• Systemic Justice, community-driven litigation for racial, social, and economic justice

    “Systemic Justice works to radically transform how the law works for communities fighting for racial, social, and economic justice.

    Centring affected communities in joint litigation, Systemic Justice works to help broaden access to judicial remedies for those fighting for justice and equality. This will help dismantle the power structures that sustain and fuel racial, social, and economic injustice.

    Systemic Justice is a new NGO that partners with organisations working on racial, social, and economic justice to bring about change through strategic litigation.

    Systemic Justice was founded by human rights lawyer Nani Jansen Reventlow who is specialised in strategic litigation at the intersection of human rights, social justice, and technology. (..)

    Systemic Justice is the first Black-led, majority Black people and people of colour (BPOC) organisation in Europe working on community-driven litigation for racial, social, and economic justice.

    We were established to partner with and support communities in their fights for social justice, and our vision is of a society where organisations, movements, and collectives (OMCs) can leverage the courts through strategic litigation and community-led campaigns against racial, social, and economic injustice.

    Surfacing Systemic (In)justices: A Community View shares findings from an extensive Europe-wide consultation undertaken by Systemic Justice that seeks to learn from the perspectives and experiences of affected community groups and organisations, in order to inform potential litigation and other strategies for change.

    Taken together, the findings in this report provide a rich and multi-layered insight into the harms of inequality and injustice across Europe.”

    To read their report, see https://systemicjustice.ngo/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/SystemicJusticeACommunityView.pdf

    #community #justice #Netherlands #racisme #litigation

  • Resource for understanding racism in pedagogical materials in Switzerland

    written by Rahel el Maawi and Mandu Abou Shoak

    „Nach der kurzen Sichtung einiger Schulbücher verschiedenster Fächer waren wir uns einig, dass eine vertiefte Auseinander-
    setzung nötig ist. Deshalb bildeten wir eine Projektgruppe, die aktuelle Lehr- und Lernmittel der Mittel- und Oberstufe kritisch analysiert. Verschiedene Menschen haben unterschiedlich intensiv mitgewirkt. Wir danken allen für ihr Engagement.

    Die Volksschule hat den Auftrag, allen Kindern eine Grund-bildung zu vermitteln und sie für ein lebenslanges Lernen vorzubereiten. Sie setzt sich zum Ziel, die Chancen-gleichheit zu fördern (vgl. usführungen) zum Lehrplan 21 oder Gesetz über die Volksschule). Diskriminierende Lern-inhalte und Abbildungen sowie fehlende positive Identifikationsmöglichkeiten für Schwarze Schüler*innen und Lernende of Color stehen in einem Widerspruch zu diesen Vorgaben. Dennoch kommen sie regelhaft vor. Kinder und Jugendliche sind damit konfrontiert. Lehrkräfte und Eltern müssen mit diesen Repräsentationen umgehen. Leider verfügen aber nur wenige Erwachsene über das Wissen, um diese strukturelle Diskriminierung wahrnehmen zu können. Deshalb möchten wir in dieser Publikation einige Beispiele aufzeigen und diskutieren. Das Ziel ist es, einer breiteren Öffentlichkeit Zugang zu nicht bekannten Büchern zu ver-
    schaffen und Anregungen für eine diskriminierungskritische Lesart zu geben.

    Eine intersektionale Analyse der Lehrund Lernmittel berücksichtigt das Zusammenwirken verschiedener sozialer Ungleichheitsverhältnisse wie Rassismus, Klassismus, Disability oder
    Sexismus (vgl. Katharina Walgenbach, 2012). Diese bezieht sich einerseits auf die Repräsentation und andererseits auf die Hierarchisierung zwischen Menschen. Wir untersuchen, wie gesell-
    schaftliche Machtverhältnisse dargestellt werden. Was wird kritisch diskutiert, was unreflektiert reproduziert?
    Wir hinterfragen das Vorhandene und überlegen gleichzeitig, welche Geschichten, Personen und Perspektiven nicht berücksichtigt werden. Im Wissen darum, dass unsere Analyse nicht alle Kategorien abhandeln kann, sind wir bemüht, die Lehr- und Lernmittel einer umfassenden Betrachtung zu unterziehen.“

    Einblck_RassismusInSchulunterlagen_Einfuehrung.indd - Broschüren Einblicke Rassismus in Schulbüchern.pdf
    https://www.el-maawi.ch/assets/templates/public/image/Flyer/Brosch%C3%BCren+Einblicke%20Rassismus%20in%20Schulb%C3%BCchern.pdf

    #history #racism #colonialism #power #école #school #pedagogy

  • Nabibaks, Farida

    She carries out amazing work at the intersection of art and academic research on healing from the colonial and slavery past.

    “Farida Nabibaks is founder and artistic director of music and dance-theatre company Reframing HERstory Art Foundation based in Arnhem. Farida uses dance and embodied knowledge to address the collective trauma of the colonial and slavery past, with the ultimate goal of healing. She studied Philosophy at the Radboud University Nijmegen and holds a MA in Philosophy of Behavioural Sciences. She was also co-researcher in the Radboud Institute for Culture and History (RICH) researchproject Feeling the Traces of the Colonial Past, led by professor Liedeke Plate. This was built around her performance Radiant Shadow, part one, Margaretha.

    Farida will be an associate fellow at KITLV from 1 March until 1 October doing a practice-based research on healing from the colonial and slavery past through art, dance/ dance-theatre and embodied knowledge from multiple ethnic perspectives. Read more on Farida on the website of Mama Cash & Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor Kunsten.”

    https://www.kitlv.nl/fellows

    #healing #colonial_past #slavery
    https://www.ru.nl/rich/our-research/research-groups/memory-materiality-affect/projects-0/current-projects/current-projects/feeling-traces-colonial-past
    https://www.ahk.nl/onderzoek/artist-in-residence/2021-2022/school-of-unlearning-2022/unlearning-language

  • Monuments of enslaved people in the threes in Charlotte, North Carolina

    To pay tribute to all the enslaved people buried in cemeteries with no name, artist Craig Walsh put a face in the trees to honor their souls in an installation in Charlotte, North Carolina, called “Monuments”

    by @Rainmaker1973

    Craig Walsh’s Monuments | Charlotte SHOUT!

    Challenging traditional expectations of public monuments and the selective history represented in our public spaces. Built for the great outdoors, Monuments celebrates selected individuals through large-scale, nighttime projected portraits onto live trees in public spaces for stunning effect. Monuments represents a haunting synergy between the human form, nature, and the act of viewing. Enormous night-time projections transform trees into sculptural monuments.

    https://www.charlotteshout.com/events/detail/craig-walshs-monuments

    #monument #esclavage #Charlotte #CarolineduNord #art #sculpture

  • Presentation of the EUI Decolonising Initiative • European University Institute
    https://www.eui.eu/events?id=541756
    https://apps.eui.eu/EUI_API/EVENTSV2/Images/Image?id=2683

    The Decolonising Initiative is a project recently funded by researchers, professors and teachers of the language center at the EUI who believe in the necessity to tackle colonial privileges and assumptions in the material and intellectual fabric of our institution.

    This forum is a place to examine constructively, among other concerns, the matter of white euro-centrism in the content and framing of academic syllabi, a lack of diversity in the EUI community, and the legacies of colonial history in our institutions of learning.

    The Decolonising Initiative is not a research working group and our members come from the communities of PhD researchers, postdoctoral fellows, academic faculty, and administration. We believe it to be vital that any members of EUI to be invited to participate in this wider conversation about anti-racism and racial justice that is taking place globally, both within and outside research institutions.

    Contact(s):

    Daphné Budasz (European University Institute)

    Organiser(s):

    Benno Gammerl (EUI)

    Michelle Graabek (EUI)

    Nicola Hargreaves (EUI - Language Centre)

    Fartun Mohamed (EUI)

    Benjamin Carver (EUI - Language Centre)

    Ophelia Nicole-Berva (EUI)
    EUI Newsletter

    © European University Institute 2022, Badia Fiesolana - Via dei Roccettini 9, I-50014 San Domenico di Fiesole (FI) - Italy

    #decolonising #decolonial #

  • Postcolonial Italy – Mapping Colonial Heritage
    https://postcolonialitaly.com

    Even though the period of Italian colonial rule is long gone, its material traces hide almost everywhere. Explore cities, their streets, squares, monuments, and find out more about their forgotten connections to colonial history.

    BOLZANO IMPERIALE https://postcolonialitaly.com/bolzano-imperiale

    CAGLIARI IMPERIALE https://postcolonialitaly.com/cagliari-imperiale

    FIRENZE IMPERIALE https://postcolonialitaly.com/firenze-imperiale

    ROMA IMPERIALE https://postcolonialitaly.com/roma-imperiale

    TORINO IMPERIALE https://postcolonialitaly.com/torino-imperiale

    TRIESTE IMPERIALE

    VENEZIA IMPERIALE
    Postcolonial Italy

    Mapping Colonial Heritage
    Contact

    mapping.postcolonial.italy@gmail.com

    Creative Commons License
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

    #postcolonial #Florence #Turin #Venise #Rome #Cagliari #colonial #visite_guidee #balade_décoloniale #Italie

    • Public Spaces and the Material Presence of Empire’s Memory in Italy


      Tuesday, March 1, 2022
      Online Event
      9:10 pm – 11:00 pm CET/GMT+1

      Although Italy’s colonial empire had been small and short-lived, today numerous material traces - street names, monuments, buildings etc. - can be found in Italian public spaces. By marking physical locations on a digital map, the project Postcolonial Italy (https://postcolonialitaly.com) aims at making historical knowledge available to a large audience to stimulate a public debate on Italy’s silenced colonial past. Material traces are not only geographically captured, but also - and this is crucial - historically contextualized. The map intends to recall the manifold connections between Italian public spaces and the colonial and fascist past, which often remains absent from collective memory.

      This event is offered by Bard College, Annandale, as part of the Modernism and Fascism: Cultural Heritage and Memory course in cooperation with Bard College Berlin through Global Modernisms, an OSUN Network Collaborative Course.

      Affiliations: Daphné Budasz (European University Institute, Florence), Markus Wurzer (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale)

      https://www.bard.edu/dei/events/event/?eid=141160&date=1646187000

      #conférence #colonialisme #impérialisme #passé_colonial #mémoire

  • EU Anti-racism Action Plan 2020-2025 | European Commission
    https://ec.europa.eu/info/policies/justice-and-fundamental-rights/combatting-discrimination/racism-and-xenophobia/eu-anti-racism-action-plan-2020-2025_en

    EU Anti-racism Action Plan 2020-2025

    The Commission’s plan to step up action against racism and achieve a Union of Equality.

    We need to talk about racism. And we need to act. It is always possible to change direction if there is a will to do so. I am glad to live in a society that condemns racism. But we should not stop there. The motto of our European Union is: ‘United in diversity’. Our task it to live up to these words, and to fulfil their meaning

    - President von der Leyen, European Parliament, 17 June 2020

    #racisme #racism #EU #BLM

  • George Floyd murder: A year on, did the protests it inspired in Europe change anything? | Euronews
    https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2021/05/24/george-floyd-murder-a-year-on-did-the-protests-it-inspired-in-europe-chang

    In short yes some things did change but too little:
    – “the European Parliament passed a resolution on the George Floyd protests, tackling structural racism and police brutality in Europe”.
    – “there is a “major data gap” across the continent when it comes to recording police violence against minority groups.”
    – “appointment of the EU’s first anti-racism coordinator - Michaela Moua”
    – “The protests put anti-racism and racial justice on the policy agenda, where policymakers could no longer ignore the issue”

    Black Lives Matter protests erupted across Europe after the murder of George Floyd - Copyright Markus Schreiber/AP

    One year ago on Tuesday (May 25th), George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in the city of Minneapolis in the US.

    The city was subsequently rocked by huge racial justice protests, which spread first across the US, and then further afield, with massive demonstrations taking place in many major European cities.

    These protests didn’t just centre on police brutality. As the Black Lives Matter movement gained recognition in Europe, the issues of systemic discrimination and even Europe’s colonial past started to be raised .

    A year on since the murder that sparked a summer of protest, how much has actually changed in Europe?
    Police brutality ‘a problem in Europe too’

    “Where there have been promising changes, we’re still in the implementation stage, but the impact hasn’t yet been felt on the ground,” says Ojeaku Nwabuzo, a senior research officer at the European Network Against Racism.

    She tells Euronews the Black Lives Matter uprising “was the spark of a lot of development and discussion in Europe around police violence,” but concrete changes are yet to be seen.

    Nwabuzo is in the midst of researching police brutality in Europe between the years 2015 and 2020, and points out there is a “major data gap” across the continent when it comes to recording police violence against minority groups.

    “What we do know is there is a problem with police and law enforcement disproportionately brutalising, profiling and surveilling racialised groups,” she says.

    But many of the demands organisations like hers have been working on for years - “such as looking at structural, systemic forms of racism” - were quickly listened to and acted upon following the outbreak of protests, she says, “specifically in the EU”.
    EU ‘action plan’ on racism

    In June last year, the European Parliament passed a resolution on the George Floyd protests, tackling structural racism and police brutality in Europe.

    This was quickly followed up by a Commission anti-racism action plan - drawing some praise from campaigners.

    “This is a direct response to the Black Lives Matter movement,” says Nwabuzo. “The way in which these plans were developed, the language used, acknowledging structural and systemic racism in a way we have not seen the Commission do before.”

