tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/liberation-26766/articlesLiberation – The Conversation2024-03-19T12:25:00Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2074712024-03-19T12:25:00Z2024-03-19T12:25:00ZWhat the Buddhist text Therigatha teaches about women’s enlightenment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582247/original/file-20240315-30-zf0ojy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C8%2C2939%2C1529&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tibetan Buddhist nuns offering prayers in Kathmandu.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/female-tibetan-buddhist-monks-offer-prayers-as-a-part-of-an-news-photo/1552145729?adppopup=true">Prakash/Mathema /AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Images of Buddha’s enlightenment often portray him <a href="https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1986.70">sitting alone under the bodhi tree</a>, his body emaciated from fasting. Some depictions show the Buddha’s right hand pointing down, asking the earth goddess to bear witness to his enlightenment.</p>
<p>Demonic armies or dangerous temptresses can be shown on both sides of the Buddha, <a href="https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1971.18">demonstrating his fortitude</a> in the face of violent threats and seduction. In some images, he may also be flanked by two male disciples while <a href="https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1935.146">expounding his teachings</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582235/original/file-20240315-28-xnpmro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A headless statue of an emaciated person, revealing the ribcage, tendons and veins, with human figures at its base." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582235/original/file-20240315-28-xnpmro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582235/original/file-20240315-28-xnpmro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582235/original/file-20240315-28-xnpmro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582235/original/file-20240315-28-xnpmro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582235/original/file-20240315-28-xnpmro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582235/original/file-20240315-28-xnpmro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582235/original/file-20240315-28-xnpmro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A third- to fifth-century statue of a fasting Buddha from the Kushan period.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/buddha-bodhi-tree.html?sortBy=relevant">Samuel Eilenberg Collection, Ex Coll.: Columbia University, Purchase, Rogers, Dodge, Harris Brisbane Dick and Fletcher Funds, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 1987</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What is missing, however, from these images are Buddhist women. What does enlightenment look like for them?</p>
<p>I’m <a href="https://case.academia.edu/JueLiang">a scholar of women and gender in Buddhism</a>, and one of the key questions driving my research is the unique ways in which enlightenment is experienced in a female body. This led me to the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Theragatha-Therigatha">Therigatha</a>, a collection of poems written in the Pāli language by female disciples of the Buddha. </p>
<p>Part of the <a href="https://palitextsociety.org/">Theravada Buddhist canon</a>,
this collection reveals an intimate picture of enlightenment that is deeply embodied, does not necessarily require the renunciation of domestic life and is supported by a community of sisterhood. </p>
<h2>Embodied enlightenment</h2>
<p>The term “theri” means “female elders,” while “gatha” refers to the genre of songs or verses. These poems, compiled not long after the Buddha’s passing, are the oldest evidence of women’s religious experiences in Buddhism. Many of these female authors were disciples of the Buddha. </p>
<p>Their writings reveal a version of enlightenment that is not occupied by the usual image of a solitary meditating monk. Instead of seeking liberation from life and death through monastic discipline or meditation, enlightenment is experienced in the mind as well as in the body. It is found not just in remote hermitages but also in domestic spaces. </p>
<p>Moreover, the path to liberation for women is usually communal. Nuns learn from and with each other, as they become free from the human condition of suffering, one of Buddhism’s <a href="https://www.lionsroar.com/what-are-the-four-noble-truths/">Four Noble Truths</a>.</p>
<p>Consider the following verses from the Therigatha. The <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674427730">nun Uttama says</a>:</p>
<blockquote>For seven days I sat in one position, legs crossed,<br>
Given over to joy and happiness.<br>
On the eighth day I stretched out my feet,<br>
After splitting open the mass of mental darkness.</blockquote>
<p>Uttama may have meditated just like the Buddha, but in the end, she stretched out her feet – a movement of ease and freedom and a gesture of release from the hardship she endured.</p>
<p>Contrary to other Buddhist teachings that view the body as <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo3633534.html">an undesirable container</a> punctured by several openings that constantly leaked foul and revolting substances, here in the Therigatha, the body is present, even prominent, in the enlightened experience of Uttama.</p>
<p>In the Therigatha, the Buddha instructs the nuns repeatedly to take care of the body. Instead of <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674427730">letting it become a vehicle for death</a>, they should cherish the human body they possess and make it a vehicle for liberation. </p>
<p>Another poem by Ambapali, a royal courtesan turned Buddhist nun, expresses a similar sentiment. Ambapali observes the changes in her body in detail: She remarks how her once glossy, black hair that was perfumed with flowers is now like jute; her eyes, once brilliant like jewels, have lost their luster; her neck, hands, arms, thighs and feet, which were all once beautiful, also bear witness to old age and impermanence. </p>
<p>Instead of being disgusted by these changes, <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674427730">her reflection</a> focuses on the teaching of impermanence: “It’s just as the Buddha, the speaker of truth, said, nothing different than that.” </p>
<p>Here, the body is not viewed as only the enemy but a vehicle necessary for human liberation. </p>
<h2>Finding liberation at home</h2>
<p>The setting of poems in the Therigatha also frequently highlights domestic spaces women occupy. In one, Punna, a servant girl of low caste, taught a high-caste Brahmin <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674427730">a lesson on karma</a>. While doing her morning chores of fetching water, she saw a priest performing his bathing purification ritual in ice-cold water. She questioned the efficacy of this ritual, and told him that liberation comes from the Buddha’s teaching, not by tormenting one’s body. </p>
<p>In another, Patachara, who was once the wife of a wealthy man but turned to renunciation after the untimely death of her children, <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674427730">relates the following</a>:</p>
<blockquote>First I looked at the bed, then I sat on the couch<br>
I used a needle to pull out the lamp’s wick.<br>
Just as the lamp went out, my mind was free.</blockquote>
<p>While the nuns followed a monastic path of abandoning domestic life, it was the bondage of servitude, not the daily experience of living, that they left behind. For Patachara, there was no need for a bodhi tree; her mind was set free from suffering and entered enlightenment right in her hut after the mundane act of putting out her lamp. </p>
<h2>Becoming enlightened, together</h2>
<p>Nuns learned from not only the Buddha but from other nuns as well. They were encouraged to care for and support each other. In fact, the phrase “she seemed like someone I could trust” shows up multiple times in the Therigatha, when the nuns recalled how they started on the path in the first place. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674427730">A nameless nun</a> writes:</p>
<blockquote>With no peace in my heart, dripping with sexual desire,<br>
I entered the monastery, wailing, my arms outstretched.<br>
I approached the nun,<br>
She seemed like someone I could trust.<br>
She taught me the dhamma<br>
About what makes a person<br>
About the senses and their objects<br>
And about the basic elements that make up everything.</blockquote>
<p>The community of fellow practitioners in Buddhism is called the sangha. It is one of the Three Jewels, the other two being the teacher, the Buddha, and his teaching, the “dhamma.” Anyone who wishes to become a Buddhist will vow to take refuge <a href="https://www.lionsroar.com/what-are-the-three-jewels/">in the Three Jewels</a>, which support Buddhist practice. These are the teacher, the teaching and the community. In the case of this nameless nun – and many others – the Buddhist path is paved not only by the Buddha and his teachings but also by a community of trust and shared aspiration.</p>
<p>The poems in the Therigatha are a reminder that enlightenment does not always have to be a long trek in the woods but can happen right within one’s humble abode. For some, it could simply mean the joy of finding community.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207471/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jue Liang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Therigatha, a collection of poems written in Pāli by Buddhist nuns, reveals that women’s enlightenment may not necessarily require renunciation of domestic life.Jue Liang, Assistant Professor of Religion, Case Western Reserve UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1784542022-03-30T15:50:16Z2022-03-30T15:50:16ZThe hijab is not a symbol of gender oppression – but those who choose to wear it risk Islamophobia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454725/original/file-20220328-17419-1ups4ti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Covering is a matter of personal choice, faith and, for many women, freedom.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hijab-girl-exercising-on-walkway-bridge-1247806204">Jacob Lund | Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-trojan-horse-affair-islamophobia-scholar-on-the-long-shadow-cast-by-the-scandal-176281">New York Times podcast</a> on the alleged <a href="https://theconversation.com/operation-trojan-horse-examining-the-islamic-takeover-of-birmingham-schools-25764">“Trojan Horse” Islamisation of schools in Birmingham, England,</a> a Muslim woman who worked in one of the schools under discussion relays what happened when she started wearing the hijab. She had just got married and non-Muslim colleagues interpreted her head covering as a sign that her new husband was controlling her, that she was oppressed. </p>
<p>In reality, as she explains to the podcasts’ hosts, she had not previously worn the hijab because she was afraid of exactly this: people’s biased reactions to it. She only started to cover when she felt more confident that the school was a safe place where she could be herself without fear of Islamophobic repercussions. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-islamophobia-feel-like-we-dressed-visibly-as-muslims-for-a-month-to-find-out-66786">Wearing a form of head covering</a> is the most visible symbol of Islam in the west – and the most misunderstood. The ways in which Muslim women cover are diverse, ranging from the face veil or niqab, to covering their hair and upper body with the headscarf or hijab. And like Muslim women themselves, these come in a huge variety of colours, styles and fashions and are shaped by place, time and trends.</p>
<p>Some people have equated covering with gender inequality and have seen it as a threat to social cohesion or, worse, as synonymous with <a href="https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/islam-and-the-veil-theoretical-and-regional-contexts/">Islamist extremism</a>. While there are women who are pressured into <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2019/05/iran-abusive-forced-veiling-laws-police-womens-lives/">covering by law</a> or society, assuming that this applies to all who do so feeds these stereotypes, promoting a climate of racism and Islamophobia of which Muslim women, in the UK and worldwide, bear the brunt. </p>
<p>Those who choose to cover have to navigate both these prejudicial views and the legislation, the routine media scrutiny and the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/42843357?seq=5#metadata_info_tab_contents">political debate</a> they engender – often without being included in any of it – in their everyday lives. </p>
