The Universal Museum: How the New Germany Built its Future

on Colonial Amnesia

Fatima El-Tayeb

Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, Number 46, May 2020, pp. 72-82
(Article)

Published by Duke University Press

For additional information about this article

[Link]

[ Access provided at 2 Jul 2020 09:17 GMT from Ebsco Publishing ]

The Universal Museum
HOW THE NEW GERMANY BUILT ITS
FUTURE ON COLONIAL AMNESIA

H
ow we remember, as individuals and as col-
Fatima El-Tayeb lectives, depends on how we perceive the
now and where we envision ourselves go-
ing: memory discourses make the past legible for
our present, but they also define the limits of the
imaginable future. Our understanding of our past,
thus, is always contested and malleable, depending
on our contemporary conditions, while also shap-
ing them. Usually, however, this process of creating
historical narratives remains invisible, as history
seems to unfold automatically and inevitably; the
present necessarily follows a past that logically
leads to exactly this here and now. Cracks in this
process, its constructedness, become obvious when
our perception of the present changes dramatically
and abruptly, when the dominant logic of historical
development collapses and it seems uncertain what
will take its place.
The end of the Soviet empire and the German
reunification in 1990 represent such disruptions
of a taken-for-granted continuum. They required
a rewriting of national and continental memory
in reaction to drastically new constellations: the
construction of a neoliberal European unity out of
decades of East-West antagonism posed a serious

Journal of Contemporary African Art • 46 • May 2020

72 • Nka DOI 10.1215/10757163-8308198 © 2020 by Nka Publications
Model bust of Nefertiti,
from the workshop of
Thutmosis, ca. 1350 BCE,
Egypt, 18th dynasty.
Painted limestone, h. 48 cm.
Photo: bpk Bildagentur/
Ägyptisches Museum and
Papyrussammlung, Berlin/
(Sandra Steiß)/Art Resource,
New York

El-Tayeb Nka • 73
challenge to the emerging Pan-European iden- around Roma refugees in 1989 to, more recently,
tity and so did the rapidly growing influence of the so-called “refugee crisis” of 2015, which quickly
Germany within the union. After all, the nation’s moved from Willkommenskultur (culture of wel-
desire for European dominance had long been con- come) to the fast rise of the openly racist Alternative
sidered the driving force behind two world wars für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) party. I
devastating the continent. Three decades after re- argue that memory—or its absence—is key to this
unification, Germany’s position as the continent’s cycle, and in what follows I explore the role of ar-
economic powerhouse and political decision maker chives, both hegemonic and alternative, in making
is largely undisputed. More than that, with the iso- visible or invisible the connection between crisis
lationist course of the current US government, the and colonial past—and their potential in making
German chancellor increasingly sees herself posi- possible a different future than the one that emerges
tioned as the “leader of the free world” guaranteeing from the crisis discourse.
global stability in an increasingly chaotic world. I center my exploration on Berlin’s Museum
I argue that this process nonetheless was not Island, in the city’s heart, right on the former East-
nearly as smooth and successful for Germany and West divide. Not a site that is usually linked to the
Europe as it might seem. In the transition from idea of racial crisis, the island is a UNESCO world
the Cold War logic to the current world order, the heritage site and one of the city’s major tourist des-
chance for real change was missed on all levels. The tinations. It houses five state-funded museums: the
consequences are already felt and will be felt more Old National Gallery, which presents nineteenth-
so in the future: instead of creating a pluralistic century European art; the Bode-Museum, which
model of European identity that allows for a variety features Byzantine Art; the Old Museum, focused
of positionalities—and, thus, for diverse European on Greek and Roman antiquity; the Neues Museum,
memory discourses, encompassing the histories of which houses a collection of ancient Egyptian art
various populations—Germany and Europe repro- (including the Nefertiti bust, currently valued at
duce again what Stuart Hall calls the continent’s “in- three hundred fifty million Euro); and the Pergamon
ternalist story,” based on an essentialist definition of Museum, home to Islamic and Near Eastern art,
a white, Christian Europe whose identity and his- most spectacularly the Ishtar Gate, entrance to the
tory remain neatly separated from the rest of the ancient city of Babylon. The vast majority of the
world: more than one million annual visitors to the island
This has been the dominant narrative of modernity
are drawn to the latter two museums.3
for some time—an “internalist” story, with capitalism In 2015, at the height of the so-called refugee
growing from the womb of feudalism and Europe’s crisis that brought nearly one million people to
self-generating capacity to produce, like a silk-worm, Germany, largely from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan,
the circumstances of her own evolution from within the five museums and the nearby German Historical
her own body.1 Museum started an initiative titled “Multaqa:
Museum as Meeting Point—Refugees as Guides
This narrative necessarily produces a tunnel vi-
in Berlin Museums,” which offered free tours in
sion by ignoring and suppressing alternative narra-
Arabic to refugees from Iraq and Syria, conducted
tives (including those of Europeans descended from
by guides who had themselves been refugees. The
the continent’s formerly colonized). It leaves a resi-
museums defined the project goals as follows:
due of denied truths and unresolved conflicts that
remain unnamable within the dominant discourse The Syrian and Iraqi artefacts exhibited in the Museum
but continue to haunt it. The resulting constant pres- für Islamische Kunst and in the Vorderasiatisches
Museum are outstanding testaments to the history
sure on the coherence of the pervasive model leads
of humanity. Through experiencing the appreciation
to regular—and largely predictable—crises.2 Here, which the museum shows to these cultural objects
I am particularly concerned with the repetition of from their homelands, we hope to strengthen
racial crises in post-unification Germany, invariably their self-esteem and promote the confident and
caused by the seemingly sudden and overwhelm- constructive introduction of the refugees into our
ing appearance of the foreign, from the racist panic society.

