The Spanish American War had all the familiar elements of today's conflicts: A false flag event, bankers manipulating the presidency and pushing for war behind the scenes, Rockefeller profiteering, and slick propaganda campaigns about "Spanish brutes" and "fighting for freedom and democracy."—James Perloff
Watching the Battle of Santiago from the deck of USS Iowa, July 3, 1898.
(Photo from Wikimedia Commons)
Although it gets short shrift in the history textbooks, in many ways the
modern American empire can find its origins in the Spanish-American
War. Today we talk to James Perloff of JamesPerloff.com about his article on the war, “Trial Run for Interventionism,”
and how the bankers used their media and political connections to
launch the war and introduce foreign interventionism to the American
psyche.
The mass extermination techniques that would be used against Jews and other groups in Hitler's Germany were perfected decades earlier against black Africans in Southwest Africa (Namibia)
“I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the
Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit
that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger
race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way,
has come in and taken their place.”
“I hate Indians, they are a beastly people with a beastly religion.”
“I am strongly in favor of using gas against uncivilized tribes, it would spread a lively terror.”
"Sir" Winston Churchill
Among his numerous debaucheries, Winston Churchill was literally responsible for deliberately
starving millions of people to death
Among his numerous debaucheries, Winston Churchill promoted eugenics, torture, chemical warfare, and was literally responsible for deliberately starving millions of people to death: "The myth of Churchill is Britain’s greatest propaganda tool because it
rewrites Churchill’s true history in order to whitewash Britain’s past
imperialist crimes against humanity."
By Garikai Chengu
Sunday marked the anniversary of the death of one of the most lionized leaders in the Western world: Sir Winston Churchill.
The current British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has called Churchill “the greatest ever Prime Minister”, and Britons have recently voted him as the greatest Briton to have ever lived.
The story that British schoolbooks tell children about Churchill is of a British Bulldog, with unprecedented moral bravery and patriotism. He, who defeated the Nazis during World War II and spread civilisation to indigenous people from all corners of the globe. Historically, nothing could be further from the truth.
Noam Chomsky on Winston Churchill and Racism
To the vast majority of the world, where the sun once never set on the British empire, Winston Churchill remains a great symbol of racist Western imperialist tyranny, who stood on the wrong side of history.
The myth of Churchill is Britain’s greatest propaganda tool because it rewrites Churchill’s true history in order to whitewash Britain’s past imperialist crimes against humanity. The Churchill myth also perpetuates Britain’s ongoing neo-colonial and neo-liberal policies, that still, to the is day, hurt the very people around the world that Churchill was alleged to have helped civilize.
The same man whose image is polished and placed on British mantelpieces as a symbol of all that is Great about Britain was an unapologetic racist and white supremacist. “I hate Indians, they are a beastly people with a beastly religion”, he once bellowed. As Churchill put it, Palestinians were simply “barbaric hordes who ate little but camel dung.”
In 1937, he told the Palestine Royal Commission: “I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”
It is unsurprising that when Barack Obama became President, he returned to Britain a bust of Churchill which he found on his desk in the Oval office. According to historian Johann Hari, Mr. Obama’s Kenyan grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was imprisoned without trial for two years and was tortured on Churchill’s watch, for daring to resist Churchill’s empire.
Apart from being an unrepentant racist, Churchill was also a staunch proponent of the use of terrorism as a weapon of war.
During the Kurdish rebellion against British dictatorship in 1920, Churchill remarked that he simply did not understand the “squeamishness” surrounding the use of gas by civilized Great Britain as a weapon of terror. “I am strongly in favor of using gas against uncivilized tribes, it would spread a lively terror,” he remarked.
In the same year, as Secretary of State for War, Churchill sent the infamous Black and Tans to Ireland to fight the IRA. The group became known for vicious terrorist attacks on civilians which Churchill condoned and encouraged.
While today Britons celebrate Churchill’s legacy, much of the world outside the West mourns the legacy of a man who insisted that it was the solemn duty of Great Britain to invade and loot foreign lands because in Churchill’s own words Britain’s “Aryan stock is bound to triumph”.
Churchill’s legacy in the Far East, Middle East, South Asia and Africa is certainly not one of an affable British Lionheart, intent on spreading civilization amongst the natives of the world. To people of these regions the imperialism, racism, and fascism of a man like Winston Churchill can be blamed for much of the world’s ongoing conflicts and instability.
As Churchill himself boasted, he “created Jordan with a stroke of a pen one Sunday afternoon,” thereby placing many Jordanians under the brutal thumb of a throneless Hashemite prince, Abdullah. Historian Michael R. Burch recalls how the huge zigzag in Jordan’s eastern border with Saudi Arabia has been called “Winston’s Hiccup” or “Churchill’s Sneeze” because Churchill carelessly drew the expansive boundary after a generous lunch.
Churchill also invented Iraq. After giving Jordan to Prince Abdullah, Churchill, the great believer in democracy that he was, gave Prince Abdullah’s brother Faisal an arbitrary patch of desert that became Iraq. Faisal and Abdullah were war buddies of Churchill’s friend T. E. Lawrence, the famous “Lawrence of Arabia”.
Much like the clumsy actions in Iraq of today’s great Empire, Churchill’s imperial foreign policy caused decades of instability in Iraq by arbitrarily locking together three warring ethnic groups that have been bleeding heavily ever since. In Iraq, Churchill bundled together the three Ottoman vilayets of Basra that was predominantly Shiite, Baghdad that was Sunni, and Mosul that was mainly Kurd.
Ask almost anyone outside of Iraq who is responsible for the unstable mess that Iraq is in today and they are likely to say one word, either “Bush” or “America”. However, if you asked anyone within Iraq who is mainly responsible for Iraq’s problems over the last half century and they are likely to simply say “Churchill”.
Winston Churchill convened the 1912 Conference in Cairo to determine the boundaries of the British Middle Eastern mandate and T.E. Lawrence was the most influential delegate. Churchill did not invite a single Arab to the conference, which is shocking but hardly surprising since in his memoirs Churchill said that he never consulted the Arabs about his plans for them.
