Okwui Enwezor Distinguished Lecture 2024 - Invisible (Hi)Story. Exploring Black East German History
Abstract
- Abstract
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The Fourth Okwui Enwezor Distinguished Lecture 2024 took place on 17 July 2024 and was held by Dr. Katharina Warda. It was entitled "Invisible (Hi)Story. Exploring Black East German History".
German history is for the most part a white and West German history. The history of the GDR and East Germany after 1990 mostly appears as marginal notes. Black history is highly contested and mostly an intellectual experiment rather than anchored in German history. But what happens when the two marginalized narratives intersect? Black East German history emerges as a void, a blank space. Their individuals are doubly invisible – their stories, experiences and perspectives are virtually non-existent. Yet this doubly neglected part of German history not only contains complex histories between Blackness, socialism and internationalism. As part of East German history of color, these histories and perspectives shed a completely different light on current narratives of the Cold War and the ongoing political shift to the right.
About the lecture series
The Okwui Enwezor Distinguished Lecture annually features a prominent artist, curator, or scholars, individuals or collectives, who will engage with groundbreaking contributions to the rethinking of the role of arts and culture in a global perspective and celebrate the legacy of curator, historian, an poet Okwui Enwezor (1963–2019). Lecturers in 2021 and 2022 have been Prof Chika Okeke-Agulu, as well as the curatorial duo Nantume Violet and the late Ijeoma Uche-Okeke, represented by Asele Institute.
Find out more about the Cluster of Excellence here: https://www.africamultiple.uni-bayreuth.de/en/index.html
Description
- Transcript
- my name is W Zan and I'm talking here now as uh the dean of the Africa multiple Trust of Excellence this is the fourth time we are holding the distinguished invasor lecture so it's already become a tradition we introduce this together with IA La house um back in 2020 the first was online and then we had two more lectures on site and I'm extremely pleased uh that we are able to convene here again on site with an exciting speaker I want to acknowledge um also uh our interpreters we have the uh interational International sign language interpreters with us uh so this is going to be recorded and archived um this is also yeah I'm going to take much more of your time before Karina think will introduce the speaker uh this is the first time we are having um an invasor andant that we are in the UN decade for people of African desent to acknowledge this also in our work notice I'm about that and very pleased and would like to ask you to give a very very warm [Music] welcome pleasure to introduce our speaker of Honor because it's really a big honor thank you Karina for making the way so dear Karina Vada dear colleagues and Friends it is a [Music] pleasure voiceless that only the deliberately silenced or the [Music] prefer invited to lead happy we can the evening together at I house here and I'm really glad that two ways speaker work against the violence of the white stiven Sor to name a thing by its name is a de Colonial activity and of such stature to my mind is katalina's work I want to shed light on her work as a freelance author with the focus on East Germany marginalized identities racism classism and punk the since 2021 she has been a member of The Advisory Board of K super important and Nationwide theater project on the MSU complex in her project dun deutchland I'm saying that in German because we need to say that in German so dun Dutchland are for the English speakers dark Germany she explores the post reunification period from the social margins and illuminates blind spot in German often West German historiography based on her own experience as a black e German woman growing up in the gdr and after 1989 a very recent project really needs to be seen soon when it's done and hopefully you can be screened at stud our sister Angela a film about the enthusiastic solidarity movement for black civil rights activist Angela Davis in the DDR in the moment of the 1917s who attracted tens of thousands of people and so on so on Karina can talk much more about that but we want to congratulate her on the awards she has been winning for a pitch of a film already so the first moment for Applause is now but beyond all of that the quality of the work the courage and so on I want to come to a second connection to Karina V's work which is by War and by closeness and the beauty of weaving together people's bases and idea the fact that our shared contact our friend or nearly friend I don't know man PR author and artists who has been doing exceptional work for the memory of our dear Anarchist Alis mam our poet and originary who was killed by the Nazis 90 years ago on the 10th of July in 1934 in the concentration camp of Oran BG Mana brought all of us together in order to make something out of this and this leads to another F of the decolonial citoral effort I think in the light in the light of which We Gather and perhaps this is the core of the work the love for complicated Truth for telling stories of violence and holding space for stories to unfold is an act of love and that's not an easy one it's a labor of love indeed as an exhibition at the job at Gallery corrected by gab too was titled James Baldwin who I'd love to St here the Great American author writes in his work the fire next time that love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within I use the word for when speaking love here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being