Category Archives: Colonialism

Call for port extension to be halted as genocide remains are found on Namibia’s Shark Island

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Researchers say more bodies of Herero and Nama people from early 20th century concentration camp could be in waters around port

The Namibian authorities are being urged to halt plans to extend a port on the Shark Island peninsula after the discovery of unmarked graves and artefacts relating to the Herero and Nama genocide.

Forensic Architecture, a non-profit research agency, said it had located sites of executions, forced labour, imprisonment and sexual violence that occurred when the island was used by the German empire as a concentration camp between 1905 and 1907.

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Dorset auction house withdraws Egyptian human skulls from sale

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MP says trade in remains is ‘gross violation of human dignity’, as skulls from Pitt Rivers collection removed

An auction house has withdrawn 18 ancient Egyptian human skulls from sale after an MP said selling them would perpetuate the atrocities of colonialism.

Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Afrikan reparations, believes the sale of human remains for any purposes should be outlawed, adding that the trade was “a gross violation of human dignity”.

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Portuguese government rejects president’s suggestion of slavery reparations

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President advocated ‘paying the costs’ of colonial-era crimes but government says focus is on deepening international cooperation

The Portuguese government has dismissed suggestions from the country’s president that it should “pay the costs” for slavery and other colonial-era crimes, saying it has no plans for reparations and will instead focus on deepening international cooperation “based on the reconciliation of brotherly peoples”.

Campaigners have long appealed to Portugal to address its legacy as the European country with the longest historical involvement in the slave trade. Between the 15th and 19th centuries, nearly 6 million Africans were kidnapped and forcibly transported across the Atlantic on Portuguese vessels.

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Portugal needs to ‘pay the costs’ of slavery and colonialism, says president

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Critics of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa say behind remarks is lack of national recognition that slavery should be discussed in schools

Portugal needs to “pay the costs” of slavery and other colonial-era crimes, the country’s president has said, in a rare instance of a European leader seemingly backing the need for reparations.

Portugal has long grappled with calls by campaigners to address its legacy as the European country with the longest historical involvement in the slave trade. During the span of four centuries, nearly 6 million Africans were kidnapped and forcibly transported across the Atlantic by Portuguese vessels.

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Surge of interest in Ethiopian culture boosts case for return of treasures, says Sissay

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Poet who is curating country’s first Venice Biennale pavilion says ‘part of the heart’ of the country was looted and is being held in museums

An Ethiopian cultural surge – including a first national pavilion at the Venice Biennale and the rise of stars such as Ruth Negga and The Weeknd – is making the country’s calls for restitution of looted colonial-era artefacts harder to ignore, according to Lemn Sissay.

The poet and author, who is curating the country’s inaugural Biennale pavilion, where Tesfaye Urgessa’s work will be on show, said the event would be part of a significant cultural push from the east African country and its diaspora over the last two decades.

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Artist defends Tate Britain’s display of ‘undeniably racist’ Whistler mural

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Keith Piper says engaging with offensive and traumatic imagery can be important in keeping a clear sense of history

An artist commissioned to respond to a mural in Tate Britain that has been sealed off from the public since 2020 because of its depictions of black and Chinese people, says viewing traumatic and racist images is crucial for us to truly grapple with our history.

Keith Piper was commissioned by Tate Britain in 2022 to create a work that reacted to the Rex Whistler mural, titled The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats, which had been closed after Tate’s ethics committee decided it was “offensive”.

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Ethiopian government tries to stop UK auction of looted Maqdala shield

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Proposed sale of Abyssinian artefact taken during 1868 battle triggers appeal for restitution of ‘wrongfully acquired’ item

The Ethiopian government has called the auction of a looted colonial-era shield “inappropriate and immoral” as it attempts to stop its sale this week and prevent it from disappearing into a private collection.

The Anderson & Garland auction house, in Newcastle upon Tyne, was contacted by the Ethiopian National Heritage national restitution committee about the 19th-century Abyssinian shield, which it said should be removed from the auction set to take place on Thursday.

