Episode 6 - Confronting Genocide. German Colonialism and African Struggles for Justice

In Episode 6, we talk with transnational activist and poet, Jephta Nguherimo about his work for restorative justice and reparations for the German genocide against the Ovaherero and Nama peoples in today’s Namibia. Jephta is part the Ovaherero tribe and will throughout the conversation share insights from decades of fighting for justice both through court rooms, art and poetry. Together, we will touch upon the historical trajectories of reparations, the bigger and smaller success, and everything there still is to fight for. The challenges are still many, and up until today only some people are invited to the table of negotiations meanwhile, German civil society’s awareness of the country’s colonial past remains small. Staytuned to hear why Jeptha nevertheless continues to fight with optimism for what the future and new generations have to bring. 

Bio

Jephta U. Nguherimo is a reparation activist, poet and a former professional labor negotiator of Herero-descent based in Washington D.C. Jephta Nguherimo has been instrumental in the reparation movement for the OvaHerero and Nama genocides, over the last three decades. He was the co-founder of the OvaHerero, Ovambanderu, and Nama Genocide Institute in the US. He organized conferences and other platforms that eventually forced the German government to confront and acknowledge the Genocide of 1904-08.

Mentioned in Podcast

• News article about German Gov. Official apology and reparations (Reuters) https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/germany-officially-calls-colonial-era-killings-namibia-genocide-2021-05-28/
• African union – 2025 year of reparations https://au.int/en/theme/2025

Further material

• Article (documentary inside article) with Al-Jezeera https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2022/11/6/reckoning-with-genocide-in-namibia
• “unBuried-unMarked” book by Jephta https://www.buecher.de/artikel/buch/unburied-unmarked/57792151/
• Germany’s colonial history with Namibia Time-line https://www.dw.com/en/namibia-a-timeline-of-germanys-brutal-colonial-history/a-57729985
• General history of Namibia: https://www.britannica.com/place/Namibia/The-South-African-conquest
• European Center for Constitutional Human Rights – “Colonial Repercussions: Namibia”: 115 years after the genocide: https://www.ecchr.eu/fileadmin/Publikationen/ECCHR_NAMIBIA_DS.pdf

• de Wolff, K. A., & Nguherimo, J. U. (2025). The Ovaherero and Nama People’s Struggle for Restorative Justice: An Activist-Scholar Lens. Journal of Genocide Research, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2025.2559463