or a state of grace not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and and Universal sense of quest and daring and growth so in that sense of making each other learn and grow and share with one another what is available to us Mana who we praise all the time connected Karina Vada IA Li house the cluster of excellence and the San arts academy and asking us to get in touch to join forces and so thank thanks to hard work and to Friendship we're here together and K W is doing research on her father's story in a place in Johannesburg in sop town which is adorned sorry I love this connection which is adorned by a mural done by our beloved artist and friend Yim boui who's based in mares right now but whose mural flying wall has been a core element of I li house since 2016 if you haven't seen it before I take you there afterwards because it's quite important so in the light of these networks we are eager to listen to Ste live Sonic offering for kada later tonight which he sending to us from arra so we we the net tight so that even in a DI unbearably unimaginative time marked and bruised by what my partner in crime the chef and curator and artist danil called the poverty of ideas we are not alone and we Bank on the potential of intentional connection rather than institutional ones so learning from Network ecosystems from mushrooms Coral Reeves and other that Adrian Marie Brown is talking about so beautifully in her book emergence strategy that is a good way to refer back to the reason we are here to celebrate the perhaps still unseen connection the freedom of thoughts and the commitment to complexity that Karina V's work stands for and the attention that he ideas demand for that is one line in the over of O and who we donate not donate but who we uh like I don't know who we who we um dedicate the Lector thank you and this Gathering too in which he speaks about staying um unaffiliated as free from sticky institutional connections as possible as independent as possible but mostly work working out spaces for stories to grow to intersect to breathe and to claim their space Untamed bold shy whatever form the story as life calls for such is the care that Katarina vada's practice lives by we cannot wait to see and to feel and to experience the fruit of a research on the roots of Exile activists the connections and the new past and presents and futures emerging from that research from all of us gathered in Jurg because there's a lot of people listening in Johannesburg from all of us meeting here right now and listening wherever in the world thanks for the hard work Karina and thanks for spending time which is the greatest gift and we're very aware of that so we're very much looking forward to hearing your words now please come thank you very much can can you hear me no well thank you very much it was um a wonderful amazing day beautiful um introduction thank you so much and thank you so much for having me such an honor to speak today um I wrote quite a long text for today so please bear with me I also brought some pictures to make it more lifely maybe um and I will just go right into it um to have enough time in the end to have maybe some conversation about what we heard invisible history story exploring black East joury German history 3 years ago I published a personal essay on the prominent German newspaper we site time that started like this it took me okay it took me 35 years to understand that I'm not alone maybe I never was who knows who can tell cuz my people are the invisible ones that ASA was one of four personal Reflections on identity by fellow East Germans and yet it stood out because my biographical introduction broke with an so far unquestioned narrative regarding the imagery of East Germans which sounded like that I was born in 1985 in a small town in Zia my mother is a white white German factory worker and my father was black and a South African anti- aparte activist who found political refuge in the gdr that was no coincidence since thec the African National Congress the anti- aparted organization around Freedom Fighters like Nelson Mandela was highly supported um by the gdr and other East flock countries simultaneously thec was disregarded as a terrorist threat spr by Western countries such as West Germany that profited highly from the ultra racist South African aparte system nevertheless I still would never get to know my brother because my parents biracial relationship was not appreciated in my home country the gdr as a result of my mother getting pregnant with me and refusing to have an abortion my parents were a pressure to break up and my father was supposed to be expelled from the country immediately however I grew up in Blissful ignorance of all that because it was nothing you would speak of at this time or even now hence my typical gdr childhood just unfolded like a cliche in the Autumn of 1989 I was 5 years old a dormant child in kindergarten schk I was making my first attempts at reading in boomy bear magazines and dreaming of becoming gdr Pioneer then the Wall came down and my life like that all that of probably all East Germans was turned completely upside down after the first year of euphoria in consumer Wonderland um those the years followed that I still remember as dender in my essay for site I continued talking about the '90s with descriptions of the enormous increase of unemployment in East Germany which heavily affected my mother and my stepdad I wrote about social Decline and inner German devaluations and maybe even discrimination to towards East Germans and how with the end of the Cold War and the Victory of the West over the East most East German knowledge and experience suddenly