IBARW -- kind of a local topic I guess

[ratcreature]

Sometimes I see posts in fandom racism discussions from non-US fans that seem to think that the legacy of slavery was somehow just an US issue, and didn't have much relevance to racism elsewhere and the forms it takes.

Maybe there are places like that somewhere, I don't know, but the history of slavery is not an "US-centric" issue. I think more often than not colonial history is just glossed over. Not just with regard to profiteering from slavery of course, for example in my high school history lessons of German colonial expansion the Herero and Namaqua genocide was barely mentioned, otoh there are still colonial monuments and street names in German cities honoring colonial troops that committed atrocities often without even mentioning their victims at all, as would be appropriate in a more critical and modern approach to monuments dealing with the colonial history.

But it it not just some historical legacy of monuments for war deaths and such: My hometown is Hamburg and there's this neighborhood, called Wandsbek, which used to be an independent town before the city's administration, districts and government were restructured in 1937. Anyway, that town had this fairly prominent citizen, a merchant who did much to make it grow, and himself rich (and to some degree the town too). Hence there are several streets named for him, and in 2006 the district administration erected a bust and a plaque in his honor.

That merchant was Heinrich Carl Schimmelmann (1724-1782) and he got rich through slave trade. He became one of the richest people in Europe at the time, kept slaves himself, and further profitted from exploiting orphaned children in his cotton factory and serfs on his farm estate.

And they gave him a newly erected bust last autumn, To make it worse, the way the memorial plaque text is phrased is beyond offensive, not because were trying to hide that Schimmelmann was a slave trader, but because it simply lists the humans he kidnapped and enslaved alongside the other trade goods, and that is the only way it addresses slavery. On that plaque, there's an explanation that the basis of his wealth was acquired through through supplying the military during the Seven Year War, and then the phrasing of the only sentence in which slavery is mentioned on the plate is "Auch durch den so genannten Dreieckshandel (Kattun und Gewehre, Sklaven, Zuckerrohr und Baumwolle) zwischen Europa, Afrika und Amerika galt er als reichster Mann Europas." (that translates as: "Also through the so called triangle trade (calico and rifles, slaves, sugar cane and cotton) between Europe, Africa and America he was said to be the richest man in Europe.") The sentence after that goes on to praise his charity work, and that he consolidated the Danish state finances.

The following link is in German, but you can look at photos of the bust and plaque, and of the protests agaist it that were organized by the black community in Hamburg on this site that's part of a project to increase awareness of German colonial history through, among other things, performance art involving colonial monuments.

Anyway, that bust was erected in September 2006, to celebrate the slave trader making that town richer, praising the pretty buildings he erected with his blood money, and what a great citizen he was. Despite protests of various NGOs, the local black community, parts of the press and two of the parties forming the minority in the district parliament, the district administration refused to remove or change that memorial into something more appropriate and less racist. I think, the protests and actions against this are still ongoing (like for example critical, anti-colonialist city tours offered for tourists are still drawing attention to this), sometimes even noticed by the media, like back in April this year when Arte (a French-German public tv channel) did a brief feature on the tenth local black history month here (which I think is less official than its counterpart in the US, but it does exist), and mentioned it. (You can watch a German recording of it on YouTube here.)

So to my mind the history of slavery and more awareness of it and the connected history is relevant to me locally, even though I'm outside the US.

Comments

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this post.

[ratcreature]

I'm glad to hear you found it interesting, I was wondering whether to post this at all, because I'm kind of unsure whether this IBARW project was even for non-fandom topics. When I looked at the link round-ups from last year it was all about media, writing and fandom and such, but I don't really do much fandom meta, so no topics like that presented themselves to me.

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

No, definitely, not just limited to fandom--I think a lot of people do write about that because that's one area a lot of us share, but it's not limited to that.

(Actually, one of my favorite posts last year was one of Veejane's: she wrote eloquently about race in baseball, an area about which I know very little, and it was a fascinating read.)

[ratcreature]

I actually counted that one as fandom post, because the only other mentions of baseball I see on LJ tend to be posts mentioning baseball RPS...

[veejane.livejournal.com]

What a coinkynink! I was just mentioning the baseball one!

[veejane.livejournal.com]

Concur with Min, that non-fannish posts are perfectly legit. Last year, I wrote about baseball and my childhood, and all my IBARW posts have been from this, my not-particularly-fannish account. (This year, I'm working with short stories and novels.)

This was a great example of IBARW writing, BTW, and a great rebuttal of that "Oh, that is the US's problem!" meme I'd been seeing around. Thanks for writing it.

[marinarusalka.livejournal.com]

Thank you. This is both fascinating and pretty damn apalling.

It really bugs me, the way I keep hearing "this is an American issue!" from people in countries that I know have an extensive history of both racism and slavery. In HP fandom, many fans compared the house-elves' situation to that of African slaves, and were shouted down with "Don't be stupid! JKR is British!" And all I could do was go "Bwuh? Do you think slavery magically appeared in the US overnight the day the Declaration of Independence was signed?"