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Westminster Abbey agrees ‘in principle’ to return sacred tablet to Ethiopia

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Carved wooden tabot has been at Abbey since British forces looted it at Battle of Maqdala in 1868

Westminster Abbey has agreed “in principle” to returning a sacred tablet to the Ethiopian Orthodox church, igniting a debate around restitution claims made by the East African nation.

The tabot – a blackened flat piece of wood featuring a carved inscription that symbolically represents the Ark of the Covenant and the Ten Commandments – has been at the Abbey since British forces returned with it from the Battle of Maqdala, where it was looted in 1868.

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France should return much more looted African art, film-maker says

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Mati Diop, the director of Dahomey, which charts the restitution of 26 objects to Benin, says the tiny number involved is ‘humiliating’

The first major return of looted treasures from Europe to Africa in the 21st century has left a lingering feeling of humiliation because of the lack of follow-up action, a French-Senegalese film-maker who accompanied a hoard of artefacts on their journey from Paris to their country of origin has said.

In her film Dahomey, which premiered at the Berlin film festival on Sunday, the director, Mati Diop, documents the 2021 journey of 26 treasures that the commander of French forces in Senegal looted from the royal palace of the kingdom of Dahomey, part of modern-day Benin, in 1890.

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End fossil-fuel era to address colonial injustices, urges prominent historian

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West should address ‘colonisation of the present’ and not focus on past, argues David Van Reybrouck

Cities in the global north that curb their carbon emissions are doing more to address colonial injustices than those who focus their efforts on taking down statues and changing street names, one of Europe’s leading historians has said.

David Van Reybrouck, the Belgian author of a bestselling history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a new book on Indonesia’s independence from Dutch rule, has become one of the key drivers of a nascent and often fraught debate about Europe’s colonial legacies. Those who have lauded his work include the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the former UN secretary general Kofi Annan.

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British Museum and V&A to lend Ghana looted gold and silver

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Objects to go on show at the Manhyia Palace Museum in Kumasi as part of Asante king’s silver jubilee celebrations

Gold and silver treasure looted from west Africa by the British army in colonial wars are to be lent to Ghana in a three-year deal, the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum have announced.

The precious regalia, which had belonged to the Asante royal court, is regarded as part of the “national soul” of Ghana. Under the deal, 17 objects from the V&A and 15 from the British Museum, will go on show later this year at the Manhyia Palace Museum in Kumasi, the capital of Asante region. Many of the items have not been seen in Ghana for 150 years.

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France and Germany to research provenance of African objects in national museums

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Three-year €2.1m fund will prioritise former colonies of the two countries and could lead to return of items

Germany and France will jointly spend €2.1m (£1.8m) to further research the provenance of African heritage objects in their national museums’ collections, which could prepare the ground for their eventual return.

A three-year fund, with contributions of €360,000 a year by each country, was launched in Berlin on Friday. It has been designated to fund research on objects from anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa, though priority is expected to be given to countries that were colonised by France and Germany, such as Togo and Cameroon.

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EU must face legacy of colonialism and support reparations, say MEPs

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Draft resolution to European parliament committee is first formal attempt to place reparations for slavery on EU agenda

The European Union should urgently address and reverse the lasting impacts of European colonialism and support a reparations programme to rectify continuing injustices, according to a draft resolution to be presented to the European parliament’s development committee.

Noting that the EU has made “no concerted efforts to recognise, address and rectify the lasting effects of European colonialism on social and international inequities”, the draft resolution calls for the creation of a permanent EU forum on restorative justice.

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‘Your wife wants to see you’: 18th-century Spanish letters seized at sea by British published online

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Correspondence taken from 130 captured ships reveal details of the stories of seafarers and their families in the 1700s

A letter from a reproachful wife to the husband who seemingly abandoned her after travelling to the Americas, which remained unopened for nearly 300 years, is among thousands of papers from 18th-century Spanish ships captured by the British that are now being made available online.