<p>But what these assumptions fail to recognise are the multiple meanings that covering holds for the women who choose to do so. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.2016.1159710">Research shows</a> that for many of those who wear it, the veil is not a passive garment. Rather, it is very often an important and integral part of women’s identity, an expression of personal choice. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman in a leather jacket sits on a bench in a park with another woman in a pink hijab and marroon coat." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454729/original/file-20220328-17748-jg7rno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454729/original/file-20220328-17748-jg7rno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454729/original/file-20220328-17748-jg7rno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454729/original/file-20220328-17748-jg7rno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454729/original/file-20220328-17748-jg7rno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454729/original/file-20220328-17748-jg7rno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454729/original/file-20220328-17748-jg7rno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Islamaphobia harms both women who cover and non-Muslims who are deemed to</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/two-british-muslim-women-meeting-urban-588826043">Monkey Business Images | Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Wearing the headscarf can be liberating</h2>
<p>When deciding to cover, quite how a woman negotiates both personal choice and the fear of gendered Islamophobia is not always straightforward. For some women, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.2016.1159710">as our research shows</a>, covering is empowering. </p>
<p>We did a number of individual and focus group interviews with Muslim women who wear the niqab in the UK. One person, Jasmine, told us: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sisters are forced to wear it in some places in the world. I will not deny this. This is not right. But I choose when to wear it and when to take it off. I choose what colours to wear, not just black and white.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another, Khadija, said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s awesome! It’s a beautiful, religious fashion statement. I have drawers full of a variety of vibrant colours, materials and prints. I match them with my outfits and wear a different style every day.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For these women, choosing to cover has been a way of demonstrating assertiveness and agency, of being in control of their bodies. In other words, the exact opposite of the passive, oppressed victimhood painted by stereotypical views.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman in a blue headscarf and yellow coat poses in front of a pink building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454731/original/file-20220328-23-kcn5o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454731/original/file-20220328-23-kcn5o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454731/original/file-20220328-23-kcn5o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454731/original/file-20220328-23-kcn5o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454731/original/file-20220328-23-kcn5o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454731/original/file-20220328-23-kcn5o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454731/original/file-20220328-23-kcn5o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As an active garment, the headscarf has great style potential.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/fashion-portrait-young-attractive-muslim-malay-1197876037">mentatdgt | Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Covering can also be complicated</h2>
<p>For other women, it can be a more nuanced experience. One French politician <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-48725-6?noAccess=true">told us</a> about how she sought out culturally inconspicuous ways of covering, to prevent being stereotyped as a Muslim woman or face the gendered Islamophobia that often comes with it. She said she finds ways to manage it.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I don’t wear a headscarf. I cover my hair with something, with a hat, with a beret, something culturally French. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Fashion designer and blogger <a href="https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2016/02/104067/news-uniqlo-hijab-tutorial-hana-tajima">Hana Tajima</a> has talked eloquently on social media about the challenges. In a recent post, she relayed how, on the one hand, there are people who don’t understand why anyone would want to cover in the first place: “They see the headscarf as a way of controlling and manipulating women.” And on the other hand, she said, “there are people who feel like, once you choose to wear the headscarf, you have a responsibility to maintain it.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CWT25GVFByH","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>She described the pressure of being expected to be the perfect embodiment of someone else’s idea about faith. As for women more broadly, the presumed significance and meaning of their dress is often externally prescribed by society. Still, wearing the headscarf can be a deeply personal choice and a personal expression of faith.</p>
<h2>Islamophobic reactions</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003023722-7/misogyny-hate-crimes-gendered-islamophobia-amina-easat-daas">Research shows</a> that the experiences of Muslim women who wear a covering in the west are part of a broader, intersecting pattern of prejudice, misogyny and racism. Muslim women who cover are stigmatised as threatening, their headscarf or veil the visual embodiment of what makes Muslims “other”.</p>
<p>Ultimately, <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003023722-7/misogyny-hate-crimes-gendered-islamophobia-amina-easat-daas">our research shows</a> that visibly Muslim women face a disproportionate impact of Islamophobia. This ranges from being denied services to being physically attacked in public, including having their headscarves removed against their will on the street. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A mother in a black niqab and a daughter wearing white jeans and a white hijab walk down a shopping street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454727/original/file-20220328-17346-1nae39l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454727/original/file-20220328-17346-1nae39l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454727/original/file-20220328-17346-1nae39l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454727/original/file-20220328-17346-1nae39l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454727/original/file-20220328-17346-1nae39l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454727/original/file-20220328-17346-1nae39l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454727/original/file-20220328-17346-1nae39l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Navigating the wider public’s response to the hijab can be a fraught experience for many Muslim women in the west.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-uk-august-24-2016-woman-522871231">IR Stone | Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Visible Muslimness <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-islamophobia-feel-like-we-dressed-visibly-as-muslims-for-a-month-to-find-out-66786">correlates</a> with directly experiencing Islamophobia. However, we have found that Islamophobia also impacts people who <a href="https://theconversation.com/you-all-look-the-same-non-muslim-men-targeted-in-islamophobic-hate-crime-because-of-their-appearance-85565">are not Muslim</a>, simply because their <a href="https://theconversation.com/you-all-look-the-same-non-muslim-men-targeted-in-islamophobic-hate-crime-because-of-their-appearance-85565">physical appearance</a>, their skin colour and even, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2004/jul/12/discriminationatwork.workandcareers">research suggests</a>, their names, mean they are deemed to “look” Muslim. Such anti-Muslim racism leads to people being further <a href="https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/31845/ssoar-2006-choudhury_et_al-Perceptions_of_discrimination_and_Islamophobia.pdf?sequence=1">discriminated against</a> in attempting to secure housing or access education.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178454/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ignorant assumptions about what the headscarf means fail to recognise how integral it can be to a woman’s identity.Irene Zempi, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Nottingham Trent UniversityAmina Easat-Daas, Lecturer in Politics, De Montfort UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1570872021-03-24T19:17:39Z2021-03-24T19:17:39ZThis Passover, as in the past, will be a time to recognize tragedies and offer hope for the future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390468/original/file-20210318-13-cnrn92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=65%2C24%2C5398%2C3497&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Jewish family gathers in person and over video conferencing for Passover celebrations in 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sarah-and-aaron-sanders-celebrate-a-passover-seder-with-news-photo/1217699457?adppopup=true">Ezra Shaw/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Jewish families will gather for Passover this year in circumstances that will, like the celebration itself, reflect on dark times while looking ahead toward better ones to come.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/passover-2021/">holiday</a> lasts from the evening of April 15 to the evening of April 23 in 2022. The <a href="https://www.almanac.com/content/when-start-passover">first two nights</a> of the celebration involve a Seder, a ritual meal bringing together the family.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://colorado.academia.edu/SamBoyd">scholar of the Bible and ancient Judaism</a>, I believe Passover is a particularly poignant time to recognize the tragedies of the past year and offer hope for the future.</p>
<h2>Passover story</h2>
<p>The Passover is a festival found in the Bible that commemorates the escape of the Israelites, led by Moses, from Egypt as recounted in the <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691169545/the-book-of-exodus">book of Exodus</a>. Prior to the departure of the enslaved Israelites, God delivered a <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/vt/61/4/article-p657_8.xml?rskey=xAFLmc&result=1">series of plagues</a> on Egypt, culminating in the killing of the firstborn son in every Egyptian family, including the firstborn of the livestock.</p>
<p>The Israelites, however, place the blood of a lamb on their doorposts to signal that the “<a href="https://www.peeters-leuven.be/detail.php?search_key=9789042924673&series_number_str=1&lang=en">destroyer</a>,” an angel responsible for the killing, should skip, or pass over, those homes. </p>
<p>This story came to function as a powerful narrative of <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300253030/founding-gods-nation">persecution and liberation</a> for Jewish people. The command to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24752903">celebrate and remember</a> the exodus from Egypt and the Passover for future generations is encoded in the Bible itself: according to the book of Exodus, God commands Moses, even prior to their departure from Egypt, that the Israelites and their descendants are to commemorate this event.</p>
<p>The celebration of the Passover includes a script, called the <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691144986/the-passover-haggadah">Passover Haggadah</a>. The Haggadah contains ancient rituals, some of which may have been practiced as early as the second century A.D., though the full script exists in later, medieval manuscripts. </p>
<h2>Story of the four sons</h2>
<p>Today, many families also create their <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/how-to-make-your-own-passover-haggadah/">own versions</a> of the Haggadah, offering celebrations of the Passover that infuse <a href="https://thejewishnews.com/2020/03/31/making-passover-personal-with-homemade-haggadot/">personal and family</a> experiences.</p>
<p>Each member of the family plays certain roles, as found in the biblical story. This enactment of parts of the Exodus narrative fuses the present moment with the past, encouraging each participant to imagine themselves as part of the first generation to leave Egypt. </p>
