Year 1890. A French colonel enters the town of Segú, in West Africa, and seizes a treasure consisting of jewels and a sabre. He also takes a boy and a girl, forcibly separates them from their environment and forcibly “transplants” them to France. The objects and the two young men were used to demonstrate the supposed supremacy of Western civilization. Following the traces of this looting, the Finnish woman raised in Senegal and settled in the French country, Taina Tervonen, discovered a terrible colonial history that was reflected in The hostages (Errata Naturae, with translation by Iballa López Hernández).
The book tells the story of Senegal’s decades-long demand for the return of the sabre, the complexity with which France has failed to respond and, above all; the mechanisms by which so many generations, in this case Senegalese, have grown up without being able to access their cultural imagination. A reality applicable to many other regions that have been stripped of their assets that, to this day, remain on display in the art galleries of the planet’s colonizing countries.
The author of the detailed investigation has collected the stories of several characters involved, each with their own complex point of view. The writer, who dedicates the issue to archivists, “guardians of memory and small documents” and without whom she assures that “she would not have been able to count” The hostages; He confesses to this newspaper that the biggest surprise he had during his study was to discover “to what extent colonial history remains taboo in France.”
“I didn’t expect it until now,” she says, “I knew that in Senegal I would be asked why I was interested in this subject if it wasn’t part of my own history, but I didn’t know that I would have to answer the same question so many times in France. The people I met needed to know, in a way, ‘which side I was on.’”
The researcher attributes this silence to the “fear” that “speaking in public” on this issue generates in the country, which sparks debate. “Perhaps it has to do with the fear of facing the indignation that the conversation would inevitably generate.” What is clear to him is that this panic explains “many of the reactions that occur in this regard in the museum universe.” “There is also this idea that what is inside the museum is “universal” as long as it is French. There are still many blind spots in this whole story, which has its origins in racist theories and the racist legacy of the colonial era,” he emphasizes. “Those who gain from not talking about it are clearly the colonizing countries,” he warns.
I knew that in Senegal I would be asked why I was interested in this subject if it was not part of my own history, but I did not know that I would have to answer the same question so many times in France.
Taïna Tervonen
— Author of “Hostages”
The debate around this issue is also heated in Spain, where earlier this year Culture Minister Ernest Urtasun announced his commitment to decolonizing state museums. The first steps of his plan only came last June, with the announcement of the creation of two committees that will prepare the report that will serve as a guide for the renovation of the Museum of America and the National Museum of Anthropology. Likewise, it remains to be seen what will happen to the Quimbaya Treasure, housed in the former, whose restitution was formally demanded by Colombia last May.
Who decides what a work is?
The debate around the decolonisation of museums is relatively new, so it has not yet been possible to establish a “way” to achieve it that is valid, fair and relevant for all parties. “The most important thing is to have an open and shared debate about what decolonisation means and how it should be carried out,” argues Taina Tervonen, “this debate cannot take place in Europe on one side and in Africa on the other. It has to be a conversation in which both sides speak openly.”
Something that, according to what he indicates, is already done in some specific art galleries, where the collections are explored together: “There is not yet a universal rule but there are already several projects under development in museums in France, Germany and England. . In The hostages shows how, at the beginning of 2022, Belgium delivered to the Democratic Republic of Congo an inventory of the nearly 84,000 objects from this country which are part of the collections of the Tervurem museum.
In the United Kingdom, where national institutions such as the British Museum reject any restitution, some private institutions such as the University of Aberdeen have made returns in 2021. The author describes as “the most spectacular” the agreement signed between Germany and the Nigerian state on the return of several hundred works from the Royal Palace of Edo (now Benin City). Some will remain in the German country, but only on loan, since ownership has been transferred.