The arbitrary lines drawn in Middle Eastern sand by Churchillian imperialism were never going to withstand the test of time. To this day, Churchill’s actions have denied Jordanians, Iraqis, Kurds and Palestinians anything resembling true democracy and national stability.
The intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict can also be traced directly back to Churchill’s door at number 10 Downing Street and his decision to hand over the “Promised Land” to both Arabs and Jews. Churchill gave practical effect to the Balfour declaration of 1917, which expressed Britain’s support for the creation of a Jewish homeland, resulting in the biggest single error of British foreign policy in the Middle East.
Churchill’s legacy in Sub-Saharan Africa and Kenya in particular is also one of deep physical and physiological scars that endure to this day.
Of greater consequence to truth and history should be a man’s actions, not merely his words. Whilst Churchill has become one of the most extensively quoted men in the English speaking world, particularly on issues of democracy and freedom, true history speaks of a man whose actions revolved around, in Churchill’s own words, “a lot of jolly little wars against barbarous peoples”.
One such war was when Kikuyu Kenyans rebelled for their freedom only to have Churchill call them “brutish savage children” and force 150,000 of them into “Britain’s Gulag”.
Pulitzer-prize winning historian, Professor Caroline Elkins, highlights Churchill’s many crimes in Kenya in her book Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya. Professor Elkins explains how Churchill’s soldiers “whipped, shot, burned, and mutilated Mau Mau suspects”, all in the name of British “civilization”. It is said that President Obama’s grandfather Hussein Onyango Obama never truly recovered from the torture he endured from Churchill’s men.
The Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has proved how in Bengal in 1943 Churchill engineered one of the worst famines in human history for profit.
Over three million civilians starved to death whilst Churchill refused to send food aid to India. Instead, Churchill trumpeted that “the famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.” Churchill intentionally hoarded grain to sell for profit on the open market after the Second World War instead of diverting it to starving inhabitants of a nation controlled by Britain. Churchill’s actions in India unquestionably constituted a crime against humanity.
Churchill was also one of the greatest advocates of Britain’s disastrous divide-and-rule foreign policy.
Churchill’s administration deliberately created and exacerbated sectarian fissures within India’s independence movement, between Indian Hindus and Muslims that have had devastating effects on the region ever since.
Prior to India’s independence from Britain, Churchill was eager to see bloodshed erupt in India, so as to prove that Britain was the benevolent “glue holding the nation together”. For Churchill, bloodshed also had the added strategic advantage that it would also lead to the partition of India and Pakistan. Churchill’s hope was this partition would result in Pakistan remaining within Britain’s sphere of influence. This, in turn, would enable the Great Game against the Soviet empire to continue, no matter the cost to innocent Indian and Pakistanis. The partition of India with Pakistan caused the death of about 2.5 million people and displaced some 12.5 million others.
According to writer, Ishaan Tharoor, Churchill’s own Secretary of State for India, Leopold Amery, compared his boss’s understanding of India’s problems to King George III’s apathy for the Americas. In his private diaries Amery vented that “on the subject of India, Churchill is not quite sane” and that he didn’t “see much difference between Churchill’s outlook and Hitler’s.”
Churchill shared far more ideologically in common with Hitler than most British historians care to admit. For instance, Churchill was a keen supporter of eugenics, something he shared in common with Germany’s Nazi leadership, who were estimated estimated to have killed 200,000 disabled people and forcibly sterilised twice that number. Churchill drafted a highly controversial piece of legislation, which mandated that the mentally ill be forcibly sterilized. In a memo to the Prime Minister in 1910, Winston Churchill cautioned, “the multiplication of the feeble-minded is a very terrible danger to the race”. He also helped organise the International Eugenics Conference of 1912, which was the largest meeting of proponents of eugenics in history.
Churchill had a long standing belief in racial hierarchies and eugenics. In Churchill’s view, white protestant Christians were at the very top of the pyramid, above white Catholics, while Jews and Indians were only slightly higher than Africans.
Historian, Mr. Hari, rightfully points out, “the fact that we now live in a world where a free and independent India is a superpower eclipsing Britain, and a grandson of the Kikuyu ‘savages’ is the most powerful man in the world, is a repudiation of Churchill at his ugliest – and a sweet, ironic victory for Churchill at his best.”
Amid today’s Churchillian parades and celebratory speeches, British media and schoolbooks may choose to only remember Churchill’s opposition to dictatorship in Europe, but the rest of the world cannot choose to forget Churchill’s imposition of dictatorship on darker skinned people outside of Europe. Far from being the Lionheart of Britain, who stood on the ramparts of civilisation, Winston Churchill, all too often, simply stood on the wrong side of history.
Churchill is indeed the Greatest Briton to have ever lived, because for decades, the myth of Churchill has served as Britain’s greatest propaganda tool to bolster national white pride and glorify British imperial culture.
Should Africa expect much from the WTO talks in Nairobi? The WTO
political game is played with complete lack of any democratic or moral
scruples. The Empire speaks of democracy and good governance, ad
infinitum, but there is not a morsel of it within the WTO system of
global economic governance. The Empire gets away with total impunity.
By Yash Tandon
This article seeks to explain the process leading to WTO’s Tenth Ministerial Conference (WTO MC10). The next (final article in this series) will focus on the substance of negotiations. Of course, you cannot separate the process from the substance. But conceptually and strategically it is important to understand the difference as well as the interaction.
The most significant aspect of the process is its underlying power politics.
The WTO’s Underlying
Power Politics
The Nairobi Declaration (if such is the outcome of the MC10) will be a negotiated text. What does that mean? Like in all previous MCs, it means, effectively, that the powerful get what they want and the weak surrender under the threat of sanctions, such as withdrawal of so-called ‘development aid’ and ‘market access’ to poor and weak countries. Yes, indeed, it is that simple. It takes collective efforts of the Global South, and the solidarity voices of the people of the world to beat Empire - as in Seattle in 1999, and Cancun, 2003.