    Evin Incir MEP, a co-president of the European Parliament’s Anti-Racism and Diversity Intergroup, tells Euronews the action plan was “an important sign the Commission immediately took this situation seriously”.

    She says the protests put pressure on politicians “even we thought might not vote for such wording that the resolution contained,” and says the recent appointment of the EU’s first anti-racism coordinator - Michaela Moua - is “very important”.

    EU needs ’holistic approach’ if they want to tackle racial discrimination
    Analysis: Is Europe any better than the US when it comes to racism?

    Moua’s role is to coordinate the implementation of the action plan, which Incir says hasn’t yet borne fruit in people’s everyday lives.

    The action plan contains proposals for improving law enforcement policies, security from extremists, and greater equality in areas such as employment, health and housing - but additional legislation to fill any gaps won’t be until 2022.

    ENAR’s Nwabuzo says the protests in Europe were “really significant” in forcing concrete action on a legislative level.

    “The protests put anti-racism and racial justice on the policy agenda, where policymakers could no longer ignore the issue,” she says.

    “It’s important we continue making our voices loud on the matter, that we don’t stop,” Incir says.

    “Some part of the knowledge has reached the legislators, but also the people need to continue rising up for anti-racism because otherwise, unfortunately, there are some legislators who have a very short memory.”
    Colonial commemorations

    The protests also forced some European countries into a reckoning with their colonial pasts.

    Demonstrators targeted statues in public places commemorating figures linked to colonial violence and the slave trade.

    In Bristol in the UK, a crowd tore down the statue of Edward Colston - a wealthy ‘philanthropist’ who made the bulk of his fortune in the slave trade - and threw it in the river.

    Similar acts occurred in Belgium, where many statues of King Leopold II - notorious for his rule over the Congo Free State - adorn the streets.

    Daphné Budasz, a PhD researcher at the European University Institute, says the debate over statues existed long before the protests in 2020, especially in countries such as the UK and Belgium.

    But it did widen the debate, opening up similar conversations in countries that until then hadn’t paid it much attention.

    “Living in Switzerland, Swiss people don’t usually consider they have a link to colonial history, but even here last year we had a debate about a statue in Neuchâtel, a guy called David de Pury, who made his fortune from the slave trade,” she tells Euronews.

    “This was a non-existent debate, and suddenly because of Black Lives Matter it became visible even here.”

    However, the momentum around this issue appears to have stalled. Just last week in the UK, the long-running campaign to have a statue of colonialist Cecil Rhodes removed from a college at the University of Oxford saw defeat once again.

    Oxford University to keep Cecil Rhodes statue despite recommendation to remove it

    Despite Oriel College claiming it agreed the statue — at the centre of a years’ long #RhodesMustFall campaign — should be removed, it said high costs and complex heritage planning rules meant it won’t be taken down.

    It said instead it will work on the “contextualisation” of the college’s relationship with Rhodes.

    “I have the impression there’s no real political willingness to properly discuss this question,” says Budasz, who points to French President Emmanuel Macron’s response to calls for statues to come down.

    “The Republic will not erase any trace or name from its history,” he said in a television address last year.

    “It will not forget any of its works, it will not remove any of its statues.”

    “What they’re suggesting is that the people asking for removal are the reactionary ones, the ones who want to change history,” says Budasz.

    “We don’t want to change history. The debate is too polarised and there’s a kind of refusal to understand the symbolic element in monuments and the meaning in commemoration,” she adds.

    Her view is that the debate over statues was perhaps more of “a buzz”, which did reach a wider audience at the time, but now those still fighting for [the] removal of colonial relics are in the minority again.

    “We still use history as a tool to build or reinforce national identities, when history should be a critical tool to understand today’s society,” she argues, pointing out monuments are for the purpose of commemoration.

    “A statue is not an historical artefact, it’s not an archive, it’s a narrative of history. It’s been put there on purpose.”

    Every weekday, Uncovering Europe brings you a European story that goes beyond the headlines. Download the Euronews app to get a daily alert for this and other breaking news notifications. It’s available on Apple and Android devices.

    #BLM #Contestedmonuments #police #police_violence #violence_policière #eslavage #statue #monument

  • Le Paris Noir - Visite guidée de Paris par Kévi Donat
    https://www.leparisnoir.com

    Pourquoi Le Paris Noir ?

    Initié en 2013, Le Paris Noir est le résultat des recherches et des rencontres de Kévi Donat. Guide parisien depuis 2011, Kévi utilise ses connaissances et son sens du contact pour offrir une plongée dans l’Histoire de Paris.

    Au départ, son ambition est de répondre aux questions de visiteurs étrangers, surpris par la présence de populations afro-descendantes dans la ville (“Pourquoi tant de Noirs à Paris ?”). Au fil des années, ce projet s’impose comme un rendez-vous incontournable pour celles et ceux qui s’intéressent à l’Histoire noire.

    #Paris #balade_décoloniale #noir

  • Decolonising Settler Cities - Antipode Online
    https://antipodeonline.org/iwas-1617-porter

    ❝Decolonising Settler Cities, Post-Workshop Report, May 2018

    Professor Libby Porter (Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University)

    Dr Tod Jones and Dr Shaphan Cox (Department of Planning and Geography, Curtin University)

    Professor Cheryl Kickett-Tucker (Translational Research Centre for Aboriginal Knowledges and Wellbeing, Curtin University)

    Summary of achievements

    Decolonising Settler Cities was a series of events held throughout 2017 bringing together Indigenous and non-Indigenous activists, scholars, communities and practitioners to share their questions and critiques, experience and knowledge of cities as settler-colonial modes of power, and the possibilities and obstacles they present for Indigenous land justice.

    Every Australian city is built on the unceded country[1] of distinct, sovereign Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who continue to practice their laws, cultures, rights and interests under persistent regimes of settler-colonial power. Yet this fact has still not penetrated urban scholarship and practice in Australia. There has been remarkably little effort made to interrogate how this fact unsettles the categories, theories and knowledges used by urban geography and built environment disciplines to understand and practice the Australian city. Despite some key interventions in the field from a handful of scholars, there remains a profound silence in mainstream Australian urban geographical scholarship and practice on Indigenous rights and justice. The urban context is also a stubbornly difficult place for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to realise land justice. While nearly 80% of Indigenous people in Australia live in cities, less than 1% of the land base returned after decades of their struggle is in urban areas. The question of the urban context, then, for Indigenous land and cultural justice is both urgent and vital.

    Our purpose in this series of events was to bring these issues more sharply onto the agenda for radical urban geography in Australia and beyond. Building on recent efforts to bring critical analyses of urbanisation and settler colonial contexts together, the events contributed to efforts toward reconfiguring Australian urban scholarship and practice to properly attend to Indigenous land and cultural justice.

    We held a special panel session within the annual conference of the Institute of Australian Geographers (IAG) in July 2017 in Brisbane, Queensland. This lively discussion panel, “Practising paradox: Decolonising urban geographies from the settler-colonial University”, attracted around 20 participants and was led by Libby Porter and Tod Jones with special guest Yvonne Underhill-Sem.

    In September 2017, we held a two-day symposium in Perth, Western Australia. This attracted more than 60 delegates from around Australia and beyond, with around 50% Indigenous and 50% non-Indigenous participation and a mix of disciplinary backgrounds. The program included special guests Linda Kennedy and Oren Yiftachel. The event was co-designed between Indigenous and non-Indigenous organisers as a way to unsettle and challenge the conventions of knowing and sharing knowledge that tend to prevail in western scholarly contexts.

    Program and book of abstracts

    The symposium began with a yarning circle, facilitated by Carol Dowling, a Nyoongar scholar and cultural knowledge holder of yarning circle methods. For three hours on the first morning, Carol held open a specially designed space for the open sharing of ourselves as participants in terms of who we are in relation to Indigenous sovereignties and laws, and our individual experiences of settler-colonial power relations.

    Carol Dowling facilitating the yarning circle

    The program included papers on Aboriginal land rights, treaty negotiations, place-making and property, justice, urban design practices, education and pedagogy among other important themes. Many of the papers were joint presentations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous collaborators.

    One session involved around ten young people (aged 11-19) from the Kaat Koort n Hoops Peer Ambassador program in a panel session, facilitated by Cheryl Kickett-Tucker where they discussed what self-determination means to them in an urban context and some of the ways they are leading the future.

    Kaat Koort n Hoops honours the importance of education and the future aspirations upon wellbeing, academic outcomes and transitions. KKnH is an innovative community-led and sustainable program comprised of weekly wellbeing activities combined with weekly organized sport activities developed and delivered by Aboriginal young people (KKnH Peer Ambassadors). The purpose of this innovation is to provide real life, practical, leadership opportunities to Peer Ambassadors who will learn and teach young peers (KKnH participants) about holistic wellbeing (using organized sport as the vehicle). KKnH aims to provide Peer Ambassadors with a culturally empowering space to learn new skills, knowledge and confidence in a fun and relevant work environment so that they take a proactive approach to their life choices for the future and for today.

    fig4

    Kaat Koort n Hoops Peer Ambassadors

    As part of our outcomes, Peer Ambassadors partake in external, value add activities such as the Decolonising Settler Cities international symposium. Over three weeks leading up to the symposium, ten young Ambassadors (both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal aged 12-23 years) worked independently and collectively to workshop their ideas of decolonization from their perspectives. At the symposium they led a young persons’ panel to present their ideas and take questions from the audience. They worked alongside KKnH Project Director, symposium co-convenor and working party member Cheryl Kickett-Tucker.

    We were led by Nyoongar Elder Noel Nannup on a walking tour to meet and know the country on which we were meeting through Nyoongar law and culture. We were able to film most of the symposium and have been able to create an archive shared among all the participants at this stage, as we work together on other negotiated outcomes that might be enabled by this archive.

    fig5

    Noel Nannup leading us toward knowing Nyoongar country

    Organising these events has helped toward creating a movement within Australian urban geography and cognate built environment disciplines towards a decolonizing ethics and politics in the service of self-determining Indigenous justice. There is evidence that such a movement has emerged and is gaining some momentum. At the 2017 RGS-IBG conference, two of the organisers of these Antipode Foundation-funded events convened a special paper session based on the IAG panel discussion, focused on decolonising knowledges within universities. The session included papers from Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars on the paradoxes and challenges of decolonial practice within Universities. The Urban Geography Study Group of the Institute of Australian Geographers commissioned Linda Kennedy to write a “Leading Insight” essay on decolonising urban practice. This achieves a widening of the voices heard in Australian urban geographical studies, in formats that refuse the forms of white knowledge-creation that we have sought to challenge. A number of postgraduate students are taking up these issues and organising their own events and discussions. We have also worked with Clare Land, author of Decolonising Solidarity, to develop a reading and action group based on her book to further develop decolonial practices of solidarity and scholarship.

    Challenges encountered

    We encountered thankfully few major challenges or problems, but some of our intentions and program had to change to accommodate shifting conditions. A first challenge was that we were unable to host the one-day online forum originally planned. A number of conditions conspired to undermine this plan, perhaps the most significant being that as an organising team we were a little removed from the main organising committee of that event. It is likely to happen in 2018, and we can support the event and create the synergies originally planned.

    A second unfortunate change of plans occurred when Tony Birch was unable to join the Perth symposium at the last minute due to a serious illness in his family. While we missed Tony’s voice and had already paid some amounts for his travel which were not refundable, his withdrawal did not have a major effect on the outcomes we were able to achieve.

    Finally, practising decolonising ethics and philosophies within the organising of these efforts is a challenging undertaking. One of the most instructive dimensions of the work was where our intentions and practices came into conflict with the norms and expectations particularly of Western universities and also expectations and conventions within the scholarly community. We continue to reflect on these challenges and they will form part of our published outputs in the coming months.

    Plans for the future

    The 2018 NZGS-IAG conference will feature a special “Leading Insight” session sponsored by the Urban Geography Study Group on furthering the theme of decolonising urban knowledges, including published output forthcoming in Australian Geographer.

    We’re also planning a series of published outputs, including a co-authored article from the Perth symposium and a co-authored article from the RGS-IBG special session.

    Note

    [1] A word used widely by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia to denote their special relationship with their lands and waters. Country is a living, sentient being in itself, an interconnected web of people, environment and non-human species.

    *

    Symposium, 26-27 September, Perth, Australia

    Decolonising Settler Cities is supported by an Antipode Foundation International Workshop Award. The award supports our pursuit in this symposium of knowing the city differently through conversation with Indigenous custodians, activists, scholars, elders and practitioners, and to use this as the basis for rethinking settler-colonial urbanism. Keynote speakers include Tony Birch, Linda Kennedy and Oren Yiftachel.

    There is still time to make a submission of interest to Decolonising Settler Cities. The call for participants closes on 1 June; please make a submission of 300 words to Tod Jones at Curtin University (T.Jones@curtin.edu.au) or Libby Porter at RMIT University (libby.porter@rmit.edu.au). More information is available on our website here.

    Please join us in seeking an agenda for establishing decolonising practices in Australian cities.

    We acknowledge and thank the Wadjuk Noongar people on whose territory Decolonising Settler Cities will be held. This symposium is hosted by Curtin University’s Translational Research Centre for Aboriginal Knowledges, the Centre for Aboriginal Studies, and the School of Built Environment in collaboration with the Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University. We acknowledge support and funds from the Institute of Australian Geographer"

    PDF of the workshop report: https://resources.curtin.edu.au/file/faculty/hum/Decolonising-Settler-Cities-Program.pdf

    #Decolonisation #Décolonial #ville #Australie #Indigenous

  • Decolonize this Place (DTP)- New York
    https://decolonizethisplace.org/faxxx-1

    Decolonize This Place is an action-oriented movement and decolonial formation in New York City and beyond.

