Behind the Mask

A round of applause is due when a ‘respectable’ news publication makes the kind of gaffe made by Namibia’s Allgemeine Zeitung, because somebody needs to celebrate their stupidity. The German language newspaper captured images of the annual Kuska-Maskenball held over the weekend in the largest coastal town, Swakopmund. Clearly seen in the images are three people dressed as Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members and in another photo we see a tag-team costume with a slave owner and some workers in blackface. 

At first glance it might be easy to assume that this happened somewhere in the U.S. or in Europe but the truth is far sadder as this was in Africa in present day Namibia. Namibia is a rich and very progressive African country and recently celebrated 25 years of independence from German colonial occupation and apartheid. It is one of the few African countries with a mixed population as many of the descendants of former colonialists call it home. Unfortunately, this fossilized community has flourished in what can only be described as a time bubble, harbouring the racist and supremacist ideals of old in a world that has since moved on and if not, has the decency to acknowledge the erroneous and shameful nature of that period.

As part of their traditional heritage, the Namibian-German community celebrates an annual carnival in the major towns. The organising body, Kuska, includes a costume competition as part of the festivities and seemingly saw nothing wrong with these participants and their offensive get-ups. Naturally the only German print news outlet was on the scene to cover the event but, the adjectives Allgemeine Zeitung used for the blatantly racist costumes were ‘original’ and ‘imaginative’. Unfortunately for many Namibians, no imagination is needed as they actually survived the harrowing colonial experience. The racist nature of many of Namibia’s pale natives is no secret and it doesn’t even seem necessary to mention that it is a minority population, but just when we thought they couldn’t stoop to such abhorrent levels- they did. 

As expected the furor on social media has lead the publication to make a meaningless apology on Facebook with the promise of making it formal in the paper’s next edition. The fact that this somehow got past an editor and made it to print is mind boggling, or is it a cleverly constructed guise expressing the values of those behind the paper and consequently its subscribers? One can only assume the Allgemeine Zeitung thought the non-German speaking population wouldn’t read the paper.

Some, understandably, angry Namibians made their sentiments known by commenting things such as: “We might as well wear Nazi printed shirts with Swastikas and apologize afterwards right. Surely we will be forgiven.” A petition has been launched calling for action to be taken against the paper, the people in the costumes and Kuska. What is clear is that this kind of brazen racism, in its many shapes and forms in Namibia, will be dealt with. Namibia's permanent secretary and the Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology issued a media statement in which it made it crystal clear that continuation of such behavior would result in the banning of such 'cultural' events. I couldn't agree more!