Hi everyone,

It has almost been a year since we launched our petition, but the statue of Curt von François still towers over the city.

Since the petition has launched, Windhoek has elected a new mayor who publicly holds decolonial views. We hope that the new mayor and counsellors will do the right thing and place the statue at the newly opened Windhoek City Museum with a full context of the statue's history, and the man behind it and the history of his descendants, starting from his daughter Josephine von François who he left behind, and how her life was affected by being a woman of interracial heritage in a colonial and apartheid Namibia. 

Last year, someone shared that there was a Trotha Strasse hidden in the hills of Luxury Hill/ Klein Windhoek. Yes, that Trotha. The same Lothar von Trotha who is infamous for the Extermination Order that killed thousands of Herero and Nama people still has a street honouring him in one the most affluent neighbourhoods of Windhoek. These same neighbourhoods are still built on the backs of the underpaid and exploited descendants of the genocide.

There is also a Lindequist Street, just off Robert Mugabe in the CBD next to the old statehouse. Friederich von Lindequist was the mastermind behind the concentration camps that killed survivors from the initial extermination order. By working prisoners to death in concentration camps in Windhoek, Okahandja, Karibib, Swakop and Luderitz, he is another symbol of colonial violence that does not deserve to be honoured by the City.

The old archaic street signs should join the statue at their new home in the Windhoek City Musuem, and the new street names should honour women and members of the LGBTQ+ community instead since we already have enough streets named after men in this city.

I have also been in touch with filmmaker Vincent Moloi who made a documentary film called "The Skulls of My People" and he has agreed to allow us to screen it at our next film screening and discussion. Details will be shared soon.

Thank you all for your continued support of the petition. Please continue to share and sign far and wide and follow a Curt Farewell on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. 

 P.S.

Please do not donate anything via change.org. It doesn't actually go to the petition.

In love and solidarity

Hildegard