In between the powerful and the weak are countries like BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) that do have some – but limited - negotiating leverage, provided they act in concert. Opposed to BRICS and the Global South is the Empire - a term that is not admissible in diplomatic – including WTO - discourse. But the Empire exists; it is an existential reality. Some readers may want to include China in this category, but in the WTO and broader geopolitical context, the Empire comprises of the USA, Europe and Japan. The WTO was created by the Empire with very little participation from the Global South – including China. The Empire structured well-thought-out built-in rules of the WTO that are lopsidedly pro-Empire. For example, in theory all countries can provide the so-called ‘green subsidies’ to agricultural production, but in practice only the Empire is able to apply this provision; even the BRICS are not able to provide these for various technical reasons.
However, the global geopolitics are shifting rapidly. The chaos in the Middle East is part of this shift. The Empire is in crisis, in decay. This opens the door for an alternative system to emerge. China is beginning to flex its political and financial muscle. It is possible that it will make its weight felt at MC10. This explains why the Empire is in a state of panic and in some urgency to ‘conclude’ the Doha Development Agenda (DDA), and move on to a new pro-imperial agenda.
Why The Doha Development
Agenda Is So Significant
When the DDA was launched in November 2001 it was under overbearing pressure from the Empire. Following 9/11 (the terrorist attack on New York), the US had announced that if the Doha Round was not launched, those opposing it would effectively be ‘siding with the terrorists’. The emphasis during the negotiations was largely on market access – primarily for the benefit of the Empire. As a member of the Tanzanian delegation – then negotiating on behalf of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) - I remember how very disappointed we were at the outcome. [1]
However, at the last minute, on the insistence of the Tanzanian Minister of Trade, the word ‘development’ was inserted between ‘Doha’ and ‘Round’ making it the Doha Development Round (DDR) or Doha Development Agenda (DDA). The Empire did not at the time understand the significance of inserting that one word. This word has saved Africa – and the South. One must remember that the WTO is a trade – not ‘development’ - institution. Its ideological assumption is that ‘free market’ promotes development, which we know from hard evidence on the ground that it does not. However, following Doha, the developing countries have been able to use the word ‘development’ to argue for genuine development emerging out of the DDA. In other words, development first, then trade.
In the last 14 years the DDA has not shown much movement. This is the reason the Empire wants to jettison the DDA at the MC10 in Nairobi, to ‘conclude’ it. But for the Global South the DDA is their anchor; remove it and you never know to what destination the Empire might steer the WTO ship... For example, one area where the DDA anchor is not allowing the ship to drift is the so-called Singapore (and other new) issues. It gives the developing countries policy space to determine their own development priorities, to give preferences to local companies over foreign corporations and foreign imports. It is no wonder that the Empire wants to kill the DDA. The corporate interests that sit waiting to take over the helm are now even more powerful - but also more desperate - than they were fourteen years ago.
The Green Room, The
Facilitators Summary, And Process
Let us get back to the process. At the apex of the WTO is the Ministerial Conference (MC) which usually meets every two years, often outside Geneva - like this time in Nairobi. In Geneva, however, the highest decision-making body is the General Council (GC) comprising of representatives (usually ambassadors) from all member governments. In between the MCs the GC has the authority to act on behalf of the MCs.
Below the GC, there is an official body called the Trade Negotiating Committee (TNC) chaired by the Director General (DG) of the WTO – presently Roberto Azevêdo. However, most strategic and weighty negotiations take place within the cloistered chambers (called the ‘Green Room’ process). Admission to the Green Room – and the process itself - is wholly non-transparent and undemocratic. Negotiations take place among the Empire and a number of developing countries selected by the Empire. Also, there are a plethora of committees and ‘special sessions’, ad hoc negotiating groups and secret meetings. The Empire manipulates the process inside and outside the Green Room – including all kinds of wheeling and dealing and pressure on governments in Africa and other poor nations - and it gets away with what can only be described as terror and bully tactics. It enjoys unparalleled impunity from responsibility for serious violations of the principles of fairness and justice.
The DGs are not neutral and are appointed at the pleasure of the Empire – just like the Heads of the World Bank and the IMF – together with the WTO, the three primary institutions of global governance. Azevêdo is not neutral. He is a free market fundamentalist and buys into this ‘holy grail’. On 3rd June this year, for example, China and India rebuffed his proposal to change OTDS (Overall Trade Distorting Domestic Support) in favour of the developed countries. He comes from Brazil, which is the coordinator for the G-20 developing country farm coalition. But Brazil remained silent on this issue. [2]
On July 10 Uganda's Ambassador Christopher Onyanga Aparr challenged the DG. He is reported to have asked the DG : ‘We called for a discussion on the nature and scope of the work program, but apparently the call has not yet found a landing zone… what is so wrong with the Doha Work Program?’ [3] Needless to say, he got no response from Azevêdo.
Where We Are Today In The
Lead Up To MC10
The MC10 process began - practically speaking – almost immediately after the MC9. The outcome of MC9 was disastrous for Africa.[4] Since Bali, the trade technical experts from the member countries have been negotiating the implementation of the DDA and a possible future work program. After nearly seven months of intensive negotiations, the GC set up a three-person team of ‘facilitators’ - from Colombia, Kenya and Norway - who were asked to summarise the state of the negotiations up to that time and suggest a possible text for the Nairobi Declaration.
When the facilitators presented their report on December 1, it was immediately challenged by the Global South. Briefly, there were two things wrong with their report:
• To start with it said nothing on the DDA; it totally ignored the DDA mandate.
• Then, having claimed that it will not have language on New Issues, it opened the door to these in a roundabout way by, for example, looking at the systemic implications of Regional Trade Agreements s (RTAs) and their coherence with WTO rules.
