Noa Ha [ENG]

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

Well, the word that comes to my mind is neocolonialism. In the case of the Humboldt Forum it’s concretely about bringing the ethnological collection from Dahlem, the periphery of Berlin, in to the middle of Berlin. And at the beginning it wasn’t seen in connection to the colonial history, but rather like: “We have treasures from all over the world, we will bring them there and it’s about letting these cultures have a conversation”. And then this has been criticized and there is currently a process of dealing with the German colonial history in a critical fashion. But that’s within a context in which we aren’t in formal colonial relations anymore. That’s why it’s a postcolonial context, because it’s happening after the formal decolonization processes. But what I observe, not only in Berlin and Germany, is that there are processes of colonial affirmation. Since the end of the nineties and the cold war there is once again a reference to this colonial history. I see that in different cities. And there’s the tendency, a neocolonial tendency, to downplay the colonial violence, to not mention colonial continuities, to neglect racist continuities and to not connect the dots. And because this normalization happens, colonial conditions are being represented again. And they are neocolonial reproductions within the present context. So that’s the word that comes to my mind.

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.

Well, that’s obvious and Germany is also one of the few countries that does have experience with injustice that happens in the name of a national project, even though there’s always the question about the nation, because Germany is a relatively young nation. But still there are these questions like “What does it mean to take responsibility if injustice occurred?” and then reparations have to be paid. That can’t be denied. And if we already call it a genocide, the injustice would still be there if it’s not recognized as such, and it can not only be a lip service. And for me reparations would also be a part of a decolonization process to break the colonial or neocolonial violence and to start certain processes. We really don’t know who were the victims, what the perspective of the victims is, what kind of violence took place and which gaps, how much emptiness appeared because so many people were killed and more has to happen in that direction. So reparations can not make up for all of this, but it is an acknowledgment that something was wrong and that at the end of it all there’s a shared understanding of injustice. And that process is still in the early stages.

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

That’s a very good question. There should be at least one informational center, that’s the minimum. But I’m a little unsure if there should be a central facility. I would find it much better if there would be a central facility and many other facilities. Especially in Berlin. Berlin is very big, there are a lot of districts and many historical layers. And it would be a possibility to not only focus on one central facility, because we have all this centralization happening in the city development in Berlin. And I think it would be much more interesting to conceptualize political education in education facilities on a district level where a lot of great things can be created. Because Berlin is so diverse, and has so many different districts and neighborhoods. A central facility would be good, but a lot of different centers should be developed as well, and then it has to be made clear how much of an effect these colonial continuities have in our daily lives. Because I think a lot of work has to be done when is comes to decolonization actually being taken seriously.

What’s your take on the many human remains from the Global South that are kept in German museums until today?

They are mass graves and it’s very difficult to say something about this, because it’s connected to so much violence and also dehumanization. Human remains means that these humans are not buried, that they are not honored, that this honor or the connection between life and death is totally interrupted. And this also goes along with an objectification of humans which has always been a part of racist logic. It shows the dehumanization of people. And that’s horrifying and very unpleasant to know that, and there’s no understanding, or a very vague understanding, that it’s very unjust to use human remains for scientific purposes. And we do have a history regarding this and showing us what happened. And it’s not racism in a sense that it’s obviously thought of in a racist way. But we have to think of it as racism if we want to start decolonization. It has to become understandable what it means when those human remains, that were and are still used for scientific purposes, are still kept in the archives. I find it difficult to find the right words, knowing that they are actual human remains. And what should happen immediately is to think about to where they have to be returned, to whom do they have to be returned and how can we find a reverent way of dealing with this. These are very fundamental ethical questions. Of course these questions lead to other ethical questions concerning our knowledge production. What do we know about the things we know? And I mean the whole racial science was only geared to measure human bodies. But the human remains are a very morbid field within that. And the reason for this still existing and not tackling it is that we don’t really know if this is unjust, why it is unjust and how it is unjust, and also a lot of ignorance. And this ignorance is a result of denying the colonial history and then also of all of these factors working together.

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.)?

This is extremely important. Even though I’m skeptical that they can happen on an equal footing, when I assume that there is a global colonial division of labor, which is not only organized like this on a global level but also on a local level and that colonial and racist relations are reproduced in Berlin. We can know that and we can also see it – how poverty is ethnicized, how social relations are connected. If it’s about creating a process that’s based on equality a lot of transformation has to happen. And this will be a difficult path because it’s obviously connected to redistribution. One has to develop an understanding of how these colonial racist relations work, who is affected by what in which way – may it be in the sense of political representation, may it be social relations, who is integrated where and how and to have an understanding of these relations. When we have reached this, we can start to think about equal cooperation. What I can observe in Berlin, in Germany but also in the Netherlands and in other countries is that we still have a long way to go to develop that kind of understanding so that we can start thinking about what needs to happen to reach equality. So I would think that everything that happens until then is more of a rapprochement. This has to happen, but right now I’m a bit skeptical that this will happen overnight. But if I think about it as a process of decolonization, I would think that one strategy would be to not think that much about equality but to think about what it means if I would give away the sovereignty of interpretation. If the big institutions, the museums or the universities would say: “We will give away our sovereignty of interpretation and give way to the groups who are affected by colonial violence so that they can tell their perspective”. And even this perspective will not only be one perspective. There are also a lot of contradicting perspectives, but we don’t hear them because they are always being diminished and so on. That’s why I think there are a lot of strategies, but I’m unsure if the question of equality is that helpful. I think it will be difficult, because we still have to overcome a lot of obstacles and think of how we can reach this redistribution. And I think to give away sovereignty of interpretation would be a good step in the right direction.