Diluting drinks and deepening discontent : colonial liquor controls and public resistance in Windhoek, Namibia

TitleDiluting drinks and deepening discontent : colonial liquor controls and public resistance in Windhoek, Namibia
Publication TypeBook Chapter
Year of Publication2002
AuthorsJ.B. Gewald
EditorD.F. Bryceson
Secondary TitleAlcohol in Africa : mixing business, pleasure, and politics
Pagination117 - 138
Date Published2002///
PublisherNH : Heinemann
Place PublishedPortsmouth
Publication Languageeng
KeywordsAfrica, alcohol policy, alcoholic beverages, colonialism, drinking customs, Namibia, resistance, South Africa
Abstract

The colonial conquest of Namibia was extremely brutal. Repressive controls continued in the decades that followed as exemplified by the South African colonial administration's regulation of the production and consumption of alcohol by the territory's black African inhabitants. Nonetheless, the colonial State's policies were inconsistent and vigorously opposed at every turn by differing sections of the black population. In this chapter, the unlikely alliance of two of the territory's Herero urban groups, the 'Otruppe', illiterate Herero men, and the female 'khari' beer brewers, is examined. During the 1920s and 1930s, they faced the colonial State's attempts to undercut and ultimately eradicate the illicit production of alcohol through the establishment of a Location Advisory Board. In so doing, they were pitted against the colonial State and a newly emerging Herero political elite. The 'angry young men' of the 'Otruppe' and the Herero women brewers proved to be an invincible alliance that managed to evade colonial regulations on alcohol. Bibliogr., notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]

IR handle/ Full text URLhttp://hdl.handle.net/1887/4835
Citation Key836