It was a very serious setback for the South as their demand to continue talks on DDA was simply set aside. On December 2, the report by TNC Chairman, Azevêdo, was postponed. On December 3, the DG was forced by the Global South to insert specific language for DDA continuance post-Nairobi. The South was no longer in a mood to take further beating from the Empire and its agents within the very structure of the WTO.[5]
This is where we stand today. The process in Geneva has more or less reached an impasse and has moved to examining the various possibilities of the format in which the final outcome might be embodied in Nairobi.
VARIOUS POSSIBILITIES OF DECLARATIONS THAT MIGHT COME OUT OF MC10
Several scenarios are possible. I rank them in order from good to bad – that is, from the perspective of Africa and the Global South.
Summary And Conclusions
1. The WTO was created by the Empire and controlled and coordinated by it - like a war machine. There are differences among its constituent members (for example between the US and the EU), but on the DDA they are united – they are bent on killing it.
2. The WTO political game is played with complete lack of any democratic or moral scruples. The Empire speaks of democracy and good governance, ad infinitum, but there is not a morsel of it within the WTO system of global economic governance. And the Empire gets away with total impunity.
3. The WTO’ ideology of ‘free trade’ is a pure fiction. Nothing like that ever existed in history, not even during its ‘high point’ of 19th century English mercantile system.
4. The WTO is not neutral. Its DG - Azevêdo - is not neutral. He is a ‘free market fundamentalist and works for the Empire.
5. The Chairperson of MC10, Ambassador Amina Mohamed, is officially neutral. As the Chair she has to be. But she will be under huge pressure from the Empire, Azevêdo, and the WTO Secretariat to produce an outcome favourable to the Empire.
6. Of the seven possible scenarios presented above, for Africa and the Global South the first is the best; the second is a ‘fall-back’ position; the next two are not ideal but they do not close the door to the DDA; and the last three are where are the ‘no go’ areas.
Africa will be subject to ‘waterboarding’ by the Empire at the MC10 in Nairobi under the WTO process. [6] It is time Africa sits up and gets counted. It must resist the WTO's culture of terror and impunity for the Empire.
* Yash Tandon is a Ugandan policymaker, political activist, professor, author and public intellectual. His latest book, Trade Is War, was published in June 2015.
END NOTES
[1] See: ‘The Three-Layered Reality of the WTO’ in Yash Tandon, Trade is War, OR- Books, 2015.
[2] The best blow-by-blow accounts of these negotiations are given on a daily basis by a Geneva-based ‘third world’ South-North Development Monitor (SUNS) edited by Chakravarthi Raghavan, a doyen of trade negotiations since before the WTO was created. See SUNS #8048, 24 June, 2015.
[3] See: SUNS #8060
[4] See: ‘The long losing fight over S&D in Bali’ in Trade is War, op.cit.
[5] See: SUNS #8148
[6] Waterboarding is a form of torture widely used by the US government in which water is poured over the head of a captive making him feel as if he is drowning.
*PNAC: Member of Project for the New American Century - The Neocon Think Tank that (just before the 9/11 attacks) called for a "new Pearl Harbor" to galvanize the American populace behind a new push for an ever-expanding global American empire.
_______________
Beware ‘Sunni-Stan’: Neocons are Back and Their ‘Vision’ is Darker than Ever
By Ramzy Baroud
John Bolton is a tarnished character. The once United States Ambassador to the United Nations is now promoted as a ‘scholar’ in the pro-Israel lobby group, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
Bolton is not a peacemaker, nor, in his defense, did he ever try to appear as if one. When he was appointed as the US Ambassador to the UN by George W. Bush, his stint lasted for only one year, starting August 2005. His time in this position was marked with discord and conflict. He stole the limelight with such statements as “The (UN) Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If it lost ten stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”
When the Iraq war failed to achieve any of its objectives, thus signaling an American retreat in the Middle East, neo-conservative politicians like Bolton retreated to their right-wing, neo-conservative institutions. Those who did not have one, established an organization of their own and began issuing press releases at random, hailing Israel at times, and chastising their President, Barack Obama, for one thing or another.
When the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ took place, neocons, like Bolton, saw in it an opportunity, but one that was difficult to discern. On one hand, they understood little of the mechanisms that propelled popular actions, for they are used to operate at the highest level of power with total disconnect from the people. On the other hand, it was clear for them from the start that Obama was taking no chances by stepping back into a Middle East quagmire that was originally designed by his predecessor.
Unable to affect much change in the region, as they once envisioned under the leadership of the likes of Richard Perle and his Project for the New American Century (PNAC), the neocons mounted a strategy predicated mostly on discrediting their administration’s lack of strategy.
In a sense the ‘Arab Spring’ invigorated the neocons, but also reminded them of their political impotence. Gone were the days of concocting foreign policies from neo-conservative think tanks such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), the Center for Security Policy (CSP) and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), of which, among others, Perle is an active member.
In fact, Perle is quite a cherished member of the American Enterprise Institute, where Bolton often mounts his occasional articles in mainstream US media, offering a ‘vision’ regarding how to take on Iran, how to reform Arab states and how to redraw the map of the Middle East in ways that are conducive to US foreign policy interests.
The latest of such intellectual charges by Bolton was published in the New York Times on November 24. Under the title, “To Defeat ISIS, Create a Sunni State,” he theorized once more, raging against “Obama’s ineffective efforts” to destroy ISIS and demanding, instead, a “clear view shared by NATO allies.” The main drive behind his logic is that once ISIS is destroyed, the region that the militant group designated as a ‘state’ should be turned into a Sunni state, which, as a working title he called “Sunni-Stan.”
Bolton’s reasoning is as predictable as it is arrogant. It is predictable in the sense that, like other neocon initiatives in the past, it has no respect for the wishes of the people of the Middle East. His arguments are constructed upon the same world view that sees conflict as an opportunity, and warring nations as pawns in a larger game, aimed at subduing people to achieve ‘security’ and ‘stability’ for the US and its supposed allies.
It is also arrogant for the obvious reason that he believes the world should be designed to fit the narrow, self-serving and often violent visions of failed politicians like himself, who, alas, has access to the US’s most respected newspapers.
