Dealing with the dishonorable and the inconvenient (4)

I'll post link when crummy Internet permits, but NPR reports that Washington Post has investigative series on the Smithsonian's brain collection...apparently brains belonged to foreigners such as Philippinos, but largest number are from African Americans... No doubt Native Americans, too.

Attitudes were different back then, but geez, how can they make that right?

(Today, the little info we have on hypothermia in humans comes from horrific German experiments on Russian POW... An Irish Catholic g'g'mother's body was taken by Cdn med students, as was a priest from the same cemetery. I would've donated my mother's brain to a research hospital--she died of a rare progressive nervous disease--but my dad couldn't bear the thought and said no, of course his decision.)

ETA
Key findings from The Post's Smithsonian brain collection investigation
14 August 2023
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/interactive/2023/takeaways-smithsonian-hu...

Opinion: This is how the Smithsonian will reckon with our dark inheritance
Lonnie G. Bunch III* | August 20, 2023
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/20/smithsonian-secretary-lonnie-...

* Lonnie G. Bunch III (born November 18, 1952) is an American educator and historian. Bunch is the 14th Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, the first African American and first historian to serve as head of the Smithsonian. He has spent most of his career as a history museum curator and administrator. | Bunch served as the founding director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) from 2005 to 2019. He previously served as president and director of the Chicago History Museum (Chicago Historical Society) from 2000 to 2005. In the 1980s, he was the first curator at the California African American Museum, and then a curator at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, wherein the 1990s, he rose to head curatorial affairs. In 2020, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society. (Wikipedia)

William Gladstone: family of former British PM to apologise for links to slavery (Guardian)

The family of one of Britain’s most famous prime ministers will travel to the Caribbean this week to apologise for its historical role in slavery. Six of William Gladstone’s descendants will arrive in Guyana on Thursday as the country commemorates the 200th anniversary of a rebellion by enslaved people that historians say paved the way for abolition. The education and career of William Gladstone, the 19th-century politician known for his liberal and reforming governments, were funded by enslaved Africans working on his father’s sugar plantations in the Caribbean. As well as making an official apology for John Gladstone’s ownership of Africans, the 21st-century Gladstones have agreed to pay reparations to fund further research into the impact of slavery... Early in his career, William spoke in parliament in defence of his father’s involvement in slavery... John Gladstone owned or held mortgages over 2,508 enslaved Africans in Guyana and Jamaica. After emancipation he was paid nearly £106,000, a huge sum at the time...

UK cannot ignore calls for slavery reparations, says leading UN judge (Guardian)

A leading judge at the international court of justice has said the UK will no longer be able to ignore the growing calls for reparation for transatlantic slavery. Judge Patrick Robinson, who presided over the trial of the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević, said the international tide on slavery reparations was quickly shifting and urged the UK to change its current position on the issue. “They cannot continue to ignore the greatest atrocity, signifying man’s inhumanity to man. They cannot continue to ignore it. Reparations have been paid for other wrongs and obviously far more quickly, far more speedily than reparations for what I consider the greatest atrocity and crime in the history of mankind: transatlantic chattel slavery,” Robinson said. “I believe that the United Kingdom will not be able to resist this movement towards the payment of reparations: it is required by history and it is required by law”...

These British descendants of a 19th-century slave owner came to Guyana to apologize {and to set up a financial fund}, but protesters want reparations instead of words. {???}

1:14 ( https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1695715068288061663 )

- DW News @dwnews | 4:29 AM · Aug 27, 2023

‘Nobody was expecting it’: British Museum warned reputation seriously damaged and treasures will take decades to recover (Guardian)

Experts say loss of 1,500 items reveals lax cataloguing and boosts case for returning objects to countries of origin... But already serious damage has been done to the museum’s reputation, giving fresh momentum to arguments for the return of objects like the Parthenon marbles (also known as the Elgin marbles), Benin bronzes and Ethiopian tabots to their original homes... As Despina Koutsoumba, head of the Association of Greek Archaeologists, put it: “We want to tell the British Museum that they cannot any more say that Greek culture heritage is more protected in the British Museum”...