counted for nothing I stopped thinking I stopped thinking about kindergarten years and boom bear magazines to embrace a new syst system as My New Reality my essay would not have stood out if it had only been about that or if so then only as a reflection of its time my essay was published in 2021 the year after the two big German anniversaries 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 19 in 2009 and in 2020 30 years since the unification of the two Germany two anniversaries that were highly marked by inational shift towards East new East German IM imageries shaped by East Germans East German perspectives and not by the West German gaze like before in my essay I used my naive childhood memories to get to the heart of a feeling many East Germans can relate to and draw attention to problematic are areas the the end of the gdr was an important and welcome historical marker there is no doubt about it at the same time German unification took place under a power imbalance that was hardly ever discussed in German mainstream media and public discourses for the longest time and that's still that is still inscribed in German society today structural wage differences unequal distribution of wealth and Ne and neglect and stereotyping of East German history are main results of this power imbalance between the former two germanies growing up as an East German my history and culture was was only represented in the media by a very few topics the political discourse around thei the East German secret service was one of them others were the one party dictatorship of the National Party sad s and the movement of oppos and the move ments opposing this system in a pop cultural context East Germans were most of more often than not portrayed as comedic figures like in the film goig go and Cindy alatan I brought two pictures of that maybe you remember maybe not um growing growing up as a black East German woman I was quite aware of the disrespect and the gap between those representations and my own experiences however for me this Gap did not only occurred between West and East Germany and through Western Gaye this Gap also existed and still exists for me as an East German among other East Germans or more precisely as a black East German among other East Germans who automatically think of East German society as homogeneously white the typical East German may have to face a stereotypical image in Germany however they do have an image in the same way black East Germans like me and other East Germans of color do not even exist not in the eye of other East Germans not in the eye of West Germans and not in international perceptions but why is it so when we talk about black German history which happens far too rarely in Germany and is by no no means a matter of fact we automatically talk about West German history in East German history it is in its one-dimensional representation the existence of black people and people of color and their um and their history is completely erased the two identities being East German and being black simply do not exist in their intersection in the public eye hence my essay for theide stood stood out simply because I do not exist in the eyes of Germans yet the gdr did did have a complex history of immigration and an ambiguous relation towards race racism and Blackness to better understand black East German history please allow me to take one more hisor IAL step back and let's have a very brief look into pre-old war black German history when it comes to tracking black lives in East Germany it is not that easy the area that is now Germany has been shaped by black life and black influences for hundreds of years but it has never but it has never regarded itself as diverse so Germany has never regarded itself as diverse racism has been in rather racism has been an Inseparable part of German history and Society since colonial times as a result tracing traces of black lives has disappeared throughout history and have also been actively suppressed and destroyed again and again a brutal culmination of this whitewashing of a diverse German Society was a Holocaust there in Nazi Germany murdered an estimate total of 17 million people among them are 6 million Jews 7 million Soviet civilians up to 250,000 disabled people 250,000 cyti and proma but also hundreds of homosexuals as well as Serbian and polish civilians Soviet prisoners of War political prisoners people affected by nism and religiously persecuted people black Germans do not figure in this cruel statistic nevertheless they were affected by the extermination by the Nazis almost forgotten today as a for sterilization of hundreds of mixed raas Germans during the Nazi era an estimate of 2,000 more people of African descent died in a concentration K there are no figures of the numerous American prisoners of war and African soldiers of the French Belgium and British colonial troops that were killed whether it is impossible to quantify the many lives that were prevented by the nck race laws which came into force in 1935 the laws outla outlawed relationships and marriages between white and black people in Germany those few black people who survived and stayed in in Germany had to face massive discrimination which made the future in Germany extremely difficult by the end of World War II and the end of the Nazi era Germany turned out as a very homogeneous society in which black lives and black history was nearly extinct as a result of the second world war the two German states came into view and both and both took a different path in coming to terms with their own history West Germany established a leading Narrative of Zero Hour it marked the beginning of a new era in which Nazi