    Decolonize this Place (DTP) is an action-oriented movement and decolonial formation in New York City. Facilitated by MTL+, DTP consists of over 30 collaborators, consisting of grassroots groups and art collectives that seek to resist, unsettle, and reclaim the city. The organizing and action bring together many strands of analysis and traditions of resistance: Indigenous insurgence, Black liberation, free Palestine, free Puerto Rico, the struggles of workers and debtors, de-gentrification, migrant justice, dismantling patriarchy, and more. In some cases, we have used cultural institutions as platforms and amplifiers for movement demands, but we do not understand the transformation of these institutions as an end in and of itself. We aim to cultivate a politics of autonomy, solidarity, and mutual aid within a long-term, multi-generational horizon of decolonial, anti-capitalist, and feminist liberation that is animated by Grace Lee Boggs’ question: “What time is it on the clock of the world?” For us, decolonization necessitates abolition. But what does abolition demand? Not only does it demand the abolition of prisons and police, bosses and borders, but as Fred Moten and Stefano Harney write, it’s “the abolition of a society that could have prisons, that could have slavery, that could have the wage, and therefore not abolition as the elimination of anything but abolition as the founding of a new society.”

    #abolition #New_York #decolonisation #Décoloniser #musée #contestedmonuments #monument

  • "Friends no longer, Ukraine removes Russian statues and street names

    The Guardian, Thu 28 Apr 2022
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/28/friends-no-longer-ukraine-removes-russian-statues-and-street-names
    Lorenzo Tondo and Isobel Koshiw in Kyiv

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b943ced71bdf9e9b763415100afef017b85a7995/0_185_6720_4032/master/6720.jpg?width=620&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=c2f023bbe029f4b7
    The head of a Russian worker, accidentally decapitated while the monument to friendship was pulled down in Kyiv on Tuesday. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Guardia n

    At 5.36 pm on Tuesday in the historic Kyiv district of Pecherskyi, an imposing Soviet-era bronze monument symbolising the friendship between Russia and Ukraine was accidentally decapitated and then deliberately dismantled to the applause of hundreds of people.

    As local officials explained, when one country invades and bombs another, killing its people, their friendship is over.

    The 40-year-old statue, depicting a Ukrainian and a Russian worker on a plinth, was pulled down on the order of local authorities in Kyiv. It is one of the first steps of a plan to demolish about 60 monuments and to rename dozens of streets associated with the Soviet Union, Russia and Russian figures, including the writers Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Pushkin, as a result of the war between the two countries.

    Serhii Myrhorodskyi, 86, an architect from Kyiv, watched excitedly as the head of the Russian worker accidentally broke off from its body and tumbled to the ground during the removal. He did not appear bothered, despite the fact it was he who had designed the monument, erected in 1982 as a gift from the Soviet regime to the Ukrainian government.

    “It is the right thing to do,” he told the Guardian. “There is no friendship with Russia and there will not be any friendship for a long time while Putin and his gang are in this world. After they drop dead, maybe in 30 years, something will change.

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/4366bbcd773dbe1e4088bac487e5e4ddef7e7d68/0_352_6720_4032/master/6720.jpg?width=620&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=22ef27d033e70720
    The dismantling of the Soviet-era bronze monument
    A woman cheers as the Soviet-era monument in Kyiv symbolising the former friendship between Russia and Ukraine is dismantled. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian

    “The presence of the monument that represents a friendship with Russia is a sin. Removing it is the only right decision. And we could use that bronze of which the monument is made. We could melt it down and sculpt a new monument dedicated to Ukraine the motherland, which would symbolise the unity of all Ukrainian lands.”

    “As for my emotions,” he added, “I am just happy to see that people are glad this whole thing is being taken away.”

    As the monument began to fall, the crowd chanted: “Glory to Ukraine, glory to the heroes, glory to the nation of Ukraine.”

    The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, who presided over the dismantling, said the removal of Russian symbols from the city was now under way. “You don’t kill your brother. You don’t rape your sister. You don’t destroy your friend’s country. That’s why, today, we have dismantled this monument, once created as a sign of friendship between Ukraine and Russia,” he said.

    Other cities in Ukraine have in recent days begun to rename streets associated with Russian figures or to dismantle monuments related to the Soviet Union.

    Memorial plaques for Soviet cities replaced with the names of Ukrainian cities
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6425d68f27a2373c04d056471e66dafcdd359eec/0_399_6720_4032/master/6720.jpg?width=620&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=390ab3b0aa45bc86 plaques for Soviet ‘hero cities’ that resisted the Nazis have been replaced with the names of Ukrainian cities under Russian occupation or attack. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian

    The city of Ternopil, in western Ukraine, has renamed a street dedicated to the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, and removed a Soviet tank and aircraft. The aircraft is to be replaced with a “heroes of Ukraine” monument.

    Fontanka, a village near Odesa, decided to turn a street dedicated to the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky into Boris Johnson Street, after the UK promised to send a £100m weapons package to Ukraine.
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    And the mayor of Dnipro, Borys Filatov, said streets named after Russian towns would be rededicated to Ukrainian cities and symbols: Abkhazia Street became Irpin, while the street of the 30th Irkutsk Division is now called Ukrainian Soldiers.

    Officials in Kyiv are to approve a law to rename 60 streets, meaning Russian writers and Ukrainians who wrote in Russian – or even assumed a Russian identity – are among those who may be written out of public life in the city. A metro station named after Tolstoy is on the list.

    The entrance to Leo Tolstoy Square metro station in central Kyiv
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c4801ae1d3fc91c9c6399b2c80e53ccaa3915470/0_152_6720_4032/master/6720.jpg?width=620&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=8812fbc7fa4e362e
    The entrance to Leo Tolstoy Square metro station in central Kyiv. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian

    “The war changed everything and things have accelerated the times,” Alina Mykhailova, one of the two Kyiv city deputies who put forward the law, wrote on Facebook. “Finally, there is an understanding that [our] colonial heritage must be destroyed.”
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    Mykhailova and her colleague Ksenia Semenova campaigned for the removal of the People’s Friendship monument that was dismantled on Tuesday. There had been plans to remove the statue under Ukraine’s decommunisation laws passed in 2015, but at the time they received pushback from other members of the Kyiv city council, Mykhailova wrote.

    The Ukrainian language and Ukrainian national identity were suppressed by tsarist Russia and its Soviet successor. Russian was considered the language of high culture and official business, and many Ukrainians, particularly peasants who moved to the big cities after the second world war, adopted Russian to distance themselves from their rural origins.

    Perhaps more controversially, the de-Russification list includes Ukrainian-born writers such as Mikhail – or Mykhailo, in Ukrainian – Bulgakov, who was born in Ukraine, wrote about Kyiv, but had derogatory views about the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian national identity. His statue sits next to his former house on one of Kyiv’s most famous streets, which is now the Bulgakov Museum and is popular with tourists.

    “Only idiots could do this because Leo Tolstoy is a world-famous writer, not just Russian or Ukrainian,” said Ihor Serhiivych, a Kyiv resident, inside Leo Tolstoy Square metro station.

    “There are lots of [ethnic] Russians who live in Kyiv and they are probably doing more right now to protect Ukraine than those western Ukrainians who think of themselves as the elite,” Serhiivych said. He said there was a gulf in understanding between those Ukrainians who lived for a significant period under Soviet and tsarist rule and those in western Ukraine who did not.

    “If it was a Putin statue I would understand, but you have to differentiate between enemies and world-famous literature.”
    A Soviet monument to the tank divisions that fought against Nazi Germany is adorned with a Ukrainian flag
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/50410a1b3a1b5d094ffca715a89e8b31b4b0a96d/0_381_6720_4032/master/6720.jpg?width=620&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=eb30be57f704533c
    A Soviet monument to the tank divisions that fought against Nazi Germany is adorned with a Ukrainian flag. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian

    Another person at the station, Valetyna Hryhoryvycha, said: “I think people need to think about it a bit more. I don’t see how they relate to what’s happening now. It is part of our history.”

    Ivan Andreiev, who works near Bulgakov Museum, said: “I’m for the removal of the friendship monument because there can’t be friendship between enemies. But I think it’s a fake that they’re planning on taking down Bulgakov’s monument. What Russian or Ukrainian would vote for such a thing? It’s just history.”

    While Ukrainian authorities are working hard to disassemble the Russian monuments in their country, Moscow is doing the opposite in Ukrainian territories it has occupied, restoring statues and symbols of the Soviet era.

    Two weeks ago in the seaside town of Henichesk, in the Kherson region, which is occupied by the Russian troops, a familiar figure returned to the main square. A statue of the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, sporting his familiar goatee and moustache, was back on his pedestal, erected by Russian soldiers."

    #Contestedmonuments #Ukraine #Russie #Stalin #Marx #monuments #statue #soviet

  • Tableau l’Abolition de l’An II de Hervé di Rosa contesté.
    Tribune 2 de Mame-Fatou Niang et Julien Suaudeau — 21 mai 2020 in Slate.fr

    http://www.slate.fr/story/190641/tableau-herve-di-rosa-commemorer-abolition-esclavage-assemblee-nationale

    Ce tableau d’Hervé di Rosa est-il la meilleure œuvre pour commémorer la première abolition de l’esclavage ?

    Il y a un peu plus d’un an, le 4 avril 2019, nous avons publié une tribune intitulée « Banalisation du racisme à l’Assemblée nationale : ouvrons les yeux », dans laquelle nous expliquions pourquoi le tableau d’Hervé di Rosa commémorant l’abolition de l’An II n’a pas, selon nous, sa place sur les murs du Palais Bourbon.

    Cette tribune avait été accompagnée par une pétition publiée le même jour, adressée au Président de l’Assemblée nationale et aux député·es ; le 12 avril, un deuxième texte l’avait suivie, qui répondait point par point aux accusations portées contre nous.

    La toile est toujours là, le débat de fond n’a pas eu lieu et certains ont pu croire que nous ne souhaitions pas l’ouvrir. Bien au contraire. Alors que c’est aujourd’hui l’anniversaire de la loi Taubira du 21 mai 2001, tendant à la reconnaissance de la traite et de l’esclavage en tant que crime contre l’humanité, alors que la Martinique célèbre demain son abolition et que la Guadeloupe fera de même le 27 mai, alors que le 10 mai a débuté un mois de commémoration et de réflexion sur le respect de la dignité humaine, la nécessité historique de ce débat est plus actuelle que jamais. Nous nous proposons ici de l’engager sur le mode du questionnement, après un bref rappel de notre point de vue.

    À LIRE AUSSI Je me souviens d’Auschwitz et de Gorée
    Une vision stéréotypée et déshumanisante

    À nos yeux, le tableau en question ne peut être l’œuvre qui commémore, au cœur du pouvoir législatif, la loi de la Ière République ayant aboli l’esclavage avant que celui-ci ne soit rétabli sous l’Empire.

    Inscrite dans une imagerie où se sédimentent, pêle-mêle, ces rires Banania que Léopold Sédar Senghor voulait déchirer sur tous les murs de France, Tintin au Congo ou encore les barbouillages de Michel Leeb, cette représentation donne du corps noir une vision stéréotypée et déshumanisante. Elle insulte à la fois la mémoire des millions de victimes du commerce triangulaire, de l’esclavage et les citoyen·nes français.es qui sont leurs descendant·es.

    Selon Hervé di Rosa, l’auteur du tableau, nous aurions fait fausse route en attentant à sa liberté de créateur, à « son geste artistique et poétique ». Parce que tous ses personnages ont « de grosses lèvres rouges », quelles que soient leur couleur, leur sexe ou leurs caractéristiques physiques, nous lui aurions instruit un mauvais procès.

    Non seulement cette posture feint d’ignorer les codes iconographiques du colonialisme et du racisme français et belges, mais un rapide survol de la diromythologie, cette esthétique pop forgée au carrefour du graffiti, de la BD et de la science-fiction, suffit pour comprendre que l’artiste a su donner forme à des physionomies bien plus diverses qu’il ne le dit.

    L’imagerie à laquelle la toile renvoie aurait dû l’écarter a priori de toute fonction commémorative –à plus forte raison dans un bâtiment aussi symbolique que le Palais Bourbon.

    Depuis le début de l’affaire, nous considérons hors-sujet ses intentions et ses convictions politiques, et nous nous sommes toujours gardés de porter un jugement esthétique sur un tableau qui n’aurait pas retenu notre attention s’il avait été exposé dans un musée ou une galerie privée.

    Le problème est pour nous le suivant : l’imagerie à laquelle la toile renvoie aurait dû l’écarter a priori de toute fonction commémorative –à plus forte raison dans un bâtiment aussi symbolique que le Palais Bourbon.

    La toile d’Hervé di Rosa y a été accrochée en 1991, dans le cadre d’une série qui célèbre les grands moments de l’histoire législative française. D’autres panneaux de la même série, par exemple celui consacré à l’adoption du suffrage universel en 1848, présentent des visages aux traits similaires ? C’est exact. Mais parce que ces visages ont la peau rose, ils ne sauraient convoquer le même champ symbolique.