Totem pole begins ‘rematriation’ from Edinburgh to Nisga’a nation in Canada (Guardian)

The towering, hand-carved totem pole is being rematriated, not repatriated, and after being put into a sleeping state on Monday the 11-metre (37ft) object will be transported in a military aircraft from its current home in Edinburgh to what is, everyone involved agrees, its true home in Canada... The House of Ni’isjoohl memorial pole is being returned to the Nass Valley in what is now British Columbia following a request from the Nisga’a nation, one of the Indigenous groups who were the original inhabitants of Canada. The return of the pole has been agreed in less than a year and signed off by the Scottish government. It puts pressure on other museums and other governments to also return objects of significant cultural importance...

'Stolen' totem pole prepared for return to Canada (BBC)

A 36ft (11m), one-tonne totem pole will be returned to the Nisga'a Nation, one of the indigenous groups in what is now known as British Columbia on the west coast of Canada. The totem pole has been in Scotland for almost a century since it was sold to the museum by Canadian anthropologist Marius Barbeau. However, Nisga'a researchers say it was stolen without consent while locals were away from their villages for the annual hunting season. The museum believes it acted in good faith but now understands that the individual who "sold" it to Barbeau did so "without the cultural, spiritual, or political authority to do so on behalf of the Nisga'a Nation"...

Totem pole begins ‘rematriation’ from Edinburgh to Nisga’a nation in Canada (Guardian)

The towering, hand-carved totem pole is being rematriated, not repatriated, and after being put into a sleeping state on Monday the 11-metre (37ft) object will be transported in a military aircraft from its current home in Edinburgh to what is, everyone involved agrees, its true home in Canada... The House of Ni’isjoohl memorial pole is being returned to the Nass Valley in what is now British Columbia following a request from the Nisga’a nation, one of the Indigenous groups who were the original inhabitants of Canada. The return of the pole has been agreed in less than a year and signed off by the Scottish government. It puts pressure on other museums and other governments to also return objects of significant cultural importance...

'Stolen' totem pole prepared for return to Canada (BBC)

A 36ft (11m), one-tonne totem pole will be returned to the Nisga'a Nation, one of the indigenous groups in what is now known as British Columbia on the west coast of Canada. The totem pole has been in Scotland for almost a century since it was sold to the museum by Canadian anthropologist Marius Barbeau. However, Nisga'a researchers say it was stolen without consent while locals were away from their villages for the annual hunting season. The museum believes it acted in good faith but now understands that the individual who "sold" it to Barbeau did so "without the cultural, spiritual, or political authority to do so on behalf of the Nisga'a Nation"...

What Is Orientalism? A Stereotyped, Colonialist Vision of Asian Cultures
Your everyday yoga class is actually a textbook case study in Orientalism.
Namrata Verghese, Teen Vogue | 13 Oct 2021

...Don’t worry, you don’t have to quit your yoga class. After all, Orientalism doesn’t end when you roll up your yoga mat and head out for a smoothie. It follows you through the door. It saturates our world. Because Orientalism is a product of empire, resisting Orientalism goes hand in hand with the concrete, political work of decolonization. Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization looks like the end of settler colonialism, the repatriation of Indigenous lands, the erasure of borders, mutual aid networks, prison abolition, and disability justice. It looks like liberation for queer and trans people, Black people, Indigenous people, fat people, and Dalit people. It looks like wrenching the pen back from colonizers who have “represented” us for so long and, instead, writing our own stories. In Said’s words: “Stories are at the heart of what explorers and novelists say about strange regions of the world; they also become the method colonized people use to assert their own identity and the existence of their own history.”

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/what-is-orientalism-a-stereotyped-colonialist...

AOC urges US to apologize for meddling in Latin America: ‘We’re here to reset relationships’ (Guardian)

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a prominent member of Congress and leading voice of the American left, has called on the US government to issue an apology to Latin American countries for decades of meddling in their affairs and causing instability in the region. The Democratic congresswoman from New York was speaking after a visit to Chile in advance of the 50th anniversary of the coup against Salvador Allende, a democratically elected socialist president actively opposed by Washington. “I believe that we owe Chile, and not just Chile but many aspects of that region, an apology,” Ocasio-Cortez told the Guardian in an interview at her campaign headquarters in the Bronx. “I don’t think that apology indicates weakness; I think it indicates a desire to meet our hemispheric partners with respect. “It’s very hard for us to move forward when there is this huge elephant in the room and a lack of trust due to that elephant in the room. The first step around that is acknowledgement and saying we want to approach this region in the spirit of mutual respect, and I think that’s new and it’s historic.” Since President James Monroe effectively announced a protectorate over the hemisphere in the early 19th century, known as the Monroe doctrine, the US has interfered in nations across Latin America, often in pursuit of its own commercial interests or to support rightwing autocrats against socialists...

