Article by Sergej Iwanaga (17.10.2024)

To what extent do traces of colonialism run in our society?

This past Wednesday, the 9th of October, some of us students from the Nelson Mandela School had the privilege of participating in a workshop headed by “CHAT der WELTEN”, DW (Deutsche Welle) and organized by Mr. Rapholo. From the former, we had the opportunity to talk to Erbin Dikongué and the latter, Gönna Ketels. 

   The workshop started at 9:00 am with a quick introduction to us students from Mr. Dikongué. It was explained that “CHAT der WELTEN” is a project which has the goal of connecting the youths of all continents to try and gain a better understanding of what our shared history is. In our particular case, we had the chance to contact a school in Namibia, but more on that later. Their website says:

“CHAT der WELTEN, or CdW for short, combines global learning with digital media. In line with the motto ‘talking to each other instead of about each other’, CHAT der WELTEN enables school classes in Germany to exchange ideas with people in Asia, Africa and Latin America using online-based communication and thus develop an understanding of their role in a globalised world.”

“Über CdW - BtE Website.” Accessed October 10, 2024. https://www.bildung-trifft-entwicklung.de/de/ueber-cdw.html. Translated from German to English

At the beginning, there was a big topic which we were introduced to:

Empowering young voices in a post-colonial world

This would come to be the main focus of the workshop and our goal would be to broaden our horizons and to be able to identify what remnants of colonialism still exist in our life. Along with this statement, Ms. Ketels from the DW took each student outside one by one to interview them about what we would learn.

And that is exactly also what we started with. We were asked “What did or does colonialism have to do with you?” It became apparent that so many countries’ daily factors are being taken for granted  without reflection on how they reach us. Be it the clothes we wear, the holiday destinations we choose, the food we consume, the languages we speak, the cultures we are a part of or the politics we argue about. An example given was the amount of money a cocoa farmer makes if we buy chocolate for 1€. Now, the way we were asked already made us suspicious of how low the answer was going to be, but we did not expect it to be 0,05€. This means only 5% of the actual revenue goes to the farmer in whichever West African country it may be, since they produce 70% of the world's raw cocoa. Not only that, but it is the European chocolate market which actually determines the price at which the cocoa itself is bought. So, it is us who name the price for the raw resource we want and will consume while the West African farmer has no choice but to obey. But what led us to this point in our world economy?

Many European colonial powers sought to expand their domain by settling in places all over the world. This allowed them to loot precious resources and valuables from other people, while putting in place a rigid power dynamic, solidifying their grasp on this wealth. A prime example is the coltan mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Coltan (columbite-tantalite) is a key mineral used in mobile phones that is mined primarily in the DRC with 60% of the global reserve coming from there. It has been dubbed a “conflict mineral” due to the involvement of armed groups in its extraction and trade. Furthermore, according to the United Nations, the illegal trade of coltan has fueled armed conflicts in the DRC, leading to instability in the region. What a globalized problem we have in our hands. The DRC has had a long history of previous exploitation, having once belonged to King Leopold II of Belgium, and even after it gained its independence it could not shake off international exploitation from its former colonizer Belgium along with the CIA and Soviet Union in their Cold War by proxy. This power dynamic between colonized and colonizer, which also took shape in the form of propaganda and false justifications, has left traces in our European societies, perhaps in the form of racist stereotypes or misconceptions about the world just beyond our borders. To help us understand what we must do as the young adults of tomorrow, Mr. Dikongué said that:

“Decolonization is a process of undoing past colonial practices.”

I find this particular quote quite fitting for our school. Since we represent Nelson Mandela and what he fought for, it should be our duty to understand if not strive to create a world without pesky European powers meddling in foreign affairs without reason and to protect the rights which Nelson Mandela fought for.

After discussing what kind of effect colonialism had on the colonized and the colonizers, we dove deeper into perhaps a more important point of view on colonialism: the German Kolonialmacht.