    Dans un documentaire diffusé récemment sur Arte, Hervé di Rosa affirme que sa création ne relève pas du réel et se caractérise par une sorte d’étanchéité historique : « L’Histoire c’est l’Histoire, une image c’est une image, c’est un songe, c’est une esthétique, ce n’est pas la réalité. » Nous soutenons qu’aucune œuvre d’art n’existe ex nihilo, dans un vide anhistorique.

    Imagine-t-on un mémorial du 13-Novembre sur lequel les victimes, revues et corrigées en personnages de BD, souriraient d’un air béat entre les balles des terroristes ? Peut-on envisager, au mémorial de la Shoah, une œuvre de commémoration qui mettrait en scène des figures évoquant les stéréotypes de l’exposition « Le Juif et la France » ?

    Si une telle chose est impensable, c’est parce que la mémoire de l’Holocauste a été écrite consciencieusement, avec le plus grand sérieux. Nous ne parlons pas ici de sensibilité, au sens où la perpétuation des codes de l’imagerie colonialiste serait blessante, choquante, indélicate. Elle l’est pour beaucoup, mais ce n’est pas le problème principal. Il s’agit de conscience historique et esthétique : choisir une vision fantaisiste de la blessure mortelle que fut le commerce triangulaire, c’est valider une forme de négationnisme par l’image.

    À LIRE AUSSI Les idées des Lumières ont façonné les questions de race et de suprématie blanche
    Honorer la mémoire et donner à voir l’Histoire sans compromettre l’Art

    L’art a le droit et le devoir de choquer, à condition de choquer avec rigueur –surtout si l’œuvre en question a une vocation commémorative. Que viendraient donc faire la satire et l’ironie, souvent invoquées comme des marques déposées de l’esprit français, dans l’hommage et le recueillement ?

    Rien, nous en sommes convaincu·es. Ce n’est que notre opinion et nous avons peut-être tort. Mais, si tel est le cas, il appartient aux député·es de le démontrer en répondant aux questions qui ont été évitées jusqu’à maintenant.

    Vingt-neuf ans après son inauguration, les représentant·es de la nation, en passant devant le tableau sur le chemin de l’hémicycle, sont-ils intimement convaincu·es qu’il ne saurait y avoir d’œuvre plus pertinente pour commémorer le « plus jamais » que nous dictent la traite et l’esclavage ?

    Les millions d’Africain·es qui ont trouvé la mort dans l’Atlantique ou aux colonies peuvent-ils se résumer à deux figures plates, jumelles et unidimensionnelles, sans aucune pluralité ni complexité, dans un des plus haut-lieux de pouvoir de l’ancienne puissance coloniale ?

    La main du colonisateur peut-elle rester invisible, comme si l’esclavage avait été institué puis aboli (puis ré-institué avant d’être aboli pour de bon en 1848) par une sorte d’enchantement dont il ne serait pas nécessaire de rappeler les modalités ?

    Quels éléments esthétiques distinguent cette toile de la vision stéréotypée des Noir·es dans la très longue et très fertile iconographie du racisme made in France ?

    Est-il absolument impossible d’inventer, sans compromettre l’Art, une plus juste façon d’honorer la Mémoire et de donner à voir l’Histoire ?

    Le débat que nous souhaitons ouvrir n’a rien à voir avec l’interdiction d’une pièce de théâtre ou la problématique de l’appropriation culturelle.

    Les questions sont posées et le débat est ouvert. Des député·es, nous attendons des réponses claires, sans les contre feux ni les manœuvres de diversion du type de celles que nous avons connues jusqu’à présent : accusations de censure, d’infiltration du politiquement correct américain, de militantisme ou de communautarisme.

    N’en déplaise à celles et ceux qui ne sont pas d’accord avec nous, nous sommes des universalistes dans le plein sens du terme : la République est grande pour nous lorsqu’elle fait une place à tous les Français·es, non quand elle se limite à une clause d’ancienneté visant à maintenir les privilèges des premiers arrivé·es.

    Le débat que nous souhaitons ouvrir n’a rien à voir, rien, avec l’interdiction d’une pièce de théâtre ou la problématique de l’appropriation culturelle. Nous sommes hostiles à toutes les censures et à toutes les formes d’assignation identitaire. Nous n’appartenons à aucun groupe. Nous parlons d’une seule voix, hybride. Cette hybridité est celle que nous pratiquons en tant qu’enseignant·es, mais aussi dans nos films et nos romans.

    Nous sommes prêt·es à entendre tous les contre-arguments de bonne foi, par exemple le fait que le tableau appartient à un ensemble : que deviendrait l’unité esthétique de ce tout s’il était amputé d’un de ses éléments ?

    Nous sommes disposé·es à discuter sereinement avec tous ceux qui feront valoir un point de vue compatible avec le dialogue. Si on nous apporte des réponses précises et convaincantes, nous le reconnaîtrons.

    La toile, sa vocation commémorative et son cadre politico-historique : le lourd silence de nos angles morts coloniaux ne doit pas étouffer ce débat qui mérite d’avoir lieu.

    À LIRE AUSSI Pourquoi la France compte sept dates de commémoration de l’abolition de l’esclavage

    Organisée le 10 mai, la journée des mémoires de la traite, de l’esclavage et de leurs abolitions avait cette année pour thème la page manquante. Selon Jean-Marc Ayrault, président de la Fondation pour la mémoire de l’esclavage, celle-ci symbolise « l’ignorance qui entoure encore l’esclavage et la mémoire de notre passé colonial dans le grand public ».

    L’une de ces pages supprimées se trouve sur le site Internet de l’Assemblée nationale, dont le compte Twitter a salué les commémorations du 10 mai en publiant la photo d’un homme noir en chaînes –celle-là même par laquelle la photo du tableau d’Hervé di Rosa avait été remplacée en catastrophe après la publication de notre première tribune, officiellement dans le cadre d’une mise à jour prévue de longue date.

    « Honorer le souvenir des victimes et transmettre la mémoire de ce crime contre l’humanité », dit le tweet de l’Assemblée nationale. En remettant en cause un choix esthétique fait en son temps par une génération peut-être moins consciente de ces enjeux, les député·es ont l’occasion de montrer aujourd’hui qu’il ne s’agit pas de belles paroles, mais aussi de poursuivre la réflexion historique entamée par la loi Taubira du 21 mai 2001.
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    L’anniversaire de cette loi, concomitant des abolitions en Martinique et en Guadeloupe, nous invite en tant que citoyen·nes à exercer notre devoir de mémoire. Aux esprits chagrins qui verraient là une démarche de « censure », un indice de la « tyrannie des minorités », une obsession de la « repentance » ou un business de la « concurrence victimaire », nous recommandons de mieux respecter l’Histoire, celle de tous les Français·es, qu’il nous appartient de connaître et de comprendre en vue de construire un avenir commun.
    En savoir plus : Société Culture esclavage loi Taubira tableau commémoration Assemblée nationale

    #esclavage #abolition #AssembléeNationale #contestedmonuments

  • « Banalisation du racisme à l’Assemblée nationale : ouvrons les yeux »
    https://www.nouvelobs.com/bibliobs/20190404.OBS11119/banalisation-du-racisme-au-c-ur-de-la-republique-ouvrons-les-yeux.html

    "L’Assemblée nationale, si elle ne brille pas par sa diversité, abrite de nombreuses œuvres. L’« Histoire en peinture de l’Assemblée nationale » d’Hervé di Rosa en est une. Parmi les fresques de cette série, que son auteur déposa en 1991 sur les murs du Palais Bourbon, on trouve un épisode consacré à la première abolition de l’esclavage, celle de l’An II.

    Pour commémorer cet événement et l’inscrire dans la glorieuse chanson de geste républicaine, les autorités culturelles de l’époque n’ont pas trouvé mieux qu’une imagerie hésitant entre Banania et « Tintin au Congo« . Ces lèvres surdimensionnées sont certes la signature de la « dyromythologie », l’univers fantastique que di Rosa a forgé au croisement des mondes de l’enfance, de la BD et de la science-fiction. Néanmoins, il faut être singulièrement ignorant – ou mal intentionné – pour ne pas voir l’offense qu’elles constituent dans ce contexte. Et que dire de ces yeux exorbités, de ces sourires béats et carnassiers ? Il n’existait donc aucun street artist capable de répondre à la commande de l’Assemblée nationale sans réduire les Noirs à une vision humiliante et déshumanisante ?

    La suite après la publicité

    LIRE AUSSI > « Sexe, race et colonies » : « Un viol qui a duré six siècles »

    En regardant ce mural, devant lequel les députés de la Ve République passent et repassent tous les jours, on est au-delà du stéréotype : on a le sentiment d’ouvrir un des grimoires infâmes de la suprématie blanche. La chose est pourtant nichée là depuis vingt-huit ans, dans les entrailles du pouvoir législatif qui a jadis brisé les chaînes de la traite et de la servitude, comme un pan de notre mémoire collective. Sa présence au cœur d’un des hauts-lieux de la République, dans l’indifférence générale, ajoute l’insulte à la blessure. Elle est historiquement inacceptable et politiquement incompréhensible.

    Nous demandons le retrait de ce mur de la honte.

    Récemment, Katy Perry a retiré du marché ses chaussures évoquant un Blackface ; Gucci en a fait de même avec son pull. Le pays des Droits de l’Homme et des Lumières, contrairement aux marques et aux célébrités, ne serait-il pas tenu à un devoir de sensibilité et de justesse vis-à-vis de l’Histoire ? Vis-à-vis des citoyens issus de cette Histoire ? Ne nous méprenons pas : il ne s’agit ni de repentance, ni de culpabilité, ni de je-ne-sais-quel jugement du passé à l’aune des valeurs contemporaines.

    La suite après la publicité

    Il s’agit de rendre justice aux millions de victimes du commerce triangulaire, en donnant à l’image de leurs corps la dignité que leur martyr impose.

    Il s’agit de regarder l’Histoire en face, non comme une bande dessinée qui ne nous concerne pas.

    Il s’agit aussi de décoloniser le regard sur les Noirs, de faire exploser les catégories de l’imaginaire dont ce type de clichés montre que leur figure reste prisonnière, aussi aberrant que cela puisse paraître en 2019 : sauvage paresseux et rieur, guerrier cannibale, bête de sexe qui a le rythme dans la peau. La récurrence des violences policières contre les Afro-Français montre que ce travail, hélas, ne saurait se limiter à une démarche purement intellectuelle.

    Les Etats-Unis, où nous vivons et enseignons, se débattent avec leurs propres démons. L’esclavage et la ségrégation ont accompagné la « Naissance d’une nation » ; ils ont joué un rôle crucial dans le développement de sa puissance économique et dans son expansion mondiale. La discrimination et le racisme institutionnel y sont encore des réalités criantes. Prisons, précarité économique et violences policières : les minorités paient un tribut quotidien au racisme institutionnalisé.

    La suite après la publicité

    LIRE AUSSI > Gauz : « La négritude a adoubé le discours racial »

    Pourtant, en face du Washington Monument, tout près de la Maison Blanche, se dresse le Musée National d’Histoire et de Culture Afro-Américaines. Un peu plus loin, sur Capitol Hill, on peut visiter le Musée National des Amérindiens : le génocide et le crime collectif sur lequel se sont fondés les Etats-Unis sont reconnus, racontés et enseignés au cœur de leur capitale, les lieux de pouvoir devenant par là-même lieux de mémoire. Sur cette terre arrachée aux peuples indigènes par l’arrivée des Européens, la prise de conscience et la réparation restent des travaux titanesques, processus plus qu’objectifs – il est probable par exemple que le Mont Rushmore ne soit jamais rendu aux Sioux. Mais, dans les musées du National Mall, on ne donne pas une mise en scène pop, déréalisante, aux exactions du passé. On les montre telles quelles, à travers des archives que leur violence préserve de l’invisibilité.

    Si le rayonnement de la France n’est pas un vain mot, ses députés serait bien inspirés, eux, d’ouvrir les yeux sur le papier peint rance de leur lieu de travail.

    La fresque d’Hervé di Rosa commémorant la première abolition de l’esclavage est une faute, qu’aggrave sa pérennité. Lapsus honteux ou angle mort de la mémoire coloniale, elle n’a pas sa place à l’Assemblée Nationale.

    La suite après la publicité

    Mame-Fatou Niang est enseignante-chercheure à Carnegie Mellon University et réalisatrice. Son documentaire « Mariannes Noires » raconte les parcours de sept Afro-Françaises. Son compte Twitter : @MariannesNoires.

    Julien Suaudeau est romancier et enseigne à Bryn Mawr College. Son dernier roman, « Le Sang noir des hommes » (Flammarion), a pour sujet le viol colonial. Son compte Twitter : @dawa_rl."

    #esclavage #contestedmonuments #AssembléeNationale #abolition

  • “Forget the school-to-prison pipeline. It seems that schools have become prisons”

    https://make-it-plain.org/2022/03/18/f-the-police-and-the-review-the-lessons-from-child-q

    Kehinde Andrews
    18th March 2022

    "I thought that this racist system could no longer surprise me. But reading that a Black fifteen-year-old girl, Child Q, was stripped searched, whilst on her period, by the police in her school was a reminder of the depravity of dutty, stinkin’ Babylon. Words do not exist to express the disgust that any young person would be put through such an ordeal. Forget the school-to-prison pipeline. It seems that schools have become prisons.