Another piece of not too far distant history where the west has collective amnesia: The forgotten end of the second world war (Spectator)

So, the Pacific war and indeed the second world war ended on 15 August 1945? Wrong. Heavy fighting continued until 2 September and incurred, in just three weeks, the deaths of an estimated 350,000 to 400,000 people, including tens of thousands of Japanese civilians who died of illness and starvation. In aggregate, this was about the same number of British people who died during five years of war in Europe. Reflecting the usual western centric view of the second world war it is largely forgotten in the narrative of the second world war that our allies, the Soviet Union, continued to fight Japan after 15 August 1945 in areas as far afield as Mongolia, Siberia, Manchuria (Manchukuo), North Korea, the southern half of Sakhalin and the Kuril islands... The West’s ignorance of this bloody end to the second world war is par for the course as far as the historiography of the conflict goes. For many historians in Europe and America, the Pacific war was a sideshow to the main event – the war in Europe. In general coverage of the war, Asia occupies less than a third of most histories of the subject. Compared to the copious studies of the second world war in Europe, there are just a handful of histories of the second world war in Asia. Yet the casus belli that brought America into the war, thus precipitating a world rather than another European war, were in China not Europe. America’s embargo of oil exports from Standard Oil of California to Japan because of the Roosevelt administration’s abhorrence of Hirohito’s occupation of China, precipitated the attack on Pearl Harbor and concurrent attack on Malaya, which was a steppingstone to the oil fields in the Dutch East Indies. It was America’s policy of defending China that turned an Asian war into a world war. Thus, any objective narrative of the second world war should have it starting with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, which heralded the start of Japan’s bid to conquer China, not the invasion of Poland in 1939...I

This article also refers to the Emperor's surrender speech, in which he says, "should we continue to fight, it would result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese, but it would also lead to the total extinction of human civilisation", a perhaps self-interested but nevertheless apt description of the destructive power of the era of nuclear weapons ushered in by the western allies.

Skulls taken from colonial Africa set to return from Berlin?
Stefan Dege | Stuart Braun |8 Sept 2023

After human remains taken from Africa were stored in Berlin for over a century, living descendants have been identified for the first time. Growing calls to repatriate the remains could soon be answered.

https://www.dw.com/en/skulls-from-german-colonies-offer-dark-lessons-from-the-pa...

Caribbean nations set to demand royal family makes reparations for slave trade (Guardian)

Caribbean nations are preparing formal letters demanding that the British royal family apologise and make reparations for slavery. National reparations commissions in the region will also approach Lloyd’s of London and the Church of England with demands of financial payments and reparative justice for their historic role in the slave trade... a lawyer and chair of the island nation’s reparations commission, said: “We are hoping that King Charles will revisit the issue of reparations and make a more profound statement beginning with an apology, and that he would make resources from the royal family available for reparative justice. He should make some money available. We are not saying that he should starve himself and his family, and we are not asking for trinkets. But we believe we can sit around a table and discuss what can be made available for reparative justice.” He added that the duty to offer reparations lay “at all levels, banks, churches, insurance companies like Lloyd’s, and universities and colleges that benefited”...

Britain likes to think it ‘stood alone’ against the Nazis. So why did it convict so few for war crimes? (Guardian)

Out of 274 suspects investigated in England, Wales and Scotland, there was only a single conviction...

Quobna Cugoano: London church honours Ghanaian-born freed slave and abolitionist (BBC)

Quobna Ottobah Cugoano was a respected abolitionist in 18th Century Britain - but, despite his significant role in the abolition of the slave trade and slavery, his story is not that well-known. Cugoano was born in the Gold Coast, today's Ghana. He was enslaved when he was 13 - captured with about 20 others as they were playing in a field. His destination was the sugar plantations of the Caribbean island of Grenada. On board the ship taking him across the Atlantic Ocean, there was, as Cugoano writes, "nothing to be heard but the rattling of chains, smacking of whips, and the groans and cries of our fellow-men." Forced to work on a sugar plantation after two years of "dreadful captivity... without any hope of deliverance, beholding the most dreadful scenes of misery and cruelty", he was brought to Britain and managed to gain his freedom in 1772... On 20 August 1773, 250 years ago, at the age of 16, Cugoano was baptised John Stuart in St James's Church Piccadilly, in the centre of London. But he published his book 13 years later under his original, African name. Lovelace's artwork in honour of Cugoano is being installed in the church entrance on Wednesday, 20 September...

