The member organizations of the international NGO alliance “No Humboldt 21!” urge the German government, the Berlin Senate and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin/Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (SMB/SPK) to increase transparency regarding non-European human remains and cultural objects with special significance for the societies of origin. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Reparations
Not all that glitters is gold! – Rusty and Golden Radiator Awards leave a bitter aftertaste
Announced today, December 10
SAIH – The Norwegian Students and Academics International Assistance Fund
announced the winners of two international awards: the Rusty Radiator Award for the most damaging fundraising video and the Golden Radiator Award for the most creative fundraising video. Much media attention and more than two million clicks on the satirical video “Radi-Aid: Africa for Norway” released a year ago have encouraged SAIH to take new actions. The awards were accompanied by a new video clip “Let’s save Africa! – gone wrong”, in which the young black Michael shows us common patterns in fundraising. He makes Western expectations his profession: “Every time these filmmakers come to us in Africa, I’m the first person they call. I’m incredibly talented. Wait – this is sad Africa.”
The short film successfully problematizes in a satirical way how charity commercials are shot. From reports of filmmakers who have been involved in such shoots, we know how people are literally trained to look sad, women have to take off their jewelry for the shoot, or children have to exchange their school uniforms for dirty rags – sometimes despite the objections and incomprehension of those photographed. It does not make the situation any better that many aid organizations have long since switched to shooting their commercials and posters in Europe and casting Black people and People of Color here for their purposes.
Thanks to the Radiator Awards, the discussion about problematic donation advertising in the run-up to Christmas has also made it into Germany’s leading media. On “Let’s save Africa! – gone wrong”, for example, the Süddeutsche Zeitung has published an article. The racism researcher cited in it, Nadja Ofuatey-Alazard, has her say in a lengthy interview on Deutschlandradio Kultur and comments on the clip as follows:
Nazi kidnapped in the Humboldt University
In their letter of confession, the group Wissen im Widerstand explains why they kidnapped Adolf Butenandt and what their demands are for his return. In the place where the portrait of Adolf Butenandt hung, there is now a portrait of refugee activist Napuli Paul Langa. Continue reading
The Caribbean nations are demanding reparations
Members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have decided to promote actions to monitor the reparations for the genocide of the native people and slavery and call on the former colonizers (United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, etc. ) to apologize and compensate their former colonies for the colonial period. Colonialism Reparation supports this decision and provides background information.
1. International Day for Reparations Related to Colonialism / Journée internationale pour les réparations liées à la Colonisation
On October 12, 1492 Christopher Columbus arrived in the “New World”. The date marks the beginning of conquest and exploitation. A coalition of organizations and initiatives worldwide is calling for the first “International Day for Reparations Related to Colonialism” in 2013. glokal has signed the appeal. Here is a short excerpt from it:
Colonization is a global phenomenon: there is hardly a country in the world that has not been colonized, a colonizer, or both, such as the United States. Colonization is one of the phenomena that has most disrupted humanity. It has left a deep and lasting impression on all continents and the consequences of this are
- demographic: there are millions of people who have been exterminated, deported, or sold into forced labor.
- political: in Africa, America, Asia, and Oceania, cities, kingdoms and empires have disappeared. Traditional communities were gradually disrupted and subjected to European domination.
- economic: the entire economic fabric of societies was brutally dismantled. Crops were looted and famines became more frequent. Dispossessed of their own wealth, those who were colonized were permanently immersed in a state of chronic poverty.
- cultural: colonization destroyed many civilizations, languages, cultures and religions. Those who were colonized often lost their roots and their identity. The social image of the non-European was degraded and this has facilitated the development of racist theories, which has fuelled violence and discrimination of all kinds.
- ecological: the introduction of technologies in the service of profit and productivity focused visions caused the ransacking of millions of hectares of forests, the wasting of natural resources, the pollution of whole regions and it has made the environment fragile and deteriorated public health. It has also helped to disrupt ecosystems and, of course, the most devastating effect of colonization from an ecological aspect is the increase of global warming.