Herero latest

[Jim Frame]

The first I ever heard of the Namibian genocide was my reading of V in 1965.  Later I got more details from a book by Ruth First, a South-African white activist living in exile in England, entitled Southwest Africa.  

jbf



-----Original Message-----
From: Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
To: e tb <eburns at gmail.com>
Cc: “pynchon-l at waste.org“ <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wed, May 17, 2017 7:49 am
Subject: Re: Herero latest



Very interesting - thanks! It's no criticism of Pynchon's "big picture" uses of colonialism, genocide, etc. to notice how gnarly and convoluted and political the moral aftermath gets in real time in real Namibia. Ditto for Israel and Palestinians, England and Ireland/Scotland, Russia and post-1990 neighbors, US and Mexico or Puerto Rico or..., you name it. The simplest Oppressor-Victim narratives often obscure a lot of division, infighting and betrayal among the victims. 


Come to think of it, you could argue that P *does* open that angle of view in the debates among the Herero in Germany. And I'm certain there was deliberation behind Mason & Dixon's arrival at the ancient, well-worn Native American warpath... and Wren Provenance's discovery in AtD that *somebody* fiercer had driven the proto-Aztecs from an earlier homeland to the Valley of Mexico.   
 



On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 9:55 AM, e tb <eburns at gmail.com> wrote:

Salt in old wounds: What Germany owes Namibia | The Economist


http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21721918-saying-sorry-atrocities-century-ago-has-so-far-made-matters-worse-what





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