Canada Nazi row puts spotlight on Ukraine's WWII past (BBC)

When Canada's parliament praised a Ukrainian war veteran who fought with Nazi Germany, a renewed spotlight was put on a controversial part of Ukraine's history and its memorialisation in Canada... this is not the first time that Ukraine's role in WWII has sparked a debate in Canada, which is home to the largest Ukrainian diaspora outside of Europe. Several monuments dedicated to Ukrainian WWII veterans who served in the Galicia Division exist across the country. Jewish groups have long denounced these dedications, arguing soldiers in the Galicia Division swore allegiance to Adolf Hitler, and were either complicit in Nazi Germany's crimes or had committed crimes themselves. But for some Ukrainians, these veterans are viewed as freedom fighters, who only fought alongside the Nazis to resist the Soviets in their quest for an independent Ukraine. The Galicia Division was a part of the Waffen-SS, a Nazi military unit that on the whole was found to have been involved in numerous atrocities, including the massacring of Jewish civilians... During WWII, millions of Ukrainians served in the Soviet Red Army, but thousands of others fought on the German side under the Galicia Division. Those who fought with Germany believed it would grant them an independent state free from Soviet rule, Prof Marples said. At the time, Ukrainians resented the Soviets for their role in the Great Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33, also known as Holodomor, which killed an estimated five million Ukrainians. Far-right ideologies were also gaining traction in most European countries in the 1930s - including the UK - and Ukraine was no exception... Some Canadians of Ukrainian descent view these soldiers and the broader Galicia Division as "national heroes" who fought for the country's independence. They also argue that their collaboration with Nazi Germany was short-lived, and that they had eventually fought both the Soviets and the Germans for a free Ukraine. But the Jewish community views this differently. "The bottom line is that this unit, the 14th SS unit, were Nazis"... As this historical debate entered the 21st century, it was made more complicated by modern Russian propaganda, which falsely labelled the Ukrainian government as Nazis to justify its invasion of the country. Prof Marples said that while far-right extremism still exists in Ukraine, it is much smaller than what Russian propaganda tries to make people believe. And Ukrainian elected officials are not tied to any far-right group in the country. "Russia has greatly simplified the narrative"...

Former pupils demand apology from Irish school over Nazi teacher’s bullying (Guardian)

There was never any mystery about the fact that Louis Feutren, a French teacher at St Conleth’s school in south Dublin, was a Nazi collaborator. He had a taste for violent punishments and bizarre humiliations that terrorised pupils. He liked to reminisce about the second world war, when he had joined a Breton nationalist group that fought on the side of Germany. And he showed pictures of himself in uniform. To have a staff member who was a known Nazi collaborator and fugitive from French justice was accepted at St Conleth’s, which employed Feutren from 1957 until his retirement in 1985. He remained respected and feted as an educator until his death in 2009. Now, however, former pupils who endured and witnessed assaults by Feutren have demanded an apology from the school’s board of management... Feutren was a member of the Breton movement Bezen Perrot, which collaborated with Nazis during the occupation of France in hope of establishing an independent Breton state. The unit wore SS uniforms and guarded an interrogation centre at Rennes. Feutren was a junior officer with the rank of Oberscharführer. After the war the entire unit was sentenced to death for crimes against Jews and resistance fighters... Feutren escaped to Wales and then Ireland, where he studied at the University of Galway before becoming a French teacher at St Conleth’s, a prestigious school in Ballsbridge, south Dublin. “They said he wasn’t really a Nazi but a Breton separatist,” said Goñi. “My reaction was, yes, but many Breton separatists didn’t join the SS”...

