connected to this is the colonial paternalism and notion of mastery that imagines change or innovation as anathema to non-Western cultures. This paternalism sees change as leading or signalling the end of indigenous people ’ s culture and distinctiveness. In societies that are less collective, the authenticity of artistic expression is often accepted when the work is deemed as a true reflection of the creator ’ s personality, spirit, or character. In more collective contexts like that of the Herero, the authenticity of a shared cultural performance tradition is derived by the people themselves. A cultural performance is authentic if it is original to the community and its forebears. It is more useful to deal with this conundrum in two ways. Firstly, by recognizing that there is “ no absolute standard of authenticity ” and considering “ authenticators . . .and the production and construction of authenticity ” . 35 Secondly, by following the oft-cited Benedict Anderson injunction that all communities are imagined. This means that societies cannot be distinguished by “ their falsity/ genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined ” . 36 This enables us to reconcile what might appear to be foreign and particularly Western innovations, like flags, the colonial German uniforms for men, Victorian dresses for women and marches. These elements would otherwise be shunned by conservative cultural gatekeepers as a contamination of Herero tradition. Mimicry as resistance Across many parts of the colonized worlds, at various times and to varying degrees the colonized have engaged and continue to engage in practices that seem to mimic colonizers. Colonial mimicry is always different to the colonial model, and it undermines colonialists ’ claims to being the sole arbitrators of truth and authority through this slippage. 37 Mimesis can be understood in two broad ways. On one hand, it can be regarded as a creative attempt to truthfully represent a model. On the other hand, it is “ a mode of reading that transforms an object into a gestus or a dialectical image ” that is “ truths produced in engaged interpretation ” . 38 Red Flag Day as a cultural performance of history encapsulates both understandings of mimesis. It not only re-enacts 223 Mimicry as Resistance and the Aesthetics of Genocide Memory in Namibia Samuel Maherero ’ s burial and other scenes from the war and genocide, but it reimagines these. Through the contemporary annual staging of Red Flag Day, we can begin to ask, “ how colonial mimicry can subvert social and racial hierarchies in the postcolony ” . 39 In other words, we can ask how the Herero dress and Red Flag Day commemorative culture undo colonial mastery. Parallels have been drawn between the Herero Oturupa of Namibia and the Ben Ngoma of Tanzania 40 as well as the Songhai and Djerma of Niger with the Hauka. 41 All these communities wear uniforms, march, and wear ranks drawn from the German Imperial army. The Herero of Namibia are different from the Ben Ngoma of Tanzania in that the Red Flag performance is not an attempt to portray others but a specific version of self. Through performance and “ cultural heritage ” , the Herero society “ becomes visible to itself and to others. 42 Red Flag Day is used simultaneously as “ a model of society ” and as “ a model for society. ” 43 The historical or backward glance of the Herero Red Flag Day performances is also different to the contemporary focus of Beni Ngoma across East Africa and the Hauka of Niger. The Red Flag is an annual reiteration and weaving of a chain of memory from the present to the historical events of the past. This annual calendrical recall of fixed historical events makes the Red Flag Commemoration an explicit link in the remembrance that ensures the continuity of the genocide memory. The commemoration is a “ concretion of identity ” upon which the Herero community “ bases its consciousness of unity and specificity upon this knowledge and derives formative and normative impulses from it, which allows the group to reproduce its identity ” as a nation. 44 Some of Terence Ranger ’ s insights on the Ben Ngoma of Tanzania can be usefully applied to the Herero in Namibia. Ranger cautions against categorizing performances by colonized people as parasitic mimesis. He suggests that we look at such performances as creative and versatile cultural responses to colonialism. Herero costumes and other Red Flag Day cultural practices show that “ culture changes and that this change is not something that is necessarily mourned and certainly not romanticized ” but can be pragmatic or realistic. 