<p>Some characters not found explicitly in the biblical text were also added to the Haggadah script. Prominent among them is an addition from the ninth century A.D. – a story about <a href="https://reformjudaism.org/lessons-four-children-seder">the four sons or children</a> - the wise, the wicked, the simple and the one who does not know what to ask. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://franklin.library.upenn.edu/catalog/FRANKLIN_9934790503503681">versions varied</a>, but the characters became a prominent part of the celebration. In many families today, they are called “children” or “daughters,” allowing for the inclusion of all members of the family regardless of gender. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-four-sons-how-the-midrash-developed">These characters</a> were inspired by <a href="http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/propylaeumdok/3747/1/Assmann_Exodus_and_Memory_2015.pdf">a variety of biblical and rabbinic sources</a> in which children ask certain questions about the celebration of the Passover. In the case of the son who does not know what to ask, the parent directly tells the child about the importance of the exodus without waiting for the question. </p>
<p>The Bible speaks of interactions between parents and children, but does not label the children in a specific manner. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=029__uuKYBI">main purpose</a> is telling, examining and passing on the significance of the exodus from a number of different perspectives. The distinct roles of each child encourage the participants to reflect, in different ways, on the significance of liberation and how to communicate it to future generations. </p>
<p>Almost like a <a href="https://www.aish.com/h/pes/t/g/The-Passover-Time-Machine.html">time machine</a>, then, the Haggadah and celebration of Passover incorporates the manner in which history, the present and the future relate to one another. This unfolding of <a href="https://www.jweekly.com/2019/04/18/on-passover-remembering-the-past-means-imagining-the-future/">all dimensions of time</a> allows those who celebrate to remember tragedies and loss in the past while also generating a real sense of hope for the future. </p>
<h2>Flexibility and adaptation</h2>
<p>According to many parts of the Bible, the Passover festival was to occur once a year, and only <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/deuteronomy-and-the-hermeneutics-of-legal-innovation-9780195112801?cc=us&lang=en&">in Jerusalem</a> where the temple to the Israelite deity existed. </p>
<p>The celebration of Passover evolved into a home-based commemoration with the destruction of the temple by the Romans in A.D. 70. The biblical Passover mentioned in the book of Exodus also <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691169545/the-book-of-exodus">occurred in individual homes</a>.</p>
<p>As such, the Bible <a href="https://doi.org/10.30965/21967954-00803002">provided ways</a> to adapt the celebration in light of changed circumstances. The Bible describes how the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017816009000017">second Passover</a> – a year after the Israelites left Egypt – is celebrated in the wilderness, but seems to presuppose that its future celebration will be in the temple in Jerusalem. At that time, allowance would be made for those who had to travel long distances, by delaying its observance by 30 days. </p>
<p>This delay anticipated that geographical separation and time may not allow for normal Passover observance, a comfort directly derived from the Bible for those families who were not able to celebrate during the pandemic in person. </p>
<p>When families gather for Passover, however, many may choose to reflect on the hard times of the past years as part of the Seder. Indeed, the celebration of the Passover has <a href="https://doi.org/10.30965/21967954-00803002">in it other references related to Jewish history</a>, even if they were not always positive. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391438/original/file-20210324-21-4civh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young girl pretends she is 'stealing' the bread, Afikomen, as part of Passover celebrations." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391438/original/file-20210324-21-4civh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391438/original/file-20210324-21-4civh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391438/original/file-20210324-21-4civh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391438/original/file-20210324-21-4civh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391438/original/file-20210324-21-4civh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391438/original/file-20210324-21-4civh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391438/original/file-20210324-21-4civh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A young girl pretends to ‘steal’ the Afikomen, as part of the celebrations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/young-girl-sneaks-up-to-steal-the-afikomen-containing-a-news-photo/516018308?adppopup=true">Bettmann via Getty images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, part of the celebration of the <a href="https://jps.org/books/jps-commentary-on-the-haggadah/">Passover Haggadah</a> entails the breaking of unleavened bread, a piece of which is known as the <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-afikoman">Afikomen</a>, which is then hidden. Children try to find it for a prize, called a “treasure from Egypt.” The term Afikomen is itself a Greek word, referring possibly to after-dinner revelry. It is a reminder of another historical moment in which Jewish cultures were heavily surrounded and influenced by the Greeks. </p>
<p>The relationship with the Greeks was a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110375558">complex one</a>. Some part of the <a href="https://www.wjkbooks.com/Products/0664239048/from-the-maccabees-to-the-mishnah-third-edition.aspx">Greek influence</a> <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/jewish-life-and-thought-among-greeks-and-romans-9780567085252/">was celebrated</a> in early Jewish society. For example, the <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-septuagint-9780567084644/">translation</a> of the Old Testament from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110431346">Hebrew into Greek</a>, starting in the third century B.C., was considered a divine act. </p>
<p>There were also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004330184_013">conflicts between Greek rulers and local Jewish populations</a>, which led to a war in the second century B.C., known as the <a href="http://store.carta-jerusalem.com/bible-history/732-understanding-the-maccabean-revolt-9789652208750.html">Maccabean Revolt</a>. Indeed, there were <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/interpreting-scriptures-in-judaism-christianity-and-islam/056CCB36E7228D8151E2900986CBEA88">debates</a> in Judaism whether or not one could recite <a href="https://doi.org/10.30965/21967954-00601004">parts of the Bible in Greek</a>, in worship services. </p>
<p>Yet the incorporation of the word Afikomen in the Passover Haggadah displays a willingness to borrow a Greek term into an important Jewish celebration.</p>
<h2>Next year in Jerusalem</h2>
<p>Looking to the future is central to the celebration of the Passover Haggadah. Despite the deliverance from slavery in Egypt, the meal concludes with the phrase, also said at the end of another observation known as Yom Kippur, “<a href="https://reformjudaism.org/blog/what-does-next-year-jerusalem-really-mean">Next year in Jerusalem</a>.” </p>
<p>In a meal that blends past and present and nods toward the future, <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/next-year-in-jerusalem/">ending the Haggadah</a> with such a proclamation highlights the reality that despite freedom from Egypt, most Jewish communities over time celebrated the Passover Haggadah <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/03/next-year-may-we-be-together/">away from their ancestral home and in circumstances that were not ideal</a>. </p>
<p>This yearning for a world that is not yet healed and the toggling between past, present and future in the Passover celebration will perhaps hold special significance for many grandparents and their families after a long pandemic.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p><em>The article has been updated slightly</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157087/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel L. Boyd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As vaccinated grandparents gather with their families this Passover, many might find solace in the history of the celebrations and how it offers hope for the future.Samuel L. Boyd, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1388402020-05-19T14:27:17Z2020-05-19T14:27:17ZColonial amnesia and Germany’s efforts to achieve ‘internal liberation’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336018/original/file-20200519-152292-nulqys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters in Berlin demand that the 1904-1908 mass killings in Namibia be recognised as the first genocide committed by Germany.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied/Courtesy of Joachim Zeller</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Speaking at the 75th commemoration of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/08/european-leaders-mark-heroics-of-war-generation-after-75-years">VE (Victory in Europe) Day</a>, German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier <a href="https://www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Reden/2020/05/200508-75-Jahre-Ende-WKII-Englisch.pdf?__blob=publicationFile">said</a> it was a day of liberation “imposed from outside”, by Allied military forces, including the Soviets. But as he stated, “internal liberation”, the coming to terms with the heritage of dictatorship and above all the horrific mass crimes, remained “a long and painful process”.</p>
<p>In 1985 the West German head of state, Richard von Weizsäcker, for the first time used the term “liberation” for the <a href="https://www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Reden/2015/02/150202-RvW-Rede-8-Mai-1985-englisch.pdf?__blob=publicationFile">unconditional surrender of German troops</a> that marked the end of the second world war in Europe. This sparked considerable protest and controversy, a sign that even as late as the mid-1980s, Germany was having difficulty coming to terms with its past.</p>
<p>Steinmeier’s more consistent plea to “accept our historic responsibility” met broad consensus. “Internal liberation” had come some way – leaving aside comparatively weak statements by the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/afd-what-you-need-to-know-about-germanys-far-right-party/a-37208199">right-wing Alternative für Deutschland</a>.</p>
<p>The culture of remembrance, concerning also dire aspects of the past, that’s been engendered in Germany is viewed by many as exemplary. But it nevertheless has some grave shortcomings. Notably, the remembrance of <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/auschwitz">Auschwitz</a> as a substantial part of German state rationale has come about through a halting and conflicting process. For all its merits, still, by virtually singling out the Shoah (the genocide of the Jews in Europe), it marginalises and disregards other mass crimes of the Nazi period. </p>
<p>As recalled during the VE-Day anniversary, such elision from memory includes over 30 million victims of the war against the Soviet Union and the occupation of eastern territories in what are today Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, Moldavia, Poland and the Baltic states. This blank spot relates to an ingrained culture in Germany of discrimination against Slavic people and refuses to acknowledge the crimes perpetrated by the millions of <a href="https://www.neues-deutschland.de/artikel/1136440.ns-zeit-die-wehrmacht-warrs-auch.html?sstr=Hannes%7CHeer">ordinary German soldiers</a>.</p>
<p>Another glaring lacuna concerns Germany’s past as a colonial power. This period lasted from <a href="https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/German_colonial_empire">1884 to 1919</a>. Despite the relatively short duration, this experience had a great impact on Germany’s violent trajectory during the first half of the 20th century. Since 1945, however, this history has been largely forgotten.</p>
<p>Today many Germans are not even aware that their country once ruled colonies in Africa, Oceania and China. Such public amnesia about <a href="https://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/Standpunkte/Standpunkte_9-2018.pdf">Germany’s colonial past</a> does not imply only a lack of knowledge. Rather it manifests in the refusal to acknowledge the practice of German colonialism and countenance the consequences. </p>