Bolton’s conceit has completely blinded him to the failures of the Bush administration and the entire collapse of the neo-conservative’s intellectual discourse during, and following the Iraq war. On the contrary, he is asking to repeat exactly what went wrong in Iraq.
“As we did in Iraq with the 2006 ‘Anbar Awakening,’ the counter-insurgency operation that dislodged Al Qaeda from its stronghold in that Iraqi province, we and our allies must empower viable Sunni leaders, including tribal authorities, who prize their existing social structure,” he wrote.
Only an unreasonable person cannot appreciate how the sectarian seed that the US has sowed in Iraq, based on the recommendations of the likes of Bolton, has resulted in the disfiguring of the Iraqi nation. This massive tampering with the social, cultural, religious and political fabric of society – by first empowering the Shia, oppressing the Sunni, then turning the Sunnis against one another, and so forth – has paved the way for unity among various Sunni groups, which ultimately formed ISIS.
It is the grand experimentations of Bolton and his peers that made ISIS the ‘state’ that it is today, which he is proposing to replace with yet another sectarian state, thus slicing up two Arab countries that were once the seats of the two most prominent Caliphate civilizations in history, the Abbasid and the Umayyad.
One cannot purport to condemn colonialism while enjoying the benefits of
colonialism. Germany’s keeping of the looted Benin artefacts despite
demands for return is the surest sign of lack of respect and an obvious
demonstration of continuing centuries-old contempt of westerners for
Africa and its peoples.
British soldiers of the infamous Punitive Expedition of 1897 proudly posing with
looted Benin artifacts.
By Kwame Opoku
“It is our prayer that the people and the government of Austria will
show humaneness and magnanimity and return to us some of these objects
which found their way to your country.” -The Oba of Benin, Omo N’Oba
Erediauwa. [1]
After the publication of my article entitled “Looted /stolen cultural
articles declared shared heritage” [2], a friend sent me from Germany a
magazine with the title, “Ein Berliner Schloss fur die Welt” (A Berlin
Palace for the World) issued by the Humboldt-Forum. [3] Apart from the
very misleading title, creating the impression that the future museum
had been built specifically for the world and not for Germany, as
evident from all available information, the publication follows the
style of the British Museum which argues that the British Museum is not a
British museum but a museum for the world. [4] The magazine contains
many tendentious statements and articles that assume, apparently, that
the German public cannot distinguish between facts and fiction.
Under the heading, ‘Humboldt Lab Dahlem’, we are informed that the
African and Asian artefacts in the museums in Dahlem (a suburb of
Berlin) will not only travel to the middle of the city to the
Humboldt-Forum but will also be transformed in the process (“sie
verwandeln sich dabei auch”) for the narratives concerning them will be
different. How are the objects when they arrive in the museum (and why
not other objects)?. How has the viewing perspective on these objects
changed and what do they still have to tell us? After these questions
the author declares:
“Objects have no meaning in themselves. They always play another
role-for human beings. And whoever begins to think over this changing
process, will not be able to finish with the questions posed thereby”.
[5]
What the author is telling us is that objects such as the African
sculptures in the Ethnologisches Museum have no fixed meaning since
meaning or importance depends on their location and viewer. The Benin
cultural artefacts, for example, would be transformed in the process of
their transfer from Dahlem to Berlin Mitte, a journey of a few
kilometres. What an extraordinary statement. Most of us will agree that
the symbolism and the meaning attached to a particular object may differ
from society to society and that what may be seen as a sign of good
luck in one culture may not have the same significance in another
context. In other words, the function and meaning of an object may vary
from culture to culture. To extend this fact to imply the transformation
of objects from a short journey in Berlin, within the same city, is a
view that cannot be easily accepted without further evidence.
A priest with a gong, Benin, Nigeria, now in Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin, Germany.
Do the Benin artefacts cease to possess the meaning and importance they
had in Benin through the travel to the Humboldt-Forum via London and
Dahlem? This seems to be a very easy transformation. Did this also occur
when the objects were transported from Africa to Europe? If so, why do
museums still attach African labels to these objects and assign their
origins to Africa?
The author may be reflecting here the spurious theory of shifting values
that the organizers of the 2007 exhibition, ‘Benin: Kings and
Rituals-Court Arts from Nigeria’ [6] tried to advance as justification
for holding on to the looted Benin Bronzes. The argument, put simply, is
that by being in Europe, those artefacts had gained additional values
and had changed their significance.
Whilst in their original context, the Benin objects expressed values
determined by religious belief and dynastic interests. But through their
enforced sojourn in the West, they had acquired new values based on the
"technical brilliance, formal elegance and iconographic complexity of
their execution." This shift in attribution of values should at present
be seen within the "competing contexts and claims of local tradition,
the nation state, and globalization". [7] This self-serving theory has
not been mentioned for a long while since the 2007 exhibition and one is
surprised that it is now being revived, however indirectly. [8]
Even if artefacts were to change their nature and function and to be
transformed during their journeys, this self-serving theory does not sit
well with most of us when a holder of looted artefact asserts that the
object that was looted is not the same as what he is now holding.
Imagine the result that would flow from accepting such an unfounded
theory. All that would be needed would be to proclaim that the objects
have changed their nature and therefore the deprived owners have no
case. Is this seriously meant by our colleagues at the Humboldt-Forum?
Someone must inform our German colleagues that the requests for
restitution of cultural artefacts is not about their display, exhibition
or interpretation. These demands are linked with questions of
location, possession, ownership and above all, cultural identity. Are
the Benin artefacts German or constitutive elements of Nigerian cultural
identity?
