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Mobilizing History: Racism, Enslavement and Public Debate in Contemporary Europe

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The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Race and Gender

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Abstract

This chapter engages the politics of remembrance and forgetfulness associated with European colonialism, shedding light on the relationship between race, history and memory. More specifically it addresses the mobilization of colonial history in public initiatives and in Black movements, mediated by different understandings of (anti-)racism in Europe. The discussion is grounded in two examples: (1) A public history initiative, the exhibition ‘Racism and Citizenship’ held in Lisbon in the context of recent anti-racist struggles surrounding the history and memory of Portuguese colonialism; (2) Black mobilization for the memorialization of enslavement and its legacy in the Netherlands, within the context of political developments and policy targeting former colonial subjects. We conclude by highlighting the key role of Black movements in undoing historical silences, shaping collective memory and national imaginaries.

For this publication, Marta Araújo benefited from support from the Foundation for Science and Technology in Portugal, under the strategic project UID/SOC/50012/2019.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/19/time-for-art-world-look-own-racism, accessed 24.06.2019.

  2. 2.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/13/end-of-golden-age-amsterdam-museum-bans-term-from-exhibits?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other&fbclid=IwAR32GtesZMmBCavtgDV3f0TqdS7aHE3fEuSNYzrsTwEXpDi6A14gMN1cUYo, accessed 16.09.2019.

  3. 3.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-belgium-congo-museum/colonial-ghosts-haunt-belgium-as-africa-museum-eyes-change-idUSBREA1N07K20140224, accessed 24.06.2019.

  4. 4.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44965631, accessed 23.04.2019.

  5. 5.

    Significantly, the public document favoured terms such as ‘tragedy’ (for instance, UNESCO 2001, p. 14; 2002, p. 6) or ‘dark chapter’ (UNESCO 2001, p. 17) to address enslavement, reflecting an understanding of slavery as a somewhat exceptional process in European history.

  6. 6.

    The full book of abstracts for the 2nd International Conference can be found here: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/d3cd02_77abebf3c2684f5f828c4ee69d6844ea.pdf, accessed 14.06.2019.

  7. 7.

    See https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32419952, accessed 25.05.2019.

  8. 8.

    https://www.publico.pt/2016/12/05/sociedade/noticia/xxxx-associacoes-de-afrodescendentes-enviam-carta-a-onu-a-criticar-estado-1753485, accessed 25.05.2019.

  9. 9.

    See https://plataformagueto.wordpress.com, accessed 23.06.2019.

  10. 10.

    See https://www.publico.pt/2017/09/16/sociedade/noticia/as-varias-faces-do-activismo-negro-1785487, and a video documenting the work by the Group: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eUVYAyZwF0, accessed 23.06.2019.

  11. 11.

    See https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44965631, 30.07.2018.

  12. 12.

    Similarly, 1950s‒1970s critiques by African national liberation movements of the Portuguese colonial project and national narratives of its benevolent character, illustrated in Amilcar Cabral’s speeches posthumously published as Unity and Struggle (1979), in which he denounced colonial violence, racism , enslavement and indentured labour, can be seen as part of a broader critique of Eurocentric knowledge.

  13. 13.

    Padrão dos Descobrimentos, in Portuguese. See: https://padraodosdescobrimentos.pt/en/monument-to-the-discoveries/, accessed 24.06.2019.

  14. 14.

    https://www.dn.pt/artes/interior/um-ano-a-por-lisboa-no-centro-da-cultura-ibero-americana-5450013.html, accessed 24.06.2019.

  15. 15.

    Namely, the Monument to the Discoveries, the Company for Equipment Management and Cultural Events in Lisbon (EGEAC), Lisbon City Council (CML), the Iberian-American Capital of Culture initiative, and King’s College in London.

  16. 16.

    The exhibition focuses on six periods and issues: ‘(A) Against Jews and Muslims; (B) Slaves from Africa; (C) Natives of America and Asia, Europe in the Centre and Other Racisms; (D) The Work Regime in the Portuguese Colonial World; (E) Contradictory Realities in Portugal and its Colonies; (F) A New Vision of Africa’. (Ibid.).

  17. 17.

    The exhibition was curated by the academic Francisco Bethencourt, Professor of History at King’s College London, who had published Racisms: From the Crusades to the Twentieth Century in 2013, a book promoted in the exhibition. For a critical review of the book, see Affeldt, Hinrichsen and Hund (2015).

  18. 18.

    This is the case with Kiluanji Kia Henda’s photo depicting young Black people standing on the Monument of the Discoveries looking inland: in the exhibition, the implicit motto ‘we are here because you were there’ is reduced to mere humour.

  19. 19.

    See https://sol.sapo.pt/artigo/541559/passado-e-presente-lisboa-cultura-e-pos-colonialismo-, accessed 25.05.2019.

  20. 20.

    See, for example: https://www.publico.pt/2017/07/18/sociedade/opiniao/os-flagelantes-e-a-escravatura-1779221, https://www.publico.pt/2019/06/16/opiniao/opiniao/culpa-reparacao-1876485, accessed 5.07.2019. See also: https://www.publico.pt/2017/04/14/politica/opiniao/portugal-evitando-falar-sobre-escravatura-desde-1761-1768756, accessed 5.07 2019.

  21. 21.

    Following protests from Black collectives, in 2016 the government replaced the word ‘allochthon’ with the phrase ‘people with an immigrant background’, which has racial connotations and serves as a code word for non-white people.

  22. 22.

    See for example: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/zwarte-piet-black-pete-dutch-racism-full-display-181127153936872.html and https://www.visibleproject.org/blog/project/zwarte-piet-is-racisme/, accessed 30.09.2019.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Social Studies - University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Marta Araújo

  2. Black Europe Summer School, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Kwame Nimako

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  1. Marta Araújo
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  2. Kwame Nimako
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Correspondence to Marta Araújo .

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  1. University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

    Shirley Anne Tate

  2. Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez

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Araújo, M., Nimako, K. (2022). Mobilizing History: Racism, Enslavement and Public Debate in Contemporary Europe. In: Tate, S.A., Gutiérrez Rodríguez, E. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Race and Gender. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83947-5_23

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