Old location

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Old location
Coordinates 22 ° 35 ′  S , 17 ° 4 ′  E Coordinates: 22 ° 35 ′  S , 17 ° 4 ′  E
Basic data
Country Namibia

region

Khomas
Former district of Windhoek
ISO 3166-2 NA-KH
Entrance to the old location
Entrance to the old location
Mass grave placed under monument protection
Old shipyard before the official establishment (around 1906)

Old Location ( German  Alte Werft ) was a black suburb in South West Africa . It was located in what is now the Namibian capital Windhoek in the area of ​​what is now the Hochland Park district . The area became famous through a massacre on December 10, 1959 and, as the ultimate trigger for the Namibian liberation struggle, plays a prominent role in the history of Namibia .

history

The Old Location, officially known as the Main Location at the time, was a residential area that had grown organically since 1912 and had a slum-like character , mainly due to its tin and wooden huts . In the 1950s, the city administration began planning to improve the quality of life for all residents. They should get land and houses with sanitary facilities, electricity and water. At the same time, the South African occupying power began to implement apartheid in South West Africa. In this context, an attempt was made to establish a clear separation between blacks and whites .

Since the old location was hardly separated from the white residential areas, the construction of a new suburb for the blacks began in 1956. Most of the residents of the old location rejected the move plans, despite apparently better living conditions. They named the new residential area Katutura , “the place where we don't want to live”. The move plans were finally categorically rejected after the first demonstrations in September 1959. The South African administration therefore announced the eviction . There were persistent, violent clashes between residents and security forces, which ended in a massacre on December 10, 1959 , the "uprising in the old shipyard" ( Old location Uprising ). On that day, police shot and killed 11 people and injured another 44. It is also the main reason that December 10th, Human Rights Day, is a public holiday in Namibia . By 1962 around 7000 residents of the old location had been relocated to Katutura.

In 1968 the old location was officially closed and white people began to settle here. Today, only the testimony Old Location Cemetery ( cemetery ) with attached Museum of the residential area and the massacre.

See also

literature

  • Henning Melber : Revisiting the Windhoek Old Location , Basler Afrika Bibliographien, No. 3, 2016. ( available online )
  • Henning Melber, Christine von Garnier: Katutura. Everyday life in the ghetto , Southern Africa Information Center, Bonn 1988, ISBN 3921614260 .

Web links

Commons : Old Location  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Starting signal for the struggle for independence. Gondwana Collection, December 11, 2015.
  2. ^ History of Old Location and Katutura . Namibweb. Retrieved November 6, 2008.
  3. ^ Robert I Rotberg: Suffer the Future: Policy Choices in Southern Africa , illustrated. Edition, Harvard University Press, 1980, ISBN 0674854012 , p. 207.
  4. ↑ The residents of Katutura . In: Allgemeine Zeitung , August 15, 1962. 
  5. ^ New Museum for Old Location. New Era, October 4, 2006.