    Everyone involved should not only be fired but face criminal prosecution. Malcolm X famously stopped condemning all White people as devils, but stories like this make that kind of benevolence increasingly difficult. We should have shut down the nation on hearing about this outrage. Instead, we found out almost two years later from a “local child safeguarding practice review.” I don’t doubt that the people involved in the review had good intentions. There were clearly those involved who had proper knowledge and perspectives on racism in the criminal injustice system. But that is beside the point because the very processes supposed to protect us are actually tools to further our oppression.

    “Malcolm X famously stopped condemning all White people as devils, but stories like this make that kind of benevolence increasingly difficult”

    We need to seriously question when we delegated our response to racist outrages to safeguarding reviews. Safeguarding has a problem with race as Auma covered for MIP in a fire two-part series on complex safeguarding’s problems with race as a Black woman working in a safeguarding team. The lengthy, bureaucratic process is no way to respond to such violence against our young people. An effort was made to tie the case into the wider picture of state abuse, where more than 4,500 children between the ages of 10 and 16 were strip-searched between 2008 and 2013 by the Met. But the process is individualized by its very nature. The review can paint the bigger picture but can’t do anything about it.

    Something produced by the racist system inevitably ends up being framed by it. The extent to which the review accepted the racist premises that led to the event is astounding. Smelling of weed should not be cause for calling the police, who should only ever be called into schools in an emergency. Possession of weed should never be the cause for a strip search. It’s frankly irrelevant whether or not an appropriate adult was present or her parents were informed. It is not a coincidence that the school was in Hackney or that the victim was Black. Policing in Britain, like everywhere for the Black population, is hallmarked by harassing Black communities for offenses that elsewhere would not raise an eyebrow. If the police strip-searched every university student who smelt like weed on campus, the force wouldn’t have the resources to do anything else.

    “Forget the school-to-prison pipeline. It seems that schools have become prisons”

    The review does highlight the gendered racism that was on full display where a child was “adultified” and spared none of the harshest abuses. This is an all too common issue facing Black boys and girls. The fact she was menstruating probably just reinforced the pigs (please, what else can you call them) that this was a dangerous Negro wench who needed to be tamed. Smelling weed on a young girl should have made the teachers concerned for her welfare. Instead, they feared for the safety of themselves and the other pupils. Just think of the damage she could have done with a bit of weed. The behind closed doors nature of the abuse that she suffered also indicates the private violence that Black women experience. There is no strip search video that can go viral on social media. We have been neglectful in addressing the oppression of Black women and girls because we tend to rally to the spectacle. We must do better at being outraged by the private and structural issues of racism that are not easily captured on smartphones.

    We must also stop outsourcing our response to racism to the new managerial procedures that only worsen the problem. Rather than reject the racist premise, the review supports it by arguing that “whilst some may argue that the strip-searching of children should never be done at all, the review acknowledges its place in practice, with the caveat that this needs to be firmly embedded in a culture that addresses the safeguarding needs of children.” It should be obvious there is no culture that safeguards children whilst allowing them to be strip-searched, especially not one defined by White supremacy.

    “We must do better at being outraged by the private and structural issues of racism that are not easily captured on smartphones”

    As with all of these paper exercises, the best we can hope for is some tame recommendations that cannot meet the moment. This time we get calls for a strip and search procedure review, recommendations for anti-racism training, and an impassioned plea for a strongly worded anti-racism statement. Free at last, free and last, thank God almighty we have a powerful anti-racism statement!!! If my eyes rolled any further, they would be stuck forever staring into my skull.

    Complaining to the Met about the officers’ conduct is like chastising pigs for eating untidily from a trough. Abusing Black bodies is part of their basic operating system. I’m instinctively against book burnings, but surely printing out the report and setting it alight would be exempt from the general rule. This debacle is a reminder that in 2022 we have not made the progress some of the people (see: House Negro and Uncle Tom) that look like us make good money telling White people we have. But also that the mechanisms that are supposed to protect us violate us even further. If you still are not convinced that we should have no faith in the system, that we need to overhaul and start again, then in the words of Malcolm, “I feel sorry for you.”❞

    #police #racisme #UK #controle_policier

  • Pointe avancée de l’islamophobie, la France s’oppose même à une résolution proposée par l’ONU
    http://www.revolutionpermanente.fr/Pointe-avancee-de-l-islamophobie-la-France-s-oppose-meme-a-une-

    Pointe avancée de l’islamophobie, la France s’oppose même à une résolution proposée par l’ONU

    En début de semaine la France s’est exprimée contre une résolution proposée par le Pakistan à l’ONU visant à créer une journée internationale contre l’islamophobie. Une fois de plus le gouvernement est à l’avant-poste quand il s’agit de stigmatiser les personnes musulmanes.

    Esther Tolosa

    vendredi 18 mars

    Crédit photo : O Phil des Contrastes

    En début de semaine, le Pakistan a proposé une résolution à l’ONU visant à la création d’une journée internationale contre l’islamophobie chaque 15 mars en estimant que l’islamophobie est une « violation des droits humains et des libertés de religion et de conviction des musulmans ». Si cette résolution a été adoptée par consensus, certains pays comme la France ou l’Inde ont manifesté leur opposition en désapprouvant notamment le terme islamophobie.

    Nicolas de Rivière, le représentant de la France à l’ONU a justifié son opposition en invoquant l’argument classique de l’universalité. Selon le représentant de l’Etat français donc, ce texte serait insuffisant et excluant car il « segmente la lutte contre l’intolérance religieuse en sélectionnant qu’une religion à l’exclusion des autres ». De plus il réfute le terme d’islamophobie qui ne ferait l’objet d’aucune définition agréée dans le droit internationale.

    Cette opposition de la France contre une proposition aussi minimale qu’est la création d’une journée internationale contre l’islamophobie est peu surprenante lorsqu’on voit l’offensive islamophobe que mène le gouvernement français. Contrairement à ce qu’affirme Nicolas de Rivière, non seulement l’islamophobie existe, mais elle est en premier lieu alimentée et rendue possible par les politiques du gouvernement à l’image de la loi séparatisme, de la loi interdisant le port du voile des mères dans les sorties scolaires ou des différentes fermetures de mosquées dont une cette semaine encore en Gironde.

    Si ce n’est évidemment pas la création de cette journée qui permettra de lutter contre l’islamophobie, le refus de la France même de reconnaître le terme est révélateur d’un gouvernement réactionnaire qui a fait de l’islamophobie un de ses chevaux de bataille. D’ailleurs comme le soulignait Rafik Chekkat dans une interview pour Révolution Permenente : « la France est devenue la capitale de l’islamophobie » avant d’ajouter « le racisme n’est pas une diversion. Il fait pleinement partie du projet néolibéral (…) les attaques contre les personnes musulmanes sont une attaque contre le corps social tout entier ».

    Alors que le gouvernement pousse toujours plus loin ses velléités islamophobes et se positionne en tête de fil de l’islamophobie, jusque sur la scène internationale, il est urgent de construire une riposte, par en bas, qui dépasse de loin le cadre d’une journée internationale de l’ONU et que notre camp social face front contre le racisme.

    #islamophobie #France #Pakistan #ONU

  • Difficult Heritage – Summer School, 2021

    For an impression of the summer school on Difficult Heritage of Fascist architecture in Sicily see:
    – YouTube
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0jY9q1VR3E

    The summerschool is offered again in 2022. Please see a description below:

    “In collaboration with DAAS - Decolonizing Architecture Advanced Studies at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, the Critical Urbanisms program at the University of Basel is organizing the Decolonial Summer School on Difficult Heritage. The summer school aims at enlarging the analysis and investigation of colonial urban and architectural heritage. What kind of heritage really is colonial urban and architectural heritage? What should be done with this troublesome heritage? Is there a possibility for its re-use and for critical preservation without falling into the celebration of colonial ideologies? Who has the right to reuse and reclaim this heritage?

    The summer school will address these questions exploring and experimenting decolonial approaches in the debates on urban heritage, embracing non Euro-centric epistemologies and methodologies of inquiry and investigation. The summer school takes place in Borgo Rizza, in the province of Siracusa, Sicily, Italy.

    Borgo Rizza is one of a series of rural settlements that have been built in Sicily between 1939-43. Following Mussolini’s experiment of settler colonialism in Libya, these villages had been built as part of fascism’s plan of “internal colonisation” of the South of Italy, which was considered by the fascist regime as “underdeveloped” and in need of “modernisation”. In the aftermath of WWII, Borgo Rizza, as well as the other villages, has been subsequently abandoned and left empty until this very day.

    In the “difficult” setting of the fascist colonial architecture of Borgo Rizza, the summer school offers students the possibility to develop independent projects and experiment practices of “re-use” by examining critically the ideas of modernity, progress, and development in relation to Europe’s imperial histories and legacies.

    By joining the course, students will share the experience with a selected number of students from the DAAS course in Stockholm. The summer school is organized around a series of seminars, excursions, collaborative work with local communities and political activists, public events featuring the participation of international guests from the academia and the contemporary art world. During the duration of the school, the students will develop their individual projects, under the supervision of Dr Emilio Distretti, Urban Studies, Department of Social Sciences.”

    #Sicily #Italy #fascisme #architecture #décolonial

  • They are ‘civilised’ and ‘look like us’: the racist coverage of Ukraine | Moustafa Bayoumi | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/02/civilised-european-look-like-us-racist-coverage-ukraine
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0d0e08359c7bba730b13cce27e148aff0dbc14d8/0_440_4007_2405/master/4007.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali

    They are ‘civilised’ and ‘look like us’: the racist coverage of Ukraine
    Moustafa Bayoumi
    Moustafa Bayoumi

    Are Ukrainians more deserving of sympathy than Afghans and Iraqis? Many seem to think so
    Wed 2 Mar 2022 15.35 GMT

    While on air, CBS News senior foreign correspondent Charlie D’Agata stated last week that Ukraine “isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European – I have to choose those words carefully, too – city, one where you wouldn’t expect that, or hope that it’s going to happen”.

    If this is D’Agata choosing his words carefully, I shudder to think about his impromptu utterances. After all, by describing Ukraine as “civilized”, isn’t he really telling us that Ukrainians, unlike Afghans and Iraqis, are more deserving of our sympathy than Iraqis or Afghans?

    Righteous outrage immediately mounted online, as it should have in this case, and the veteran correspondent quickly apologized, but since Russia began its large-scale invasion on 24 February, D’Agata has hardly been the only journalist to see the plight of Ukrainians in decidedly chauvinistic terms.
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    The BBC interviewed a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine, who told the network: “It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blond hair … being killed every day.” Rather than question or challenge the comment, the BBC host flatly replied, “I understand and respect the emotion.” On France’s BFM TV, journalist Phillipe Corbé stated this about Ukraine: “We’re not talking here about Syrians fleeing the bombing of the Syrian regime backed by Putin. We’re talking about Europeans leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives.”

    In other words, not only do Ukrainians look like “us”; even their cars look like “our” cars. And that trite observation is seriously being trotted out as a reason for why we should care about Ukrainians.

    There’s more, unfortunately. An ITV journalist reporting from Poland said: “Now the unthinkable has happened to them. And this is not a developing, third world nation. This is Europe!” As if war is always and forever an ordinary routine limited to developing, third world nations. (By the way, there’s also been a hot war in Ukraine since 2014. Also, the first world war and second world war.) Referring to refugee seekers, an Al Jazeera anchor chimed in with this: “Looking at them, the way they are dressed, these are prosperous … I’m loath to use the expression … middle-class people. These are not obviously refugees looking to get away from areas in the Middle East that are still in a big state of war. These are not people trying to get away from areas in North Africa. They look like any.” Apparently looking “middle class” equals “the European family living next door”.

    And writing in the Telegraph, Daniel Hannan explained: “They seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking. Ukraine is a European country. Its people watch Netflix and have Instagram accounts, vote in free elections and read uncensored newspapers. War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations.”
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    What all these petty, superficial differences – from owning cars and clothes to having Netflix and Instagram accounts – add up to is not real human solidarity for an oppressed people. In fact, it’s the opposite. It’s tribalism. These comments point to a pernicious racism that permeates today’s war coverage and seeps into its fabric like a stain that won’t go away. The implication is clear: war is a natural state for people of color, while white people naturally gravitate toward peace.

    It’s not just me who found these clips disturbing. The US-based Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association was also deeply troubled by the coverage, recently issuing a statement on the matter: “Ameja condemns and categorically rejects orientalist and racist implications that any population or country is ‘uncivilized’ or bears economic factors that make it worthy of conflict,” reads the statement. “This type of commentary reflects the pervasive mentality in western journalism of normalizing tragedy in parts of the world such as the Middle East, Africa, south Asia, and Latin America.” Such coverage, the report correctly noted, “dehumanizes and renders their experience with war as somehow normal and expected”.

    More troubling still is that this kind of slanted and racist media coverage extends beyond our screens and newspapers and easily bleeds and blends into our politics. Consider how Ukraine’s neighbors are now opening their doors to refugee flows, after demonizing and abusing refugees, especially Muslim and African refugees, for years. “Anyone fleeing from bombs, from Russian rifles, can count on the support of the Polish state,” the Polish interior minister, Mariusz Kaminski, recently stated. Meanwhile, however, Nigeria has complained that African students are being obstructed within Ukraine from reaching Polish border crossings; some have also encountered problems on the Polish side of the frontier.