74 • Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art • 46 • May 2020

 The guided tours in the Skulpturensammlung und of a xenophobic right (in 2015 alone, Germany saw
Museum für Byzantische Kunst make reference to more than one thousand attacks on refugee cen-
the inter-religious roots and the common origins ters).5 The term refugee crisis that initially referenced
of the three world religions of Islam, Judaism and the unprecedented mass arrival of non-Europeans
Christendom. Cultures in the Eastern Mediterranean fleeing violence and poverty increasingly is meant
region were characterised over the centuries by
to indicate the fundamental threat these newcomers
religiously and ethnically plural societies, which
pose to European values and stability.
today are under threat. Museums are memorial sites
In Germany, the Willkommenskultur, which
of a common past.4
Germans continue to be proud of, was quickly re-
The initiative thus followed a clear pedagogi- placed by heated public debates about the danger
cal goal, that is, integration into German society that almost one million largely Muslim refugees
through an education in tolerance and apprecia- present to a society allegedly grounded in values
tion of humanity’s common heritage. With this, such as gender equality and religious tolerance—
the Multaqa initiative aligns with the dominant values that Muslims, not having gone through the
narrative around the refugee crisis, which frames Enlightenment experience, are assumed not to
Europe as a peaceful island of civility, stability, and share or even to be openly hostile to. In this con-
prosperity, surrounded by chaotic regions: a Middle text, the Multaqa project, representing the best of
East increasingly succumbing to radical Islam, a these Enlightenment values and aiming at educat-
permanently underdeveloped and war-torn Africa, ing Muslim refugees in this tradition rather than
and an aggressive Russian empire threatening the excluding them, received positive media responses.
continent’s East. The refugee crisis originating in Almost all coverage in the national and internation-
these regions suddenly and unexpectedly reached al press featured tours in the Pergamon Museum,
Europe, which is being pulled into it and must find with the Ishtar Gate as the favored backdrop (the
imminent solutions to overwhelming challenges refugees themselves preferred tours of the German
(as it so often had to through the course of world Historical Museum).6 Media reports tended to have
history). This narrative is convenient, but it ignores a similar hook: the emotional meeting between the
Europe’s culpability, not only in allowing the situa- refugees and the beautiful art from their war-torn
tion to escalate to this point, but in creating many home countries. There is an inevitable pattern to this
of its sources. encounter. A Guardian article cites one of the tour
The narrative around the refugee crisis is none- guides: “The first question we usually get asked is:
theless convincing, because it builds on a larger he- how did all this end up in Germany?”7 Interestingly
gemonic narrative, that of Europe, and in particular enough, this question is never answered (and only
its Northwest, as the origin and natural home of hu- the international press hints at larger controver-
man rights and Enlightenment; whatever might be sies around stolen colonial art).8 Instead, the typi-
wrong here, so the story goes, it is certainly worse cal and convenient response, here presented by the
everywhere else. This self-image, however, was not New York Times, is: “Often, the visitors say the art
reflected in the continent’s migration or refugee pol- is probably better off in Berlin because so much in
icies. Europe, never considering itself a continent of Syria has been destroyed by the war and the Islamic
or for migrants, in many ways still takes a restric- State.”9 The Guardian quotes the director of the
tive approach to immigration, and hesitant steps in Museum for Islamic Art: “Some objects have a com-
a different direction, such as Germany’s quite recent plicated history.”10
self-assessment as an “immigration nation,” are un- My interest here is not to criticize the Multaqa
done in a rapid and often chaotic retreat from any project but rather the “complicated history” it is
notion of open borders since the summer of 2015, embedded in and the reasons why this history re-
when the so-called refugee crisis began to domi- mains unaddressed, both within the project and
nate national and continental debates, producing in general. Absent from the concerted rewriting
dramatic shifts within the European Union, from of European twentieth-century history after the
closed borders to Brexit and the continentwide rise end of the Cold War, which combined postfascist