history was left behind without having the Germans reflect on their own ideological involvement this went along with a rather symbolic and in many respect inconsistent Act of dentification a fact that was that was sharply criticized by younger generation of West Germans in the 1960s and 70s and by the other state the gdr the DDR which emerged from the Soviet occupation Zone was a state modeled on socialist principles it regarded itself as a anti-fascist state and celebrated dentification very publicly and more emphatically in many state institutions although by no means consistently or without contradictions these contradictions are also reflected in the way racism was dealt with and the visibility and invisibility of black lives within the gdr so let's talk about a little bit about anti-racism as a States Doctrine and black lives in the gdr in contrast to West Germany the Gia openly addressed their fascist and Colonial past and racism and publicly turned away from it if in the W if in West Germany racism was considered to be a condition that was overcome with st z hour an object of the past of the Nazis not of the Germans after 1945 racism in the gdr however was considered to be a mer product of capitalism based on Marxist theories and since the gdr regarded itself as a socialist state racism according to the Head of the State ionica consequently lacked an ideological Foundation Pence was not possible to exist in East Germany racism was considered to have been abolished but similarly to West Germany it was just not dealt with rather speaking about racism became a subordinate became subordinated to and instrumentalized by the state Doctrine of the gdr although topics such as colonialism and the German fascism were an important part of school educ education anti-racism became an ideological tool to assert one's own culture and moral superiority in the Cold War and to address the misguided misguidedness um of the Western World especially when it came to West Germany and the United States however outside to gdr socialist Marxist and anti- capitalist idea became Inseparable Inseparable from numerous anti-racist and anti-colonial freedom struggles and Civil Right movements around the world during the 1950s 60s and 70s for example NZ Mandela is the most prominent member of the South African ANC represented an idea of social justice that in many ways resembled socialist ideas during his life there was also a repeated speculation as to whether he had at times been a member of the South African Communist party or not while the anc's anti-apartheid movement was considered a terrorist organization in most Western countries Mandela and thec received a strong support from socialist countries such as Cuba and East Germany in the US socialist Marxist and anti- capitalist thoughts resonated among black civil right movements although this black radicalism is hardly remembered today for instance Martin Luther King Jr regularly spoke of the entanglement of racism and capitalism as tools of Oppression in his speeches others embraced a more direct Marxist or socialist mindset like for instance Ki or Angela Davis the gdr supported many International struggles and maintained relationship with comrades around the world including the United States East Germany published a relatively large number of books for instance by um James Baldwin and orchest public State receptions with black activists and artists like Ralph ay Harry Bella Fon and Poland isanda Ro in the gdr they became celebrated stars and symbols of the so-called in quotes different America that reached the climate with the reception of Angela Davis in Gia and this is a song I Won't sing now but um I will read the lyrics and maybe for this occasion the English lyrics it is just a simple translation by myself so the song is originally in German it was was um a song by the um music group U shikura combo and was published in 1972 let's read the English text oh Angela you live trapped and no no tremble no fear you are so young you are beautiful before what judges you shall stand and if yesterday threatens you with murder The Future Has the Last Word it sounds very different when it's found in German but nevertheless this is how the U shikura combo SS in 1972 when the band wrote O Angela Angela Davis was in jail for allegedly supporting terrorism in the early 1970s she was an author a Marxist and a member of the Black Panther Party Davis is a highly gifted intellectual her Mentor in her student days was a German philosopher Hab M fusen when her indictment threatened her with the death penalty intellectuals around the world showed solidarity with Angela Davis including including h b Simon deba Jean Pat Yoko Uno and John lenon in the gdr the national demonstration of solidarity erupted um and was called 1 million roses for Angela thousands of gdr citizens wrote letters postcards and painted roses for the so-called quotes black sister Angela publicly urging her release from prison after Davis was acquitted in 1972 even the gdr leadership was surprised by her big reception at the airport sheld in East Berlin instead of 3,000 announced visitors almost 50,000 people showed up a sea of camera banners umbrellas and bouquet of flowers they surrounded The Landing plane sheared G in ecstatic sh one of the gdr's greatest political Idols the so-called our black sister Angela a little later there were even 200,000 people in liic Davis Davis publicly met eron the leader of the state at this time and other gdr leaders she received an honorary doctorate on the car Marx University in ltic and became an honorary citizen of the city of mavor her portray Grace magazines postcards and even statues were built she became superstar