In this piece, Tina Adomako shows the importance of interrogating colonial place names as part of the humanitarian goal of equalizing relationships between Africa and the Global North. In Germany, cities around the country (Düsseldorf, Essen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin among others), have active groups engaged in these and other decolonial efforts. As always, we look forward to your comments.
I’m on a plane heading to West Africa from Europe. My destination: Ghana – the former Gold Coast. The big “dark continent” lies below me. I’m on my way to celebrate the completion of a project funded by the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development. I am happy that they made it possible for a series of writing workshops to be held. Danke, Deutschland.
The plane is flying over places I’ve never heard of: Fada N‘Gourma, Birnim Kebbi, Tillabéri – and my thoughts go back to the past. People were probably herded to the West African coast from these or similar places 500 years ago. There, they were loaded onto the waiting vessels anchored in front of slave forts on the Gold, Ivory and Slave Coasts – many of these forts are in present-day Ghana – and transported to a future that was completely unimaginable and unknown to them at the time. Today, we know what happened to the many millions of Africans who crossed the ocean. Today, we know about the history of transatlantic slavery. Today, we know that the official abolition of this inhuman practice – in 1807 in Great Britain, around 50 years later in the USA – did not end the era of inhumanity. Trade in humans was officially abolished, but at the same time, the age of colonialism was declared. A perpetuation of inhuman behaviour under a different name.
Anyone who had any say in Europe, felt they had the right to determine what happened outside Europe as well. In 1884, at the invitation of the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, those who considered themselves to be world powers divided up the African continent among themselves during the so-called Congo Conference held in Berlin. Germany claimed almost a third of the area that was up for grabs. And yet when we speak of colonisation, people tend to forget that Germany played a major role.
Like slavery, colonialism too went out of fashion at some point. This point in time was actually not too long ago. From today’s perspective it’s almost impossible to imagine that my parents, who met in London in the 1950s, couldn’t travel to a place called Ghana because this country didn’t even exist then. What existed at the time was the British colony known as Gold Coast. This was a point in time when Germany had lost two World Wars but had recovered to become an economic giant. This was a time when the world was talking about human rights, a topic that had very little relevance during the time of the transatlantic slave trade. The world community had now drawn up declarations on human rights, had anchored democracy and freedom and equal opportunity as common ideals. Is it not inconceivable, then, that traces of the colonial era are not really questioned to this day? Is it not strange that to this day, many people seem to have no problem with living on a street named after a colonial mass murderer? Yet surely no one except a die-hard Nazi would want to live on Hitler Avenue, Goebels Road or Himmler Boulevard. In fact, all streets named after these Nazi criminals were renamed after the war.
However, in many German cities we still find streets that were named in honour of men who committed atrocities in colonial times. Activists are therefore calling for such streets to be renamed. How can one still honour people like Theodor Leutwein, Hermann von Wissmann or Carl Peters by naming streets and squares after them to this day? Leutwein was Governor of German South West Africa from 1895 to 1905 and was in charge of establishing colonial rule. He was directly involved in the extermination campaign against the Nama. Wissmann was in command of the first German colonial force and between 1889 and 1890 and was responsible for suppressing the resistance of the East African coastal population. And Peters, a pastor’s son, founded the “Society for German Colonization” in 1884 and went on to found the colony of German East Africa, where he used extreme brutality against the local population. All three men were extreme racists. All three names can still be found on street signs in many German cities, including the city I live in, to this day.
There are some who feel that we should look forward to the future and forgive what happened in the past. They are against the renaming of streets; they see no point in causing confusion and inconvenience. Let bygones be bygones That was all so long ago, they say. Most people today don’t even know who Wissmann, Leutwein, Peters & Co. were, they say. And besides, they acted in their historical contexts, that shouldn’t be forgotten, they say.
But I ask: What’s in a name? Are names mere hollow words? Or is keeping the names of men who, not only by today’s standards, are considered criminals, on streets signs and public squares not rather playing down the abominable actions of these people? The fact that the monstrous deeds perpetrated in colonial times have now been forgotten by many Germans does not make them undone – especially since the repercussions can be felt on the African continent to this day. So I say: we must rename such streets and places. But it’s not just about new names, it’s about remembering the actions of the past, it’s about understanding the consequences of these deeds, and in the next step about asking for forgiveness and making amends.
What Germany needs to do is to start teaching their colonial history and to create a living culture of remembrance. A living culture of remembrance cannot only deal with selected chapters of German history such as the Third Reich, it must also focus on the colonial era. It is only through a culture of remembrance that we can try to prevent history from repeating itself. Only by knowing what happened in the past can we understand the present and shape the future. The Ghanaian saying Sankofa comes to mind and sums it up.
I see lights flickering beneath me. We are approaching Kotoka International Airport and will be landing in Accra shortly, Accra, the capital of Ghana, the first West African country to free itself from colonial rule. I wonder how many people in Ghana know that long before the British came to claim the Gold Coast, the Germans had established a colony in the Western Region. Perhaps funding this project is a tiny little step in the direction of making amends? Danke, Deutschland.