El-Tayeb Nka • 75
View of Museum Island from the Humboldt Forum, Berlin.  2019 Fatima El-Tayeb

and postsocialist narratives into a Western capital- This malleability is particularly obvious in the
ist success story, was a third factor in dire need of perception of refugees and undocumented mi-
reassessment: Europe’s colonial past. The refusal to grants, especially those classified as “economic mi-
engage with this past as internal to Europe’s history grants” (primarily North and West African Muslims
also shaped the continent’s vision of its future, man- and East European Roma) whose death by the thou-
ifest in a steadily growing postcolonial population sands at Europe’s southern (and increasingly east-
that remains “un-European” and in futile attempts ern) border is willingly accepted.11 By classifying
to once and for all define and fortify Europe’s physi- the vast majority of contemporary refugees as “un-
cal, political, and identitarian borders. Borders, deserving,” the focus is turned away from the abject
which are imagined to be self-evident, stable, and moral and political failure of Enlightened Europe
natural but which are—as the representation of the (strikingly similar to the European handling of
“Mediterranean” art on Berlin’s Museum Island earlier refugee crises after World War I and during
strikingly shows—malleable, shifting, and largely World War II). Instead, immobilization—in refugee
imaginary, though very real nonetheless. centers, detention camps, and ghettos—becomes