in the gdr and returned to the country one year later as part of the world so-called World youth game Festival in 1973 a festival against imperialism and racism and an event of superlatives for nine days around 8 million people from the DDR and 140 other countries came together in East Berlin Davis was the most prominent guest at the so-called Woodstock of the East and gave speech in German black East German black East German and cultural scholar pegy pish remembers his time as follows it was a few moments in my childhood when I felt black lives matter were valuable that black lives were valued it was wasn't until much later that I learned the actual history of the black civil rights movement in school in her memory the S flip side of this hyper visibility of Davis and black struggles becomes clear it was temporary barely existed outside of state representation and found little resonance in the everyday life and mindset of the general population the ddr's approach to racism was characterized by a unique mixture of hyper visibility of anti-racism and Blackness as described in the example of the perception of Angela Davis on the one hand but on the other hand however it was characterized by the extreme invisibility of black lives and experiences within East Germany or even the denial of such a remarkable as remarkable as the public and clear support of anti-racist struggles by the gdr wars still racism always remained a cruel phenomenon of Western countries according to gdr narratives which therefore had to be fored in the Cold War meanwhile the gdr's own racism and the experiences of black people inside the gdr remained unspoken both by the state and in everyday life so have a look into race and Blacklist in East Germany and what was it about not only is racism discussed as a foreign phenomenon in theia the same is true for its individuals black Americans like Angela Davis and Paul Robson were celebrated as as stars because they were political activists in a foreign country and because they were foreigners and thus did not challenge the gdr self-image as an anti-racist but White Society this this not only stands a St contrast to the anti-racist narratives of the state but also to the fact that the gdr had a complex history of immigration and um of immigration that remains relatively unseen until today since there was hardly any black life in Germany after the second world war black communities only reemerged slowly in the course of immigration even though the gdr is now considered a small homogeneously white country it had a complex in continuous immigration history this was mostly tied to the state to state to state agreements so one can identify three dominant groups of black immigrants first black people came to the gdr as International students from countries such as Congo Sagal and the US and many many more or they came to they came as political immigrants political immigrants is a term it's a gdr term for political activists who found refuge in the gdr this included for examples members of the South African aenc or the namibian Southwest Africa people's organization squap both groups enjoyed a relatively High standing for immigrants and brought um foreign and trade Capital to the gdr which was striving for international recognition labor M migrants created the third group the so-called contract workers from Kuba Algerian mamb and Angola made up the largest part of the black population in the gdr in addition there were other but less numerous paths for black people to enter East Germany and of course there were in New generations of children born as black East Germans however despite the differences many of them had to face the same experiences in theia when it came to race either the Blackness was described as foreign and foreign and consequently they were regarded as foreigners despite being German or not or Blackness was not addressed at all I for example as a black East German woman who was born in German who was born German had to face both experiences all the time being seen as a foreigner or being Deni denied a black identity and experience and my experiences with racism similar stories are told by other black people about um cgdr instead of representation they they experienced invisibility just discrimination and violence contact workers contract workers were the most vulnerable group to this they were under strong State Control by the gdr and their home countries they were segregated and often H often housed on the outskirts of the city far away from the gdr population and their work has been heavily exploited Paulino Miguel who was a contract worker in the gdr cointed the term double wall in this context he's referring to the Berlin Wall as a border between east and west and to the social wall within East Germany between citizens and immigrants many black people experience a high level of racism that was said to not officially exist in in East Germany Miguel again recalls the racism was actually undeniable although everything was done to cap to kep to keep us out of the everyday life in the gdr this act of keeping people out of everyday life in the DDR is one of many factors East German history of color remains invisible black lives and black history officially only took place at the state level of representation the actual reality of black people in East Germany was kept invisible as invisible as possible and was rarely discussed nevertheless there were interactions of black people and white GD citizens in everyday life the scholars Mar Maria Shank and Johanna venel point out in their article leight love and time of contract work that interracial friendships and love relationship ships did of course exist in the gdr