Change in Apartheid South Africa and Colonial Namibia. An

Journal of Namibian Studies, 22 (2017): 117 – 118 ISSN: 2197-5523 (online) Review: Gerhard Tötemeyer, A Rebel for very moving, though one does wonder Change in Apartheid South Africa and about his recollection of making the Colonial Namibia. An Autobiography , G. Hitler salute at school using one arm to Tötemeyer, 2017. hold up the other and so annoying his teacher. Gerhard Tötemeyer’s autobiography Back in Southern Africa he lived for a should be of wide interest in both South time what he calls a cocooned existence Africa and Namibia, not only because he at Keetmanshoop, then attended has had a fascinating life, but perhaps Stellenbosch University, where in 1956 especially because of the way in which he participated in a march against the he traces his development from a state Soviet Union’s invasion of Hungary. of political ignorance and naivety to one After graduating, he returned to of awareness of the need for change, Namibia to teach whites in Windhoek, away from apartheid and colonialism. 1 but he also taught history to blacks in As a scholar, he is able to add appro- evening classes, which helped his priate context as he tells us his own growing awareness of another world. story, and his memoir contains far more Offered a scholarship to study at the self-reflection than, for example, that by University of Freiburg, he returned to the Namibian politician Dirk Mudge. 2 Germany in 1963 and there became Tötemeyer has an excellent memory and more critical of the segregationist his anecdotes are well-chosen and policies being applied in both South almost always relevant. Africa and Namibia. He worked briefly as a journalist on the Afrikaans newspaper Born in Gibeon, Namibia in 1935, the Die Burger in Cape Town before accept- son of Rhenish missionaries, Tötemeyer ing a lectureship in Political Science at grew up in Keetmanshoop in southern the University of Stellenbosch. Namibia but went with his family to Germany in 1939 – of all years! – While at Stellenbosch he worked on a where he remained until 1950. His doctorate on ‘the role of the Owambo account of life in Germany as a young elites in the political development of child during the Second World War, and Owambo’. This required him to spend of the extreme privations in the years considerable time in northern Namibia, immediately after it, is presented in a for which he had to obtain government matter-of-fact style but is nevertheless permission. He admits that he had no idea what was going on in Ovamboland before he went there, but his eyes were 1 This English version is, we are told (p. 1), a shortened version of his Das Werden und Sein soon opened to the way in which the Eines Rebellen - Autobiographische und histo- South African occupiers were using rische Notizen eines Deutsch-Namibiers , torture and other forms of harassment Windhoek, Kuiseb, 2015. to control the local population. This led 2 Dirk Mudge, All the Way to an Independent to his “political turnabout” (p. 121) and Namibia , Pretoria, Protea, 2016. A review by the he became a “supporter” of SWAPO (he present author is in Historia, November 2016, pp. 139-141, and one by Tilman Dedering in later tells us that for “tactical New Contree , 77, December 2016, pp. 151-153. considerations” he did not become a Copyright © 2017 Otjivanda Presse.Essen ISSN 1863-5954 (print) ISSN 2197-5523 (online) member until 1991 (p. 182), though his isation in the new era, first working on younger brother was one of the first the commission to establish the new whites to join SWAPO). He turned his regions and constituencies, then as thesis into a book which was published Director of Elections from 1992, and in London and New York and remains a then as Deputy Minister of Local and significant source on its subject matter. Regional Government and Housing from At the time it was especially noteworthy 2000. He later returned to academe as for including one of the first detailed adviser to the Vice Chancellor of the and scholarly accounts of SWAPO’s University of Namibia, Peter Katjavivi, development. 3 whom he had first met in London in After trying to bring the reality of what 1977. Tötemeyer had to face opposition was happening in Namibia to the to his ideas of decentralisation from authorities in South Africa, advising that within SWAPO and was critical of the way SWAPO should be allowed to join the in which members of SWAPO supported Turnhalle negotiations, and inviting Mugabe’s behaviour in Zimbabwe, while Daniel Tjongarero to lecture at Stellen- SWAPO rejected his idea of a mixed bosch, Tötemeyer had his membership electoral system. He merely mentions of the National Party terminated. the two books he published on re- Following an uncomfortable meeting conciliation, which he saw as an ongoing with Prime Minister John Vorster, he process, and the last brief chapter in decided to leave Stellenbosch and take this memoir, entitled Rest(less), says he up a post at the new university in the has given up city life to live mostly near so-called independent Transkei. He the Etosha National Park, which is found the situation there farcical and presumably where he wrote much of this was eventually deported, after which he memoir. But in 2017 he remains an taught briefly at the University of Cape active member of the SADC Electoral Town before returning to Namibia to the Advisory Council, travelling to countries Academy, having asked Sam Nujoma, in the region before, during and after via Gwen Lister, if he approved of such a their elections. move. A Rebel for Change is an honest In Windhoek he worked in NPP-435 and account of a very full life. The few errors so was a member of the delegations – the chronology relating to Sharpeville that met SWAPO in Sweden in June is muddled and it was not only women 1988 and at Kabwe, Zambia, in October who were protesting (85); Biko’s that year. While there is little new in his murder is confused (116); SWAPO’s account of Namibia’s move towards Moscow and Vietnam bases were not independence, he provides an inter- near Lubango – do not detract from an esting description of how he came to be impressive work. a specialist on elections and decentral- Chris Saunders 3 Gerhard Tötemeyer, Namibia Old and New. University of Cape Town Traditional and Modern Leaders in Ovamboland , London, Hurst, 1978, esp. 192-208. 118 .

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