    In Austria, Chancellor Karl Nehammer stated that “of course we will take in refugees, if necessary”. Meanwhile, just last fall and in his then-role as interior minister, Nehammer was known as a hardliner against resettling Afghan refugees in Austria and as a politician who insisted on Austria’s right to forcibly deport rejected Afghan asylum seekers, even if that meant returning them to the Taliban. “It’s different in Ukraine than in countries like Afghanistan,” he told Austrian TV. “We’re talking about neighborhood help.”

    Yes, that makes sense, you might say. Neighbor helping neighbor. But what these journalists and politicians all seem to want to miss is that the very concept of providing refuge is not and should not be based on factors such as physical proximity or skin color, and for a very good reason. If our sympathy is activated only for welcoming people who look like us or pray like us, then we are doomed to replicate the very sort of narrow, ignorant nationalism that war promotes in the first place.
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    The idea of granting asylum, of providing someone with a life free from political persecution, must never be founded on anything but helping innocent people who need protection. That’s where the core principle of asylum is located. Today, Ukrainians are living under a credible threat of violence and death coming directly from Russia’s criminal invasion, and we absolutely should be providing Ukrainians with life-saving security wherever and whenever we can. (Though let’s also recognize that it’s always easier to provide asylum to people who are victims of another’s aggression rather than of our own policies.)

    But if we decide to help Ukrainians in their desperate time of need because they happen to look like “us” or dress like “us” or pray like “us,” or if we reserve our help exclusively for them while denying the same help to others, then we have not only chosen the wrong reasons to support another human being. We have also, and I’m choosing these words carefully, shown ourselves as giving up on civilization and opting for barbarism instead.

    Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of the award-winning books How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America and This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror. He is professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. He is a contributing opinion writer at Guardian US

    #Ukraine #racism #orientalisme

  • L’Internationale - Derribar las estatuas de Colón
    https://internationaleonline.org/opinions/1073_derribar_las_estatuas_de_colon

    Pour ceux qui lisent l’espagnol. L’article est illustré avec plein d’images et cartes qui valent la peine. https://www.internationaleonline.org/opinions/1073_derribar_las_estatuas_de_colon

    Deberíamos contagiarnos de la rabia de los movimientos anticoloniales y antirracistas y desmontar el tinglado simbólico que apuntala nuestra superioridad euroblanca.

    «Por cierto, señor, aunque a Colón se hiciera una estatua de oro no pensaran los
antiguos que le pagaban si en su tiempo fuera»
 Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, De la natural historia de las Indias, 
Toledo, 1526, fol. xx

    El furor de los últimos tiempos contra las estatuas y monumentos que perpetúan la memoria de la historia colonial puede parecer algo extemporáneo y fuera de lugar; impropio de “sociedades avanzadas”. Son reliquias del pasado, se nos dice, carentes de capacidad mnemónica o contenido ideológico, cuyo valor cultural y artístico ha de ser respetado y protegido como parte de nuestro patrimonio. Tal apariencia vulnerable e inocua es uno de los modos más efectivos de naturalización del status quo en nuestros regímenes modernos. Desde su pedestal, las viejas estatuas señalan de manera sutil y silenciosa a los depositarios legítimos de la memoria, aunque su contenido se haya olvidado, confirmando sin violencia aparente el orden de privilegios y exclusiones transmitido a lo largo del tiempo. Esta airada furia revisionista molesta e indigna porque transgrede los limex de ese ámbito sagrado, anacrónico y estético, en el que colocamos los mitos fundacionales de nuestro sistema de tal manera que permanezcan incuestionados y a resguardo. Por eso también ha causado perplejidad y enojo el modo en que la nueva derecha reactiva ostentosamente ritos “tribales” que se creían superados o se tenían pudorosamente alejados de la visión pública. Los periodos de intensa crisis como el que vivimos tienen la virtud de rasgar velos y disipar espejismos devolviendo a símbolos en apariencia dormidos todo su poder de atracción y repulsión, como cápsulas que condensan el sentido de procesos históricos tan virulentos en su naturaleza como profundos y duraderos en sus consecuencias.

    Réplica, Daniela Ortiz, 2014. Video courtesy of the artist.

    El caso de las estatuas de Cristóbal Colón, objeto predilecto de las celebraciones y de las protestas actuales en torno a los monumentos, ilustra ejemplarmente el modo en que operan estos hitos del espacio público. En apariencia indiferente, desde lo alto de una céntrica glorieta madrileña, Colón es testigo “por defecto” de las paradas militares que cada 12 de octubre marcan la Fiesta nacional, sin que los discursos institucionales hayan de hacer mención directa a su persona o su significado. La enorme bandera que desde hace unos años ondea cerca de la estatua, rivalizando con ella en altura, satura el sentido simbólico de la plaza, haciendo innecesaria cualquier referencia precisa. Más explícita ha sido la elección del lugar por los líderes de los partidos conservadores con el fin de escenificar su indisoluble unidad en defensa de la patria, así como por las cada vez más frecuentes manifestaciones ultras congregadas bajo el grito de “se rompe España”. Estos fenómenos, que responden a la tendencia neofascista de invocar fantasmáticamente momentos “gloriosos” del pasado, logran a pesar de su vacuidad e impostura hacer visibles las profundas razones históricas que vinculan el mundo colonial con el orden social y político del presente.
    Jesus Carrillo 2 Coco Fusco 10 Koda Color 002
    Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit Madrid, Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gómez Peña, 1992. Photo courtesy of the artist.

    Así lo puso en evidencia la artista peruana Daniela Ortiz cuando escenificó entre la muchedumbre españolista congregada ante la estatua barcelonesa el 12 de octubre de 2014 la posición del indio arrodillado y sumiso que aparece esculpida junto al religioso catalán Bernat Boïl, acompañante de Colón en su segundo viaje. Su performance incomodaba a los alegres portadores de banderas al hacer patente el componente racista y colonial del orgullo español que celebraban. La artista hacía un guiño a la acción llevada a cabo veintidós años antes por Coco Fusco y Guillermo Gómez Peña, en el contexto de las celebraciones del V Centenario. Haciéndose pasar por “dos indígenas aún no descubiertos”, ambos artistas se exhibían enjaulados ante la curiosa y crédula mirada de los turistas en los “setenteros” Jardines del Descubrimiento de Madrid, junto a la estatua de Colón. Lejos de ser un acontecimiento singular, petrificado en los monumentos, demostraban paródicamente que el acto colonial del “descubrimiento” se ha venido repitiendo ininterrumpidamente hasta el presente, incluida la espectacularización turística de las celebraciones del 92, preludio de la intensificación del extractivismo y la aculturación durante la globalización.

    El que estas proyecciones hayan convergido en la figura de Colón dista, sin embargo, de ser resultado de un proceso lineal y exento de contradicciones. Ya que los monumentos afirman principios y valores definitivos e incontrovertibles, listos para ser colectivamente asumidos o eventualmente rechazados, no está de más poner de manifiesto los pies de barro de tales estatuas, explorando cómo y porqué han llegado a cobrar el significado que hoy les damos.
    Jesus Carrillo 3 Waldseemuller Map 2 (big)
    Universalis Cosmographia, Martin Waldseemüller, Strasbourg, 1507

    Colón tuvo que esperar casi cuatrocientos años a que España le hiciese el tipo de estatua que Fernández de Oviedo evocaba al dirigirse al emperador. No existía a principios del siglo XVI una tradición monumental en España capaz de traducir la retórica evocación romanista del cronista. De haberla, difícilmente se habría aplicado a Cristóbal Colón “el descubridor”, habida cuenta su detención y el áspero litigio que sostuvieron él y sus herederos sobre las riquezas y el gobierno de “las Indias”. Tal celebración de su persona era incompatible, en cualquier caso, con la titularidad absoluta que se arrogaba la Corona respecto al acontecimiento y sus implicaciones, que no permitía el reconocimiento de otra gloria que no fuera la suya propia. La sombra proyectada sobre la figura de Colón favoreció que Américo Vespucio fuera reconocido como sucesor de Ptolomeo por Waldseemüller en su famosa Universalis Cosmographia de 1507, mientras el mapa de costa de la entonces bautizada “América” se poblaba de insignias lusitanas y castellano-leonesas, de acuerdo con lo firmado entre ambas coronas en Tordesillas en 1494. Waldseemüller no ignoraba el papel de Colón en el descubrimiento, sin embargo, aquel enviado de la monarquía castellana no podía ser considerado como el moderno equivalente del geógrafo alejandrino.

    La proverbial confusión de Colón respecto a la naturaleza de su descubrimiento: “las Indias”, es una buena metáfora de lo contingente de un relato cuyo perfil iba a difuminarse en los escritos del cronista real Lucio Marineo Siculo, Opus de rebus hispaniae memorabilius, publicado en 1530. Ni las fechas, ni el número de barcos, ni el nombre mismo de Colón aparecen registrados correctamente. Ese mismo texto recogía el episodio espurio del hallazgo de una antigua moneda imperial romana en una playa americana, prueba irrefutable de una dependencia histórica del Nuevo Mundo respecto al viejo. La narración del hito del genovés no se iba a fraguar siguiendo la voluntad de construir el relato épico de la conquista española del Nuevo Mundo, sino como la primera de las múltiples historias derivadas de las aventuras, desventuras y conflictos que acompañaron a un proceso inconmensurable e inenarrable en los términos de la época. A pesar de los diarios y cartas anejos a sus viajes, la historia de Colón empieza realmente a tramarse tras 1497, el año en que el rey y la reina deciden cancelar su contrato y Diego Colón viaja a Roma para hablar a favor de su hermano cerca de Julio II. El humanista Pietro Martire, a cargo de fijar la versión oficial de los hechos, iba a ser persuadido por Colón para que terminara lo antes posible la primera parte de su historia latina, incluyendo la información acerca de los descubrimientos que él mismo le había dado. De hecho, a la muerte de Colón, su historia sólo sobrevive gracias a la publicación de De orbe novo en 1516.
    Jesus Carrillo 4 Columbus Landing On Hispaniola
    Columbus Landing at Hispaniola, etching by Theodor de Bry illustrating the work by Girolamo Benzoni, Americae pars quarta. Sive, Insignis & admiranda historia de primera occidentali India à Christophoro Columbo, Frankfurt, 1594.

    Veinte años después de la muerte del almirante hubo un intento frustrado de resucitar a Colón como héroe basilar del imperio, digno de ser conocido por todo “buen español”. En 1526, en la misma carta al emperador Carlos que abre De la natural historia de las Indias, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo afirma, como principio argumental de la misma:

    Que como es notorio, don Cristóbal Colón, primer almirante de estas indias las descubrió en tiempos de los católicos reyes Don Fernando y Doña Isabel, abuelos de Vuestra Majestad, en el año de 1491 años [sic] [...] El cual servicio hasta hoy es uno de los mayores que ningún vasallo pudo hacer a su príncipe y tan útil es a sus reinos, como es notorio. Y digo tan útil, porque hablando la verdad, yo no tengo por castellano ni buen español al hombre que de esto desconociese.

    Tras la retórica con que adorna esta introducción, Oviedo aspiraba a modelar y fijar un relato hegemónico con muy pocas posibilidades de éxito. Su énfasis en la dimensión épica de la empresa colombina delataba un vacío en el corazón de la conquista que resultaba tanto más evidente cuanto más avanzaba la invasión militar y la sórdida explotación material y humana de las así denominadas “Indias”. Para llenar dicho hueco Oviedo ofrecía la figura emblemática de Colón como prefiguración de la de sí mismo, con toda la ambivalencia de un temprano sujeto colonial: por un lado, como personificación del espíritu de la monarquía, por nacimiento y por servicio, y, por otro, desde su posición de miembro de la primera generación de pobladores españoles tras su desembarco en tierras del continente en 1513. A pesar de la distancia irreconciliable entre Oviedo y su contemporáneo Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, ambos coincidían en señalar el vertiginoso abismo epistemológico y moral que abría la conquista y en reivindicar la figura de Colón como nudo desde el que tramar una historia plausible de la misma. Desde el particular punto de vista de Oviedo, la recuperación de Colón como único y legítimo descubridor era tan necesaria para la pensabilidad del imperio como lo era la representación del mundo natural que se desplegaba ante los ojos de los recién llegados y que él se disponía a acometer en su obra. Como sabemos, Oviedo fracasó en sus esfuerzos en más de un sentido. Cortés, y no Colón, iba a ser el héroe sin disputa en los textos de Ginés de Sepúlveda y de Lope de Gómara. Ambos autores imperiales beben abundantemente de los escritos de Oviedo, pero se paran al llegar a la figura de Colón, diluyendo su responsabilidad en el descubrimiento en circunstancias confusas y una neblina de testimonios contradictorios.
    Jesus Carrillo 5 Allegory Of America
    Allegory of America, Jan van der Straet, ca. 1587.