After we were asked which countries we knew had been colonized, it was quite a pathetic sight to see. We were new to a handful of colonized African countries such as Togo, Cameroon and Tanzania and only one in Asia—that being China. It became readily apparent that even if we all tried together, we just did not have enough education to answer this question. In reality, Germany’s colonial history or Kolonialmacht was relatively brief compared to its neighbors, but still played a significant role in the “Scramble for Africa” in the late 19th and 20th century. It started with Bismarck, the Prime Minister of Prussia and although he was hesitant at first, he called a conference between 1884/5 which invited all major European powers to divide Africa up amongst themselves. Without any regard for or council from the African tribes, Africa was literally sectioned off into pieces and split up amongst the leaders. This is why nowadays, some countries in Africa have borders not marked with natural landmarks such as mountains or rivers like in Europe, but straight lines, having been drawn by a pencil and a ruler thousands of kilometers away. Whole communities and families were split from one another just to fulfill the selfish greed of some colonizer across the ocean. Germany was not any different, having acquired colonies in modern day Togo, parts of Ghana, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Cameroon, Namibia, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Caroline + Mariana + Marshall Islands and a naval base in Tsingtao, China. After decades of rule and infamous cases of genocide and brutality such as the Herero and Namaqua genocide under General Lothar von Trotha which violently surpressed an uprising resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of indigenous people, their reign came to an end. Sadly, it would not be strength of the colonized but that of the European powers which made Germany hand over its colonial territories in the Treaty of Versailles in 1918 after its loss in WWⅠ.

Now all of this was a short background into the history of our country and what it was responsible for while overseas and the next chapter of this workshop was going to be about just that: Talking with the people overseas. For this, we had the honor and privilege of talking to a mix of students from both 8th and 9th grade from the Jakob Marengo School in Namibia. Over a Google Meet call we could see the uniformed girls sitting in a half-circle, waiting for us to say something.

After the usual array of technical difficulties, we were finally off to the big discussion. Starting off with the common ice-breaker questions such as our daily routines or favorite foods, we then got to the more nuanced questions about colonialism.  Our first question was to what extent colonialism was being taught in Namibia. We were told that their town actually had a Colonial Museum addressing their connection with Germany in the past and that many streets were still named after German colonial lords which had once been stationed there. Moreover, many of the students are fluent in Afrikaans and had chosen to learn German as well. On the topic of schools, a fact which surprised me personally, was the fact that in their area was also a German school with German teachers, having been built during the reign of the German Empire. When asking about Jacob Morenga, and why he was the figure honored in the school's name, we were told that he was a freedom fighter who had fought for national independence and had been a leader of the independence movement. What a funny moment it was when two schools so far apart from one another both bore names of African freedom fighters which had sought to create a better world. This is also the main point that we tried to make during this talk, that although we may individually be different, we have to educate others and ourselves and fight for the sake of the people that came before us. And with that and many friendly okes and goodbyes, our time with the school in Namibia came to an end.

   In conclusion, this workshop may not have been a seminar on past world events, but moreso, an assembly of unique individuals who aimed to one day change the very social landscape we live in. To commemorate this workshop, we then went down to the Nelson Mandela Memorial and took a picture to remember this memorable day.

No matter how many times this quote has been used, I find it important to read again, for Nelson Mandela truly expressed the sentiment of this workshop:

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

Sources:

“West Africa Cocoa Report 2023 — Corporate Accountability Lab.” Corporate Accountability Lab, corpaccountabilitylab.org/west-africa-cocoa-report-2023. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024.

The Berlin Conference (1884-5). www.thelatinlibrary.com/imperialism/notes/berlinconference.html. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024.

Stutt, Amanda. “The Real Costs of Coltan Mining in the DRC — Report.” MINING.COM, 1 June 2022, www.mining.com/the-real-costs-of-coltan-mining-in-the-drc-report. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024

deutschlandfunk.de. “Deutsche Kolonialzeit in China - Es Blieben Architektur Und Bier.” Deutschlandfunk, www.deutschlandfunk.de/deutsche-kolonialzeit-in-china-es-blieben-architektur-und-100.html. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024.