Finanzverwaltung: Alte Poststr. 12, 29584 Himbergen
Bankverbindung: Postbank Hamburg, BLZ: 200 100 20, Kontonummer: 30057200
Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland e.V.
Protest against display of Africans in a German zoo
Dear Sir/Madam,
It is with utmost indignation that the African
German community has taken notice of the plans to
open an "African Village" within the zoo of
Augsburg, a town situated in Bavaria, in the
south of Germany. This exhibit/event is scheduled
for July 9 - July 12, 2005. In the organizer's
advertising announcement one can read: "Artisans,
silversmiths, basket makers and traditional
hairdressers are grouped in a unique African
savannah landscape."
The conveners obviously are oblivious of the fact
that exhibits like the one planned in Augsburg
are organized within the German tradition of
racist ethnographic shows (Völkerschauen). A
letter by Ms.Barbara Jantschke, PhD, director of
the Augsburg zoo, in reply to a qualified and
concerned request by a Black Swiss citizen,
underlines the intention, to put Africans on
display in the zoo stating that the zoo of
Augsburg “is the exact place to fully confer
the desired exotic atmosphere".
It is obvious that the conveners do not
understand the historical implications of their
project. Even in Germany the ongoing impact of
German colonialism and racism on African peoples
are nowadays debated in public. Reproducing
colonial perspectives, which turns people of
African descent into exotic objects, into
sub-humans or non-humans, harmoniously embedded
in a perpetual village life, serving as objects
of observation and as inspiration to members of
the dominating, so-called majority population for
future tourist expeditions, can hardly be
interpreted as an encounter on equal footing.
After forty years of German colonialism and
twelve years of National Socialism the racist
gaze is still very much alive in Germany.
Needless to state, that the African continent
does not only offer one landscape like "savannah"
and not only one form of settlement like
"village", and that African cultures may barely
be summed up under one cultural concept like
"African Village". The organizer's approach
appallingly displays the continuities of
repression of historical facts, based on and
legitimating the appropriation and in-corporation
of allegedly exotic places and people(s).
It is necessary to remind the organizers that in
the history of ethnographic shows African and
German African individuals were used as object
for anthropometric tests and ethnological
investigations of highly questionable scientific
benefit. Many of the artists who performed in
these shows died as a consequence of bad working
and living conditions.
The Nazis employed a policy of eugenic control,
resulting in forced operations to limit the
biological reproduction of African Germans or in
downright incarceration in work and concentration
camps. People of African descent in that era were
equally compelled to gain a living as performers
in exotic shows, because they were completely
locked out of other professional spheres. Under
Nazi reign many people of African descent lost
their lives as a result of the racist
dehumanisation and legalized persecution.
The Augsburg exhibit not only fails to
acknowledge the political and social history of
persecution in Nazi Germany. It mocks the
personal histories of all those who lost their
lives as well as those who survived the colonial
and Nazi terrors. In addition the question comes
up, whom this sort of exhibit means to address,
misusing the popular phrase "to nurture tolerance
and the understanding among people(s)".
The organizers certainly had not in mind Black
people, nor people with migrant backgrounds, nor
white people transgressing racist stereotypes. Or
why wouldn't they display some Bavarian mountain
people in the natural setting among deer and
hogs, giving us a taste of their culinary
specialities and handicraft, luring us into
travelling into the distant German tourist
corners.
It is high time to accept the fact, that Germany
has continuously been entangled in colonial
history for the past centuries, to deal with the
consequences and thus to give up stereotyping
African people as a-historical and folkloristic
beings. The exhibit of human beings in the
colonial-racist setting of a zoo would dehumanise
any one!
Therefore the Black Community in Germany calls
for protest, national and international, against
the planned human exhibition of Africans in the
zoo of Augsburg. We demand that for once and for
all, colonial and racist traditions are
consciously discontinued!
Please direct your protest to the organizers:
Frau Dr. Barbara Jantschke (director of zoo in Augsburg)
phone: 0821 / 567 149-0
fax: 0821 7 567 149-13
e-mail: barbara.jantschke@zoo-augsburg.de
and to the agency, responsible for concept and management::
maxVita GmbH
Mainzer Str. 15a
80804 München
phone: 089-780 60 70
fax: 089-780 60 725
e-mail: info@maxvita.de
Please let us know of your protest by sending us
a copy of your protest letter or by letting us
know of any other action of protest.
Yours sincerely,
Peggy Piesche (scientiest in literature and
cultural studies, Black European Studies,
Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany)
Nicola Lauré al-Samarai (historian, TU University, Berlin)
Tahir Della (presidency of Initiative of Black
People in Germany, ISD-Bund e.V./ Munic, Germany)
Jasmin Eding (presidency of Black Women in
Germany, ADEFRA e.V./ Munic, Germany)
ISD Bund e.V.
(gemeinnützig)
Postfach 900 355
60443 Frankfurt/ Main
Tel./Fax:
07000/ISDBUND
(07000/4732863)
isdbund@isdonline.de
www.isdonline.de
München May 25, 2005