76 • Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art • 46 • May 2020

a normalized response to the presence of “mobile” Judeo-Christian history, which erases both the en-
populations, be they refugees, migrants, or diaspor- demic European antisemitism (which, instead, is
ic minorities such as Roma and Sinti, their supposed projected onto European Muslims as something
state of eternal and essential not-belonging offering they bring in from outside) and the shared Judeo-
sufficient justification for their punitive treatment.12 Christian-Islamic culture projected onto the Eastern
In order to understand the interdependence be- Mediterranean, which then is claimed as proto-Eu-
tween this externalization of racialized populations ropean in the museum narrative. In contrast, in its
and “enlightened” integration initiatives such as immigration policies, Germany seems hard-pressed
Multaqa, it is necessary to ask how the colonial past to see commonalities with the Syrian and Iraqi na-
manifests itself in the postcolonial metropolis and tions that it otherwise feels so connected to when
how it impacts the positionality of racialized com- claiming the region’s cultural productions.
munities. These questions, however, are hardly ever These claims are far from uncontested, of course.
asked, especially in Germany, which believes itself Egypt, for example, has demanded the return of the
largely untouched by Europe’s colonial history. Nefertiti bust since 1925. When Germany rejected
This brings me back to Museum Island, more this demand for the last time in 2011, the under-
specifically to its official website, which traces the is- secretary of culture declared, “Art is part of the uni-
land’s history from the opening of the “Old Museum” versal human heritage and—wherever it is—should
in 1830 to that of the Pergamon Museum a century be made accessible to as many people as possible.”15
later, and proclaims that “the initial plans for the This accessibility happens to be given in Berlin rath-
construction of the Museumsinsel Berlin were driv- er than Cairo and Bagdad—accessibility at least to
en by the humanistic ideals of the Enlightenment the people who count, since much of the world is
that prevailed in the early 19th century.”13 In the his- not allowed into Europe, especially people in the re-
torical overview that follows, there is no reference gions from which this “universal” art was stolen.16
to the National Socialist regime or the fact that until The issue of stolen cultural artifacts is a small
the unification, the museums were on the territory but significant part of the debate around the colo-
of the German Democratic Republic, embedded in nial legacy, and this process is not over. Art is be-
an entirely different narrative of history. In light of coming an increasingly important investment for
these strategic omissions, it is hardly surprising that the ultra-rich but also for multinationals directly
colonialism is not mentioned at all; instead, the is- involved in neocolonial exploitation. Iraqi curator
land is introduced like this: Rijin Sahakian eloquently unmasks the supposedly
Situated in the very heart of the city, the Museumsinsel apolitical humanism of the universal museum:
Berlin is one of the country’s major sights, attracting History is, in fact, shared. If we, as a community of
hundreds of thousands of guests from all over the artists, educators and citizens of the world hope to
world each year. This unparalleled museum ensemble understand what is taking place in our education
was the cradle of today’s Staatliche Museen zu Berlin systems, governments and the mechanics of the arts
and is where it showcases its magnificent collections and accessibility, then we must take this global site into
of art and cultural artefacts spanning several millennia consideration and look at what our information—or
from Europe and the wider Mediterranean region.14 lack thereof—says not simply about Iraq but ourselves
and the systems we take part in every day.17
This sneaking inclusion of the wider
Mediterranean into Europe’s cultural heritage is es- The enlightened encyclopedic museum was only
pecially grating, since currently the Mediterranean possible because European powers could acquire
stands for a cultural, economic, religious, and po- art for nothing, and they continue to profit from it.
litical divide that literally marks the world’s dead- The Neues Museum without the Nefertiti and the
liest border. In the German imagination, the Pergamon without the Ishtar Gate would constitute
Mediterranean has come to represent an immutable significant blows to Berlin’s tourism industry and
civilizational divide, manifesting the incompatibility to its status as a global cultural capital. That these
of Islam and Europe. This is, for example, reflected museums are concentrated in the Global North
in increasingly popular references to the continent’s is not due to its humanism but its colonial theft,

