Namibia's Red Line – South Africa's Imperial 'Barbarian Border'

1 Namibia's Red Line – South Africa's imperial 'barbarian border' (paper presented by Giorgio Miescher, Basler Afrika Bibliographien/University of Basel at the ABORNE meeting in Johannesburg, 10-12 September 2009) Draft, not to quote without permission, not for (internet) circulation!!!! Abstract: My paper is based on a PhD thesis on the history of the so-called Red Line, the veterinary and settlement border separating northern and central Namibia. The thesis reconstructs the complex process of establishing this border in the period between the 1890s and the 1960s when it eventually materialised as a fence running from east to west. In postcolonial Namibia the fence, which is 1250 kilometres long, constitutes one of the central structural colonial legacies. The history of the Red Line raises several questions with regard to African borders in general, which I would like to address in my paper. First, the example of the Red Line directs our attention to internal African borders and challenges existing border typologies and hierarchies in historiography. In fact, for many decades the Red Line was of much greater relevance than any international border of colonial Namibia. This role was reflected e.g. in colonial jurisdiction which upgraded the status of the inner-Namibian border to a de iure international border. Second, the example of the Red Line requires a broadening of the dichotomy between boundary and frontier. Instead the concept of the imperial 'barbarian border' ('Barbarengrenze') proved to be more fruitful for an interpretation of the history of a border which cannot be framed in terms of the closing of a frontier and the establishment of a fixed boundary alone. Third and last, an understanding of the Red Line as an African example of an imperial 'barbarian border' leads to the question of which empire had in fact to be protected against which ‘barbarians’. The history of the Red Line is, approached in a regional perspective, the history of South African imperialism. I Introduction One of the core legacies of Namibia’s colonial history is a huge double-fence (which is over two metres high) that runs from east to west over a length of 1250 kilometres. It physically separates northern and central Namibia. The fence can only be crossed at a few gates and hence allows for a strict control of the movement of animals as well as of people and goods. The Veterinary Cordon Fence, that’s how the fence is officially called, is meant to protect central Namibia from contagious animal diseases from northern Namibia and the inner-parts of Africa in general. The fence dates from the 1960s and was erected after the country’s farming economy was severely hit by an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, which was first prevalent in northern Namibia before occurring in central Namibia, too. However, the construction of the fence in the 1960s was only the culmination of a colonial policy of border 2 building and cordoning off central from northern Namibia. The construction of the fence meant that an inner-Namibian border, which had emerged over many decades of colonial rule and had led to a spatial and structural division of the colony into two parts, eventually became a visible physical reality. The conceptualisation of colonial Namibia into spatially separated territories goes back to the German rule and was later taken over and developed further by the South African colonial power. The division implied differences with regard to the administration as well as to the legal and economic order. Basically the colony was spatially and structurally divided into a so-called police zone, comprising central and southern Namibia, which was dominated by the settler society, and the territories beyond this zone in the north, where only Africans lived. The border between these two entities was officially called police zone boundary but also became known as the Red Line, as it was marked with red colour on most of the maps since the 1920s and with the years the two terms became almost synonyms. The course of this inner-Namibian border preceding the fence was changed many times and is only partly identical with the today fence, which nevertheless colloquially is still known as the “Red Line”. In Namibian historiography the Red Line’s relevance as a core structural characteristic for an understanding of the country’s colonial history is undisputed and almost taken for granted. This historiographical self-evidence stands in a sharp contrast to the surprisingly little knowledge about the history of this inner-Namibian border. A gap I tried to fill with a detailed reconstruction of the establishment of this border from its beginnings in the late 19th century until its transformation into the said fence as a throughout physical materialisation in the landscape in the 1960s.1 My study is basically a reconstruction of over 60 years of Namibian history from the perspective of a border, which I conceive as a physical territorial veterinary and settlement border without ignoring its further symbolic or metaphysical importance. In this paper I will, firstly, give an overview of the establishment of the internal border, the various stages of the border building process and the various and sometimes conflicting roles the border had in shaping the colony. Eventually I will explore how the example of the Red Line allows a broadening of the frontier-boundary dichotomy, by introducing the concept of the imperial border 'barbarian border' or "Barbarengrenze" borrowed from European historiography. 