context?

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

Thank you, I agree with this, but I thought you were, with
this quote and the other one about the gods leaving,
suggesting something else. Thanks for the clarification.

rj wrote:
> 
> TF
> > ... They would finish the extermination the Germans
> > began in 1904.
> >
> >   A generation earlier, the declining number of live Herero
> > births was a topic of medical interest throughout southern
> > Africa. ...
> 
> I.e., "a generation earlier" than 1904. At least, that's how I read it.
> It seems to be an imperative of textual cohesion that the comparative
> "earlier" refers to the date mentioned immediately prior.
> 
> > Why did it decline?
> 
> The Herero *women* had "chosen to commit tribal suicide". At least, this
> is the intimation at 317.30-8. It is the "white Afrikaner", not the
> Germans, who are puzzled by this. The "birth decline" (fairly clearly
> and coherently documented as pre-existing before 1904) and the "tribal
> suicide" are here identified as one and the same.
> 
> > What does this have to do with your
> > moral relativism?
> 
> They are new possibilities, or undisclosed "truths", which alter
> historical and moral preconceptions: both those of characters within the
> text (eg Weissmann's) and beyond it (i.e the reader's).
> 
> best