though they weren't appreciated and to use the reoccurring phrases they were not seen gladly would not seen gladly or not gladly seen is a phrase that I hear again and again in interviews in this context not gladly seen even linguistically reflects invisibility the phrase also Finds Its way into the into the documentary film becoming Black by enus Johnson Spain and finds an almost CES Mater materialization in it in her documentary film becoming black the director and protagonist Enis Johnson Spain talks about her growing up as a black girl in the gdr she grows up as the only black person in a family of white people her immediate envirment is also only white her parents tell her it is a genetic coincident that she is black as otherwise the topic is completely taboo it is not until she reaches puberty that she finds out that she actually has just a different father who is also black after the fall of the bur and world she finds them out and make them a part of her life in the film The Director confronts her family with the life of childhood and breaks a Silence about being black a powerful film that shows by an extreme example and um from the perspective of a black East German woman how Blackness was stal with by gdr citizens it wasn't dealt with at all it was not part of this gdr self-image to be diverse or include people of color let's look let's have a brief look outside um or to the time after the gdr into the so-called baseball baseball B years Spain Johnson left the gdr in the 1980s and moved to West Germany the black people who stayed had to face an even more devastating attempt of eraser by the end of the gdr in 1989 and 1990 I've already suggested that racism in the gdr existed not only through eraser instrumentalization and taism of blacks but also in racist hostility insults and physical violence neonazis group neonazi groups also existed in the underground of the gdr with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 racist and white bring violence exploded on the streets of East Germany the night of German unification the night of October 2 till October 3 1990 can be seen as symbolic in this way while millions of people celebrated the unification of the two German states that night rightwing W riots occurred in more than 30 German cities 20 of which were in East Germany according to the accounts of the online initiative October 90 um it's October 2nd 90 over 1,500 neo-nazis were said to have been active that night in 14 of the Cities L larger sometime Grom like attacks with mass par ipation happened those attacks of the night of the unification were only the start of an enormous wave of racist and Whitewing violence in the 1990s and early 2000s these attacks were primarily carried out by neo-nazis but also involved broad involved broad participation by the rest of the population and were further incited by the media this culminated in the racist programs in Haya V in 1991 and Bost lonh 1992 in ha for example neonazis with a support of up to 500 supporters from the normal population like they call it um attacked a refugee shelter in a home of four former contract workers with Stones Steel balls and Molotov cocktails it was not until the 7 day of the pram that the authorities evacuated the building but instead of protecting the victims they implemented what the perpetrators had previously demanded with shouts of foreigners out aand R they arranged for the victims to be busted out of the city and many of them of the country similar scenes took place in lenh this time up to 3,000 people were involved in the attacks on an as Asylum shelter and a home for former Vietnamese contract workers which last of several days the program reached its cruel climax when the house which still sheltered over 100 people was set on fire via racist M the police and authorities offered hardly any help only the only by the initiatives of the people inside the house there were no deaths that night this was not not the case in many other cases of racist violence of that time which today is called the baseball B years base in media representation now we come to the end in media representation East Germany is s for referred to as the brown East the brown Austin or sometimes D Brown was the political color of the Nazis with a metaphor Brown East racist violence finally becomes visible in East Germany after reunification paradoxically however similar to the gdr before it becomes not visible as a phenomenon of its own or a German phenomenon but rather as a foreign Phenomenon with the end of the Cold War East Germany emerged as the loser of the Cold War and inside Germany it quickly assumes the role of the so-call other Germany a bad counter part to the supposedly Superior West Germany the supposedly actual Germany East Germany was usually portrayed as a less as less Democratic than its Western counterpart culturally backwards and homogenously white in contrast to the Metropolitan and diverse West Germany and this case not only the actual diverse history of East Germany regarding its black individuals disappeared similarly to the to the times of the gdr but also East Germany's formerly very visible International support of anti-racist movements and this history of immigration completely disappears in order to uphold a more favorable image of West Germany a continuation of invisibility of black East German history and East German history of color beyond the time of the gdr and the Cold War I for example had to learn about my father's history twice on the one hand he as a black South African man who immigrated to the gdr was invisible because his personal story was silenced in the gdr secondly the history of thec and its relationship to the gdr as