3 II The establishment of an internal border in Namibia (1890s-1920s) The invention of a veterinary border: the Rinderpest Defence Line of 1896/97 The origin of the inner-Namibian border which became known as the Red Line goes back to the late 19th century. In the mid 1890s the southern African subcontinent was threatened by the Rinderpest, which had spread from Eastern Africa southwards.2 In 1896 the German colonial power tried to protect its colony from the advancing Rinderpest by establishing a military defence line.3 The aim was to control and if necessary to hinder any movement of game, stock, and people. The course of such a line, which was conceptualised ideally as a regularly patrolled fence – but in fact consisted of a chain of police posts – was determined by several factors: the effective territorial extent (or the limits) of the colonial power, the topographic conditions on the ground (like waterholes, springs, etc), and the existing networks of roads and paths. Imperial Germany was not in control of the whole territory claimed as colony and its rule (based on military alliances with local African leaders) was limited to the central and southern parts of the country. Therefore the defence line was not established along the international borders but in the sparsely populated area between central and northern Namibia constituting the edge of the colonial power. At carefully selected strategic points (with regard to topographic conditions and to the road network) the German military and their local auxiliaries put up a chain of provisional posts which were connected by regular patrols.4 North of the imagined defence line, a 20 miles wide stretch was declared a neutral zone to be 5 kept free of people, stock and game. 1 Giorgio Miescher, "Die Rote Linie. Die Geschichte der Veterinär- und Siedlungsgrenze in Namibia (1890er bis 1969er Jahre)", unpublished PhD-thesis, University of Basel, March 2009 2 Various authors discussed the late 19th century Rinderpest epizootic in Southern Africa; i.e. Charles van Onselen, "Reactions to Rinderpest in Southern Africa 1896-97", Journal of African History, XIII, 3 (1972), pp. 473-488; Pule Phoofolo, "Epidemics and Revolutions: The Rinderpest Epidemic in Late Nineteenth Century southern Africa", Past and Present, 138 (1992), pp. 112-143; Maurice K.K. Mutowo, "Animal Diseases and Human Populations in Colonial Zimbabwe: The Rinderpest Epidemic of 1896-1898", Zambezia (2001), XXVIII (1), pp. 1-22; Daniel Gilfoyle, "Veterinary Research and the African Rinderpest Epizootic: the Cape Colony, 1896-1898", Journal of Southern African Studies, 29 (1), 2003, pp. 133-154. 3 The establishment of this defence line is discussed in depth in Miescher, op. cit., 2009, pp. 37-49. 4 See map No. 1, ibid., p. 46f. 5 See e.g. "Instruktionen für die Station Okaukuejo", 21. Nov. 1896 by Hauptmann Kaiser. (NAN-ZBU-2385-V III vol 3) See also: "Die Verordnung betreffend Massregeln zur Verhütung der Einschleppung der Rinderpest gez. der Kaiserliche Landeshauptmann Leutwein, Windhoek 22. Juni 1896" and "Zusatzverordnung vom 30. September 1896". (NAN-ZBU-1311-O III c 1 vol 1) 4 In the short run the defence line was a failure, as the Rinderpest reached the colony and led to dramatic losses in cattle.6 Nevertheless, the Rinderpest defence line of 1896/97 marked the emergence of the concept of an inner-Namibian border to protect the Namibian heartland from dangers coming from inside the continent, and the Rinderpest defence line defined in situ and not in remote offices, remained relevant. The invention of a settlement border – the police zone boundary of 1907 The definition of what the Namibian heartland was (and for whom) became more accentuated a few years later. After the dramatic experience of the costly war starting in 1904 the German colonial power decided to concentrate its energy on those parts of the colony that were of economic importance.7 A map drawn in Berlin was sent to Windhoek in 1907. A thick blue line on the map marked the boundary of the territory which was perceived to be of importance and where European settlement should be concentrated.8 Yet, the blue line was not understood as a closed border but rather as a strong recommendation of the territorial limits of European settlements for which police protection could be guaranteed.

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