Tag Archives: Germany

News from NoHumboldt 21!

glokal is part of the alliance against the Humboldt Forum in the Berlin Palace. While criticism has so far been voiced more digitally, e.g. in a resolution that has already been signed by over 70 organizations and over 500 individuals, a series of exciting events around criticism of the Humboldt Forum will take place this fall. On 22.10. a central event will take place in the Werkstatt der Kulturen on the topic of “Prussian Cultural Heritage? Postcolonial and Development Perspectives on the Humboldt Forum – Dealing with Cultural Assets and Human Remains from the Colonial Era”. held. On 24.10. launches a series of dialogue forums with the event “No amnesty on Genocide!” at the House of Democracy.

On the political level, there was in the meantime a small inquiry of the Green Party Berlin to the Berlin Senate on the postcolonial discussion of the Humboldt Forum. Dr. Kwame Opuko questions the Berlin Senate’s response in a detailed article, “Did Germans Never Directly or Indirectly Hear Nigeria’s Demand for Return of Looted Artifacts?” and criticizes both the handling of colonial looted artifacts and the hypocritical political rhetoric.

Finally, we draw your attention to an open exchange of letters between Frank Holl and the No Humboldt 21! alliance. In his letter, the Humboldt biographer accused the campaign of portraying Alexander von Humboldt as a representative of European colonialism while suppressing his anti-colonial positions. In a letter of response, the alliance partners of No Humboldt 21! show in detail why its quotations, activities and basic attitude must very well be problematized from a postcolonial perspective.

The Big Five as dangerous as ever: German development cooperation, colonial-racist imagery, and civil society’s response

In response to the various statements against the BMZ poster campaign “The Big Five”, we have written an article that is intended to present a self-critical review and to make the debate accessible to an English-speaking audience. The article has been published in the journal Critical Literacy: Theories and Practices. We hope it is helpful for the further discussion about racism and power relations in DC. The article can be downloaded here.

Statement on the feature “Musical Missionization. Baroque music from the jungle”.

On August 30, 2013, Deutschlandfunk broadcast the feature “Musikalische Missionierung. Baroque music from the jungle”. Lena Böllinger has written a letter in response to this, which we would like to make public herewith. Several organizations have signed it, including glocal.

Addendum: Judith Grümmer wrote a response for Deutschlandfunk, which you can find here.

Dear Sir or Madam,

I heard your August 30, 2013 feature “Musical Missionization. Baroque Music from the Jungle” on Deutschlandfunk. I am deeply appalled and outraged by the way colonialism and the related missionary activities of the Jesuits have been addressed. At no point in your feature is there a critical reflection on the connection between missionization, colonial history of violence, and racism. Instead, the feature attempts to whitewash and legitimize missionization as “soft colonization.” In doing so, it updates and reproduces colonial-racist stereotypes and white[1] superiority fantasies. Continue reading →

Institutional discrimination

Recently, the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency published its new report on discrimination in education and employment. The report not only details how discriminatory and exclusionary the German education and employment landscape is, it also makes extensive recommendations for change.

A look at development policy institutions and organizations in Germany confirms that here, too, and especially here, these recommendations should urgently be taken note of. The newly founded umbrella organization Migration-Development-Participation e.V. (MEPa) emphasizes in a statement that they “miss an adequate integration of migrant experts in many federal states” and that they “do not see equal opportunities for migrants in the NGO structures at present”. AG Sporen lobal from Hamburg is even more specific. In an article entitled “One year of accusations of racism against Eine Welt Netzwerk Hamburg e.V.”, she looks back at how the accusation of structural racism against the state network was dealt with:
“A wall of silence surrounds the moveGLOBAL affair, like most discrimination cases in this country. The personalities in the former moveGLOBAL project advisory board cover EWNW’s back and sweep the affair under the carpet. The Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Landesnetzwerke in der Eine-Welt-Arbeit – agl – does not question its Hamburg member EWNW. The partly newly elected board of the EWNW is silent – as is the old one. The donor BMZ seems to have forgotten the issue. Business as usual – One year of accusations of racism against Eine Welt Netzwerk Hamburg e. V.”