El-Tayeb Nka • 77
which directly links them to the question of repa- Leaving aside the question why Berlin of all
rations. Apart from the immense financial value of places should be predestined for this (other than
pieces like the Nefertiti, it should not be forgotten the fact that thousands of African artifacts are al-
that colonialism included systematic brainwashing: ready stashed away in Berlin-Dahlem), the art on
in state and missionary schools the “natives” were Museum Island has now become entirely European,
taught European superiority and their own inferi- despite its partial origin in Syria, Iraq, and Egypt.21
ority and lack of culture. Meanwhile, the colonizers This is no coincidence. The “non-European” collec-
systematically raided the supposedly nonexisting tions in the Humboldt Forum represent “primitive”
cultural artifacts. This is directly addressed in the art and cultures from different regions and time pe-
2013 Caribbean Community (CARICOM) invita- riods, but all are characterized by their static status
tion to Europe to enter a “reparative dialogue” on as Europe’s Other. In contrast, the “European” art
settler colonialism, slavery, and their aftermath.18 on Museum Island tells a story of progress through
The Caribbean organization’s ten-point statement space and time, from ancient Babylon to nine-
prominently addresses the cultural impact of racist teenth-century Europe. This story is largely repre-
European rule and the ongoing effect of its politics sented by art from civilizations that, despite being
of remembrance: outside of Europe’s supposed political and cultural
4) Cultural Institutions: European nations have in- borders, are implied to be more closely related to,
vested in the development of community institutions and thus owned by, Europe than to that region’s
such as museums and research centers in order to pre- current (Islamic) culture. In other words, these re-
pare their citizens for an understanding of these CAH gions, or rather their ancient cultures, are integrated
[crimes against humanity]. into an internalist European narrative, while their
These facilities serve to reinforce within the con- contemporary inhabitants and those Europeans de-
sciousness of their citizens an understanding of their scending from them are denied this integrated (or
role in history as rulers and change agents. There are “integratable”) status.
no such institutions in the Caribbean where the CAH The Humboldt Forum is not only controversial
were committed. because it will house tens of thousands of pieces of
Caribbean schoolteachers and researchers do not have stolen art. Additionally, in order to build it, the East
the same opportunity. Descendants of these CAH Berlin Palast der Republik (Palace of the Republic)
continue to suffer the disdain of having no relevant had to be torn down. The building, home to the
institutional systems through which their experience German Democratic Republic parliament, the
can be scientifically told. This crisis must be remedied Volkskammer, was a visible reminder of something
within the CRJP [CARICOM Reparations Justice that had little space in the new future-oriented
Program].19 Germany: the forty-year history of the German
In order for Europe to take up this call, it must Democratic Republic. Accordingly, the question of
finally understand colonial history as its own. This whether or not to tear down the palace became rep-
is obvious when we return to Museum Island and resentative of a highly charged debate on how the
its current expansion via the nearly completed con- united nation would deal with its state socialist heri-
struction of the Humboldt Forum, adjacent to the tage. The political decision not to keep the palace as
island. The forum is key to the 2005 “masterplan a site of memory and its replacement with an older,
for Berlin’s center as a place of universal enlighten- less-loaded version of Germany is symptomatic of
ment, a place of global art and global competency the way the united Germany dealt with the nation’s
through Berlin’s state museum as the largest exist- shared history: whether Berlin’s center would be
ing encyclopedic museum, the Humboldt Forum,” facing toward the future or the past appeared as a
said Peter-Klaus Schuster, then director of State moral question and one about Germany’s prospect
Museums Schuster. He continued to state that “the role in the world. A restored Palace of the Republic
European collection on the museum island will en- would have kept alive the memory of more than one
ter a unique dialog with the non-European collec- Germany, of the existence of more than one version
tions in the castle area in Berlin’s heart.”20 of Germanness. The newly designed city center, in

78 • Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art • 46 • May 2020

Humboldt Forum, east and south façade, Berlin, November 2019. © Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss/Stephan Falk

contrast, was meant to symbolize the new united reestablished through it: German normalcy, away
and forward-facing Germany. from the memory of national socialism, war, and
It is relevant that the reference point for this holocaust toward an unburdened future in the tra-
new Germany is the fifteenth-century City Palace dition of enlightened Prussianness.
(the Prussian and then imperial residency), severely If the destruction of the Palace of the Republic is
damaged in WWII and destroyed by the German read as the decision to push a positive memory dis-
Democratic Republic government in 1950. Its res- course, whose reference to the past does not mean
toration as part of the Humboldt Forum is highly shame and guilt but the evocation of a proud tradi-
symbolic; it is meant to represent a new direction tion of Enlightenment symbolized by the brothers
after Germany’s twentieth-century missteps back Humboldt, then it was also the decision for a sin-
to a tradition of poets and philosophers suppos- gular linear narrative of the past in which there is
edly more representative of the nation than the de- no room for plurality, for versions of Germanness
cades of national socialism and communism. Both diverging from the dominant one: the reality of a
the outside of the Humboldt Forum, through the German normalcy that encompasses a variety of
restored castle front, and the inside, via the ency- positionalities and histories was not only not rec-
clopedic collection, do not remind us of what van- ognized but actively repressed. This is highly prob-
ished with the unification but, rather, what was lematic, as the new German reality is not only