<p>A prominent case is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/has-the-relationship-between-namibia-and-germany-sunk-to-a-new-low-121329">genocide of 1904-1908 in then South West Africa</a>. Germany admitted the fact in 2015. But bilateral negotiations with Namibia <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14623528.2020.1750823">have not yet reached any result</a>.</p>
<h2>Selective amnesia</h2>
<p>Complacency about German culture of remembrance tends to isolate the Shoah as the mainstay of canonised public memory. There was a period when the entire field of comparative genocide studies was scrutinised as undermining the singularity of the Shoah. American political scientist and historian <a href="https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/genocide-theory-search-knowledge-and-quest-meaning.html">Henry Huttenbach</a> pointed to the imbalance</p>
<blockquote>
<p>that the Holocaust became the paradigm for all genocides by default.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This also eroded the vital call of “Never Again” by the survivors of the Buchenwald concentration camp <a href="https://www.blurb.com/b/828859-never-again-buchenwald">in 1945</a>. If comparison is tabooed, the Holocaust cannot stand as a warning that organised mass extinction might yet be repeated. </p>
<p>But, unfortunately, we have to stand guard against the very real possibility of current and future cases of genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.</p>
<p>The persistent lack of awareness was shown once again in a mid-2019 foreign ministry <a href="https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/blob/2298392/633d49372b71cb6fafd36c1f064c102c/transitional-justice-data.pdf">position paper on transitional justice</a>. It “advocates a comprehensive understanding of confronting past injustices” and refers to “reparations and compensation for National Socialist injustices”. It suggests that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Germany can provide information about basic requirements, problems and mechanisms for the development of state and civil-society reparation efforts.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Strikingly, however, the term “colonialism” does not feature even once in the 32 pages.</p>
<p>Rather, German diplomacy is seen as aggressively keeping things apart. This attitude is self-congratulatory and discriminating at one and the same time. </p>
<h2>Namibian genocide</h2>
<p>The issue was epitomised when Ruprecht Polenz, the German special envoy in the negotiations with the Namibian government about the consequences of the genocide, met a delegation of Namibian descendants of genocide survivors in 2016. They challenged him for not being part of the negotiations. They pointed out that Germany had negotiated with other non-state agencies, such as <a href="https://www.bpb.de/apuz/162883/wiedergutmachung-in-deutschland-19451990-ein-ueberblick?p=all">the Jewish Claims Conference</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Graves of forced labourers from a concentration in Lüderitz, Namibia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reinhart Kössler</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Polenz stressed that it was inappropriate to draw comparisons in cases such as genocide. But at the same time he pointed out that the Holocaust was qualitatively different from the genocide in Namibia. The meeting exploded in protest by the Namibian delegates – and <a href="http://genocide-namibia.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/PRESS-RELEASE-NOV-2016.pdf">a walkout</a>. They saw disrespect in belittling what happened to their ancestors as well as discriminating against them as Africans.</p>
<p>Already in 2001, Namibia’s foreign minister, Theo-Ben Gurirab, commented at the <a href="https://nhri.ohchr.org/EN/Themes/Racial/Pages/2001-World-Conference-Against-Racism.aspx">World Conference Against Racism</a> on the lack of a German apology to Namibians in contradistinction to Europeans. He concluded that if there was a problem in apologising because Namibians were black, <a href="http://www.freiburg-postkolonial.de/Seiten/melber-reconciliation2006.htm">that would be racist</a>.</p>
<h2>The challenges of ‘internal liberation’</h2>
<p>German memory politics and practices are not quite as exemplary as the Foreign Office would like to make us believe. In fact, the engagement with the violent past particularly of the first half of the 20th century is an ongoing and painful as well as conflictual process. Inasmuch as this process has been seen to consecutively encompass crimes and victim groups that had been silenced before, such an observation can only underline the magnitude of the task.</p>
<p>The urgency of addressing such challenge emerges from revisionist efforts, spearheaded by the Alternative für Deutschland. The group’s honorary chairman, Alexander Gauland, infamously termed Nazi rule as “bird’s shit” in comparison to <a href="https://www.afdbundestag.de/wortlaut-der-umstrittenen-passage-der-rede-von-alexander-gauland/">Germany’s “successful” history</a>.</p>
<p>The party has drawn up a parliamentary draft resolution calling for a positive reassessment of <a href="https://dipbt.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/19/157/1915784.pdf">colonialism’s modernising achievements</a>. It makes explicit reference to a 2018 statement by the personal representative of the <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2019/01/a-technocratic-reformulation-of-colonialism">German Chancellor for Africa</a>. He maintained that German colonialism contributed to liberate the African continent from archaic structures.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/surviving-genocide-a-voice-from-colonial-namibia-at-the-turn-of-the-last-century-130546">Surviving genocide: a voice from colonial Namibia at the turn of the last century</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>These developments show that there are limits to Germany’s accomplishment of coming to terms with its violent past. This was also reflected in the vigorous objection by German officials to <a href="https://wiser.wits.ac.za/users/achille-mbembe">Achille Mbembe</a>, the Cameroonian philosopher and political theorist, being invited as keynote speaker at this year’s Ruhrtriennale, a renowned cultural festival. He had been asked to address the issue of <a href="https://presse.ruhrtriennale.de/pressreleases/ruhrtriennale-2020-beschliesst-die-zwischenzeit-mit-internationalem-programm-2983369">“Reparation”</a>.</p>
<p>A deputy of the Liberal Party in the <a href="https://fdp.fraktion.nrw/sites/default/files/uploads/2020/03/25/offenerbrieflorenzdeutschanstefaniecarpwegenachillembembe-ruhrtriennale2020.pdf">North Rhine Westphalia Diet</a> alleged that Mbembe had refuted Israel’s right to exist as a state, and had “relativised” the Holocaust by comparing the practices of separation under apartheid with the Palestinian situation. The federal government’s antisemitism commissioner <a href="https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/german-antisemitism-commissioner-rejects-bds-academic-at-festival-624577">joined this
protest</a>.</p>
<p>This intervention sparked a controversy that stands as a warning that the postcolonial situation of Germany is very much at stake. By reducing the conflict to issues of antisemitism, it has been trapped in the pitfalls of colonial amnesia. But inner liberation remains hard work. It means conflict and pain, and it must never end.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138840/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber has been a member of SWAPO since 1974.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Reinhart Kössler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The culture of remembrance in Germany is viewed by many as exemplary. But it has some grave shortcomings.Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of PretoriaReinhart Kössler, Professor in Political Science, University of FreiburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1161372019-05-20T14:26:57Z2019-05-20T14:26:57ZLGBTQ coin glosses over radical struggles: When did gay liberation come to mean equality?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275175/original/file-20190517-69169-11jx73z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The first gay liberation protest in Canada in 1971 in Ottawa in the pouring rain. Centre: Toronto Gay Action members Brian Waite (left) with Andre Ouellette (right). George Hislop, is on the extreme right.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jearld Frederick Moldenhaue</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Royal Canadian Mint recently <a href="https://www.mint.ca/store/microsite/?site=equality&lang=en_CA&rcmeid=van_equality">released a coin, “Hold onto Love,”</a> that celebrates <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/rights-lgbti-persons.html">50 years of equality</a> for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people in Canada. The unveiling ceremony was disrupted by a small group of LGBTQ protesters who rejected the federal government’s claim that LGBTQ rights started with <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/omnibus-bill-a-new-era-in-canada">Canada’s 1969 omnibus bill (Bill C-150).</a></p>
<p>The omnibus bill modified previous Criminal Code regulations concerning some same-sex sexual acts and, for some, marks the starting point of Canada’s march toward LGBTQ equality. </p>
<p>But credit for significant gains made over the past half century, the protesters argue, belongs to the lesbian, bisexual, trans, and gay people on the ground whose long and hard public campaigns for equality and justice began in late 1960s and are ongoing to this day.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274245/original/file-20190514-60549-o2hgjy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274245/original/file-20190514-60549-o2hgjy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274245/original/file-20190514-60549-o2hgjy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274245/original/file-20190514-60549-o2hgjy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274245/original/file-20190514-60549-o2hgjy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274245/original/file-20190514-60549-o2hgjy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274245/original/file-20190514-60549-o2hgjy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Promo for the ‘Hold onto Love’ coin from the Royal Canadian Mint’s website.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Royal Canadian Mint</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lost in the battle over who deserves credit for what’s been achieved is early grassroots activists’ much more radical vision of sexual liberation. </p>
<p>This vision emerged at the end of the 1960s, at the same moment <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/unfinished-revolution/2F1C7430E10B196CA6D18F071DCC522F">Pierre Elliot Trudeau declared</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A radical movement towards liberation</h2>
<p>As the omnibus bill wended its way through Parliament, a new kind of gay activism was taking shape in the English-speaking world. It drew inspiration not from Trudeau, but from Marxism, socialism and the African-American civil rights, Algeria’s decolonization and women’s liberation movements.</p>
<p>Movement activists called for much more than equality. They strove to create a new society that rejected all forms of hierarchical, exploitative relationships.</p>
<p>In the United Kingdom, <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/gay-liberation-front-manifesto">London’s Gay Liberation Front</a> called for lesbians and gays to “rid society of the gender-role system which is at the root of our oppression.” In his 1969 <a href="http://www.againstequality.org/files/refugees_from_amerika_a_gay_manifesto_1969.pdf">“Gay Manifesto,”</a> American bisexual Carl Witman recast same-sex attraction as a positive attribute. “Our love for each other is a good thing, not an unfortunate thing,” he argued. Heterosexual sex, on the other hand, Witman said, was troubling. Sex is “aggression for the male chauvinist,” and an “obligation for traditional women.” He described marriage as “a rotten, oppressive institution,” a “contract which smothers both people, denies needs, and places impossible demands,” especially on women. </p>
<p>Indeed, New York-based <a href="https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/radicalesbianswoman.html">Radicalesbians</a> described lesbianism as “the rage of all women condensed to the point of explosion.” Radical gay men and lesbians often lived, played and organized separately, but they agreed that traditional sex and gender roles oppressed everyone. </p>
<p>According to Radicalesbians, ridding society of sex and gender hierarchies would free humans to discover their authentic, loving selves:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“In a society in which men do not oppress women, and sexual expression is allowed to follow feelings …the categories of homosexuality and heterosexuality would disappear.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Canadian activists started tamely</h2>