Voice referendum: Indigenous rights vote is a reckoning for Australia (BBC)

On 14 October, Australia will vote in a historic referendum that cuts to the core of how it sees itself as a nation. If successful, the proposal - known as the Voice - will recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the constitution, while creating a body for them to advise governments on the issues affecting their communities. Yes advocates say it's a "modest yet profound" change that will allow Indigenous Australians to take "a rightful place" in their own country - which has often dragged its heels confronting its past. But those campaigning against it describe it as a "radical" proposal that will "permanently divide" the country by giving First Nations people greater rights than other Australians - a claim legal experts reject...

Islamophobia is not ‘freedom of speech’ (Al Jazeera)

If Western nations are truly committed to upholding and protecting human rights, they should stop using unfounded concerns over ‘freedom of speech’ as an excuse for inaction. This summer’s Quran burnings in Scandinavia were not anomalies but part of a disturbing trend. We are witnessing a sharp rise in Islamophobic hate, fuelled and funded by far-right political actors across the globe. Muslims are increasingly being targeted, harassed and discriminated against just for being Muslims in Europe, in the United States, and beyond... such hateful incidents can devastate communities and damage national cohesion and trust...

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

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

UK politicians and campaigners call for reparative justice for African slave trade (Guardian)

Politicians, campaigners and community groups are uniting for the first time to make “a very distinct and clear call for reparative justice” at an inaugural reparations conference this weekend. The all-party parliamentary group for Afrikan reparations (APPG-AR), a group of cross-party MPs, is hosting its first reparations conference in Euston in north London to collectively agree on a common statement with stakeholders and grassroots campaigners that can be used by MPs to push forward a policy for reparative justice in the House of Commons. Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the Streatham MP and chair of the APPG-AR, said: “We are bringing people from across the country – and there are international speakers as well – to make a very, very distinct and clear call for reparative justice.” As well as grassroots activists and community groups, politicians and representatives from the Scottish National party, Green party and Labour party are participating in the conference, she said. “It’s a conference of people who have been talking about these issues for a long time”...

The Tanzanians searching for their grandfathers' skulls in Germany (BBC)

Isaria Anael Meli has been looking for his grandfather's remains for more than six decades. He believes the skull ended up in a Berlin museum after his grandfather, Mangi Meli, along with 18 other chiefs and advisers, was hanged by a German colonial force 123 years ago. After all this time, a German minister has told the BBC the country is prepared to apologise for the executions in what is now northern Tanzania. Other descendants have also been searching for the remains and recently, in an unprecedented use of DNA research, two of the skulls of those killed have been identified among a museum collection of thousands...

The massacre of Herero and Nama people by German colonial forces in what is now Namibia was the first genocide of the 20th century, but very few people in the Global North have even heard of it.

Inside Charles and Camilla's state dinner: King and Queen enjoyed lobster ravoli and salmon with Champagne as part of eight-course feast in Nairobi
Rebecca English | 31 October 2023

... the King told the Kenyan people of his ‘greatest sorrow and deepest regret’ at Britain’s ‘abhorrent and unjustifiable acts of violence’ during the Colonial era.

In a keynote speech that went far further than many expected amid calls for an apology over government abuses under his late mother’s reign, King Charles said there was ‘no excuse’ for British ’wrongdoings’ in the east African nation, particularly against the Mau Mau rebellion.

Speaking at a state banquet in Nairobi, he told the Kenyan President and 350 guests: ‘It is the intimacy of our shared history that has brought our people together. However, we must also acknowledge the most painful times of our long and complex relationship.

‘The wrongdoings of the past are a cause of the greatest sorrow and the deepest regret. There were abhorrent and unjustifiable acts of violence committed against Kenyans as they waged, as you said at the United Nations, a painful struggle for independence and sovereignty – and for that, there can be no excuse.'

Charles continued: ‘In coming back to Kenya, it matters greatly to me that I should deepen my own understanding of these wrongs, and that I meet some of those whose lives and communities were so grievously affected.

‘None of this can change the past. But by addressing our history with honesty and openness we can, perhaps, demonstrate the strength of our friendship today. And, in so doing, we can, I hope, continue to build an ever-closer bond for the years ahead.’

The King stopped short of a direct apology, which carries greater legal culpability, because it is not British government policy to do so.

(14:39) King Charles speech in Kenya

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12694559/charles-camilla-state-dinner...