[ratcreature]

Yeah, it really bugs me too. I guess there must be just serious flaws in how colonial history is dealt with in schools everywhere, though that doesn't really excuse this level of willful blindness in adulthood.

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

Also through the so called trilateral trade

"Triangle trade" auf englisch. ;)

[ratcreature]

okay.

[oyceter]

Thank you for the great post and for the links to more resources!

[ratcreature]

I'm glad you found it interesting.

Here via IBARW

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

Very informative and very much to the point.

Thank you for this post.

Re: Here via IBARW

[ratcreature]

I'm glad you thought so.

[imadra-blue.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I appreciate someone pointing out that slavery and racism exists outside of America (after all, we hardly invented it), though is often changed by cultural attitudes and not always as obvious as in other countries, especially to outsiders. I was incredibly insulted by people suggesting it was solely "an American thing."

[ratcreature]

I think in the 17th and 18th century here black people were mainly a "novelty item" of the rich, because there was no real need for any additional workforce (and depending on the time to various degrees local serfdom still existed anyway), but the real profit was for merchants and their companies in the trafficking. I suspect the fates of those who ended up here as some kind of status symbol must have been varied, but you only hear about very few if at all, like, the first black person to get a doctorate in Germany was actually back in 1734, when Anton Wilhelm Amo got one in philosophy; he had been given as a "gift" to some German duke or other by the Dutch East India Company when he was about four, and got an education as part of the household. As an adult started out in law school (writing his first disputation in Latin on the rights of black people in Europe), then pursued a doctorate in philosophy, and actually taught at several universities for about ten years until 1747, but increasing racism led to professional problems for him (there was a racist public mocking campaign) and he went back to Ghana (the place he had been taken from). But you don't hear about for example the people that Schimmelmann guy kept as status symbol to show he was rich, i.e. those who didn't have some exceptional biography.

[thelana.livejournal.com]

The thing is, even if you could find a country that never had any finger in slavery (Norway? Japan?), I'm they would have some other dark spot in their history. It's not like any country or any people is clean (not to mention minor types of slavery where you "only" enslave your next door neighbors). Plus, if there were any countries who weren't into the slave trade, they usually were that way because of lack of opportunity (like: no ports), not because of moral reasons. (from what wikipedia says, we (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_colonial_policy) weren't big into colonies because we were too dumb for it (and probably busy trying to stay on top of our Slavic countries); Well we did send this one guy to rule Mexico and well, we sucked at it)

I think for Germans the idea of "Yeah, there were some people who at some point got rich off it" just doesn't feel all that heavy weight compared to gassing gypsies. But when we start on that we again start comparing different kinds of traumas (what is worse? Killing people on the sport for a relatively short time? Keeping them alive and taking away their identity for a longer period of time? I actually find it fascinating how similar some of the personal Aufarbeitungs-testimonies sound as people try to come to terms with what happened them and how they were forced into this huge organized machinery that just didn't consider them *people*).

That said, German colonial history has always sounded really creepy to me, probably precisely because not much gets talked about it.

[ratcreature]

I think, for me what makes this truly appalling is that it goes beyond conveniently "forgetting" about something, or not paying attention, I mean, that's just leaving all the street names in his homor, which is kind of awful when you think about it too, but they put up a brand new bust up in his honor, and the text would have to try hard to get worse.

[thelana.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'd love to claim moral superiority. But I totally consider my own country capable of idiocy like that, if something similar hasn't happened already, I'm sure it still could.

Though I think monuments are a rather tricky thing most of times. Pretty much most big war heroes can be seen as mass murderers. Better stick to busts of musicians and poets. At least there the worst you can find out is that they beat their wives or took drugs. Or, you know, believed in racist propaganda.

Wait, upon rethinking I think all monuments we have should be of trees. And I actually mean that only in a half-joking way at all. At least trees are prettier than the average historical celebrity anyway.

[mirabile-dictu.livejournal.com]

I just read this and am shocked that, even if they put up the bust, the powers that be saw nothing problematic with the text on it. I had no idea about that part of Germany's history. I know enough to know that slavery wasn't just a US problem -- especially now. I understand there are more slaves in the world than at any other time.

I wonder how many other western European nations have such histories? More important, did I sleep though all my history classes in school, or was this never addressed?

Thank you for writing this.

[ratcreature]

I think most of Europe profited from slave trade, and colonial history just doesn't get addressed enough, especially in Germany. my own knowledge is really spotty, because it wasn't part of my school curriculum, so I only know what I picked up here and there. I mean, perhaps it is because the colonial atrocities kind of pale compared to the holocaust, or maybe because Germany lost colonies through WWI before their independence, or maybe because not many people from the colonies immigrated so their descendants aren't really a minority voice. There has been some increased interest and awareness, perhaps because of more recent immigration from African countries, but not really enough yet.

ETA: They have removed that bust last fall though afaik, so the ongoing local protests had some success after all. There was no apology for putting it up in the first place or anything, and they were quiet abput the removal, but it's not there anymore.