More surprising statements are to be found in the section entitled ‘Der
Afrika-Flügel’, (The African Section) where an attempt is made to
explain what will be found and done in the African Section of the museum
and related issues, in a form of discussion between Paola Ivanov,
Italian ethnologist, and a US-American, Jonathan Fine, who are
curators of the African Section. The discussion is in the form of
question and answer. The questions were presumably set by the authors
who provided the answers themselves. In response to the question how do
you generally treat colonialism, the authors answer, inter alia, as
follows:
“Colonialism will be a theme in each module. We do not want to hide
anything or minimize anything. Take Benin for example. All the very
precious bronzes, very beautiful bronzes came to Europe as a result of
the destruction of the Benin capital by British troops. How the bronzes
then landed in Berlin- this will be discussed in the exhibition curated
by Peter Junge”. [9]
Oba Ovonramwen, from whose palace the British looted the
Benin Bronzes
in 1897, with foot chains, guarded by soldiers
on board a British ship
to exile.
This is a very curious answer. The authors are willing to explain how
the Benin Bronzes came to Europe and correctly explain it was the result
of the British invasion of Benin. But how these looted precious
objects came specifically to Berlin and Germany is to be explained in
another exhibition by another curator. Why can the authors not explain
in a few words that the Germans bought the looted objects, a few months
after the invasion in 1874, some of the objects presumably still with
Benin blood stains on them? Should the public not know that the Germans
were fully aware that the Benin Bronzes were looted objects and indeed,
the auctioneers were proud to inform potential buyers that these were
fresh goods? The complicity of the Germans in this matter, as
accomplices after the fact, may have embarrassed the writers. The German
public is presumably more interested to know how the Benin bronzes came
to Germany and Berlin, where there is now said to be a Berliner Schloss
fur die Welt, than in the British invasion. Were the authors trying to
avoid the obvious questions that spring to the mind on seeing a cultural
artefact :“Where did it come from and how did it get here?”
The next heading reads as follows: “The legal aspect is one issue: Was
something legally acquired or stolen? Besides, there is a big moral grey
area: Were the circumstances of occupation, under which the objects
were acquired perhaps so, that one is obliged to return the objects?”
[10]
The curators state that in all cases the circumstances and the
perspectives of all persons and institutions concerned will be
researched and taken into account in making the decision. (A decision to
return the object?) It is remarkable that the authors believe there is
still need to do more research into Benin history in order to determine
whether any of the looted objects should be returned. What have the
museums been doing in all the hundred years they have illegally been
holding the looted artefacts? How much time do they still need for
further research?
It seems to us that as far as the circumstances of the looting of the
artefacts and their auction are concerned we have already a considerable
mass of knowledge on which to base decisions to return artefacts if the
will is there. The basic facts are not in dispute: these precious
artefacts belong to the Oba of Benin and the Benin people; they have to
be returned without further delay.
As for the moral grey area the authors mentioned, we should state that
this grey area exists only for holders of the looted objects. The rest
of the world, United Nations, UNESCO and ICOM have no such hazy views.
They have all declared in innumerable resolutions and statements that
these artefacts should be returned to the original owners. The moral
problem here is more a question for States and institutions that pride
themselves of respecting morality and the law but insist on holding onto
looted artefacts of others and not being embarrassed by the whole
issue. They sometimes even feel they can lecture others on respect for
law but the law has moral aspects that can only be understood by those
willing to subject their own conduct, past and present to rules.
Bell, Benin, Nigeria now in Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin, Germany
Regarding criticism that the transfer of the objects, mostly acquired in
the colonial period, to the Humboldt-Forum, is a neo-colonial gesture
and an act of restoration, the author answers as follows: “Such
evaluation is, in my opinion, based on a misunderstanding. There are
museums that present objects from the colonial period in an uncritical
way so that in a certain way the colonial view point continues still-
that is exactly what we do not want to continue. And to say that all
must be packed and sent back is also no solution. For me this will mean
erasing history, a very dangerous gesture. We want instead to use the
opportunity for critical and self-critical exhibition”. [11]
Is returning a looted Benin object to its deprived owners “rewriting
history? To re-write the history of the relations between Benin and the
European powers would surely require a little more than this.
The writers repeat the unfounded argument that some want to return all
African artefacts found in their museum. There is, of course, no truth
in this and the authors know this. The Oba of Benin, who is cited at the
beginning of this article and was mentioned by the authors, asked for
some of the looted Benin artefacts to be returned. Nobody has asked for
all the looted artefacts to be returned. We have suggested that the
Berlin museum could return some of the 508 Benin bronzes it is holding
illegally. Instead of discussing concrete suggestions regarding
restitution, many Western writers prefer to repeat arguments they
themselves have made up. They thus avoid examining the validity or
otherwise of the demands for restitution. A good example is Philippe de
Montebello, former director of the Metropolitan Museum, New York, who
mischievously stated that Dr. Opoku wanted all Nok, Ife and Benin pieces
to be returned to Nigeria. [12]
In answer to the question whether the King of Benin is requesting the
return of the bronze reliefs, the authors give a very misleading and
frankly unsatisfactory answer:
“There was in 2007/8 a large international exhibition on Benin and the
King of Benin had written in a contribution to the catalogue of the
exhibition that he would very much like to have a few of the objects
back. But there was no official demand for restitution. Also the
Nigerian State did not make any restitution claim.” [13]
This is a remarkable statement. The Oba of Benin, His Royal Majesty Omo
n'Oba n'Edo Uku Akpolokpolo Erediauwa I, is not mentioned by name. The
title of the exhibition, ‘Benin—Kings and Rituals: Court Arts from
Nigeria’ (2006/2007) and the catalogue with the same title, edited by
Barbara Plankensteiner, curator of the exhibition and Deputy-Director of
the World Museum, Vienna,(until July 2015, now at Yale University) are
also not mentioned by name. [14] Could we imagine, if a Western monarch
had written anything in a catalogue of an exhibition that their name
would not be mentioned? Incidentally, what Oba Erediauwa wrote was an
Introductory Note, more like a Foreword than anything else. Oba
Erediauwa was writing as the King of a people whose cultural artefacts
have been brutally and violently looted by a foreign army, British Army,
sent by the British Government because Benin refused to submit to
British imperialist rule. The king was also writing as a grandson, a
descendant of the king, Oba Ovonramwen, the Oba in whose reign the Benin
artefacts were violently stolen from the Palace. It was therefore not
to be considered as contribution in the sense of texts submitted by
specialists on the subject. It was a plea by a king for the return of
royal artefacts stolen from his palace.