Germany asks forgiveness for Tanzania colonial crimes (BBC)

The German president has expressed "shame" for the colonial atrocities his country inflicted on Tanzania. German forces killed almost 300,000 people during the Maji Maji rebellion in the early 1900s, one of the bloodiest anti-colonial uprisings. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was speaking at a museum in Songea, where the uprising took place. "I would like to ask for forgiveness for what Germans did to your ancestors here," he said. "What happened here is our shared history, the history of your ancestors and the history of our ancestors in Germany"...

Plan is to change common, not scientific names, but some scientific names have peoples' names embedded in them? Still happening as new species are named--probably not happening with birds as much as fewer new species being discovered?

These American birds and dozens more will be renamed, to remove human monikers
Nell Greenfieldboyce | November 1, 2023
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/01/1209660753/these-american-birds-and-dozens-more-w...
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The Audubon's namesake, John James Audubon, was also a slave holder. Nevertheless, I would so hate to see his beautiful, irreplaceable paintings disappear from the public realm...Sure hope it doesn't come to that. ( https://www.audubon.org/news/the-myth-john-james-audubon )

Must be a statute of limitations on returning such things, but apparently the Vatican's 4,000 year old (funerary?) obelisk was brought from Egypt to Rome in 37AD by the Roman Emperor Caligula!

https://archaeology-travel.com/street/vatican-obelisk-in-st-peters-square/

Europe’s hollow apologies for colonial crimes stand in the way of true reparation (Guardian)

From Belgium to Germany and Britain, western countries still seek to dictate which colonial abuses are redressed and how...

‘The four centuries of slave trade shaped the spectre of racism and are woven into the fabric of global development’ (Guardian)

A lasting legacy of racism, oppression and colonialism is laid bare at a powerful exhibition in Cambridge. Confronting it can help us build a more equitable world...

I’m taking a class titled Appalachian Plants and People. We learned a bit more than most are taught about the North Carolina Cherokee Nation and their efforts to not be displaced.

We had our own celebration meal a few days ago, and the prof pointed to this story from Massachusetts (reprinted from the Washington Post):

This tribe helped the Pilgrims survive for their first Thanksgiving. They still regret it 400 years later

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/this-tribe-helped-the-pilgrims-...

Is it ever ethical for museums to display human remains? (BBC)

Defining human remains within museums (or even using the term "human remains") is not straightforward. The UK's Human Tissue Act, for example, does not apply to nails and hair, and only requires consent for the use of human remains from people who died within the last 100 years. However, some UK museums take a broader definition. International standards vary as well. When the Human Remains Working Group of the German Museums Association drew up its first guidelines in 2013, "for our recommendations, it really didn't matter if a person died 100 years ago or 1,000 years ago", says ethnologist Wiebke Ahrndt, the chair of the working group. Human remains were defined as all physical remains of Homo sapiens, including hair, teeth or nails that may not have been attached to the person at the time of collection... the National Museum of Scotland has removed all images of (unwrapped) human remains from its online database. Different cultures also have different beliefs about how human remains should be treated... in many cultural traditions, to separate or disturb body parts is deeply harmful. Another area of debate is whether it's permissible to exhibit human bodies as long as they're completely enclosed. A good example is Egyptian mummies, which are often "seen more as artefacts than as people", says Lewis McNaught, whose curatorial work has included a stint in the British Museum's Department of Egyptian Antiquities. Though these mummies are ancient and often have no body parts exposed, there is an ongoing discussion about whether displaying these humans continues to objectify them, without increasing genuine understanding... Now, amid conversations around colonial legacies and responsibilities, there's actually more pressure from the German public and the media to speed up the repatriation of human remains acquired in colonial contexts... One key consideration with human remains in museums is the manner in which they entered the collection. If it's known that they were acquired illegally or unethically, Ahrndt believes that they shouldn't be presented to the public in any way. In the Übersee-Museum's experience, the human remains that have now been repatriated were not initially collected in good faith. "They were against the will of the people," says Ahrndt. "They were stolen, they were dug out, at nighttime." In Ayau's opinion, since consent cannot be presumed, museums have the responsibility never to display people who are deceased. He points out that when family members pass away and they are buried, for example, it is not with the intent that one day they will be put on display. Today there's also more scrutiny of whether there genuinely is any scientific or other academic value to retaining human remains. And where there may be an argument for scientific merit, that is now increasingly weighed against other considerations, including the dignity of the person and the wishes of the community of origin. Many of the human bodies in Western museums ended up there as justifications for colonialism and scientific racism. The examples are numerous, even just from early-20th-Century incidents...