El-Tayeb Nka • 79
Billboard for exhibition Beyond Compare: Art from Africa in the Bode-Museum, Berlin, October 27, 2017–November 24, 2019.  2019 Fatima El-Tayeb

determined by the East-West conflict of memory, the redesign of the Potsdamer Platz to the destruc-
but also by the extreme power imbalance between tion of the East German Palace of the Republic, to
white/Christian and minoritized Germans. the ongoing construction of the Humboldt Forum,
Balance can only be restored if the roots of this reclaiming the nation’s humanist past by creating
inequality are addressed rather than negated, as in “the world’s largest encyclopedic museum.” There
Europe’s internalist story. This leads us back to the has been considerable controversy around the fo-
question of collective memory and how it is con- rum and its message, in part because the colonial
structed. Past, present, and future intersect in the re- link is so obvious: between 1880 and 1914, when
building of Berlin’s center after the unification, from Germany lost its colonies, the collection of African

80 • Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art • 46 • May 2020

art had grown from a few hundred to forty-seven left traces that have been uncovered by a growing
thousand pieces. More disturbing, among the col- movement invested in building alternative archives
lection are human remains, including those of the and, through them, a different European narrative.
Herero people, murdered in Germany’s genocidal Steyerl begins her film with a quote by Jewish
war in Namibia 1904–07.22 Protests against the fo- German cultural critic Siegfried Kracauer: “To
rum were spearheaded by a multiracial, anti(neo) found a tradition of lost processes, to give a name
colonial coalition, No Humboldt 21!, which in its to the formerly nameless.”25 Kracauer’s words are
2013 founding resolution makes explicit the link echoed in queer African American poet Audre
between the internalist narrative, the archive, colo- Lorde’s reflection on poetry as an essential tool of
nialism, and racism at home: survival: “Poetry is the way we help give name to the
We demand that the work on the Humboldt Forum nameless so it can be thought. . . . And where that
in the Berlin Palace be ceased and that a public language does not yet exist, it is our poetry which
debate be held: the current concept violates the helps to fashion it. Poetry is not only dream and
dignity and property rights of communities in all vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives.”26
parts of the world, it is Eurocentric and restorative. Both statements resonate with the resistance to a
The establishment of the Humboldt Forum is a direct singular, internalist story of Europeanness and the
contradiction to the aim [of] promoting equality in a creation of the skeleton architecture for a different
migration society.23 Europe.
No Humboldt 21! is linked to a global movement
focused on the repatriation of remains and artifacts Fatima El-Tayeb is a professor of literature and
stolen during colonialism. The transnational move- ethnic studies at University of California San Diego.
ment mirrors the transcolonial trade of not only art
but human bodies, bringing Herero remains to New Notes
York and native Hawaiians to Berlin. It also reflects 1 Stuart Hall, “Europe’s Other Self,” Marxism Today 35 (1991):
a growing movement of artists and activists address- 18.
2 As anthropologist Ghassan Hage recently observed, the “state
ing the complicity of museums, galleries, and other of permanent crisis seem[s] to have become the very way in which
cultural institutions in (neo)colonial exploitation.24 capitalist economies and societies ensured their reproduction.”
An early example of this is the 1998 film Die leere Hage argues that the notion of crisis is not tied anymore to the like-
lihood of change (possibly for the better) but to endurance, that is,
Mitte (The Empty Center) by Japanese German art- crisis as something that signifies the undesirability or impossibility
ist and theorist Hito Steyerl. Die leere Mitte shows of change. Ghassan Hage, Alter-Politics: Critical Anthropology and
that it is possible to use Berlin’s center to tell a very the Radical Imagination (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press,
different story about Germany and its colonial past. 2015), 74.
3 Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, “Jahrespressekonferenz
The experimental documentary focuses on another 2016 der Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Anhang: Besucher-,
post-unification prestige project in Berlin’s center, Nutzer- und Bestandszahlen im Jahr 2015” (Annual Press Confer-
the transformation of the Potsdamer Platz, a space ence of the Foundation Prussian Cultural Heritage. Annex: Visitor,
User and Inventory numbers in 2015), press release, January 2016,
whose neoliberal redesign even more radically sup- [Link]/fileadmin/user_upload/docu-
pressed the many layers of history present there than ments/presse/pressemitteilungen/2016/160126_JPK_02_Zahlen
the construction of the Humboldt Forum. Steyerl’s .pdf.
4 Museum für Islamische Kunst, “Multaqa: Museum as Meeting
film uncovers these layers through the stories of Point—Refugees as Guides in Berlin Museums,” [Link]-
those considered “unGerman” in various historical seum/en/museums-institutions/museum-fuer-islamische-kunst
periods, from Jews kept out of Berlin’s nineteenth- /collection-research/research-cooperation/[Link] (accessed
September 10, 2019).
century city center by a customs border, through 5 dpa, “BKA-Chef warnt vor Gefahr neuer rechter Terror­
migrants from Germany’s African colonies hustling zellen” (Head of BKA Warns of Danger Posed by New Right
to survive in the Weimar Republic, to Vietnamese Wing Terror Groups) Süddeutsche Zeitung, June 25, 2016, www.
[Link]/panorama/kriminalitaet-bka-chef-warnt-vor
contract workers in East Berlin and the undocu- -[Link]-newsml-dpa-com
mented Polish laborers hired cheaply to build the -20090101-160625-99-447306.
new Potsdamer Platz in the early 1990s. Their sto- 6 “Multaqa: Museum as Meeting Point.”
ries were erased from the national memory, but they 7 Philip, Oltermann, “Berlin Museums’ Refugee Guides

