(Nigerian Novelist) Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's 2021 Speech At Germany's Humboldt Forum About Europe Returning Stolen Art Work (YouTube video & unofficial transcript)

Ivie Anita, Nov 14, 2021

The horrors they want us to forget.

I'm late on this one but, better late than never.

Related video 👇🏾

https://youtu.be/PKxOJJ3pJpQ
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Statistic: Total # of views as of Feb. 24, 2021 at 8:09 AM =1,003,330

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Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post showcases a YouTube video of (Nigerian novelist) Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's 2021 speech At Germany's Humboldt Forum about Europe returning stolen art work from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

This pancocojams post includes information about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and information about the Humboldt Forum.

This post also includes an unofficial transcript of that speech that I made from the captions that were given in that YouTube video. This unofficial transcript contains some corrections to those captions that I made from listening to that video (such as "Berlin" for Bethleham and "Bonn" for back, and the last name of the Nigerian artist who is mentioned in that speech ). I also added capitalization, punctuation marks, paragraphs, and one notation given in brackets for Chimamanda Nogozi Adichie's small laugh and some people in the audience's clapping response at that interval in her speech. Additions and corrections are welcome.
  
The content of this post is presented for historical, socio-cultural, and educational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for her writing and for this speech. Thanks to the Humboldt Museum for hosting this event and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to Ivie Anita for publishing this video on YouTube.

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INFORMATION ABOUT CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimamanda_Ngozi_Adichie
"Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie … CHIM-ah-MAHN-də əng-GOH-zee ə-DEE-chay;[note 1] born 15 September 1977)[3][4] is a Nigerian writer whose works include novels, short stories and nonfiction.[5] She was described in The Times Literary Supplement as "the most prominent" of a "procession of critically acclaimed young anglophone authors [which] is succeeding in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature",[6] particularly in her second home, the United States.

 [...]

Adichie, a feminist,[7][8][9] has written the novels Purple Hibiscus (2003), Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), and Americanah (2013), the short story collection The Thing Around Your Neck (2009), and the book-length essay We Should All Be Feminists (2014).[10] Her most recent books are Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions (2017), Zikora (2020) and Notes on Grief (2021).[11] In 2008, she was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant.[1]"...

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INFORMATION ABOUT THE HUMBOLDT FORUM
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Forum
"The Humboldt Forum is a museum of non-European art on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin. Named in honour of the Prussian scholars Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt, it combines three rebuilt baroque façades of the former Royal Palace, a contemporary exterior overlooking the Spree river and a modern interior designed by Franco Stella. Considered as the "German equivalent" of the British Museum,[1] the Humboldt Forum will mainly house the non-European collections of the Berlin State Museums, temporary exhibitions and public events. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it opened digitally on 16 December 2020[2] and became accessible for the general public on 20 July 2021.

[…]

History

The Humboldt Forum incorporates two former museums, the Ethnological Museum of Berlin and the Museum of Asian Art. Both had their roots in the Ancient Prussian Art Chamber.

[…]

Controversy

The museum has become embroiled in controversy over its ownership of looted art and other artifacts which were obtained from the German colonial empire in Africa and Asia.[16][17] In 2018, it was at the center of a debate about the legality of cultural heritage from former colonies in Germany, drawing protests from art historians such as Bénédicte Savoy and activists, who alleged the museum had not done enough to research the provenance and fails to critically present ethnographic objects in its collection.[18][19]”…

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UNOFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT OF CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE'S 2021 SPEECH AT THE  HUMBOLDT MUSEUM

[Applause]

 "Gorgeous music. Thank you

President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Dr. Steinmeir, Mayor of Berlin, minister of culture and media, Dr. Monica Grutas, Director of the Humboldt Forum, Professor Dagalo, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon, actually good morning ish, almost afternoon. Thank you for having me here.

When I was researching my second novel Half Of A Yellow Sun, which is set during the Nigerian Biafran war that started in 1967, a woman told me a story about her elderly father.  It was early in the war and they were in the Biafran hometown feeling relatively safe because the war seemed far away.  Then suddenly they heard the loud terrifying sounds of bombing very close to them and they knew that they had only minutes to leave their home and run into the interior for safety before the Nigerian soldiers arrived. The elderly father was a wealthy man, but the only thing he rushed to take with him was his ikenga, a piece of wood, a beautifully carved piece of wood.  But it wasn’t just a piece of wood.  It was also the repository of spiritual meaning.  The Ikenga represented his chi, his personal spirit as well as his ancestors, his guardian angels.

I was struck by this story- This man, facing the possibility of never seeing his home again choose the thing that mattered most to him.  Of course, he cared about his material possessions, but he believed that those could eventually be replaced while his ikenga was irreplaceable.