How is the duty to educate the public fulfilled when titles of books and
names of authors are not even mentioned? How can a German who reads
only the pamphlet, ‘Ein Berliner Schloss fur die Welt’, pursue further
the issue?
How can the writers of the pamphlet say there has been no official
request for restitution? Is the request by the Benin monarch not
official enough? If a Western monarch had made such a request, would
anyone dare to say there had been no official request? What about the
negative response of the museum directors to the king’s plea, also in
the catalogue? The suggestion that there has been no request by the
Nigerian State for the return of the Benin Bronzes is, of course,
contrary to the facts. Practically, every Nigerian Government since
independence has urged holders of the Benin bronzes to return them. A
Nigerian Minister of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation, Prince
Adetokumbo Kayode, went to Berlin to request the return of the Benin
bronzes.[15] There have been meetings between Nigerian representatives
and German representatives on the return of these same objects. How can
Humboldt-Forum support assertions with no basis except the wishful
thinking of some persons?
We will spare the reader the need to go through all the useless
arguments advanced to support the baseless argument that there has been
no request, official or otherwise, for the return of the Benin bronzes
and other Nigerian artefacts, now illegitimately in Western museums and
in private collections. Readers interested in pursuing further this
issue may look at some of the articles by this writer. [16]
As far as African artefacts are concerned, the publication from the
Humboldt-Forum does not manifest any will or intention to deal seriously
with the question of restitution. It seems some people in Berlin
believe all that is required to silent the growing demands for
restitution is to display the objects in a new environment, appoint some
African and Asian scholars and experts to various committees and invite
other Africans to the grand opening of the Humboldt-Forum. They are
mistaken.
In not being able to understand the profound attachment of Africans and
Asians to their cultural artefacts, our Western colleagues have failed
to understand some of our basic requirements after decades of Western
domination and discrimination: the need for respect and self-respect.
Keeping our looted cultural artefacts despite demands for return is the
surest sign of lack of respect and an obvious demonstration of
continuing contempt for non-Europeans. The Independence of our countries
appears in this light not to have affected the centuries-old contempt
of westerners for our continent and its peoples.
We thought the Humboldt-Forum, despite all internal German criticisms,
was going to be an institution of the 21st century, building on the
positive achievements of previous decades and avoiding the disgraceful
characteristics of decades of racial discrimination, domination and
oppression of previous centuries. What we have read so far, as regards
the looted artefacts in Berlin seems to be repetitions of theories and
ideologies of previous centuries. The images of colonialism spring to
mind when we read the explanations offered for holding on to looted
artefacts. They throw us back to the period of the Berlin Conference of
1885 and German colonial rule. [17] The insensitivity of some scholars
saves them from seeing the similarities between their explanations and
those of previous decades. The arrogance and assumption permeating their
writings, obvious to others, are not perceptible to our learned
scholars.
As we have often stated, one cannot condemn colonialism and insist on
keeping all the benefits of colonialism, without making the slightest
gesture, not even symbolic, to return at least some of the looted
artefacts. No amount of critical approach to explaining the looted
artefacts will compensate for the losses by the original owners, their
pains and sufferings, especially when coupled with the explanations and
justifications such as those we have been examining.
Berlin laid the framework that made possible and easy the looting and
stealing of African artefacts. Berlin could also be the beginning of the
movement to return at least some of the artefacts. After all, in the
German Reich Berlin had pre-eminence in such matters. There was a decree
in 1889 that all artefacts brought from the colonies had to be
submitted to the Völkerkunde Museum in Berlin that had first choice and
then sent the rest to other institutions. [18] But do we have in Berlin
persons who understand the historical dimensions and importance of the
artefacts and are courageous enough to tackle the injustice against
African and Asian peoples?
* Dr Kwame Opoku is an independent scholar and commentator on African cultural affairs.
_________________________
END NOTES
1. "The exhibition is showcasing some of the works that made Benin
(Nigeria) famous. It once again, reminds the world of a civilization
truncated by the imperial forces of the colonialist. The works on show
at this exhibition are some of the 3000 odd pieces of bronze and ivory
works forcibly removed from my great grandfather's palace by some
Britons who invaded Benin in 1897. The British kept some of the loot for
themselves and sold the rest to European and American buyers. These
works now adorn public museums and private collector's galleries, all
over the world."
'We are pleased to participate in this exhibition. It links us,
nostalgically, with our past. As you put this past on show today, it is
our prayer that the people and government of Austria will show
humaneness and magnanimity and return to us some of these objects which
found their way to your country.”
OmoN'Oba Erediauwa CFR, Oba of Benin, in Introductory Note to the
catalogue of the exhibition Barbara Plankensteiner (ed.) Benin Kings and
Rituals, Court Arts from Nigeria, Snoeck Publishers, 2007, p. 13.
6.“Es gab2007/8 eine große internationale Ausstellung zu Benin, und im Katalog dazu hatte der König von Benin in einem Beitrag
Geschrieben, dass er einige Objekte gern zurückhaben würde. Aber es gab
keine offizielle Rückforderung. Auch der nigerianische Staat hat keine
gestellt.“
Ibid, p. 23.
7. Barbara Plankensteiner, Benin Kings and Rituals, op. cit. p.17.
9.“ Der Kolonialismus wird in jedem Modul thematisiert. Wir wollen nichts vertuschen oder verharmlosen.
Benin zum Beispiel. Alle sehr schonen, sehr wertvollen Bronzen kamen in Zuge
der Zerstörung der Hauptstadt Benins durch die britischen Truppen nach
Europa. Wie die Bronzen dann in Berlin gelandet sind-das wird in der von Peter
Junge kuratierten Ausstellung auch erzähl.“ Ein Berliner Schloss für die Welt. p. 23.