El-Tayeb Nka • 81
Scheme Fosters Meeting of Minds,” Guardian, February 27, 2016, 18 “The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is a grouping of
[Link]/world/2016/feb/27/berlin-museums-refu- twenty countries. . . . It is home to approximately sixteen million
gee-guides-scheme-fosters-meeting-of-minds. citizens . . . from the main ethnic groups of Indigenous Peoples,
8 See Rachel Donadio, “Berlin’s Museum Tours in Arabic Forge Africans, Indians, Europeans, Chinese, Portuguese and Javanese.”
a Bridge to Refugees,” New York Times, February 28, 2016, www CARICOM, “Who We Are,” [Link]/about-caricom/who-we
.[Link]/2016/02/29/arts/design/berlins-museum-tours-in -are (accessed October 23, 2019).
-[Link]. 19 “10-Point Reparation Plan,” Caricom Reparations Commis-
9 Donadio, “Berlin’s Museum Tours.” sion, [Link]/caricom/caricoms-10-point-repara-
10 Oltermann, “Berlin Museums’ Refugee Guides.” tion-plan (accessed October 28, 2019).
11 See the ongoing crisis around NGOs, which have largely tak- 20 Peter-Klaus Schuster, “Das universale Museum: Europa und
en over the humanitarian work of rescuing migrants from drown- die Welt—vom Betenden Knaben über Nofretete zum Humboldt-
ing in the Mediterranean. Not only are their vessels denied entry Forum” (“The Encyclopedic Museum: Europe and the World—
into European waters, against international law, leaving them and from the Praying Boy to Nefertiti and the Humboldt-Forum”),
hundreds of refugees stranded, these organizations as well as pri- [Link], August 12, 2005, [Link]/aktuell/ausgaben/2005
vate citizens engaged in rescue efforts are criminalized as human /dezember/ereignisse/[Link]. My translation.
traffickers. See Megan Specia, “Hundreds of Migrants Stranded 21 Larissa Förster, “Nichts gewagt, nichts gewonnen: Die
in Mediterranean in Standoff Over Aid Ships,” New York Times, Ausstellung ‘Anders zur Welt kommen. Das Humboldt-Forum
August 12, 2019, [Link]/2019/08/12/world/europe/ im Schloss. Ein Werkstattblick’” (“No Pain No Gain: The Exhibit
[Link]?rref=collection%2Ftimes ‘Coming to the World Differently. The Humboldt-Forum in the
topic%2FDoctors%20Without%20Borders&action=click&content Castle. A Workshop Perspective”), Paideuma: Mitteilungen zur
Collection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit& Kulturkunde 56, (2010): 241–61.
version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=collection. 22 Andrew Zimmerman, Anthropology and Antihumanism in
12 Fatima El-Tayeb, Undeutsch. Die Konstruktion des Anderen in Imperial Germany (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).
der postmigrantischen Gesellschaft (UnGerman. The Construction 23 No Humboldt21!, “Moratorium für das Humboldt-Forum
of Otherness in Postmigrant Societies)(Bielefeld, Germany: im Berliner Schloss,” [Link]/resolution/ (accessed
Transcript, 2016). September 10, 2019). The advisory committee for the forum tried
13 Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, “Museumsinsel—Profil” to address the criticism by suggesting naming the square in front of
(“Museum Island—Profile”), [Link]/museen-und-ein­ Humboldt Forum after Nelson Mandela, an idea to which the South
richtungen/museumsinsel-berlin/ueber-uns/[Link] (accessed African embassy reacted with the hope that “Mandela’s integrity
September 10, 2019). and legacy will be considered in the decision making process, in