<p>Canadian activists were a little slow to catch up to their radical counterparts in the United States and United Kingdom. The first large-scale organized protest was entirely in keeping with the equality framework the new coin celebrates. <a href="https://www.ottawamatters.com/remember-this/remember-this-gay-liberation-1027255">Held on the steps of Parliament in August 1971</a>, lesbians and gays called for the equalization of age-of-consent laws (one could not give consent to having sex with someone of the same sex until reaching the age of 21). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275166/original/file-20190517-69209-7exp4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275166/original/file-20190517-69209-7exp4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275166/original/file-20190517-69209-7exp4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275166/original/file-20190517-69209-7exp4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275166/original/file-20190517-69209-7exp4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275166/original/file-20190517-69209-7exp4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275166/original/file-20190517-69209-7exp4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275166/original/file-20190517-69209-7exp4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first gay liberation protest in Canada. Parliament Hill, Ottawa, 28 August 1971.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Canadian Museum for Human Rights</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rather than denounce the military as did their American counterparts who tied gay liberation to the struggle against imperialism, they demanded the end of their exclusion from it. Instead of calling marriage a rotten institution, Canadian activists insisted on the right to enjoy the financial and other benefits it conferred. </p>
<p>Seen through the lens of the 1971 “We Demand” protest, 1969 really does look like the starting point of five decades of the struggle for lesbian and gay equality in Canada.</p>
<p>Those same protesters were about to become much more radical in their politics, however. Frustrated that the media refused to cover their protest or report their demands, they launched <a href="https://www.uwo.ca/pridelib/bodypolitic/bphome.htm"><em>The Body Politic</em>,</a> a newspaper that became one of the most important journals of the international gay liberationist movement.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275174/original/file-20190517-69199-1vncvou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275174/original/file-20190517-69199-1vncvou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275174/original/file-20190517-69199-1vncvou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275174/original/file-20190517-69199-1vncvou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275174/original/file-20190517-69199-1vncvou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275174/original/file-20190517-69199-1vncvou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275174/original/file-20190517-69199-1vncvou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ottawa protest, August 28th, 1971: Charles Hill, head of the University of Toronto’s Student Homophile Association read the text of demands for legislative changes that discriminated against gay and lesbian Canadians.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.jearldmoldenhauer.com/ottawa-demonstration-august-28-1971/">Jearld Frederick Moldenhauer</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Equity replaced liberation</h2>
<p>Published from 1971 to 1987, <em>The Body Politic</em> contributors offered incisive critiques of the nuclear family, the church and the state as the key proponents of gender and sexual oppression. Radical liberationists tried to live their ideals by creating collective organizations, including households. </p>
<p>Yet the persistence of everyday forms of discrimination could not be ignored. Bill C-150 left intact the right to discriminate against Canadians on the basis of sexual orientation. </p>
<p>Lesbians and gays were fired simply for being gay. The robust social benefits citizenship conferred to heterosexuals such as the survivor’s pension (then called widow’s pension) were denied to same-sex couples. </p>
<p>When in 1982, the same Pierre Elliot Trudeau patriated Canada’s Constitution, protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation was deemed unworthy of inclusion in the <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html">Charter of Rights and Freedoms</a>. </p>
<p>And lesbians and gays remained barred from joining the military. It would take another 20 years before all of the demands made in 1971 would be met.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275176/original/file-20190517-69178-11e7z44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275176/original/file-20190517-69178-11e7z44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275176/original/file-20190517-69178-11e7z44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275176/original/file-20190517-69178-11e7z44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275176/original/file-20190517-69178-11e7z44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275176/original/file-20190517-69178-11e7z44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275176/original/file-20190517-69178-11e7z44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People from the Blacks Lives Matter movement march during the Pride parade in Toronto, Sunday, June 25, 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Mark Blinch</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Radicals dreamed of liberation, but what we got was equality. How we got it, the protesters rightly point out, is due far more to the effort of activists on the ground than to prime ministerial pronouncements on the Hill. </p>
<p>But the real missing element in this story is the disappearance of the radical vision of a society based on principles of love and human dignity, a society that rejects hierarchy, rejects sexism, rejects racism, rejects gains made by one at the expense of another. If these are the principles that guide us, then the link between LBGTQ experience and the struggles of other forms of sexual marginalization and oppression become obvious. </p>
<p>The ease with which queer life has been and still can be disregarded shares a common root with the disregard we see today toward, for example, murdered and missing girls and women and sex workers of all genders and orientations. Those of us who have made appreciable gains from 50 years of slow but steady progress must use their new-found privilege to shine a light on the hierarchies of oppression that persist.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116137/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elise Chenier receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>Early gay liberation activists paved the way for today’s equity policiesElise Chenier, Professor, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/802192017-07-09T10:59:23Z2017-07-09T10:59:23ZA man called Hope: the legacy of Namibia’s Andimba Toivo ya Toivo<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177144/original/file-20170706-16389-xqzvwf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Funeral of Namibian liberation struggle hero Herman Andimba Toivo Ya Toivo at Heroes' Acre in Windhoek.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Namibia has seen an unprecedented outpouring of grief following the death of liberation struggle hero <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/andimba-herman-toivo-ya-toivo">Andimba Toivo ya Toivo</a>. It was matched by vibrant social media commentary.</p>
<p>Comments suggest that many regarded him as an icon of the Namibian liberation struggle, although he never became the official leader of the liberation movement, South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO), nor independent Namibia’s President. </p>
<p>These political leadership positions were firmly occupied by Sam Nujoma, who served three terms as president after 1990. On his retirement in 2005 he was declared the official <a href="http://www.lac.org.na/laws/2005/3567.pdf">“Founding Father of the Namibian Nation”</a>.</p>
<p>In the wake of Toivo’s death some commentators claimed that he would perhaps have been a more deserving recipient of such an honorary title. These contestations are indicative of the internal politics of SWAPO, still Namibia’s ruling party by a <a href="https://theconversation.com/populism-on-the-rise-as-south-africa-and-namibia-gear-up-to-elect-new-presidents-77887">large margin</a>. They were dismissed quickly though, most publicly by <a href="http://www.namibian.com.na/56186/read/Nujoma-is-founding-father-%E2%80%93-Geingos">Namibia’s First Lady Monica Geingos</a>. </p>
<p>Irrespective, Toivo (92) received unprecedented accolades as a “revolutionary hero”. Thousands attended memorial services held for him across the country. <a href="https://theconversation.com/tribute-to-a-namibian-icon-andimba-toivo-ya-toivo-80236">Innumerable tributes</a> were published in Namibia, South Africa, and on the continent, and beyond. </p>
<p>Namibian President Hage Geingob delivered an extraordinary eulogy during the national memorial service of 23 June. He emphasised Toivo’s significance, saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have lost a man who epitomises the core ideals that make us the nation we are today. … His durable principles and inexhaustible reservoir of compassion, forgiveness, patience and sense of justice allowed him to shun the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=835039316652560">murky waters of greed and factionalism</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>A day later Geingob called at the burial site to honour Toivo’s legacy through commitment to fighting tribalism and racism, <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201706250206.html">poverty and corruption</a>. He was given a state funeral at the Namibian National Heroes Acre in Windhoek. </p>
<p>Remarkably, Geingob’s historical account named a full list of the <a href="https://books.google.de/books?id=Mls4H1mnN_0C&pg=PA333&lpg=PA333&dq=Ovamboland+People's+Congress&source=bl&ots=_FKzsEJNzD&sig=NaP4xCPciDd68JXlyUNGek4Wxxo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjInOeM8PTUAhXLaVAKHZLlDI0Q6AEITzAI#v=onepage&q=Ovamboland%20People's%20Congress&f=false">Ovamboland People’s Congress</a> founders in Cape Town in 1957, which included a number of early activists who later fell out of favour with SWAPO, such as Emil Appolus, Andreas Shipanga, Otillie Schimming Abrahams, and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=835039316652560">Kenneth Abrahams</a>.</p>
<p>This historical honesty paid due respect to the man. In the party he co-founded Toivo’s frank attitude was not always welcome. In 2007 he failed to be re-elected to the SWAPO Politburo. Rumours had it at the time that he was too sympathetic to the Rally for Democracy and Progress, a break-away party from SWAPO. <a href="http://www.namibian.com.na/index.php?id=31095&page=archive-read">He denied this</a>. In 2012 he was finally made a permanent member of <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201212040893.html">SWAPO’s Central Committee</a>.</p>
<p>Who was this inspiring man, and what remains of his legacy?</p>
<h2>A revolutionary hero</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/andimba-toivo-ya-toivo-remember-namibia-independence-leader-nelson-mandela-in-prison-dead-died-92-a7789716.html">Herman Andimba Toivo ya Toivo</a> was born in 1924 in Omangudu in northern Namibia. He received primary school education from the Finnish Lutheran mission (‘Toivo’ means ‘hope’ in Finnish). During World War 2 Toivo was a soldier with the South African Native Military Corps. He then attended the Anglican St Mary’s Odibo school, where he qualified and worked as a teacher. </p>
<p>In 1951 Toivo moved to Cape Town. In the Cape he became involved with South African anti-apartheid organisations, including the African National Congress and left-wing student movements. In 1957 he formed the Ovamboland People’s Congress, forerunner of the Namibian liberation organisation South West Africa People’s Organisation <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/andimba-toivo-ya-toivo-remember-namibia-independence-leader-nelson-mandela-in-prison-dead-died-92-a7789716.html">(SWAPO)</a>. </p>
