African Colonization and Transformations: A Theoretical Psychological Analysis of Colonialism and Apartheid in Namibia

Kazuvire R. H. Veii (Department of Psychology, University of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia)

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ABSTRACT:

Namibia became a colony of Germany in 1884 at the time when Europe was partitioning Africa into colonies during the “Scramble for Africa”. After the defeat of Germany in World War I, Namibia went on to become, once again, a colony of the then apartheid South Africa in 1915. Since then, Namibia has been subjected to all the evils of not only further colonialism but also apartheid at the hands of the then South Africa. The colonization and occupation of Namibia by both Germany and South Africa was rather a brutal one, resulting in the dispossession of land and property of the colonial subjects and the occupation of their psyches. South African colonialism and apartheid left many, if not all, Namibians deeply psychologically scarred.

This paper is an attempt to provide a theoretical psychological analysis of the following three issues:

1. the possible psycho-historical origins of colonial subjugation of the Namibian people,
2. the impact of this subjugation on the psyche of the victims,
3. the possible transmission from generations to generations of the internalized consequences of colonization, subjugation, and apartheid racial oppression and segregation by the colonial, apartheid subjects, and
4. the psychological transformation necessary for the liberation of the minds of the Namibians, both the former colonial masters and the former colonial subjects. Psychological theories, in particular, Vygotsky’s socio-historical psychology theory and his general genetic law of cultural development, Jung’s analytic psychology, Hegel’s and Mannoni’s views on the master-slave dialectics, and Fanon’s paradigm on the dialectics of white masters and black slaves and, where possible, other theories will be applied in an attempt provide an hypothesis for what could possibly have given rise to this state of affairs in Namibia and the new transformations from the dynamics of this discourse.