    Cuando la figura de Colón reaparece varias décadas más tarde en las famosas ilustraciones de Theòdore de Bry sobre la conquista de América, lo hace a través del buril del enemigo luterano y en el contexto de la así llamada “leyenda negra”. Vestido como soldado a las órdenes de la reina, pica en mano y espada a la cintura, se le retrata sometiendo a los desnudos e ingenuos indígenas a la autoridad de la corona española. Esta representación, muy alejada de la del navegante a que estamos acostumbrados, no era sino la imagen especular de aquella única que le cabía al almirante y a todos los que le siguieron en el camino de las Indias según la narración hispana. El perfil de valeroso emprendedor y sabio cosmógrafo que, por contraste, quisieron dejar sus herederos en ese collage de narraciones que es La historia del Almirante firmada por su hijo Hernando, acabó dirigiéndose a los lectores italianos, traduciéndose y publicándose en Venecia en 1571. A pesar de tales esfuerzos, en el famoso dibujo de Jan van der Straet, America (ca 1575), seguirá siendo Américo Vespucio quien aparezca despertando y nombrando al “nuevo mundo”, personificado por una mujer desnuda recostada en una hamaca. Mientras América, apenas erguida, solo cuenta con su cuerpo erotizado, el cosmógrafo, en pie ante ella, porta los atributos que simbolizan el dominio civilizatorio europeo. En este caso no son la pica y la espada, como en el Colón de Bry, sino un astrolabio y una bandera con la cruz.

    En el discurso de la nación hispana Colón no iba a tener el áureo papel que Camões diera a Vasco de Gama en Os Lusíadas, ni tampoco el que el mismo Colón representara más tarde en el imaginario de las jóvenes repúblicas americanas, o para la naciente Italia del siglo XIX. De hecho, Colón iba a tener que esperar hasta 1846 para protagonizar el Canto épico sobre el descubrimiento de América, y su autor –Narciso Foxá– sería un cubano de adopción nacido en San Juan de Puerto Rico.
    Jesus Carrillo 6 Monumento A Cristoforo Colombo, Genova
    Monument to Columbus, Genova, various artists, 1846-1892.

    El primer monumento europeo a Colón se erigió en su natal Génova ese mismo 1846, en el umbral de la unificación italiana, representando a un personaje sin insignias militares y apoyado en un ancla marinera. A sus pies se sienta una india desnuda, aunque en este caso sus manos están llenas: una cruz en la derecha y un cuerno de la abundancia en la izquierda. En uno de los lados del pedestal, en grandes letras latinas se lee: DIVINATO UN MONDO LO AVVINSE DI PERENNI BENEFIZI ALL’ ANTICO (“habiendo imaginado un mundo, lo encontró para perpetuo beneficio del viejo”) dejando claro el sentido extractivo y económico del proceso inaugurado por el descubrimiento a ojos de sus compatriotas. En el lado principal aparece el complementario significado nacional del monumento: A CRISTOFORO COLOMBO. LA PATRIA. El visionario Colón genovés, “injustamente” apresado por los reyes de España, personificaba el pujante espíritu de las nuevas naciones burguesas que por entonces aspiraban tanto a enriquecerse como a liberarse de las cadenas de la tiranía, recobrándose desde esa nueva faceta patriótico-capitalista el protagonismo “usurpado” por Vespucio.

    Cuando se erigieron los monumentos de Barcelona y Madrid unas décadas más tarde, se haría con cierta desidia institucional y habiendo de adaptar la iconografía de Colón a patrones ideológicos y a referencias históricas de sentido muy diferente. Aunque el liberalismo burgués trataba de abrirse paso en una cultura anclada en el Antiguo Régimen, nuestro país seguía siendo más de venerar a santos y vírgenes que a prohombres de la patria. Cabe recordar que el 12 de octubre seguimos celebrando la Virgen del Pilar, patrona de España y de la Guardia Civil.
    Jesus Carrillo 9 Monumento A Colón (madrid) 06
    Monument to Christopher Columbus, Madrid, detail by Jerónimo Suñol, 1881-1885, uncovered in 1892. Image: Antonio García, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

    Jesus Carrillo 10 Monumento A Colón (madrid) 05b
    Monument to Christopher Columbus, Madrid, detail by Arturo Mélida, 1881-1885, uncovered in 1892. Image: Jay Cross, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

    En el agitado contexto de la Primera República, el federalista Ayuntamiento de Barcelona quiso que un monumento a Colón presidiera la así llamada Plaza de la Junta Revolucionaria, situando al intrépido héroe en las antípodas del nacionalismo centralista español. Cuando quince años más tarde, reprimido el fervor revolucionario, se construyó el monumento barcelonés al final de Las Ramblas, quedó muy corta la suscripción popular inicialmente prevista. Menos éxito aún tuvo el arquitecto murciano formado en París, José Marín-Baldo, quien empleó su juventud en proponer la construcción de un costosísimo cenotafio inspirado en los mausoleos imperiales romanos. Presentó infructuosamente el proyecto a Isabel II y posteriormente lo llevó, con éxito de crítica, pero sin resultados prácticos, a la Exposición Universal de Filadelfia de 1876. Una trayectoria similar tuvo el proyecto que el arquitecto vasco Alberto de Palacio presentó a la Exposición Mundial Columbina de Chicago de 1893, con el que pretendía emular a la torre de su maestro Eiffel para la exposición parisina de 1889. Su descomunal monumento devolvía a Colón el rol que le negara Waldseemüler como generador de una nueva imagen del mundo, moderna y tecnológica; un mundo listo para ser dominado según los parámetros del progreso capitalista. Se trataba de un globo terráqueo metálico de 300 metros de altura situado sobre un complejo arquitectónico con bibliotecas, museos y lugares de ocio. En su modernidad, incluso lo acompañó de un plan de viabilidad económica basado en la explotación turística. Como en el caso de Marín-Baldo, el reconocimiento estadounidense tampoco resultó en la materialización de tan desmesurado proyecto, que también fue desestimado cuando propuso construirlo en El Retiro madrileño, junto al Palacio de Cristal que él mismo había construido unos años antes para los fastos coloniales de la Exposición de Filipinas de 1887.
    Jesus Carrillo 7 Proyecto De Don José Marín Baldo, Monumento A Colón, En Cristóbal Colón Su Vida, Sus Viajes, Sus Descubrimientos
    Monument to Columbus, José Marín-Baldo, 1876, part of José María Asensio, Cristóbal Colón : su vida, sus viajes, sus descubrimientos, p. XLV. Barcelona (1888?). José Marín-Baldo (1826-1891), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

    La imagen que finalmente cristalizaría no sería ni la del héroe clásico de Marín-Baldo, ni la del pionero de un futuro mundialista, que imaginara Palacios, sino otra historicista y autorreferencialmente hispánica. Cuando el Madrid de la Restauración erigió el monumento sito en el Paseo de Recoletos lo haría en dimensiones conceptual y económicamente más modestas y colocando la estatua sobre un desproporcionado pedestal gótico “Reyes Católicos”, acorde con los esfuerzos de restaurar la erosionada imagen de una monarquía metropolitana en plena decadencia. Su figura, con los brazos abiertos y la mirada extasiada hacia el cielo, imita a la de nuestros místicos patrios. El relieve de un Colón encadenado que ilustrara el pedestal de la estatua genovesa se veía aquí sustituido por enfáticas alusiones a su vinculación a la monarquía y a la religión católica. Un lugar privilegiado iba a tener el escudo de armas concedido por los reyes al almirante en que se lee en letras góticas “A CASTILLA Y A LEÓN UN NUEVO MUNDO DIO COLÓN”. A pesar de tal esfuerzo de traducción ideológica, su entrega al Ayuntamiento, coincidiendo con el IV centenario del descubrimiento, se llevó a cabo sin pena ni gloria. Por una jugada del destino, el “Pabellón de los descubrimientos”, que pretendía recuperar por fin la narración hispano-colombina desde la historia de la ciencia y la tecnología en la Expo 92, sufrió un demoledor incendio dos meses antes de la apertura de la “feria” sevillana, extirpando violentamente ese aspecto de las celebraciones del V centenario.
    Jesus Carrillo 8 1890 08 30, La Ilustración Española Y Americana, Monumento Colosal En Memoria De Cristóbal Colón, Proyecto Del Arquitecto Bilbaíno Alberto De Palacio
    Colossal Monument to the Memory of Columbus, Alberto de Palacio, illustration of La Ilustración Española y Americana XXXII, p.117, 1890. Image credits: Alberto Palacio, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

    La narración de la historia de Colón estuvo destinada desde sus inicios a marcar distancia respecto al significado del descubrimiento que daba de iure y de facto la Monarquía española, a excepción del vano intento de Oviedo y Las Casas por dotar de sentido al sinsentido de una empresa que excedía los parámetros heredados de la Cruzada contra el islam. Lo fue desde posiciones muy diferentes. Su “hagiografía” se tramó como defensa de los intereses de sus herederos y, solo tras un prolongado hiato, fue recogida por el republicanismo independentista americano, desde el Cono Sur a Las Antillas, así como por un rampante Estados Unidos de Norteamérica que encontraba afinidad en su espíritu individualista y pionero. Teñido de orgullo patriótico, la reivindicó Génova en el contexto ideológico de la unificación y el Risorgimento, y el colonialismo capitalista de finales del XIX volvió a mirarse especularmente en aquel hombre emprendedor, blanco y de origen europeo, presto a dominar el mundo mediante su supuesta superioridad racial, cultural y tecnológica. La “reespañolización” de Colón, según hemos narrado, fue tardía e impostada, desde una posición defensiva, teniendo que negociar con narraciones generadas, precisamente, para separar “el descubrimiento” del discurso español.

    Es interesante comprobar que a pesar de la violencia y la desigualdad racista que impera en Estados Unidos, se están eliminando gradualmente las conmemoraciones y monumentos de su venerado Colón mediante la implementación de decisiones democráticas adoptadas en los consejos municipales desde Los Ángeles a Nueva York, pasando por Denver, Phoenix, Alburquerque o Minneapolis. Recientemente, fue retirada la estatua de Colón e Isabel la Católica que presidía la rotonda del Capitolio de California, como parte de una limpieza general de imágenes ofensivas para la población indígena por celebrar su genocidio. Es el resultado de largos y ásperos procesos de activismo y protesta antirracista y en defensa de los derechos civiles que nos hablan de la plasticidad que conserva aún la sociedad norteamericana.

    En 2010, coincidiendo con el segundo centenario de las independencias latinoamericanas, se inauguró la exposición Principio Potosí en el Museo Reina Sofía, templo de la modernidad española después de la dictadura. El equipo curatorial, formado por un imposible cruce germano-boliviano, pretendió romper definitivamente el “huevo de Colón” poniendo en evidencia que existe un único e ininterrumpido proceso de expropiación y explotación que aún continúa a escala global. Desmontando el mito racionalista del progreso, señalaban que la sustancia de lo que denominamos modernidad se fraguó en el proceso de “acumulación primitiva” violentamente incoado por los españoles en las minas de Potosí en el siglo XVI y desplegado sin solución de continuidad por el capitalismo hasta hoy. Con ello minaban de paso los fundamentos ilustrados de las narraciones de independencia que se celebraban entonces. Siguiendo a Enrique Dussel, el sujeto moderno se configuraría como ego conquiro a partir de una dialéctica de la dominación previa e inseparable de la misión supuestamente cristianizadora y civilizadora de España y Occidente. Habiendo estallado las últimas costuras del proyecto ilustrado, la modernidad se desvelaría en toda su crudeza barroca, excéntrica, mestiza y violenta, aunque no por ello carente de fermentos disruptivos y emancipatorios.

    Los movimientos anticoloniales y antirracistas contemporáneos reconocen, con los comisarios y artistas de Principio Potosí, que el Colón emprendedor y cosmopolita y el Colón soldado al servicio de España son dos caras de una misma moneda; partes constitutivas del proceso que ha esculpido con su cincel de dominación nuestro espacio social y ha esquilmado el planeta en su totalidad. El acto “bárbaro” de derribar sus estatuas, ya sea metafórica o literalmente, debería contagiarnos algo de su rabia y llevarnos a desmontar de una vez por todas el tinglado simbólico que entiba nuestra superioridad euroblanca, un gesto imprescindible y urgente si queremos imaginar y construir un mundo vivible.
    Jesus Carrillo 11 Mncars 0349
    Exhibition view of The Potosí Principle. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 2010. Photo by Joaquín Cortes and Román Lores.

    Article originally published in Spanish in ’CONTEXTO Y ACCION’, 25 March 2021 https://ctxt.es/es/20210301/Firmas/35353/derribo-estatuas-Colon-racismo-colonialismo-blanquitud-Jesus-Carillo.htm
    Jesus Carrillo 1 Detalle De La Estatua De Colón En Barcelona Laslovarga
    Detail of the statue of Christopher Columbus in Barcelona, Laslo Varga

    #Christophe_Colombe #colonialisme #statue #monument Cristobal_Colon #Barcelone #Madrid

  • L’humain-l’inhumain : l’impensé des nouveaux matérialismes | by École Urbaine de Lyon | Anthropocene 2050 | Medium
    https://medium.com/anthropocene2050/lhumain-l-inhumain-l-impens%C3%A9-des-nouveaux-mat%C3%A9rialismes-787acd917e

    L’humain-l’inhumain : l’impensé des nouveaux matérialismes
    Par Christine Chivallon, directrice de recherche au CNRS, Laboratoire Caribéen de Sciences Sociales, LC2S- UMR 8053
    École Urbaine de Lyon
    École Urbaine de Lyon
    Jun 4 · 51 min read
    Jean-François Boclé, The Tears of Bananaman, 2009–2012, installation, 300 kilos de bananes, écrits de l’artiste scarifiés sur les bananes, socle en bois (330 x 130 x 25 cm), Première Biennale Encuentro Bienal di Caribe, Happy islands, Aruba, Caraïbes, 2012. ©Jean-François Boclé /Adagp.