Francisca Muñoz in Seville wrote to her husband, Miguel Atocha, in Mexico on 22 January 1747. The letter was among 100 others from Spanish women to their husbands detailing the emotional and economic challenges faced in their partners’ absences, and found on La Ninfa, a registered ship trading between Cádiz and Veracruz, Mexico that was captured by the notorious British privateer squadron known as the “Royal Family”.

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King Charles’s ‘deep regret’ for colonial atrocities was a ‘miss’, Kenyans say

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Rights groups repeat calls for apology while President William Ruto says ‘much remains to be done to achieve full reparations’

King Charles’s expression of “greatest sorrow and deepest regret” over colonial atrocities committed by British forces in Kenya has been criticised as a “miss” in the east African country.

Reactions to the king’s statement were mixed, with the president, William Ruto, diplomatically welcoming Charles’s “courage and readiness to shed light on uncomfortable truths that reside in the darker regions of our shared experience”, but calling Britain’s colonial suppression of Kenya’s freedom movement “monstrous in its cruelty”.

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King Charles stops short of apology for ‘abhorrent’ colonial violence in Kenya

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Visiting monarch speaks of sorrow and deepest regret for past ‘wrongdoings’ under British rule

King Charles has spoken of Britain’s “abhorrent and unjustifiable acts of violence” committed against Kenyans during their fight for independence, but stopped short of an apology despite human rights groups demanding one.

The monarch made the comments in a speech, delivered during a banquet in Kenya held in his honour, in which he referred to the “greatest sorrow” and “deepest regret” for the “wrongdoings” of the past.

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French couple take dealer to court for share of African mask’s €4.2m sale price

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Pensioners sold rare object found in attic for €150 – but campaigners say it must be returned to Gabon

A retired French couple who sold an African mask to a secondhand goods dealer for €150 (£130) have gone to court for a share of the proceeds after the mask fetched €4.2m (£3.7m) at auction.

But campaigners insist that the rare artefact instead should be returned to Gabon, in a case that has raised questions over Africa’s cultural heritage looted by colonial France.

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King Charles asked for ‘unequivocal apology’ by Kenya’s rights commission

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King urged to offer apology while in Kenya for UK’s ‘brutal and inhuman treatment’ during the Mau Mau uprising in the 1950s

The Kenya Human Rights Commission has called on King Charles to offer an “unequivocal public apology” for colonial abuses, during his visit to the country this week.

“We call upon the king, on behalf of the British government, to issue an unconditional and unequivocal public apology (as opposed to the very cautious, self-preserving and protective statements of regrets) for the brutal and inhuman treatment inflicted on Kenyan citizens,” the KHRC said.

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Dutch self-image challenged as country confronts its colonial past

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Exhibition aims to establish common ground amid fractious debate over violence in post-independence Indonesia

Its political centre, The Hague, may call itself “the city of peace and justice”. But in few European countries is the process of confronting the colonial period proving as fractious and divisive as in the Netherlands, where opposing sides have in recent years struggled to agree on who was victim and who was perpetrator.

This month, an exhibition at Amsterdam’s Nieuwe Kerk gallery space and two new books in a major historical series try to establish common ground over the violence that ensued after Indonesia declared independence from Dutch colonial rule in 1945.

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King Charles to acknowledge ‘painful’ colonial past on state visit to Kenya

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Monarch’s recognition will come as country prepares to celebrate 60 years of independence from Britain

King Charles will acknowledge the “painful aspects” of Britain’s past actions in Kenya during a state visit later this month.

The visit follows an invitation from the country’s president, William Ruto, whose country will celebrate the 60th anniversary of its independence from Britain on 12 December. The two countries have enjoyed a close relationship in recent years despite the violent colonial legacy of an uprising in the early 1950s, which led to a period known as “the emergency”, which ran from 1952 until 1960.

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