Continue reading →

Stage victory against windmills

In recent days, both a colonial racist broadcast series and a racist commercial have been shut down. While it’s not entirely clear what prompted Pro7 to discontinue the Reality Queens of Safari broadcast series, extensive criticism from NGOs and many others certainly contributed, in addition to low ratings. The campaign against the show even managed to be mentioned on Spiegel Online. In the case of the Ferrero commercial, the matter is clearer. Media such as Neues Deutschland, taz and Stern reported on it, but above all there were many letters from readers and a storm of criticism in “social networks”. Even if insight could look different than explaining to us conceptually dumb people that “[b]y the current advertising […] it is a question of the representation of a product variation of Ferrero Küsschen with white chocolate” and that “[a]lle statements […] thus refer solely to the white chocolate [beziehen] – of course without xenophobic ulterior motives”, Ferrero has decided to revise the advertisement due to the “critical voices […]”. The video clip was withdrawn and the slogan “Germany votes white” is no longer on any advertising posters.


 

Asylum: Game vs. reality

In Berlin-Hellersdorf, the citizens’ initiative Marzahn-Hellersdorf defends itself with T-shirt imprints such as “No to the home” and the dates of the pogrom in Rostock-Lichtenhagen against a planned home for asylum seekers in their district. In Berlin-Reinickendorf, tenants have hired a lawyer to enforce that children from the neighboring home are no longer allowed to play on the playground in front of their house. In Aarau, Switzerland, the city council prohibits asylum seekers from visiting the local swimming pool, sports facilities, library and churches.

At the same time as these racist actions, ZDF is launching the show “Auf der Flucht – Das Experiment” (On the Run – The Experiment), in which German celebrities are to set off “to the countries of origin of asylum seekers in Germany” and thus “experience first-hand [erfahren] what it means to be on the run”. Instead of letting refugees themselves have their say, German state television prefers to produce a program full of racist assessments and descriptions. Nadia Shehadeh has written an open letter to the ZDF television council. It can also be signed here .

Incidentally, RTL and Pro7 are currently broadcasting similarly problematic series: Wild Girls – Mit Highheels durch Afrika and Reality Queens of Safari. The latter has now been discontinued due to low ratings and extensive criticism from NGOs and many others. Not unreasonably, a commenter on africaisacountry wonders “What’s wrong with the Germans?”

Where are all the…? HERE!

Currently, several poster campaigns, from insurance companies to ministries, are again advertising with white children in “Indian costumes”. While in North America there is at least a social and scientific discussion about cultural appropriation – even if there is not much to be seen of it in the mainstream – this has hardly arrived in Germany. With the exception of minor adbusting campaigns such as the “Leitkultur macht stark” poster, poster campaigns such as those of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research seem to be an unchallenged part of German reality.

Continue reading →

Big Brother Award for the Federal Police

The anti-privacy and data protection “Big Brother Award”, which has been awarded by the digitalcourage association for years, has this year been awarded to the German Federal Police in the Authorities & Administration category. The reason is the everyday practice of racial profiling, in which people are controlled by the police without suspicion on the basis of racist screening. Among other things, the laudation calls for mandatory anti-racism training for the police, as well as a legal ban on police checks based on external characteristics.

 

UN Committee against Racism (CERD) reprimands the Federal Republic in the Sarrazin case

In 2009, the Turkish Federation Berlin Brandenburg filed a criminal complaint against Thilo Sarrazin for incitement of the people and insult with the Berlin public prosecutor’s office. The proceedings were discontinued. Now the Turkish Federation has filed a complaint with the UN Committee against Racism (CERD), and in its decision it has severely reprimanded the German government.

TBB spokesman Hilmi Kaya TURAN said in a press release: “This is a historic decision. The CERD Committee found that Mr. Sarrazin’s statements were based on a sense of racial superiority or hatred and contained elements of incitement to racial discrimination. The CERD Committee has determined that despite existing legal provisions, implementation of the provisions of the Convention in the Federal Republic is inadequate in practice. The Committee has called on the Federal Republic to act accordingly. In addition, the committee implicitly recommended appropriate training for prosecutors and judges. We expect the federal government, the Bundestag and the state governments to implement the CERD recommendations without delay.”