<p>Because of his activism he was deported to Namibia, where he continued his anti-apartheid and Namibian nationalist politics. In 1966 Toivo was arrested by the South African authorities. The following year <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/andimba-herman-toivo-ya-toivo">“The state v. Tuhadeleni and 36 Others” </a> trial opened in Pretoria. Toivo appeared as Accused No. 21. The trial was the first under South Africa’s <a href="https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-mercury/20170622/281715499616810">Terrorism Act of 21 June 1967</a>.</p>
<p>With a powerful speech from the dock Toivo drew international attention to the Namibian liberation struggle. He is <a href="https://theconversation.com/tribute-to-a-namibian-icon-andimba-toivo-ya-toivo-80236">best remembered</a> internationally for his statement that Namibians were not South Africans and that they should not be tried by South Africans under “foreign” law.</p>
<p>Sentenced to 20 years in prison he spent 16 years on Robben Island, where he became close to Mandela. In 1984 he was released and <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/06/10/mandela-foundation-remembers-namibian-freedom-fighter-toivo">joined SWAPO in exile</a>.</p>
<p>After Namibian independence in 1990 Toivo served in the SWAPO government in various portfolios.</p>
<h2>Against greed and division</h2>
<p>In 2005 Toivo retired from official politics with a farewell speech in the Namibian parliament. The veteran liberation fighter issued a stern warning against greed and self-enrichment among those who had come to power in post-liberation governments: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Being a member of parliament or even a minister should not be seen as an opportunity to achieve status, to be addressed as “honourables” and to acquire riches. If those are your goals, you would do better to <a href="http://www.namibian.com.na/166110/archive-read/Toivo&ampamp39s-message--to-Namibia--and-the">pursue other careers.</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Toivo did not only speak out against post-liberation scourges raising their ugly heads in Namibia. In 2014 he also addressed a warning to South African politicians.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j2xcFEJK9U">We did not struggle for you to loot</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>In his later years Toivo also raised his voice against what he perceived as the rise of tribalism in post-colonial Namibia. In an interview with the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation he called on his compatriots to, “forget about this tribalism. It will never take you anywhere, but it causes destruction.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1j2xcFEJK9U?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>At a time when ethnicity had become a frequent concern in the post-colonial politics and society, Toivo called on the solidarities of anti-colonial nationalism. He urged that Namibians <a href="http://www.namibian.com.na/166110/archive-read/Toivo&ampamp39s-message--to-Namibia--and-the">“should not allow ourselves to be divided.”</a></p>
<p>On various occasions during the mourning period Toivo’s children, family members, old comrades and friends praised his exceptional and stubborn commitment to <a href="http://namibian21.rssing.com/browser.php?indx=44586264&item=8086">revolutionary morality</a>. His widow Vicki Erenstein ya Toivo used the occasion of the state funeral to chastise those who exploited their positions <a href="http://www.namibian.com.na/56064/read/Goodbye--Nation-bids-farewell-to-Ya-Toivo">to get rich</a>.</p>
<h2>Regional and international significance</h2>
<p>Toivo was not just a Namibian freedom fighter. As an activist against apartheid he was part of a generation who bore Southern Africa’s long struggles against apartheid and colonialism in regional solidarity. To these men and women the freedom struggle was a continental, even a global rather than just a nationalist endeavour. </p>
<p>Geingob’s eulogy made a special point in emphasising the significance of international solidarity in the pursuit of Namibian independence. He equally stressed the commonality of the Namibian and South African struggles against the shared common enemy of apartheid. The Namibian president called for a pan-Africanist commitment to honour Toivo’s legacy in the post-colonial struggles against what he described as the “common enemy” of inequality, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=835039316652560">poverty and corruption</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80219/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heike Becker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Namibian hero and former Robben Island prisoner Toivo ya Toivo was part of a generation who contributed to the struggles against apartheid and colonialism in the region.Heike Becker, Professor of Anthropology, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/606582016-06-13T09:17:14Z2016-06-13T09:17:14ZSoweto uprising: four decades on, South Africa still struggles with violent policing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126261/original/image-20160613-29216-e0c2pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A recent protest by South African schoolchildren which had to be quelled by an under-resourced police force</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>June days in South Africa can be dark, cold and short. The sun rises late and sets early. Highland frosts feel their way through blades of blemished veld; mists mask roads ahead and behind. The month brings with it the year’s mid-point and shortest day; a chance to reflect on what has been, and what may lie ahead.</p>
<p>Five days before the equinox South Africa celebrates <a href="http://www.gov.za/youth-day-2015">Youth Day</a>. Forty years ago on 16 June 1976, thousands of school children in Soweto, Johannesburg, braved the Highveld cold to protest the apartheid government’s decision that they be educated in a strange tongue: <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">Afrikaans</a>. Out on the street the students were confronted by the South African Police force (SAP). Teargas was followed by gunfire. Young bodies fell; cameras <a href="https://www.google.co.za/search?q=photograph+of+hector+pieterson&rlz=1C1CHMO_en-GBZA648ZA648&tbm=isch&imgil=-nSZWu7xmToV5M%253A%253BZcLIipsW1ZziwM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.fimomitchell.com%25252Fblog%25252Fsoweto-apartheid%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=-nSZWu7xmToV5M%253A%252CZcLIipsW1ZziwM%252C_&usg=__2QMDkEQA2eQXBvR0tY9wnnDW7a0%3D&biw=1920&bih=911&dpr=1&ved=0ahUKEwiv4_fj6fTMAhVJL8AKHVIvBzMQyjcINg&ei=vmRFV6-MJ8negAbS3pyYAw#imgrc=3dkBnajiT0w66M%3A">clicked</a>. The apartheid system was shaken irrevocably.</p>
<p>Youth Day takes its name from the energy and courage of those young learners. But had the police not responded as they did, 16 June might simply be another winter’s day. Police work is practical and symbolic. Through interactions with police, the state communicates with its public. In 1976, police actions embodied the unjust, indefensible and violent state attitude towards black citizens.</p>
<p>It exposed, in ways not seen since the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/sharpeville-massacre-21-march-1960">Sharpeville</a> massacre on March 21, 1960 the violence through which apartheid was upheld. South Africans remember June 16, 1976 because youth took to the streets, but also because police looked them in the eye and pulled their triggers. The ripples set in motion by the youth of ‘76 had by the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/youth-politics-south-africa-1980s">mid-80s</a> crippled the economy, led to <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/state-emergency-south-africa-1960-and-1980s">states of emergency</a>, public “unrest”, and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-africas-foreign-relations-during-apartheid-1948">international sanctions</a> against the apartheid regime.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126138/original/image-20160610-29209-i2z0d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126138/original/image-20160610-29209-i2z0d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126138/original/image-20160610-29209-i2z0d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126138/original/image-20160610-29209-i2z0d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126138/original/image-20160610-29209-i2z0d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126138/original/image-20160610-29209-i2z0d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126138/original/image-20160610-29209-i2z0d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">South African children visit the Hector Pieterson memorial in Soweto outside Johannesburg.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Lerato Maduna</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Nelson Mandela freed</h2>
<p>The early '90s saw <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/nelson-mandela-freed">Nelson Mandela</a> freed from prison and liberation movements <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/fw-de-klerk-announces-release-nelson-mandela-and-unbans-political-organisations">unbanned</a>. The South African Police <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02167/04lv02264/05lv02335/06lv02357/07lv02372/08lv02379.htm">re-positioned</a> itself as an objective arbiter of political tension while being accused of using undercover agents to stoke ethnic violence, at a time when the country recorded its highest ever murder rate. </p>
<p>In 1995, a year before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (<a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/truth-and-reconciliation-commission-trc">TRC</a>), the police service <a href="http://www.saps.gov.za/resource_centre/publications/police_mag/police_magazine_feb_2015.pdf">merged</a> with the 10 <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">Bantustan</a> police agencies to form a single South African Police Service (SAPS). <a href="https://www.issafrica.org/uploads/2016-05-19-SAPS-Shake-Up-Presentation.pdf">Civilian ranks</a> replaced military, and mustard-coloured vehicles were painted cloud-white.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.csvr.org.za/wits/papers/papsapjr.htm">Training curricula</a> were revised to embrace human rights, and “<a href="http://www.csvr.org.za/index.php/publications/1462-a-review-of-community-policing.html">community policing</a>” was imported from the wealthy West. <a href="http://www.csvr.org.za/wits/papers/papbruc6.htm">Transformation policies</a> saw black members and women rising through the ranks rapidly. All the while, the TRC shone a light on the SAP’s <a href="https://www.enca.com/look-vlakplaas-apartheids-death-squad-hq">torture farms</a>, as well as on the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/umkhonto-wesizwe-mk-exile">detention camps</a> of the liberation movements. It exposed habits of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/09/world/apartheid-torturer-testifies-as-evil-shows-its-banal-face.html?pagewanted=all">torture</a> and <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2013/10/29/remember-the-past-and-question-the-present">murder</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126136/original/image-20160610-29238-n7o1o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126136/original/image-20160610-29238-n7o1o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126136/original/image-20160610-29238-n7o1o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126136/original/image-20160610-29238-n7o1o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126136/original/image-20160610-29238-n7o1o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126136/original/image-20160610-29238-n7o1o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126136/original/image-20160610-29238-n7o1o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nelson Mandela and his wife Graca Machel attend a ceremony to receive the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report on October 29, 1998.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the run-up to the '94 elections, the African National Congress (ANC) believed, perhaps not unexpectedly, that once police were under an elected-ANC’s control, South Africans would accept their authority. They expected that citizens would accept the criminal law as legitimate and cease the daily violence. This violence had evolved as a product of oppression and as a tool of political resistance, security and punishment in <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-10-02-south-africas-mysterious-murder-rate/#.V1q4r7t97IV">preceding decades</a>.</p>
<h2>“Dog deals with a bone”</h2>