well as other International black and anti-racist Alli alliances got lost in the consequence as a consequence of how the ending of the Cold War was handled conveniently the support um the support and capitalization of the aparte system by West Germany um also disappeared and is hardly discussed today except by those who are effective by it in 2008 a collective of South Africans who fell victim to the apart regime sued several large German banks and companies that had profited from the racist system in violation of un agreements and had kept the system financially alive for a long time this is South African story that urgently needs to be discussed in Europe and Germany and it is also a German story that got easily forgotten with the double invisibility that black East German history has to face this is also one story I address in my work as an author and filmmaker this is my father's story and hence also mine and it is one of the many black East German stories that will be forgotten soon if we do not start to explore stories like that and make black East German history visible on a on on a larger scale the history of black East Germans I presented today has not been written down so far and is merly as a starting point it is a collection of academic work cultural artifacts and or histories intentionally created to fill the historically and politically created gap of black East German histories art and an intentional intentional approach to Creation have the power to find and tell the stories that have been forgotten by time and politics they have the power to dignify where it was denied before and they have the power to create counter stories that challenge current political and historical narratives in my case the exploration of black peast German stories East German stories of color and life of color in general in the countries of the former Eastern block creates a strong counternarratives to the current uprise of the extreme right right-wing organizations in Germany and the countries of the former East block are collectively painting a picture of a supposedly original pure European past without diversity and anti-racist struggles the international right is networking through this false historical image as a common ideal within Germany especially East Germany the far right is currently gaining enormous popularity the rightwing party Rd is achieving top results as the strongest and second strongest party in numerous federal states and is a hot candidate for the upcoming Federal elections black East German history may seem like a minor subject nice to have nice to have her at all but if nothing else current politics should teach us that decisions are made at the social margins and at the expense of minorities so they will eventually affect all of us therefore I plead for courageously and curiously exploring the untold stories of one own history and for implementing creational approaches that are able to challenge dominant narratives and institutions thank you very much thank you so much now is the moment to have discussion to ask questions to have a comment but before that before we forget because we forget every year sorry but this year we won't forget can I let we forget an Art institution this is an amazing aspect [Music] here here [Music] first Flor and especially develop [Music] everybody in um thank you so much for this this extremely important chap ofs to um you basically pointed out this role that Angela has played as regards visualization of Blackness in German State and how they were discing in how featured Inn or not featur as very I'm reminded of how came toin in the 0s and of course and basically made quite impact on um sort of ding forward the black movement had a very very W German set of pro and the par s of developments with initi people of that so I was wondering if you could locate certain through basis in E ger that have perhaps impacted black German in the GPR and we mentioned work and she very active in which is that black movement so how how do you see Angel's presence and her intellectual work actually sort of feeding into black East feminist Consciousness [Music] andiz in Black e thank you so would you mind going there again because otherwi [Music] interpret but I anyways I have my microphone with me but any anyways okay okay Wonder okay thank you for this question it's it's a very good question and um actually I wanted to same so um my my answer would be probably a little bit unsatisfying because um there is not not much work done about that actually there's no work done about it about the impact of Angela Davis and her visits to the gdr on black lives um and on a black um Heritage um usually there there are some documentaries about her visits um and usually the white East German people they talk about it now quite a lot because they were so moved writing this postcard the DDR actually was um the biggest the the biggest country that um that orchestrate um the solidarity campaign there were almost there were almost 1 million letters coming from East Germany so people like to remember that inside the white population people like to remember that but also they dismisses um the visits of D was like oh it was just a representation of the state it was not real um so in my movie which I'm which I'm filming right now it's documentary about Angela David's visit we look we explore the story through the eyes and perspective of black East German people who witnessed her at this time and we want we asked actually exactly that what impact had it is on them did it shape their identity in any way and it of of course it it always had an impact on them but it was very on an individual level it was more like wow I have never