10.“Der juristische, Aspekt ist das eine: Wurde etwas rechtmassig
erworben, wurde es gestohlen? Aber daneben existiert eine große
moralische Grauzone: Waren die Besatzungsumstande, unter denen das
Objekt erworben wurde, vielleicht so, dass sie zu einer Rückgabe
verpflichten?“ Ibid.
11.“ Eine solche Einschätzung beruht meiner Meinung nach auf einem
Missverständnis. Es gibt tatsächlich Museen, die Objekte aus der
Kolonialzeit unkritisch präsentieren, sodass sich auf gewisse Weise der
kolonialistische Blick bis heute fortsetzt – genau das wollen und werden
wir nicht tun. Und zu sagen, alles soll geräumt und zurückgegeben
werden, ist auch keine Lösung. Denn das hieße, die Geschichte
wegzuwischen. Für mich wäre dieses Wegwischen eine sehr gefährliche
Geste. Wir wollen stattdessen die Chance für eine kritische und auch
selbstkritische Ausstellung nutzen. PI Uns ist wichtig, dass die
Sammlungen in die Stadtmitte kommen, wo sie eine breitere Rezeption
erfahren können, die ihrem sehr, sehr hohen Wert entspricht. Was die
Provenienz angeht: Wir erforschen die Herkunft aller Objekte, die im
Humboldt-Forum ausgestellt werden. Das ist manchmal sehr schwierig, aber
es wird nichts verschleiert. Wir wollen einen Perspektivenwechsel
betreiben, weg von der eurozentrischen Perspektive. Nun, falls einige
das Schloss noch mit der alten Vorstellung vom Westen und den „anderen“,
von the west and the rest verbinden, dann dekonstruieren wir diese
Vorstellung. Wir hoffen, dieses Bild auflösen zu können, um stattdessen
die Vorstellung von einer einzigen Welt wiederherzustellen. Denn das
ist, worum es uns geht“. Ibid. p. 24.
12. See the unsuccessful and mischievous attempt of Phillipe de
Montebello, former director of the Metropolitan Museum, New York, to
misrepresent our position on restitution.
13.“ Es gab 2007/8 eine große internationale Ausstellung zu Benin, und
im Katalog dazu hatte der König von Benin in einem Beitrag geschrieben,
das er einige Objekte gern zurückhaben wurde. Aber es gab keine
offizielle Rückforderung. Auch der nigerianische Staat hat keine
gestellt.“ Ein Berliner Schloss, p. 23.
“Nigeria Reacts to Donation of Looted Benin Artefacts to Museum of Fine Arts, Boston” www.modernghana.com/news/406884/1/nigeria-reacts-to-donation-of..
17. Some authors write as if they were not aware of the colonial rule of
the German Reich, a storehouse for Nazi ideas and practices which
facilitated the use of violence against Africans and the robbery of
their wealth. Namibians have not forgotten the massacres of the Herero
and Dama. An awareness of the German colonial rule would serve well all
those who write about looted artefacts in Berlin. See K .Opoku, Benin to
Berlin Ethnologisches Museum: Are Benin Bronzes made in Berlin? http://www.modernghana.com/news/157501/1/benin-to-berlin-ethnologisches-museum-are-benin-br.html
Cornelia Essner has written:
“That the acquisition of ethnografica in the colonial time was on the basis of
more or less “structural violence” will not be pursued in detail in this context.
Some individual contemporaries were perfectly aware of this fact. Thus one
Africa-traveller and resident of the German Empire in Ruanda, Richard Kandt,
wrote in 1897 to Felix von Luschan, Deputy Director of the Ethnology Museum,
Berlin, as follows: “It is especially difficult to procure an object without at least
employing some force. I believe that half of your museum consists of stolen
objects.”
(“Dass der Erwerb von Ethnographica in der Kolonialzeit auf der
Grundlage mehr oder minder “struktureller Gewalt” erfolgte, soll hier in
diesem Rahmen nicht näher verfolgt werden. Einzelnen Zeitgenossen war diese
Tatsache im Übrigen durchaus bewußt. So schrieb der Afrikareisende und
Resident des Deutschen Reiches in Ruanda, Richard Kandt, 1897 an Felix von
Luschan, den stellvertretenden Direktor des Berliner Völkerkunde-Museums:
Überhaupt ist es schwer, einen Gegenstand zu erhalten, ohne zum mindesten
etwas Gewalt anzuwenden. Ich glaube, daß die Hälfte Ihres Museums gestohlen
ist“. )
Cornelia Essner, Berlins Völkerkunde-Museum in der Kolonialära:
Anmerkungen zum Verhältnis von Ethnologie und Kolonialismus in Deutschland
in: Berlin in Geschichte und Gegenwart – Jahrbuch des Landesarchivs Berlin,
(Ed.) Hans J. Reichhardt, Siedler Verlag, 1986. p.77
18. “In the acquisition of art objects and artefacts from the German
colonies, the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin enjoyed a position of great
significance. A decision of the Bundesrat (“Bundesratsbeschluss - Decree
of the Federal Council”) of 21 February 1889 gave the Berlin Museum fűr
Völkerkunde priority in the purchase of all ethnographic objects
acquired from the German colonies. This meant that any ethnographical
object from the German colonies acquired through the resources of the
Reich had first to be sent to the Berlin Völkerkunde Museum which then
determined whether it wanted to keep it or, in case of duplication, send
it on to the other ethnographical museums in Germany. It appears there
was very little fair distribution and the other museums complained. This
gave the Berlin Museum an unchallengeable pre-eminence among Ethnology
Museums. The 1889 decision was in effect an authorization to loot and
plunder the colonies. Unlike the Loi Griaule, given to Marcel Griaule,
the French ethnologist and leader of the Dakar- Djibouti expedition, to
take whatever he wanted in the French colonies, the German law in effect
encouraged all German travellers to the colonies to plunder and loot.”
K .Opoku, “Benin to Berlin Ethnologisches Museum: Are Benin Bronzes made in Berlin? www.modernghana.com/news/157501/1/benin-to-berlin-ethnologisches..