<p>Instead crime and violence spread, sending politicians scrambling. In 1999 then Minister of Safety and Security <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/pebble.asp?relid=2932">Steve Tshwete</a> <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/2012/12/20/police-public-order-expert-proves-a-recalcitrant-witness-at-marikana-inquiry">declared</a> that government would “deal with criminals in the same way a dog deals with a bone”. With this posturing the ANC <a href="https://www.issafrica.org/uploads/CW41Dixon.pdf">stripped law-breaking</a> of the historical, socioeconomic and political overtones through which it had <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Governing-through-Crime-in-South-Africa-The-Politics-of-Race-and-Class/Super/p/book/9781409444749">explained violence under apartheid</a>, framing “criminals” instead as bad people who threatened democracy.</p>
<p>In 2000 South Africans were shown precisely how a police dog “deals with a bone” when video emerged of four white officers and their dogs <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/nov/30/chrismcgreal">mauling</a> three Mozambican men. It was a reminder that, like its violent crime, the horrors of apartheid policing were not snuffed out by elections.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/onmq-g2kx-o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Four white South African policemen set their dogs on three Mozambicans as a ‘training exercise’ and videotaped it. PLEASE NOTE: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS GRAPHIC VIOLENCE.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In response to public anger over crime, the 2000s saw government increase police budgets at rates above inflation. Police ranks swelled to 200 000 and the rhetoric of police “service” was abandoned in favour of “force”. <a href="http://fromtheold.com/news/new-police-ranks-south-africa-welcome-sapf-2010040117527.html">Military ranks</a> were reintroduced in 2010 amid calls by leaders for police to “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1584641/Kill-the-bastards-South-African-police-advised.html">kill the [criminal] bastards</a>” and “<a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/police-must-shoot-to-kill-worry-later---cele-453587">shoot to kill</a>”. Some officers have been so emboldened that they have filmed and shared their shootings.</p>
<p>Even the 2012 horrors that happened at the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana</a> mine, where police shot and killed 34 striking mineworkers, were <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbAlgo_pzVg">captured</a> on police cell phones. Scenes from that day have become as iconic as those of a dying <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/hector-pieterson">Hector Pieterson</a>, photographed in Soweto 40 years ago this week. Has anything changed?</p>
<p>The SAPS is far from a perfect organisation, but it is not dysfunctional. Many SAPS officers face extreme challenges, like policing a claimed average of <a href="http://www.saps.gov.za/about/stratframework/annual_report/2014_2015/SAPS_AR_2014-15_for_viewing.pdf">40 protests a day.</a> </p>
<p>A further challenge is <a href="http://www.khayelitshacommission.org.za/images/towards_khaye_docs/3_Part_Three.pdf">patrolling</a> informal settlements without lighting or roads where murders can exceed 100 per 100 000 residents (the <a href="https://www.unodc.org/gsh/en/big-picture.html">global average</a> was 6.2 in 2012) and where residents <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/sinoxolos-boyfriend-allegedly-stabs-state-witness-20160509">fear attack from neighbours</a> if they speak to detectives.</p>
<h2>Police salary a dream</h2>
<p>In a country with a <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=7281">27% unemployment rate</a> and where 60% of workers <a href="https://africacheck.org/reports/do-60-of-south-african-workers-earn-less-than-r5000-a-month/">earn less</a> than R5 000 a month, a police starting salary of R13 000 is the kind of thing dreams are made of. Of the nearly <a href="http://www.saps.gov.za/about/stratframework/annual_report/2014_2015/SAPS_AR_2014-15_for_viewing.pdf">200 000 job applications</a> received by the SAPS in 2014/15, just 1.4% (2 827) were successful.</p>
<p>It is in this context that the job is something to be coveted. But this doesn’t necessarily produce professional, integrity-based policing. Rather, many officers –- including the <a href="http://city-press.news24.com/News/Farlams-Marikana-findings-Leading-role-players-slammed-20150628">most senior</a> –- do what they must to please their managers and present a public image of competence.</p>
<p>For some this means doing the best job they can do, <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-africa/policeman-shares-lunch-homeless-woman-photo-goes-viral">responding</a> to people’s needs compassionately and efficiently. But for others it means <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFiCiJeQMo8">abusing sex workers</a>; shooting <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2016/03/14/CT-filling-station-robbery-ends-in-shooting-four-killed">without fair warning</a>; <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2009-10-17-top-cops-knew-stats-were-cooked">manipulating</a> crime data; <a href="http://www.icd.gov.za/sites/default/files/documents/IPID_Annual_Report%20_2014-15.pdf">torturing</a> criminal suspects; (allegedly) <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/pics-cops-terrorise-vyeboom-residents-2026300">assaulting</a> vulnerable villagers; even <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2015/08/25/Mido-Macia-all-eight-accused-found-guilty-of-murder">beating a man to death</a> for publicly questioning police authority – when they believe nobody is watching.</p>
<p>It’s an <a href="http://www.elections.org.za/content/Elections/2016-Municipal-Elections/Home/">election year</a> in South Africa. The opposition Economic Freedom Fighters’ <a href="http://www.economicfreedomfighters.org/full-document-2014-eff-elections-manifesto/">manifesto claims</a> that “20 years [into democracy], the police still kill people!” It promises the party will protect street vendors from “police harassment” and communities from “intimidation from the police”. That the party believes these promises will win it votes reflects very poorly on the SAPS.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126135/original/image-20160610-29222-82412e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126135/original/image-20160610-29222-82412e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126135/original/image-20160610-29222-82412e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126135/original/image-20160610-29222-82412e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126135/original/image-20160610-29222-82412e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126135/original/image-20160610-29222-82412e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126135/original/image-20160610-29222-82412e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Policemen stand in front of the Hector Pieterson memorial during the 30th anniversary of the Soweto Uprising.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nevertheless, more South Africans are <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0341/P03412013.pdf">satisfied</a> with police than not, even though only <a href="http://afrobarometer.org/sites/default/files/publications/Dispatches/ab_r6_dispatchno56_police_corruption_in_africa.pdf">49% trust</a> them. Ultimately, <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0341/P03412013.pdf">South Africans agree</a> that to address crime, government should spend money on socioeconomic interventions rather than police. Indeed, what democracy has not yet delivered is an equal country or economy, in the absence of which policing will always likely defend the status quo established by extreme concentrations of power and wealth.</p>
<h2>Volunteer for the police</h2>
<p>In my many years of working with the SAPS as a volunteer and researcher, most police action I have observed has targeted poor, black men. But one needn’t be a researcher or reservist to know this: <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/death-andries-tatane-service-delivery-protest-free-state-sparks-national-outrage">Andries Tatane</a>, who was killed by police during a service delivery protest, was black and poor, the Marikana workers were black and poor, the residents of <a href="http://www.khayelitshacommission.org.za/images/towards_khaye_docs/Khayelitsha_Commission_Report_WEB_FULL_TEXT_C.pdf">Khayelitsha</a> (one of Cape Town’s largest and deadliest townships) are overwhelmingly black and poor.</p>
<p>The tragic irony is that, despite their relatively good salaries, many police officers remain poor. Their income is stretched to support networks of vulnerable kin. So while one group of relatively poor men and women police another, a political and economic elite enjoys the fruits of a violently unjust society.</p>
<p>As such, police signal to the country’s vulnerable young men that the state does not trust them. The signals entrench divisions already established by a landscape many young people literally cannot afford the taxi fair to traverse in search of a job in a market which rejects almost half of young job-seekers. All of this happens against the backdrop a welfare system which offers subsidies to almost every category of vulnerable person but for able bodied, unemployed young men.</p>
<p>The South African Police Service is a very different organisation from its apartheid predecessor. And yet, in its actions and inactions, it is at times too easy to see similarities between them. Ultimately, one cannot reform a police service without reforming the context in which it operates. In South Africa, a broken education system continues to <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/education/2016/04/19/poor-education-traps-black-youth-in-poverty">trap the poor majority</a> in poverty.</p>
<p>Despite huge changes South Africa remains a country of stark, violence-inducing inequalities and injustices, wounds which police officers cannot heal. Instead, through their work they both shepherd and protect, criminalise and abuse the vulnerabilities and struggles of millions of South Africans still waiting for their winter to end.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60658/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Faull previously received funding from the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>It is exactly forty years since the Soweto uprising in June 1976 where the South African police met the students with brutal force. How much has changed in terms of policing?Andrew Faull, Senior Researcher at the Centre of Criminology, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/579062016-04-21T20:40:41Z2016-04-21T20:40:41ZThe Sixties and Red Africa: the decade of searching for African utopias<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119846/original/image-20160422-17369-blf0kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">James Brown fans Bamako</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/patrice-lumumba-38745#death-and-legacy">Patrice Lumumba</a> was a celebrity in <a href="http://geography.about.com/od/politicalgeography/a/fmryugoslavia.htm">Yugoslavia</a>. Lumumba’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/jan/17/patrice-lumumba-50th-anniversary-assassination">execution</a> in 1961 caused such outrage that the Belgian embassy in the Yugoslav capital Belgrade was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/19/newsid_2748000/2748931.stm">ransacked</a>.</p>
<p>Yugoslav leader <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/tito-is-made-president-for-life">Josip Tito</a> was himself a regular visitor to Africa – he went to Gamal Abdel <a href="http://nasser.bibalex.org/common/pictures01-%20sira_en.htm">Nasser</a>’s Egypt 20 times. Tito’s aim was to consolidate the socialist friendship sweeping through the 1960s.</p>
<p>Such connections in the 1960s-70s and their contemporary legacies are revealed in two striking recent cultural seasons: <a href="http://calvert22.org/red-africa/">“Red Africa”</a> at the Calvert 22 in London and <a href="https://tropenmuseum.nl/en/press/Sixties">“The Sixties</a> – A Worldwide Happening” in Amsterdam’s <a href="https://tropenmuseum.nl/">Tropenmuseum</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119452/original/image-20160420-25597-1pgg6qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119452/original/image-20160420-25597-1pgg6qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119452/original/image-20160420-25597-1pgg6qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119452/original/image-20160420-25597-1pgg6qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119452/original/image-20160420-25597-1pgg6qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119452/original/image-20160420-25597-1pgg6qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119452/original/image-20160420-25597-1pgg6qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Red Africa’ banner at London’s Calvert 22 gallery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Calvert 22</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Red Africa” was centred on the <a href="http://calvert22.org/exhibitions/things-fall-apart-1">“Things Fall Apart”</a> exhibition and accompanying special report of the <a href="http://calvertjournal.com/features/show/5324/red-africa-special-report"><em>Calvert Journal</em></a>. It focused on relations between Africa, the <a href="http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/world/union-soviet-socialist-republics.html">Soviet Union</a> and related socialist countries (1960s-80s). It did so via art, film, photography and architecture.</p>