Asante Gold: UK to loan back Ghana's looted 'crown jewels' (BBC)

The UK is sending some of Ghana's "crown jewels" back home, 150 years after looting them from the court of the Asante king. A gold peace pipe is among 32 items returning under long-term loan deals, the BBC can reveal...

Elihu Yale: The cruel and greedy slave trader who gave Yale its name (BBC)

Last month, Yale University issued a formal apology for the links its early leaders and benefactors had with slavery. Since then, one name that has come under intense scrutiny in India is that of Elihu Yale, the man after whom the Ivy League university is named. Yale served as the all-powerful governor-president of the British East India Company in Madras in southern India (present-day Chennai) in the 17th Century and it was a gift of about £1,162 ($1,486) that earned him the honour of having the university named after him... Often described as a connoisseur and collector of fine things and a philanthropist who generously donated to churches and charities, Elihu Yale is now in focus as a colonialist who plundered India and - worse - traded in slaves...

Sites of resistance: threatened African burial grounds around the world (Guardian)

Too often cemeteries for enslaved people have been all but erased from history but how we remember matters... For archeologists, what defines people as human is how we bury our dead. Imagine, then, a society that relegates a whole community as legally inhuman, enslaved with no rights. In spite of slavery, African burial grounds are tangible reminders of the enslaved and free – defying oppressive circumstances by reclaiming people’s humanity through acts of remembrance. When I first visited the British overseas territory of St Helena in 2018 and saw the burial ground in Rupert’s Valley, I was astounded by its size and significance. It unambiguously placed the island at the centre of the Middle Passage – tying the British empire to the institution of slavery in the US, the Caribbean, and globally... How we choose to remember these places matters. They are sites of reclamation and resistance, where revolutionary acts of remembrance will for ever mark our cultural landscape...

Harvard University removes human skin binding from book (BBC)

Harvard University has removed the binding of human skin from a 19th Century book kept in its library. Des Destinées de l'Ame (Destinies of the Soul) has been housed at Houghton Library since the 1930s. In 2014, scientists determined that the material it was bound with was in fact human skin. But the university has now announced it has removed the binding "due to the ethically fraught nature of the book's origins and subsequent history". Des Destinées de l'Ame is a meditation on the soul and life after death, written by Arsène Houssaye in the mid-1880s. He is said to have given it to his friend, Dr Ludovic Bouland, a doctor, who then reportedly bound the book with skin from the body of an unclaimed female patient who had died of natural causes... {Harvard} added it was looking at ways to ensure "the human remains will be given a respectful disposition that seeks to restore dignity to the woman whose skin was used". The library is also "conducting additional biographical and provenance research into the anonymous female patient", the university said...

‘Hidden in plain sight’: the European city tours of slavery and colonialism (Guardian)

From Puerta del Sol plaza in Madrid to the Tuileries Garden in Paris, guides reshape stories continent tells about itself. From Barcelona to Brussels, London to Lisbon, a cohort of guides has trained its lens on Black and African history, laying bare how the continent has been shaped by colonialism and slavery as they reshape the stories that Europe tells about itself. While California debates reparation bills aimed at compensating for generations of discriminatory policies, and the UK takes down tributes to slave traders and colonialists, similar conversations have been conspicuously absent across much of the continent. “We’re not lifting up anyone’s mattresses,” says Ondo. “This is history hidden in plain sight”... the conversation around Black history and colonialism in the Netherlands has shifted. In 2023, King Willem-Alexander apologised for his country’s role in slavery but stopped short of heeding demands for reparations, despite research suggesting his ancestors had earned the modern-day equivalent of €545m (£466m) from slavery. The apology was a “pretty watershed moment”, says Tosch, albeit one that was carefully timed to dovetail with the growing attention being paid to this history. In other words, it was more a credit to the crucial work many had been doing to uncover the history than any royal initiative... The locals who take her tours are often surprised to find out that Germany’s colonial empire once ranked as the third largest in Europe. “They’ve never learned anything about Germany’s colonial past, some don’t even know that the Berlin conference happened in Berlin,” she says, citing the 1884-85 gathering in which European imperial powers wrangled for control of Africa. “I think it is also shocking to them how those colonial continuities just live among us”... Germany – a country often lauded for its efforts to deal with its more-recent past – had failed to meaningfully reckon with its history of colonialism...

