monumental
politiCs

in namibia

The re-siting of the Rider Monument
in central Windhoek from the site of
one of the concentration camps from the
first genocide of the 20th century to a new
location in front of the museum at the
Alte Feste has raised many questions.
So too, has the construction of the
Independence Memorial Museum
on the very site formally occupied
by the Rider Monument. Andrew
Byerley looks into Namibias symbolic
and heritage space.

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Dr Andrew Byerley is a Nordic researcher
at the Nordic Africa Institute. He is
responsible for the research project
Seeking the good city and the good citizen:
Colonial and post-colonial governmentality
and urban planning in Africa.

urban/andreW byerley

"

old monuments erected in honour of the fallen usually
occupy the liminal zone of the there but almost not there.
They are taken-for-granted elements of cityscapes that, at
most, attract the scoptic gaze of the tourist. Occasionally,
however, on a major anniversary or as a result of some convo-
luted process of representational reinvestment or de-invest-
ment, monuments may briefly reanimate public imagination.

Some monuments are, in a manner of speaking, akin to
teeth in need of root-canal treatment. Extracting them, even
the thought of their being tweaked to left or right, can un-
leash anxiety, a wagging of (political) tongues or even a flai-
ling of fists (cf. the relocation of the Bronze Soldier of Tal-
lin in 2007).

The Reiterdenkmal (Rider Monument) high on Robert
Mugabe Avenue in central Windhoek is a case in point. In-
augurated in 1912 by Dr Theodore Seitz, then governor of
German South-West Africa, it celebrated the so-called vic-
tory of the Schutztruppen (The Protection Army) over the
indigenous Ovaherero and Nama. Today, however, and as
William Kentridges installation The Black Box/Chambre
Noir has so hauntingly intimated, this victory is widely
viewed as the first genocide of the long 20th century. In-

deed, the very roots of this monument bury them-
selves into the site of one of the many concentration

camps where thousands of Ovaherero and
Nama were wilfully wasted to death in the after-

math of military hostilities.
Sparking intensive political and media debate,

in August 2009 the Rider Monument was wrapped

in bubble wrap and hoisted away into storage. In 2010, it
was re-sited some 50 metres away in front of the museum
at the Alte Feste a fort built by the Schutztruppen in
188990 as a stronghold to preserve peace and order be-
tween the rivaling Namas and Hereros [sic] (onsite plaque
inscription).

Seen in isolation, the removal of the Reiterdenkmal may
have heartened those who have called for a decoloniza-
tion of the mind in todays Namibia. Indeed, as J. Zeller
argued in an article in The Namibian in 2008, the new site
in front of the museum at the Alte Feste seems optimal as
a place and space for critical memory politic. However,
seen in the context of the construction of the mammoth
Independence Memorial Museum on the very site formally
occupied by the Reiterdenkmal, the move has been alter-
natively interpreted as a further episode in the unilateral
recolonization of Namibias symbolic and heritage space
by Swapo, the political party and former liberation move-
ment.

the jury Is stIll out, but added to other (in)famous examp-
les (including Heroes Acre, the military museum at Oka-
handja, the new State House) all constructed by North
Korean companies the Reiterdenkmal/Independence Me-
morial Museum episode has caused some to talk of Swapos
Pyongyang-ization of space, while others have expressed
concern over an increasing undercurrent of potentially ex-
clusionary politics in the production of monumental space
in Namibia today. n

Inauguration of Reiterdenkmal
Monument, 1912.
souRCe: naMibia national aRChives, Windhoek

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