<p>“The Sixties” and <a href="http://www.ideabooks.nl/9789462261501-the-sixties-a-worldwide-happening">its book</a> was more catholic. It foregrounded the non-Western history of this most iconic liberation era. Through fashion, art and music it stressed the promiscuous connections that pulsed across the world.</p>
<h2>Warm clasp of friendship</h2>
<p>One particular idea shone through both exhibitions for me: the importance of globally entangled utopianisms for Africa. It was such thinking that embroidered the martyr icon of Lumumba and conditioned the warm clasp of Tito’s hand of friendship.</p>
<p>Utopianism is the imagination and exposition of a society that does not exist. (“Utopia” derives from the Greek “no-place”.) But it has intrinsically more desirable qualities than what persists in reality.</p>
<p>From philosophers like <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/thomas-more-9414278">Thomas More</a> to <a href="http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/b/biography-of-william-morris/">William Morris</a>, the purpose of utopian expression has been to critique existing societies and ideologies. Utopianism gives collective purpose to build a better future, to emphasise the ethical or practical shortcomings of the status quo.</p>
<p>For independent Africans in an era of new <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/cold-war-history">Cold War</a> opportunity, utopianism was not ethereal or naive (as the term is commonly understood). It was steeped in a realist understanding of the trajectory of global power. Utopian thinking created new international friendships and would construct a brighter, very possible postcolonial future.</p>
<p>There hasn’t been enough space for utopianism in the consideration of independent African nations and their foreign relations.</p>
<p>We don’t delve enough into the imaginative lives of Africans struggling to build a postcolonial world. Looking backwards, we have tended to dismiss idealised communities of solidarity. The security of “realism” and dark pall of neocolonialism pervade.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119453/original/image-20160420-25631-1mxwwhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119453/original/image-20160420-25631-1mxwwhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=821&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119453/original/image-20160420-25631-1mxwwhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=821&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119453/original/image-20160420-25631-1mxwwhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=821&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119453/original/image-20160420-25631-1mxwwhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1032&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119453/original/image-20160420-25631-1mxwwhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1032&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119453/original/image-20160420-25631-1mxwwhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1032&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was a global icon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Wayland Rudd Collection</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Increasingly, however, pioneers – artists, academics and activists from the progressive world – are seeking out what African citizens <em>dreamed</em> at the buoyant moment of independence and its tumultuous aftermath. </p>
<p>They assess how utopian hopes entangled with wider global currents to build a free future in the 1960s. From the 1970s, utopian expression has creatively criticised the very deficiencies of liberation.</p>
<p>As demonstrated at “Red Africa” and “The Sixties”, art is at the vanguard of such real-world concerns.</p>
<h2>‘Red Africa’ and ‘The Sixties’: socialism and optimism</h2>
<p>Utopianism was under the surface of “Red Africa”. Behind-the-scenes snaps of Tito’s <a href="http://calvertjournal.com/features/show/5337/red-africa-tito-presidential-tour-unofficial-scenes">safaris</a> sat next to the beguiling 2016 film “<a href="https://vimeo.com/88701475">Our Africa</a>”. Here Russian filmmaker <a href="https://vimeo.com/user3714560">Alexander Markov</a> unravels how Soviet filmmakers recorded the “joyous” expansion of socialism. Footage of African leaders dancing Russian jigs on state tours of the Soviet Union illustrates how propagandists presented the Tanzanian ideology of “<a href="http://www.juliusnyerere.org/index.php/resources/speeches/ujamaa_-_the_basis_of_african_socialism_julius_k._nyerere/">Ujamaa</a>” and Africa as integral to world socialist development.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119458/original/image-20160420-25634-9epvk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119458/original/image-20160420-25634-9epvk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119458/original/image-20160420-25634-9epvk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119458/original/image-20160420-25634-9epvk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119458/original/image-20160420-25634-9epvk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119458/original/image-20160420-25634-9epvk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119458/original/image-20160420-25634-9epvk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eva – a photograph by Ghanaian photographer James Barnor at ‘The Sixties’ exhibition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Barnor / Tropen Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Korean photographer <a href="http://www.photoquai.fr/2015/en/photographes/che-onejoonen/">Onejoon Che</a> uncovers the fascinating story of the <a href="http://calvertjournal.com/features/show/5336/red-africa-che-onejoon-north-korea-statues-africa">Mansudae Art Studio</a>. Established in 1959, it aided the construction of macho “socialist realist” African monuments as part of North Korea’s controversial charm offensive.</p>
<p>It was an interesting ride. But “Red Africa” prompted me to think more about how Africans themselves shaped and utilised such utopian <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/internationalism">internationalisms</a> in those heady days of independence. </p>
<p>A visit to “The Sixties” with our new <a href="http://afroasiannetworks.com/">Afro-Asian Networks</a> research group reinforced the feeling. The collection powerfully evoked a moment of intense optimism and global connection. For example, soul superstar <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/artist/james-brown-mn0000128099/biography">James Brown</a> provided the soundtrack for youth in <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13881370">Mali</a>’s capital of Bamako. It got portrayed in the vivacious <a href="http://warholfoundation.org/grant/paper11/paper.html">photos</a> of the late <a href="http://www.okayafrica.com/news/remembering-malick-sidibe/">Malick Sidibé</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hRubq5D-3kM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">James Brown was hugely popular with young people in Africa during the 60s and 70s.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We were reminded to take seriously those future-oriented visions of the ebullient and utopian 1960s.</p>
<h2>Utopianism in Africa: a necessity?</h2>
<p>Utopianism is a particularly neglected prism through which to view Africa’s varied independent landscapes. </p>
<p>Through African literature, which leads the charge, academic <a href="https://sam.arts.unsw.edu.au/about-us/people/bill-ashcroft/">Bill Ashcroft</a> argues for the very “<a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/18186874.2013.834557"><em>necessity</em> of utopia</a>” in Africa. Utopia – “the un-place” – is the key space where ideas of colonialism or catastrophe undermining African people can be challenged. Ashcroft says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What is remarkable about African literature and cultural production is the stunning tenacity of its hope … conceptions of utopian hope – the ‘not-yet’ – is always a possibility emerging from the past.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And it was the <em>global</em> entanglement of varied utopianisms that shone through at “Red Africa” and “The Sixties”.</p>
<p>It was bright in the work of Russian artist <a href="http://yevgeniyfiks.com/section/408212-The-Wayland-Rudd-Collection-2014.html">Yevgeniy Fiks</a>. His <a href="http://calvertjournal.com/features/show/5323/red-africa-yevgeniy-fiks-history-soviet-relations-africa-art-ideology">collection</a> of Soviet art depicting African and African-American life revealed racism of representation. But Fiks saw, as he explains:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a very complex and contradictory legacy in which there is room for genuine internationalism, anti-racism and solidarity, alongside racial stereotyping and objectification.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That African intellectuals and those in the diaspora found such sanitised images empowering is genuinely important. </p>
<p>In the words of <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_harlem.html">Harlem Renaissance</a> titan <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/langston-hughes">Langston Hughes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://marxistleninist.wordpress.com/2010/02/14/langston-hughes-goodmorning-stalingrad/">Good morning Stalingrad!</a>/ You’re half a world away or more/ But when your
guns roar,/ They roar for me —/ And for everybody/ who wants to be free.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Engaging globally connected utopianisms – the un-places; the spaces of hope – is necessary to properly comprehend the intricacies of African decolonisation and independence.</p>
<h2>Science fiction</h2>
<p>It seemed fitting to depart “Red Africa” in one major arena of utopianism: science fiction. </p>
<p>Angolan photographer <a href="http://www.frieze.com/article/focus-kiluanji-kia-henda">Kiluanji Kia Henda</a>’s 2007 installation “<a href="http://calvertjournal.com/features/show/5312/red-africa-icarus-13-africa-journey-sun-space-mission">Icarus 13: The First Journey to the Sun</a>” presents the “pliable fiction” of an African space mission. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119454/original/image-20160420-25592-gwc3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119454/original/image-20160420-25592-gwc3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119454/original/image-20160420-25592-gwc3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119454/original/image-20160420-25592-gwc3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119454/original/image-20160420-25592-gwc3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119454/original/image-20160420-25592-gwc3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119454/original/image-20160420-25592-gwc3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">From ‘Icarus 13: The First Journey to the Sun’ (2008), Luanda-based artist Kiluanji Kia Henda’s imagining of an African space mission.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Calvert 22 Gallery</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But his images point to something unsettling for Angola, that “<a href="http://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/magnificent-and-beggar-land/">magnificent and beggar land</a>”. His utopian critique creates “a memorial to a future that never came to pass”, an indictment of an independence failed.</p>
<p>For Henda, there are two things that are of vital interest for Africa: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the ability to know about and write your own history, and the ability to plan for the future.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Looking to utopianism seems one fruitful route for these enmeshed historical and contemporary civil society agendas. We need, ourselves, to be more utopian perhaps.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57906/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gerard McCann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Utopianism is a neglected prism through which to view Africa. It is the space where the intricacies of decolonisation and independence can be properly comprehended.Gerard McCann, Lecturer in African and Transnational History, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.