One of the testimonies collected in the book is that of Hamady Bocoum, director of the Museum of Black Civilizations in Dakar, who identifies as a “problem” the fact that, at the center he is responsible for, one cannot “conceive of African heritage in the same way as Europe.” I would like. “For the people here, these are not artistic objects. It is the Europeans who transformed them into works of art by transporting them to museums,” he explains. “Let them decide what we want to do with these works. We can burn them, destroy them or keep them in a museum. “These objects belong to us, it is up to us to make this decision,” he argues.
The prejudice of the “useless” African
Senegalese philosopher and economist Felwine Sarr takes the same view, castigating the “arrogance” of certain directors of French art galleries, believing that “Africa is not capable of taking care of its objects.” An attitude to which is added the conviction of having made the right choice: “Pieces have been saved whose importance we would not have realized. When we tell them that for our people, they are spiritual beings, they look at us with a certain condescension.”
Pieces whose importance we would not have realized have been saved. When we tell them that for our people they are spiritual beings, they look at us with a certain condescension.
Felwine Sarr
— Senegalese philosopher and economist
“It’s as if it were impossible to consider that there is a continent of a billion people whose young people have a right to their heritage, just as Europeans have a right to theirs,” he says. is theirs is theirs and that ours is also yours. They proclaim the universality of museums, a universality centered on themselves of course.
Felwine Sarr pointed out that there are different arguments to support the survival of this context, such as saying that “there are no museums in Africa”, when there were about five hundred “; or doubts about which country would be referred to current countries, such as Senegal or Benin, where they did not exist at the time of taking the goods. All this to identify that “it is not a rational question but another type, more linked to an intimate truth that has been forged over time, repeating it in films, in books, in the media”, in history textbooks, in political discourses. At the bottom lies the prejudice that the African is useless.”
The role of education
Taina Tervonen was at Fort Faidherbe in Podor, Senegal, which was captured by France in 1854. There, she spoke with Ibrashima Sy, who has been guarding it for twenty-four years. At 74, he explains that he has lived in “two worlds”: that of colonization and that of independence, which came in 1960. “History is what we have lived and what we pass on to others. We must not minimize its importance,” he says.
There, he also manages to talk to Abdourahmane Niang, who was the first curator of the space. “Even in the memory of the French, the black man was never considered a human being. He was a beast of burden. It was even said that science was inaccessible to him. It is still strange that, even if from an anatomical and physiological point of view all human beings are made up of the same elements, some consider themselves superior to others,” he reflects.
The lessons they received at school were essential in “shaping them in the colonial style”: “Whatever the white man says is right and what he doesn’t say is wrong.” “When I was a child, at school, we had the symbol. A wooden stick. We were not allowed to speak in our mother tongue, we could only communicate in French. If they caught you using an African language, they would give you the symbol and you kept it until you heard another student make the same mistake. Speaking your own language was considered shameful,” he said.
While they knew the history and geography of France “into and out,” he comments that they were taught nothing about Africa. Furthermore, he explains that they described African heroes from a point of view that was “so distorted” that they themselves were “afraid” of them. “They told us they were bloodthirsty, we were terrified! Our teachers falsified the facts, and it’s not true. What’s terrible for those of us who attended colonial school is that when we learned the truth, we cringed. “It hurts a lot,” he admits.
At school we were told that African heroes were bloodthirsty, we were terrified! Our teachers falsified the facts, and it is not true. What is terrible for those of us who attended colonial school is that when we learned the truth, we cringed. It hurts a lot
Abdourahmane Niang
— The first curator of Fort Faidherbe (Senegal)
And in colonizing countries, how is history told? How are these episodes discussed in class and in school textbooks? Tania Tervonen responds to the current reality in France: “At the moment, the colonial era is presented in schools from an economic point of view and from a very white point of view. Introducing more voices, including those of the resistance from Europe and Africa, would help create more nuances,” he believes.
The writer argues that “investigating the link between this heritage and today’s society would benefit everyone, starting with young French people who, because they are racialized, experience discrimination and violence in their lives.” “Understanding where this comes from is a way to fight and ensure that those who do not experience it directly understand their privileges better and, perhaps, initiate change together,” he emphasizes.
