BY DR TONY MONDA
Colonial imperialism supported and facilitated the colonisation of African knowledge and the unlawful ownership of our tangible and intangible cultural heritage; but its greater damage has been the
dislocation of people’s socio-religious identity and the erasure of cultural memory. The colonial pillage and damage of our indigenous worldview means that contemporary African’s perception of ‘self’ is distorted with colonial mirages. Confusions of identity, inferiority complexes and even gender-confusion have become the order of the day for many colonially-indoctrinated African people.
The mass looting of indigenous artefacts and cultural trappings during the rise of European colonialism was led by the British, French, Belgians and Germans under the pretext of acquiring knowledge. Part of this knowledge base included human body remains and artefacts that are kept as specimen in boxes in Western museums furnished by Colonial plundering during their conquests of the 18th and early 19th Centuries. Some of the Zimbabwean artefacts dating from this period can still be found in the Iowa, Dallas, Toledo and British Museums and various private collections worldwide.
A major component of nation-building today is the post-colonial reconstruction of our memory. In order for us to determine our historical genealogy, identity and Hunhu as a people, the restitution of our cultural material, which traditionally served as an axis for our social cohesion, is a tangible and necessary part of the process.
Following my numerous pleas for the reclamation and restitution of our memory and culture from colonial bondage and the assertion by the former President, Robert Mugabe, to restitute the remains of our captured national heroes, it is befitting that we understand and re-examine the far-reaching effects of the removal of the remains of our heroes and cultural trappings, and placing them in foreign museums for the voyeuristic sake of Western curiosity and the degradation of Africa and the African.
In the process of colonisation, the perception and understanding of our cultural artefacts and their significance to the communities was severed from indigenous African people. By virtue of the forced seizure and unlawful confiscation of our indigenous cultural objects and other religious trappings relevant to our indigenous African religion, the right to worship was removed from the people.
The international law of repatriation of cultural property was formulated in the Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property Convention. It established for the first time, international guidelines stating that cultural property of all kinds should be protected by all nations and should be the subject of repatriation when unlawfully removed.
Cultural repatriation is not a simple process. It is a complex and continually changing body of discourse, which often legally ‘shape-shifts’ to the advantage of Western museums that continue to benefit from the ownership of our looted heritage. Although there has been a dramatic shift in the last two decades or so, the inherent intricacies in Zimbabwe and other African countries whose culture has been affected is not easy.
There are many legal, political and cultural issues involved that are affected by international cultural laws and diplomacy. The practicality and process are evident and serve to highlight the unresolved cultural politics.
A great part of our memory resides in our visual culture. Hence the politics of post-colonial heritage, cultural restitution and its accompanying repatriation is more than a simple reclamation of national property. It is also the reclamation of African wisdom, knowledge, identity, memory and validation as a people.
According to Dr Michelina Andreucci, a Sapienza University alumni and Zimbabwean socio-cultural commentator – “African art and artefacts have long been coveted for their originality and ergonomic design intelligence . . . Many contemporary scientific and design theories on ergonomics and fractal patterns have been culled from indigenous African artefacts and tools, and are being used in Western industrial art and design universities. It is only right that Zimbabwean indigenous people reclaim and incorporate traditional design knowledge in their modern design philosophies and rightfully reclaim the intelligence integrated in African visual culture.”
An essential part of a nation’s definition is the ownership and control of indigenous cultural material objects, which according to internationally recognised legal parameters are defined as, “human remains, associated and unassociated funerary objects, sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony.”
Good international relations hinge on cordiality, civility and the respect of other nations and their peoples.
However, when relations are superseded by Western retentionist laws such as ascentionism employed by Western museum protocol to retain indigenous African art and cultural objects seized during colonial raids, then Africa and other indigenous colonised and plundered people need to make it a mandatory topic of discourse at such forums as the African Union (AU), United Nations (UN), and the European Court of Justice.
While the vast amount of information that informs contemporary cultural repatriation is potentially informative to African communities intending to restitute their heritage, the various protocols pertaining to illicit international cultural vandalism, conflict archaeology and cultural heritage laws of bequest and restitution in Zimbabwe still need to be examined. The yet incomplete Zimbabwean Draft Culture Policy of 2004, also still needs to be re-visited to clarify and accommodate important aspects for the restitution of our heritage.
As Zimbabwe, we also need to be well versed with Western retentionist agenda in order to dismantle it.
New technologies and digital media also need to embrace in order to disseminate and reinforce our presence and African memory over the colonial hard drive – and as Dr Tafataona Mahoso rightly points out “To flush the white disc out of our black memory and hard drive.”
Given pre-independence archaeology and law history were the domain and preserve of white Rhodesian scholars, how can African countries, particularly Zimbabwe initiate the return of their revered cultural objects?
Our cultural artefacts in Western museums must be verified. But Africa, including Zimbabwe, needs to determine and implement appropriate legislation for the preservation and means of handling and storing these cultural artefacts.
Furthermore we need to re-visit international legislation on the illegal
exportation of cultural objects and claim damages. There has to be substantive monetary compensation for the illicit removal and continued ownership of African sovereign heritage. Our history, sovereignty and understanding of who we are, requires a systematic and rigorous dismantling of the vestiges of all colonial systems in order to free the minds of Zimbabweans and other post-colonial Africans.
The Preamble to the, South African National Heritage Resources Act 1999, clarifies my point accordingly:
“Our heritage is unique and precious and it cannot be renewed. It helps us to define our cultural identity and therefore lies at the heart of our spiritual well-being and has the power to build our nation. It has the potential to affirm our diverse cultures, and in so doing shape our national character. Our heritage celebrates our achievements and contributes to redressing past inequities. It educates, it deepens our understanding of society and encourages us to empathise with the experience of others. It facilitates healing and material and symbolic restitution and it promotes new and previously neglected research into our rich oral traditions and customs.”
Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa must be vigilant and heedful in the quest to rightfully reclaim our African heritage.
The force of Western written history, which still shapes our emotions, memory and ownership of our indigenous African heritage, is closely bound up with Western fabricated socio-psychological,political and religious motives for us to disown our knowledge of ourselves. Given Southern Africanpeople are still victims of well-orchestrated cultural, commercial and psychological oppression, it is incumbent on us that we reclaim our indigenous history, orature, knowledge and most of all the ownership of our contributions to world knowledge.
Dr Tony Monda holds a PhD. in Art Theory and Philosophy and a DBA in Post-Colonial Heritage Studies. He contributes to Gemnation news. E- mail:tonym.MONDA@gmail.com
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