45 Herero costumes can be read as a pointer to the lingering effects of the genocide and a reminder of the dynamism of memory and culture in the face of a “ historical catastrophe ” . 46 For Paul Stoller, mimetic performances represent an effort to “ master the master by appropriating this embodied behavior ” . 47 Michael Taussig suggests that this demonstrates mimesis as ‘ sympathetic magic ’ 48 whereby the Herero hoped to undo and or assume the power of the German establishment by siphoning its character. This view is echoed by Jeremy Sarkin who suggests that “ appropriating and reinterpreting these uniforms and the army drill routines can be interpreted as a means of transforming elements of colonial subordination into symbols of liberation and resistance. ” 49 Herero Red Flag Day performances can also be understood as evidence and as an example of the “ invention of traditions ” which emerged in response to colonialism. Hobsbawm and Ranger suggest that: African observers of the new colonial society could hardly miss the significance that Europeans attached to the public rituals of monarchy, the gradations of military rank, the rituals of bureaucracy. Africans who sought to manipulate these symbols for themselves, without accepting the implications of subordination within a neo-tradition of governance, were usually accused by Europeans of triviality, of confusing form with reality and of imagining that it was possible to achieve power or prosperity just by emulating ritual practice. But if this were true, the overemphasis on the forms had already been 224 Pedzisai Maedza created by colonial whites themselves, most of whom were the beneficiaries rather than the creators of wealth and power. If their monopoly of the rites and symbols of neotradition was so important to the whites, it was by no means foolish of Africans to seek to appropriate them. 50 Performing Memory My reading of Red Flag Day as a performance of Herero cultural memory and identity is premised on the idea that “ nations are constructed through their common rituals ” . 51 Since 1923, bar the years when the commemorations were cancelled or postponed, Red Flag Day has served as a public and commonly shared platform for the Herero to “ imagine ” their “ community ” as a people distinct from the nation-state. This is done not only through the material enactment of the Red Flag, but in the meanings attached to the actions that the Herero perform. Red Flag Day influences the transmission of genocide memory and communal continuity. It also frames what the Herero remember. It influences how the Herero remember and as an annual event, it informs the community when to publicly remember. The continuity and persistence of the commemoration through colonial and postcolonial encounters shows that “ the way in which people choose to remember an event - indeed how they adjust to it - is as historically important as the event itself ” . 52 This equally applies to what is not said and is rendered in and through silence. This is particularly so given that “ among those who have suffered enslavement, cultural asphyxiation, religious persecution, gender, race and class discrimination and political repression, silences should be seen as facts ” . 53 Red Flag Day can be understood as: [a] complex set of mnemonic practices through which collective views of the past are continuously being shaped, circulated, reproduced, and (un)critically transformed with the help of media. 54 The annual iteration of the Red Flag commemorations centre the 1904 - 1908 war and genocide in the “ national imaginaries ” of the Herero and Namibian population. 55 “ By commemorating the dead as well as events associated with the dead, Herero bring together history, religion, and the Oturupa, which they use to determine, define, and display their own identity as Herero ” . 56 Although the commemoration is not (yet) an official public holiday that is observed across the whole of Namibia, the three-day gathering is regarded as a sacrosanct pilgrimage by the Herero community. The proceedings are usually broadcast nationally on the Namibian Television and Radio and reported in the press. This extensive media coverage allows a transitory synchronization of citizens ’ memories. 57 Conclusion Red Flag Day serves as a reminder of how colonial violence and terrorism continues to shape land and property ownership rights among other aspects of Herero lives. Using performance to lay claim to land and space is both “ a dramaturgical and a territorial act ” . 