Lucia Murìel [ENG]

What word comes to your mind when you think of the Humboldtforum / Berliner Schloss? Please explain.

Yes, the first thing I think about are the many robbed treasures which are stored in it, so to speak. In the end, they serve to make, in particular, the white public appropriate these treasures in the sense that they naturally assume, again and again and again, that they belong here, that they belong to them, in their museums. That is always the first thing I think about.

Do you think that Germany should pay reparations to the Herero and Nama communities that were affected by and dispossessed during the genocide from 1904-08? Please elaborate.

I am absolutely in favor of it, that reparation costs also have to be made! The extent of the injury which was left there on the human, social, political, and ecological side are in my opinion beyond conceivable. We just know generally very little about the damage which was caused there. However, nowadays we certainly know more about it, that peoples who once underwent such a trauma, experienced such crimes on their own ground by foreign conquerors so to speak, that these traumas have an effect over generations.

And where such traumas has an effect over such a long time, normal development is not possible. A lot is just simply damaged for a long time. We just started to learn of this nowadays, but we know little about what it causes to entire groups of people. And it is time to engage with it and time that the reparation measures are made for this harm so to speak. And of course for these crimes [will], colonial crimes. We are indeed far away from that, but we have to demand the maximum!

Do you think that a memorial and information center concerning the topic slavery, colonialism and racism should be built in Berlin? Please elaborate.

Yes, of course I am convinced that we need this [a monument for the victims of slavery, slave trade, racism and colonialism] in Berlin and also that we have to be [involved] in the planning, that we have to plan and conceptualize it ourselves so to speak! Why do I think this is so important? Because colonialism and its consequences are not over yet. Even today people who come from the global south to Europe, including to Germany, are still discriminated against here, are disadvantaged, are under general suspicion, are [regarded with] so many negative perceptions or are negatively discriminated against too and are excluded, so unfortunately the present day has inherited these colonial relations, so to speak. And [this] simply has to be remembered, awareness has to be raised about this: the colonial time didn’t just start in the 15th century and come to an end in the 18th century, but rather we are still [or] the next generation, the children so to speak, of this whole history.

According to you, how important is the equal and conceptional contribution of descendants of colonized people to handle the colonial past (i.e. negotiations regarding reparations, museums, exhibitions, representation in schoolbooks, street renaming etc.)?

Well, I have a problem with the term “equal” or with its implication here. [Well,] There’s no such thing as historiography without its own bias! Therefore we should demand instead that a historical narrative be written by these peoples, by the descendants of the colonial era, that they are entitled to their own writing of history and that it has to be published! We only know so far the white male writing of history, of the whole human history in general. This has to be changed and cannot happen on eye level so to speak but rather we have to simply start the other way around so that white German perspective of history remains silent for a century and the others look back on history and reappraise it and research and narrate, present and generate awareness for this [their] historical reappraisal and influence our education. And thereafter when we get to this point, then we could discuss: okay, what did these ones tell, what did the other ones tell, but so far we haven’t reached that point.

[…] In the Global South, like in Bolivia there are many decolonial demands, in Brazil as well, in Asian countries which were colonized as well, India and so on and so forth. So it would be great if we attempt to pose global demands. Colonialism has been a global phenomenon and the relations are today still Global North / Global South. Therefore, we should try to overcome these rather local demands a little bit and pose trans-regional demands in terms of reparations, of historical reappraisal and so on and so forth. This is a really big wish for me.