this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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Namibian President Hage G. Geingob blasted Germany on Saturday for defending Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, pointing to the genocide Germany itself perpetrated on Namibians in the early 1900s.

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[–] UnfortunateShort 20 points 10 months ago (3 children)

While I disagree with the German and Israeli governments, "you did genocide too" is not an argument for anything. You will be hard pressed to find a country that never participated in one and the current situation hardly compares to randomly invading and colonizing a country not even on the same continent as your own.

There are plenty of arguments you can find against the Israeli and my own Government, no need to resort to populist speeches.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

“you did genocide too” is not an argument for anything

Actually that's not the argument.

The argument is: first recognize all your genocides, before attempting to defend one.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

We recognize the genocide against hereros and Namas as genocide though. We even started paying reparations recently finally.

[–] UnfortunateShort -4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Which would still be a stupid argument, because these two alleged genocides are very different in nature, scale and also completely unrelated. I disagree that that's the argument tho.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

From the article posted here:

"The German government is yet to fully atone for the genocide it committed on Namibian soil," Geingob's office said on social media.

"In light of Germany's inability to draw lessons from its horrific history, President Geingob expresses deep concern with the shocking decision communicated by [Germany] ... in which it rejected the morally upright indictment brought forward by South Africa before the ICJ that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza," Geingob's office said.

[–] UnfortunateShort 0 points 10 months ago

Yes, thank you, I've read the article.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Slovenians never commited genocide.

[–] Squizzy 5 points 10 months ago

I don't think it's that hard to find a genocide free nation. Shared experiences make up your culture and that informs your politics.

Germany would likely be on the right side of history if they had incinerated millions of men women and children.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago

Germany was defending Israel ...

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Well, Germany is kind of in a tough spot here...

[–] [email protected] 39 points 10 months ago

Only because the Holocaust was always framed as "that horrible thing that happened to the Jews that we need to prevent from ever happening again to Jews" instead of "that horrible thing that happened to people (some of which were Jews) and we need to prevent that from happening to any people ever again".

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

One if our own making. If we stopped defending genocide we wouldn't be here.