There are ikengas in various museums all over the world today.  And it is easy to forget as we stare and admire them behind cold and clinical glass barriers that these are objects that are religious, spiritual, sacred. Art lives in history and history lives in art.  Much of what we call African art are also documents that tell stories.  Some are literal in the storytelling like the beautifully ornate Benin stool that was sent to the Oba of Benin by his people when he was exiled by the British and which he looked at immediately could deduce from the carvings the state of his British plundered land.  Other sculptures and carvings are more metaphorical.  They speak to the dignity of the people- to their worldview, to their aspirations.  Some of the early Christian missionaries across the African continent were very keen on destroying African art, carved African deities which they told the Africans were just magic.  I cannot help but wily wonder what could be more magical than the story of a man who dies and then magically rises again, a man who also manages to magically give his body as bread- and I say this, by the way, as a newly returned Roman Catholic.  The point is that belief systems vary and as long as they feed the spiritual needs of a people they are valid.  We cannot be dismissive of a belief system merely because it is unfamiliar to us just as we cannot be dismissive of a history because we are uncomfortable with it.

So I’d like to tell a small story about a Nigerian who’s married to [a] Belgium [man] and has lived in Belgium for many years.  She said once that she was shocked that her son while being taught Belgium history was taught nothing about Congo.  “They teach my son in school that he must help the poor Africans”, she said. “But they don’t teach him about what Belgium did in Congo”.  Now if Hassan does not learn that the modern Congo state began 100 years ago as the personal property of a brutal Belgian king who was desperate to get wealthy from ivory and rubber; if her son does not learn that the hands of Congolese were chopped off with rusty axes for not producing enough resources to meet the cast, because we can collectively acknowledge that it is so…

It is not Europe has denied its colonial history- that would be too crude.  It is instead that Europe has developed a way of telling the story of its colonial history that ultimately seeks to erase that history.

The former French Prime Minister Nicholas Sarkozy gave a now infamous speech in Senegal in which he said “I have not come to deny mistakes or crimes.  Mistakes were made and crimes committed.  But no one can ask of the generations of today to expiate the crimes perpetrated by past generations.”  This is central to the story that Europe tells itself about its colonial history.  It is a story that basically says that yes colonialism happened, but.  And whatever comes after the “but” is the focus of the story.  What the focus on the “but” does is that it absolves.  It frees Europe of responsibility, of a significant and traceable connection to the African present and it allows Europe the glow of charity.  But the truth is that the past does not merely tell us what happened yesterday.  It also illuminates what happens today.

If we acknowledge that present-day Europe is shaped by the Renaissance of 600 years ago, by the Enlightenment of 300 years ago, then surely, we cannot say that what happened merely 100 years ago in Africa no longer matters.  It matters.

We are gathered today in this reconstructed palace, a beautiful place, but also a place that represents Germany’s nostalgia for imperial times.  When Kaiser William the second lived here, German troops were killing children, women, and men in South West Africa.  This building says that German history matters even in a romanticized form.  The history of Africa and Asia and Latin American must matter as well.  We cannot pick and choose which histories and which points of views still matter because to do this would be an ugly exercise of brute power.

And, speaking of power, here’s a headline I just read in a German publication… The headline says “Where do Africa’s treasures belong?” Now imagine this headline differently.  Imagine if it said “Where do Germany’s treasures belong?”  It would be a redundant question because, of course, Germany’s treasures belong in Germany.  But the question would never even be asked because there would be no circumstance in which it would be. Because of power.

And so it seems to me that what we are fundamentally grappling with in this space, in all of these questions about the Humboldt Forum, is power, unequal power; how we navigate unequal power relations. And there’s always been to me something shabby about unequal power relations.  The victory feels colorless, almost unearned.

So I spoke of Belgium and its colonial history.  But what of Germany and its colonial history?  Do school children here learn about Namibia, what was called the German South West Africa?  Do school children know one hundred thousand Herrera people were murdered by the Germans?  Do they know of the wells that were poisoned?  Do they know of the women who were used as sex slaves and others as slaves in German camps?  Do they know of the Nama people killed and of the Majimaji revolt in German East Africa? 

And why should they know?  Because to tell only part, one part of the story is essentially to lie.  A story is true only when it is complete. Germany is Berlin and German is Bonn and Germany is also its colonial atrocities that have resulted in hundreds of African skulls being stored here in the basements of museums here in Berlin- skulls of men whose spirits cannot be at rest.  Men, who could well had been my great-grandfather had I happened to be born in eastern rather than western Africa.

It is only fair to fully own all of the stories of Germany.  All countries have parts of their pasts that they’re not proud of, that they would rather forget.  But it takes courage to face those parts and bring in some light.  And this is a time for courage, the courage to hear dissenting voices such as those of the people who are outside right now protesting.  They should be heard and included.  They have valid concerns.  The courage not merely to say “We take your criticism.” But to follow it with action.  The courage to say “We were wrong.”  The courage to say about art acquired illicitly “This is not ours.  Tell us what to do with it.” The courage to do provenance work and actively use local knowledge.  The courage to act and to act now and not become crippled by endless planning and endless talking.  The courage to believe that it can be better.  We cannot change the past. But we can change our blindness to the past.