58 By occupying Okahandja and visiting the graves of Herero ancestors, the performance highlights what is absent, and lays claim to loss. Through performance, Red Flag Day events form and reaffirm the Herero people as a nation. Red Flag Day intervenes in the construction and production of genocide history and remembrance in the present and for future generations. The annual congregation in Okahandja, the traditional heartland of the Herero nation, is a symbolic and physical temporary re-appropriation of annexed ancestral land and space. Using the 225 Mimicry as Resistance and the Aesthetics of Genocide Memory in Namibia materiality of their bodies, the attendees occupy Okahandja in an act of defiance to their extermination, as an avowal of Herero identity, endurance, and a declaration of visibility in their running claim to the land. Red Flag Day is also a foundational platform in the public declaration of Herero identity. When we frame Red Flag Day as history, we see how performance entwines the past, the present, and the future. Since 1923, Red Flag Day repeats history annually through (re-)enactment but does not replicate it. The public, collective, and cyclical nature of Red Flag Day makes the commemoration “ a technology of remembrance as well as a way of inscribing memories into individual and collective memory ” 59 . The commemoration as a form and structure influences the types of narratives that are told and retold. Charismatic figures like Samuel Maherero eclipse the more private and personal narratives of the genocide. The commemoration builds, transmits, and preserves collective cultural memory in three primary ways. The calendrical nature of the Red Flag means that when attendees and audiences are “ remembering the past ” they do not only remember “ events and persons ” from the colonial genocide, but they also recall earlier reiterations of the commemoration. 60 This is because contemporary pilgrims are attempting to remember an event that they did not experience themselves. As a result, their efforts echo earlier commemorations, which provide “ the ambient noise and issues that surround telling ” . 61 Red Flag Day events “ tell both the story of events and its own unfolding as narrative ” . 62 The temporal gap between the genocide and the contemporary Red Flag Day means that the commemorations serve as an “ object of remembrance ” that bridges this gap in contemporary generations. 63 Notes 1 Jan-Bart Gewald, “ Colonization, genocide and resurgence: the Herero of Namibia 1890 - 1933 ” , in Michael Bollig / Jan-Bart Gewald (eds.), People, Cattle and land: Transformations of a pastoral society in SouthWestern Africa, Köln 2000, pp. 187 - 225. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 Jan-Bart Gewald, Herero Heroes: a sociopolitical history of the Herero of Namibia, 1890 - 1923, Ohio 1999, p. 274. 5 George Steinmetz, Julia Hell, “ The Visual Archive of Colonialism: Germany and Namibia ” , in: Public Culture 18: 1 (2006), pp. 147 - 183, here p. 165. 6 Milton Singer, “ Preface ” , in: Milton Singer (ed.), Traditional India: Structure and Change, Philadelphia 1959, pp. ix-xxii, here p. xiii. 7 Jan Assmann, “ Collective Memory and Cultural Identity ” , trans. John Czaplicka, in: New German Critique 65 (1995), pp. 125 - 133, here p. 129. 8 Paul Connerton, How societies remember, Cambridge 1989, p. 70. 9 Anne Alfhild Bell Hendrickson, Historical Idioms of Identity Representation among the OvaHerero in Southern Africa, PhD diss., New York University 1992. 10 Deborah Durham, “ The Predicament of Dress: Polyvalency and the ironies of cultural identity ” , in: American Ethnologist 26: 2 (May 1999), pp. 389 - 411, here p. 400. 11 Heinrich Vedder, “ The Herero ” , in: Carl Hugo Linsingen Hahn / Heinrich Veder / Loise Fourie (eds.), The Native Tribes of SouthWest Africa, London 1928, pp. 154 - 211. 12 Maurice Halbwachs, La Mémoire Collective, Paris 1997, p. 236. 13 Ibid., p. 236. 14 Barry Schwartz, Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory, Chicago 2000, p. 9. 15 Patrick H. Hutton, History as an Art of Memory, Hanover 1993, p. 80. 226 Pedzisai Maedza 16 Joseph Roach, Cities of the Dead: Circum- Atlantic Performance, New York City 1996, p. 121. 17 Ann Rigney, “ All this happened, more or less: What a novelist made of the bombing of Dresden ” , in: History and Theory 48: 2 (2009), pp. 5 - 24, here p. 6. 18 Lucian Lévy-Bruhl, Primitives and the Supernatural, trans. Lilian A. Clare , New York 1935[1973], p. 123. 19 Ibid. 20 Roach, Cities of the Dead, p. 26. 21 Gewald, “ Colonization, genocide and resurgence: the Herero of Namibia 1890 - 1933 ” , p. 213. 22 Wolfgang Werner, “‘ Playing Soldiers ’ : The Truppenspieler Movement among the Herero of Namibia, 1915 to ca. 1945 ” , in: Journal of Southern African Studies 16: 3 (1990), pp. 476 - 502, here p. 481. 23 Ibid. 24 Zedekia Ngavirue, Political Parties and Interest Groups In South West Africa: A Study of a Plural Society, Oxford 1972, p. 262. 