    Résumé

    Ce texte propose une traversée critique des nouveaux matérialismes en se concentrant sur le « tournant ontologique » qui en constitue la principale composante. Après avoir dressé une généalogie de l’arrivée de ces nouveaux matérialismes et défini en quoi consistait « la nouveauté », le propos envisage les contradictions sur lesquelles bute « l’ontologisme ». Préoccupé à rendre compte de la pluralité des mondes sur la base du rejet du « constructivisme » et du partage « nature/culture » qu’il serait censé reconduire, ce nouveau discours produit néanmoins des notions qui peuvent apparaître comme des substituts à celles rejetées, telle celle de « culture ». Dans le paysage théorique proposé, en lien avec la menace de « l’effondrement », les ontologies « indigènes » reçoivent une attention démultipliée, en tant qu’exemplaire de l’hybridité des mondes humains et non-humains, tandis que ce nouvel engouement pose la question du maintien d’un savoir anthropologique hégémonique et colonial. En faisant intervenir « l’inhumain », comme pratique au cœur de la modernité occidentale dès l’établissement de l’esclavage, l’article propose une autre approche où l’humain est réinvesti pour dépasser le binôme humain-non-humain qu’ont créé ces nouveaux matérialismes et pour revenir aux rapports de pouvoir que semble perdre de vue le tournant ontologique. C’est avec la notion de « plantationocène », outil critique de l’anthropocène, que se termine cette exploration, notion estimée comme la plus heuristique parmi ces nouveaux matérialismes dans la mesure où elle ramène le politique dans les analyses par la prise en compte résolue de l’esclavage dans la formation de la modernité et dans la définition de subjectivités dissidentes qui en a résulté.

    #écologie_décoloniale #banane #Caraïbes #anthropocène #écologie #plantation #matérialisme

  • Six thérapeutes transculturelles pour p(e)anser les plaies du trauma colonial
    https://desoriental.fr/therapie-transculturelle-decoloniale

    mis à jour le 01/12/2021

    "Comme nous le rappelle tristement l’actualité en Guadeloupe, le passé esclavagiste et colonial de la France a encore des conséquences aujourd’hui, économiques et politiques, mais aussi dans les âmes et dans les corps.

    Cette semaine, on t’emmène faire un tour du côté des thérapies transculturelles (car non, la psychologie et la psychiatrie ne sont pas universelles mais bien ancrées culturellement.), un champ d’étude et d’action en santé mentale encore peu connu, et qui pourtant pourrait nous aider, collectivement et individuellement, à penser et à panser les plaies du trauma colonial.

    On parle d’approches thérapeutiques transculturelles, décoloniales ou encore d’ethnopsychiatrie. L’occasion de rappeler que n’importe qui peut aller consulter un.e psychiatre. Il s’agit juste d’un.e professionnel.le qui allie psychologie et médecine et offre une modalité (remboursée par la sécu’) de prendre soin de sa santé mentale. Et comme dirait l’autre, les 20% qui vont en thérapie y vont à cause des 80% qui n’y vont pas. A bon entendeur !

    Cette semaine donc, on te présente six thérapeutes transculturelles et/ou décoloniales à suivre ou à consulter. Ces six femmes, de générations et de cultures différentes, ont toutes pour point commun d’avoir à un moment de leur vie, ressenti le besoin viscéral d’apporter une solution à cet angle mort de la santé mentale française. Elles offrent à leurs patient.e.s des espaces sécurisés qui prennent en compte leurs spécificités culturelles mais aussi l’impact des oppressions systémiques sur leurs vécus, sans jugement.
    En introduction, aux origines des approches thérapeutiques transculturelles

    Impossible de citer toutes les contributions majeures au champ des thérapies transculturelles, aussi nous te présentons très subjectivement deux personnalités dont la pensée est un repère toujours pertinent pour comprendre la réalité psychologique des Français.e.s transculturel.le.s post-coloniaux.ales :

    L’incontournable Frantz Fanon, psychanalyste français afro-caribéen fortement impliqué dans la lutte pour l’indépendance algérienne et enterré en Algérie, est l’un des premiers à envisager la part psychologique du processus et du système de colonisation et à décrire les séquelles et aliénations de la colonisation sur la psyché des sujets colonisés.

    Alice Cherki, psychanalyste judéo-algéroise indépendantiste et disciple de Fanon est, elle, toujours vivante et sa réflexion n’a fait que suivre l’évolution des générations de déraciné.e.s, comme en témoigne son livre de 2007 La Frontière invisible, violence de l’immigration. Le trauma n’est plus vécu mais hérité des générations précédentes, souvent dans le silence, souvent par le corps.
    Six praticiennes transculturelles et/ou décoloniales

    1. Marie-Ève Hoffet-Gachelin, pédopsychiatre franco-vietnamienne

    Elle exerce au centre médico-psycho-pédagogique de Colombes et a fait de la recherche sur la pédopsychiatrie post-coloniale en partant de sa connaissance des parcours post-coloniaux franco-vietnamiens.
    2. Hagere Mogaadi, psychanalyste inclusive à Paris

    Elle se présente comme décolonialiste, queer friendly, musulmane, féministe et transculturelle.

    Au-delà des consultations, elle propose du contenu autour des questions identitaires et de santé mentale sur son compte instagram : @la_psy_qui_cause.
    3. Selma Sardouk, coach décoloniale et féministe

    Selma n’est pas thérapeute mais coach formée en hypnose et en thérapies brèves, créatrice de contenu autour des questions décoloniales et féministes.

    Elle vulgarise des sujets très précis en formats très synthétiques. Mais on adore les Reels de son compte Instagram @selmasardouk qui mettent le doigt sur ces micro-moments où on peut se sentir incompris.e ou en colère face au racisme ordinaire voire bienveillant, en tant que Français.e transculturel.le. Rire libérateur assuré !
    4. Amalani Simon, psychologue clinicienne franco-indienne

    Elle exerce à l’hôpital Avicenne de Bobigny et est fortement impliquée dans la psychanalyse transculturelle et a notamment produit des travaux de recherche autour des liens entre psychologie et langage des enfants français d’ascendance tamoule.
    5. Soumaëla Boutant, psychologue interculturelle française afro-caribéenne

    L’intérêt de Soumaëla pour la psychologie interculturelle naît pendant ses études, où elle sent une sorte de dissonnance “entre [son] vécu de jeune femme française et afrocaribéenne et certaines théories qui [lui] étaient enseignées à l’université”.

    Basée en Guadeloupe, Soumaëla propose des consultations de psychologie interculturelle en visio spécifiquement pour les caribéen.ne.s francophones expatrié.e.s.
    6. Karima Lazali, psychologue franco-algérienne

    Elle exerce à Levallois-Perret en libéral et a écrit Le trauma colonial, une enquête sur les effets psychiques et politiques contemporains de l’oppression coloniale en Algérie.❞

    #colonial #France #psychologie #trauma

  • The miner and the neon fish: decolonizing Alpine ecologies
    https://denk-mal-denken.ch/wettbewerb-publikumspreis/denkmal/the-miner-and-the-neon-fish-decolonizing-alpine-ecologies

    This is the proposal that won the third price in the Competition (Wettbewerb) that was created in the aftermath of the contestation of monuments worldwide that had some link to colonialism, slavery and racism https://denk-mal-denken.ch.

    Rony Emmenegger und Stephan Hochleithner, who are both political geographers at the university of Basel won the third price in this competition for their proposals that calls attention to the non-human aspects of the guilding of the hydropower stations Oberhasli and its ecological costs. See: https://denk-mal-denken.ch/wettbewerb-publikumspreis/denkmal/the-miner-and-the-neon-fish-decolonizing-alpine-ecologies.

    #Suisse #hydro-power #décolonial #decolonial #monument

    • Next to a serpentine road, halfway up to Grimsel pass when approaching from the North, stands the miner (Der Mineur), silently splitting rock with his pneumatic hammer. The statue was erected to honor the construction workers of the hydropower stations Oberhasli, whose work has been shaping an Alpine landscape since the early twentieth century. At the top of Grimsel, catchment lakes, water dams, power stations, and power poles morph into a hydroelectric infrastructure, producing energy and carrying it down towards the lowland valleys. Honoring the work of those who brought that infrastructure into being appears indeed justified in light of their sacrifices on the altar of a capitalist mode of production. Throughout the last century, construction work at almost 2000 meters altitude has been particularly challenging for both humans and machines – a challenge «mastered» through a continuous advance of engineering and technology with success increasing over time.

      The sole focus on human achievements, however, obscures the ecological costs and consequences that the extraction of hydropower involves, especially for fish, aquatic organisms, rivers, but also Alpine ecologies more broadly. With our graphic installation – the miner and the neon fish – we aim at problematizing a human-centric historiography of progress that obscures the ecological consequences of hydropower production. We do so by evocatively placing a neon fish under the miner’s pneumatic hammer. It serves as a visual metaphor for the electro-optical connection between humans and the fish, and the latter’s electrostatic discharge in contact with the miner and his machine. And yet, the relation between humans and their environments is not that clear-cut when it comes to commemoration, as we will elaborate in the following.

      The use of hydropower, as a renewable energy source, has a long tradition in Switzerland. In the Grimsel region, the development of hydropower infrastructure intensified at large scale with a first mega dam project in 1925 – the Spitallamm dam. Construction work went on from 1925 to 1932 and resulted in the 114-meter-high dam – the world’s largest at the time. Since then, hydropower infrastructure has been gradually extended. Today, it connects 13 hydropower plants and eight storage lakes, producing between 2100 and 2300 gigawatt hours of electric energy annually.1 A further extension is currently in progress with the construction of a new dam replacing the existing Sptiallamm dam – because it cracked. The finalization of this new dam is scheduled for 2025 and it will then not only secure, but further increase the capacity of the hydroelectric infrastructure – in line with Switzerland’s Energy Strategy 2050 and the envisioned transition towards renewable energy sources after the nuclear phase-out.

      Currently, an exhibition at the UNESCO/KWO Visitors Center2 close to the dam provides visual and acoustic insights into the construction works back in the late 1920s and those ongoing at the new dam today.3 The exhibition includes an outline of the ongoing dam replacement project, compiles a series of engineering schemes, and posts statements of workers involved in the ongoing construction. These exhibition elements are placed in a broader historical context of construction work at the site: a number of selected historical photographs and a short 5-minutes video provide lively insights into the construction work back in the late 1920s. They show laborers at work and demonstrate the logistical network of technology and expertise that coordinated their doing. The exhibition can thus be read as an extension of the miner: it is constituted as a site for the glorification of a human history of progress that made the development of the hydroelectric infrastructure possible.

      However, the ongoing energy transition and the according «boom» (Zarfl et al. 2015) of hydropower raises questions about the potential ecological consequences of engineering, technology, and infrastructural extension (see also Ansar et al. 2014). The power plant operator in the Grimsel region highlights the «connectivity between humans, technology and nature»4, acknowledges the potential «tensions between electricity production and water protection»5 and calls for a responsible engagement with nature in its ongoing and planned projects. And yet, recent plans for the further extension of the hydroelectric infrastructure have still provoked controversies, with various associations still highlighting the negative ecological consequences of these plans.6

      So, who might best speak for fish and aquatic microorganisms in ongoing and planned construction projects? By placing the dying neon fish under the miner’s pneumatic hammer, we aim at problematizing the ecological costs, which infrastructural extension and energy production have been generating for almost a century. We do so by moving beyond a narrow focus on humans and by bringing into consideration an Alpine ecology as a «socialnature» (Braun & Castree 2001), which the extension of hydroelectric infrastructure has profoundly reassembled and turned into a «commodity frontier» (Moore 2000). Such a perspective reveals the extension of hydroelectric infrastructure as an integral part of capitalist expansion into an Alpine frontier, through which «nature» has been «tamed» and «commodified».

      The figure of the miner plays a key role in this colonializing process, as his stone-bare masculine appearance embodies the very believe of human, patriarchal control over nature, glorifying man/kind’s appropriation of water for energy production and legitimizing the future extension of the hydroelectric infrastructure. As such, it sets a metaphysical zero point for a human history of progress, through which the building and extension of hydroelectric infrastructure has been normalized.

      To disfigure the statue of the miner – by putting the neon fish under his hammer – appears justified and fruitful in light of the endeavor to decolonize Alpine ecologies from human domination. And yet, decolonizing ecologies along these lines must not distract from the laborers’ themselves, who had to invest whole parts of their lives into these construction works. In other words, calling for environmental justice must not come at costs of those who have themselves been instrumentalized within that very same narratives and processes of progress and capitalist production.

      However, the statue of the steeled male miner can hardly account for the workers’ bodies and lives: It rather does, in its humble working-class pose, facing down to focus on its work with the drill, embody the hierarchy of class relations. Despite or maybe because the miner embodies these ambiguities, it appears worthwhile to maintain its presence for having a debate. In our installation, we aim at doing so by keeping the fish unlit during the day and thus hardly visible to passers-by, to allow the statue of the miner to remind of the workers. Only by night will the fish then appear in neon light and turn into a dazzling reminder of the colonization of nature – and also of the multitude of meanings which the monument entangles.

      #écologie #écologie_politique #énergie #électricité #Oberhasli #barrages_hydro-électrique #Alpes #montagne #décolonisation #Grimsel #travailleurs #mémoire #poissons #Spitallamm #technologie #nature #eau #protection_de_l'eau #coût_écologique #justice_environnementale #progrès #mineur #statue