14 “Museumsinsel—Profil.” particular with regard to his principled position on topics such as
15 Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, “Kultur­ colonialism, racism, slavery, cultural and material exploitation as
staatsminister Bernd Neumann eröffnet Ausstellung ‘Im Licht von well as with respect for the cultural legacy of the people and nations
Amarna: 100 Jahre Fund der Nofretete’” (“Undersecretary of Culture of Africa.” See No Humboldt21!, “Mandela ist kein Preußischer
Bernd Neumann Opens Exhibit ‘In the Light of Amarna: 100 Year Kulturbesitz” (“Mandela is no Prussian Cultural Heritage”), press
Discovery of Nefertiti’”), December 5, 2012, [Link] release, December 16, 2013, [Link]/wp-content
.de/breg-de/bundesregierung/staatsministerin-fuer-kultur-und /uploads/2013/12/PM-NoHumboldt21_ISD.pdf. The suggestion
-medien/kulturstaatsminister-bernd-neumann-eroeffnet-ausstel- was subsequently dropped.
lung-im-licht-von-amarna-100-jahre-fund-der-nofretete--428448. 24 See “Editorial Note to Feature #2,” ed. Eunsong Kim and
16 The universal museum argument is not specific to Germany Gelare Khoshgozaran, Contemptorary, September 29, 2016, con-
or Europe. See James Cuno, CEO of the Getty Trust (the Getty is [Link]/editorial-note-to-feature-2.
the world’s richest museum) and author of several books in defense 25 Die leere Mittte, directed by Hito Steyerl (Munich: University
of the encyclopedic museum: “By preserving and presenting ex- of Television and Film Munich, 1998). My translation.
amples of the world’s cultures, they offer their visitors the world in 26 Audre Lorde, “Poetry Is Not a Luxury,” in Sister Outsider:
all its rich diversity. And in doing so, they protect and advance the Essays and Speeches (Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press, 1984), 36–39.
idea of openness and integration in a changing world.” James Cuno, Shortly after the volume’s publication, Lorde temporarily moved
“Culture War: The Case Against Repatriating Museum Artifacts,” to Berlin (primarily to seek cancer treatment), where she became
Foreign Affairs 93, no. 6 (2014), [Link]/articles an important mentor to the fledgling Black Germans movement,
/africa/culture-war. This rejection of nationalism in favor of en- which in turn has been central to the struggle to recognize the
lightened cosmopolitanism applies to artifacts but is not extended genocide German troops committed in Namibia (then German
to contemporary migrants, who are as irrelevant to high art uni- Southwest-Africa) in 1904.
versalism as the producers of artworks stolen during colonialism.
17 Iraq was raided not only during the nineteenth century, but
also after the 2003 US invasion. While the protection of pre-Islamic
art from ISIS provides additional legitimation for the West, the lu-
crative trade with Iraqi and Syrian art sold primarily to Europe,
the United States, and the Gulf states remains as unexplored as the
destruction of historical sites to build US bases. See Eunsong Kim
and Gelare Khoshgozaran, “Politics as Currency and the Souvenirs
of War: Reflections on Rijin Sahakian’s Statement on the Closing of
Sada for Iraqi Art,” Contemptorary, April 18, 2016, contemptorary.
org/politics-as-currency-and-the-souvenirs-of-war-reflections-on
-rijin-sahakians-statement-on-the-closing-of-sada-for-iraqi-art.

82 • Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art • 46 • May 2020

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