25 W. Eichhoff, Okamatangara to Military Magistrate, Otjiwarongo, (ADM 117, 3979 1917.), (official translation). 26 Werner, “ Playing Soldiers ” , p. 483. 27 Peter R. L. Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity, Chicago 1981, p. 86; Anna Petersson, The Presence of the Absent: Memorials and Places of Ritual, Licentiate Thesis, Lund University 2004, p. 121. 28 David Olusoga and Casper W. Erichsen, The Kaiser ’ s Holocaust: Germany ’ s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism, London 2010, p. 128. 29 Emilie Pine, The Politics of Irish Memory Performing Remembrance in Contemporary Irish Culture, London 2011, p. 13. 30 Paul Ricoeur, “ Memory and Forgetting ” , in: Richard Kearney / Mark Dooley (eds.), Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy, London and New York 1999, pp. 5 - 11, here, p. 9. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid., p. 10. 33 Mathew Krystal, Indigenous Dance and Dancing Indian: Contested Representation in the Global Era, Boulder 2012, p. 32. 34 Linda T. I. Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, London and Chicago 1999, p. 74. 35 Kay B. Warren and Jean E. Jackson (eds.), Indigenous Movements, Self-representation, and the State in Latin America, Austin 2002, p. 10. 36 Benedict Anderson, Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism, London 2006, p. 15. 37 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, New York 1994, pp. 110 - 11. 38 Elin Diamond, Unmaking Mimesis: Essays on Feminism and Theater, New York 1997, p. ii. 39 Christina S. Mcmahon, “ Mimesis and the Historical Imagination: (Re)Staging History in Cape Verde, West Africa ” , in: Theatre Research International 33: 1 (2008), pp. 20 - 39, here, p. 22. 40 Terence Ranger, Dance and Society in East Africa: the Beni Ngoma, Berkeley 1975. 41 Paul Stoller, Embodying Colonial Memories: Spirit Possession, Power and the Hauka in West Africa, London and New York 1995, p. 113. 42 Assmann, “ Collective Memory and Cultural Identity ” , p. 133. 43 Elie Podeh, The Politics of National Celebrations in the Arab Middle East, Cambridge and New York 2011, p. 3. 44 Assmann, “ Collective Memory and Cultural Identity ” , p. 128. 45 Krystal, Indigenous Dance and Dancing Indian, p. 35. 46 Anthony Bogues, Empire of Liberty: Power, Desire, and Freedom, New Hampshire 2010, p. 40. 47 Stoller, Embodying Colonial Memories, p. 113. 48 Michael Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity, New York 1993, p. xiii. 49 Jeremy Sarkin, Colonial Genocide and Reparations Claims in the 21st Century: The Socio-Legal Context of Claims under International Law by the Herero against Germany 227 Mimicry as Resistance and the Aesthetics of Genocide Memory in Namibia for Genocide in Namibia, 1904 - 1908, Westport and London 2009, p. 46. 50 Terence Ranger, “ The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa ” , in: Eric Hobsbawm / Terence Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridgeshire 1983, pp. 211 - 262, here p. 237. 51 Timothy Kubal, Cultural Movements and Collective Memory: Christopher Columbus and the Rewriting of the National Origin Myth, London 2008, p. 168. 52 Philip Frankel, An Ordinary Atrocity. Sharpeville and Its Massacre, Johannesburg 2001, p. 17. 53 Jacques Depelchin, Silences in African History: Between the Syndromes of Discovery and Abolition, Dar es Salaam 2005. 54 Maaike Bleeker, “ Introduction: On Technology & Memory ” , in: Performance Research 17: 3 (2012), pp. 1 - 7, here p. 2. 55 Kelly M. Askew, Performing the Nation: Swahili Music and Cultural Politics in Tanzania, Chicago 2002. 56 Jan-Bart Gewald, “ Herero Annual Parades: Commemorating to Create ” , in: Behrend Heike / Geider Thomas (eds.), Afrikaner schreiben zurück: Texte und Bilder afrikanischer Ethnographen, Köln 1998, pp. 131 - 151, here p. 145. 57 Eviatar Zerubavel, “ Calendars and History: A Comparative Study of the Social Organization of National Memory ” , in: Jeffry K. Olick (ed.), States of Memory: Continuities, Conflicts and Transformation in National Retrospection, Durham 2003, pp. 315 - 37. 58 Till, “ Staging the Past ” , p. 254. 59 Astrid Erll, Ann Rigney, “ Literature, and the Production of Cultural Memory: Introduction ” , in: European Journal of English Studies 10: 2 (2006), pp. 111 - 115, here p. 112. 60 Erll and Rigney, “ Literature, and the Production of Cultural Memory ” , p. 112. 61 James E. Young, At Memory ’ s Edge: After- Images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture, New Haven and London 2000, p. 18. 62 Ibid. 63 Erll and Rigney, “ Literature and the Production of Cultural Memory ” , p. 112. 228 Pedzisai Maedza