Macron to say France and allies could have stopped Rwanda genocide in 1994 (Guardian)

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has said France and its western and African allies “could have stopped” Rwanda’s 1994 genocide but did not have the will to halt the slaughter of an estimated 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis. In a video message to be published on Sunday to mark the 30th anniversary of the genocide, Macron will emphasise that “when the phase of total extermination against the Tutsis began, the international community had the means to know and act”, the presidency said on Thursday. The president believes that at the time the international community already had historical experience of witnessing genocide with the Holocaust in the second world war and the mass killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during the first world war. Macron will say that “France, which could have stopped the genocide with its western and African allies, did not have the will” to do so, the official added...

General Roméo Dallaire's book Shake hands with the devil : the failure of humanity in Rwanda is instructive in this regard.

Rwanda genocide: World failed us in 1994, President Paul Kagame says (BBC)

Rwanda's president said the international community "failed all of us", as he marked 30 years since the 1994 genocide that killed around 800,000 people. President Paul Kagame addressed dignitaries and world leaders who had gathered in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, to commemorate the bloodshed. "Rwanda was completely humbled by the magnitude of our loss," he said. "And the lessons we learned are engraved in blood"... In a speech later, Mr Kagame thanked fellow African countries including Uganda, Ethiopia and Tanzania for their assistance in accepting Tutsi refugees and ending the genocide. "Many of the countries representing here also sent their sons and daughters to serve as peacekeepers in Rwanda," he said. "Those soldiers did not fail Rwanda. It was the international community which failed all of us. Whether from contempt or cowardice." The failure of other nations to intervene has been a cause of lingering shame. Former US President Bill Clinton, who was among the visiting leaders present, has called the genocide the biggest failure of his administration. In a video message recorded for the memorial, French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged that his country and its allies could have stopped the genocide but lacked the will to do so... a report commissioned by Mr Macron three years ago concluded that France bears "heavy and overwhelming responsibilities"...

>34 John5918:

I have a copy of Shake Hands with the Devil, but I'm ashamed to say that I've never worked up the courage to read it.

Taiwan pledges to remove 760 statues of Chinese dictator Chiang Kai-shek (Guardian)

Taiwan’s government has pledged to remove almost 800 statues of Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese military dictator who ruled the island for decades under martial law, but whose legacy remains a point of contentious debate...

Portugal rejects suggestion to pay reparations for slavery after comments from president (Guardian)

Portugal’s government has said it refuses to initiate any process to pay reparations for atrocities committed during transatlantic slavery and the colonial era, contrary to earlier comments from President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. From the 15th to the 19th century, 6 million Africans were kidnapped and forcibly transported across the Atlantic by Portuguese vessels and sold into slavery, primarily in Brazil. Rebelo de Sousa had said on Saturday that Portugal could use several methods to pay reparations, such as cancelling the debt of former colonies and providing financing. The government said in a statement sent to the Portuguese news agency Lusa it wanted to “deepen mutual relations, respect for historical truth and increasingly intense and close cooperation, based on the reconciliation of brotherly peoples”. But it added it had “no process or programme of specific actions” for paying reparations, noting this line was followed by previous governments...

Contains shocking historical photos...

Leopold II: Belgium 'wakes up' to its bloody colonial past
Georgina Rannard & Eve Webster | 12 June 2020

...By 1908, Leopold II's rule was deemed so cruel that European leaders, themselves violently exploiting Africa, condemned it and the Belgian parliament forced him to relinquish control of his fiefdom.

...When Leopold II died in 1909, he was buried to the sound of Belgians booing.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53017188

>38 margd:

I can't remember if I've mentioned previously King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild? Grim reading, but an excellent book on what happened in the Congo under Leopold.

Dorset auction house withdraws Egyptian human skulls from sale (Guardian)

An auction house has withdrawn 18 ancient Egyptian human skulls from sale after an MP said selling them would perpetuate the atrocities of colonialism. Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Afrikan reparations, believes the sale of human remains for any purposes should be outlawed, adding that the trade was “a gross violation of human dignity”... They were originally collected by the Victorian British soldier and archaeologist Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers...