Press release of the NGO Alliance “No Humboldt 21! Moratorium for the Humboldt Forum in the Berlin Palace” and the Global Afrikan Congress, Berlin, 13.12.2013

The international campaign alliance “No Humboldt 21!”, supported by more than 80 non-governmental organizations, and the Global African Congress strongly reject the current proposal of the “Stiftung Zukunft Berlin” to name the square in front of the controversial Humboldt Forum in the Berlin Palace after Nelson Mandela. Instead, they emphatically renew the demand already made in 2004 by numerous African associations in Berlin to rename Mohrenstrasse, which dates back to the Brandenburg-Prussian trade in enslaved people in the late 17th century, Nelson-Mandela-Strasse.

“The attempt by the Stiftung Zukunft Berlin, which is involved in the Humboldt Forum, to rehabilitate the large-scale project, which has come under public criticism as neocolonial and Eurocentric, by creating a Nelson Mandela Square in front of it is as transparent as it is unacceptable,” says Christian Kopp of Berlin Postkolonial. “The name of the anti-apartheid fighter must not be misused as cosmetics for the controversial non-European collections of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which also contain thousands of appropriated cultural treasures and human remains from forcibly colonized territories.”

Yonas Endrias of the Global Afrikan Congress emphasizes: “Already ten years ago, all African associations in Berlin jointly demanded the renaming of Mohrenstraße to Nelson-Mandela-Straße. The current name of the street, where enslaved minors from Africa lived who had to serve at the Brandenburg-Prussian court, is based on a racist foreign designation and violates the dignity of Black people in Berlin.”

Contact: Yonas Endrias, Global Afrikan Congress, endriasy@aol.com, 01799404690; Christian Kopp, “No Humboldt 21!” campaign, buero@berlin-postkolonial.de, 01799100976

Info: www.no-humboldt21.de