Aaron Akinyemi writes about an episode that, in the annals of modern genocide, is not as well known as it ought to be. I have been aware of it for going on 40 years, having first read about it in Rosa Luxemburg's writings. But the fate of the Herero and Nama peoples in the early 20th century, in what was then German South West Africa (now Namibia), is one of the more brutal chapters in the history of European colonialism, and it deserves greater attention than it has had.