And why, by the way, is the term “ethnological” used for arts used from certain parts of the world and not for other parts of the world?  And then in discussing some of this art that we term “ethnological”-and I would argue that the language itself already suggests a hierarchy of value- when we talk about this art that was stolen, we’re told that it cannot be returned to Africa, for example, because Africans would not take good care of them.  It is not merely condescending to say “I cannot return what I stole from you because you will not take good care of it.”  It is also lacking in basic logic.  Since when has the basis of ownership been taking good care of what is owned?  This position is paternalistic arrogance of the most stunning sort.  It does not matter whether Africans or Asians or Latin Americans can take care of the art stolen from them.  What matters is that it is theirs.

The brilliant Nigerian artist Victor  Ehikhamenor put it much better than I could and in very Nigerian terms. He said “If I come and steal your wrapper and I say I won’t give you back your wrapper because you will not tie it properly around your waist or you will not wash it well and so the colors will fade, or this or that, all are irrelevant.  The wrapper is mine and I can do with it what I will.  Give me back my wrapper because it is mine.”  The metaphorical “wrapper”- for those of you who are befuddled by “wrapper”, it’s a piece of cloth- should be returned for the reason that  Ehikhamenor illustrates which is respecting the property of others.  But also because Europe has defined itself as a place of certain values- progress, liberty, fraternity, tolerance, individual rights, and most of all the rule of law.  A nation that believes in the rule of law cannot possibly be debating whether to return stolen goods.  It just returns them.  And so, if the dignity of those from whom the art was stolen does not matter, then surely this idea should matter- that Europe should be what it claims to be, live up to the ideals with which you define yourself.

I should pause here and note that sometimes these conversations run the risk of sounding like empty moralizing or like asking for the impossible or the unrealistic or insisting on an unattainable purity and perfection  Obviously, I don’t think that everything should be sent back to the countries from which they came-not everything was stolen.  But those things that are sacred; those things from whom people were killed; those things that have the stains of innocent blood should be returned.

Obviously, we do not have all the information.  There are facts lost in unrecorded history. But we can draw reasonable conclusions based on information that we do have.  We can deduce, for example, that the Ngonzo, the beautiful sculpture of the founder and guiding spirit of the Enso people of Cameroon, the former German colony, could not possibly been obtained under benign circumstances because why would you willingly give up your guiding spirit? 

It is also important to remember that not all wounds are visible.  Some wounds we carry in our hearts, inherited from our parents, passed on to our children.  But this discourse is, of course, not just about the Humboldt Forum.  It is about museums all over Europe, in France, and the Vatican, in Britain.  And I must acknowledge that Germany is the first of the powerful European nations that has made a gesture towards returning the Benin bronzes.  But it is also interesting that the announcement said that a substantial amount would be returned, which made me wonder how this would be determined and by whom.  And it is equally interesting that it is British colonial loot rather than German colonial loot that is being returned by Germany.  But still, it is progress.  And Germany’s action, this gesture towards righting what is wrong must be acknowledged.  My acknowledgement of it is not to say that the work is done, but the work has started and perhaps a place like the British museum -and I know that Neil is here-which owns the majority of the Benin bronzes, might perhaps be inspired by the German decision. And that, hopefully, the British museum will rethink [Chimamanda laughs softlyand a small number of people in the audience clap] and that hopefully, hopefully, the British museum will rethink its policy of retain and explain…which is unacceptable.

So this is the Humboldt Forum.  A forum usually implies, among other things, a space created for a free exchange of ideas. One can only hope that the Humboldt Forum will live up to its name as a space for true intercultural and transcultural exchange of ideas in mutual respect between the cultures.  But this rhetoric free exchange of ideas must be practical. And by that I mean such things as travel visas.  It must be easy for people from Africa, Asia, and Latin America who should participate in these conversations to get travel visas. 

The Humboldt Forum was conceived as a place to tell the universal story of the human race from multiple perspectives.  This is a commendable idea, but it is incomplete because again we must confront the issue of power.  Who tells the story?  Who is the teller and who is told about? Who decided that African art should be labeled “ethnological”?  Who has the right to exhibit the other? [Applause] Can the Humboldt Forum be an opportunity?  Can it become-among other things-a project of remembering, solemn, honest, mutual, and respectful.

In conclusion, I want to say that I believe very much in dialogue.  And I really believe that we can recreate the world by acting more courageously.  To act with courage is to have concrete hope in a better future.  We carve out a small space of the world.  We shape and we reshape it and in that way, small slice by small slice, we walk -slowly yes- but we walk on the path to real progress.  Courage and hope are intertwined.  Courage is an act of hope.  And hope is born of courage.  Acts of courage creates hope. And there is nothing more essential to the human spirit than hope.  So here’s to courage.  Thank you. [Applause]"

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