seen a person who looks similar to me in such a public role in theia also Angela David was um like like a beauty symbol at this time she was published not only outside the Gia but very prominent in the GD she was permanent part of beauty magazines she was praised for her hair for her beauty all the time even the song she was praised for her beauty so I think on this level it um made it had a deep impact um and also from what I hear on the people like they felt seen they they felt valued and they were felt seen as beautiful for the first time but it was so far from what I have heard and seen and discovered it was merely on an individual level it didn't shap by any means an a black a movement in Zia or um or a a legacy because that was hardly this didn't exist in it did exist there were some movements but um but they were not not as far as I know they were not shaped by Angela Davis visits but on an individual level it made huge impact and I feel like this is something we should um still remember thank you for this question thank you I'm curious to know what you think socialism useful to we have [Music] socialism [Music] sois yeah that is um quite a philosop philosophical question um well I would always distinguish um the idea of socialism and the practice of the gdr and other um so-called socialist countries they had their own they practiced their own idea which partly resembled socialism in many parts um however when we look into history um and also like I said in um my talk there is a tradition of um anti-racist struggles um leaning into socialist ideas and I think it was um historically speaking it played a huge role to unify people in many parts of the world in many um movements um if socialism as idea is um has is um is is um Can can be a great impact um or can have a great impact on anti-racism I don't know I feel like that is very philosophical but if you look into the practice it did shape um it did unify people and it did strengthen their um their struggles um their anti-racist struggles but also there were countries and um ruled by so-called socialism which were devastating so so so but I do see a resem I do see an entanglement between capitalism and racism that's for sure so if you want to contradict that as socialism why not but I feel like there is a huge entanglement between capitalism and um racism I yes please askm weens and it was as well I was just wondering how e um actually fed into the do you have any information on that I don't know that in black as part of and cont I'm just wondering if there was also consideration of this not that I'm aware of actually because this was more um the the parts of the Apple senses I remember quite current numbers um so I don't know if it I can't remember if but I think if I would have seen it I would remember so I don't think so but yeah but it's I have to look into it again but as far as I remember now [Music] [Music] yeah so we have a very long complicated history of the making of the test and it seems that it exists in two extremes hyper visible MH or hyper invisible mhm what we don't have in the world we never experienced in the world is what it means to be a normal person and TR to day we still dealing with these questions where you could be said oh you're just like everyone else stop bickering on about the special States you should be normal like everybody else and in this nor which is overwritten by whiteness you are drown out you further made invisible but if there is a special Focus to say oh let's focus on soal black issues you then become the thorny exception who is this person who's allowing us really because normal society seems to be working really okay until we brought up this stff mhm so I'm wondering within the context of Jour what does it mean to have a normal society not even to be a normal person but what does the future of this country look like within the confence of redefining normality for this Society yeah I one is the same um do you want me to predict the future because I look at it quite negatively to be honest I don't see us um I mean I see progress here and there it's only due to the people who fight for it um people always say like oh time has changed so it became different no time doesn't do a thing the people did it and I see all all back into history but also now really strong people fighting for for a black normality or just a normal society um personally I don't want to paint it so negatively but I don't see it coming we are um we have um more and more problems with with um turning to to the to the extreme right in Europe in Western countries in Germany um so I don't see it coming but I wished for yeah actually I um when I was I I went to New York for the first time very late in my life because I grew up poor and we didn't travel also we didn't travel in the gdr but it's a different story um um I but I had this exchange um year in New York at princ University but I lived in New York it was in 201 16 that was my first time and that was the first time and I don't want to paint New York as the Holy Grail of being normal but that was the first time in my life life I experienced walking on the street just feeling normal not looked at strangely not othered by by gazes just normal and it was such a relief it was like wow I think people feel like that wow feels like vacation um yeah I don't see it for Germany I hope for it yeah did it answer your question thank you yes I have um both one one concrete question about the future I would love to learn how you want to um to work on your project in the next four weeks six weeks what you and [Music] one very very important [Music] very 199 to to the project and the week to come we would to learn resar yeah thank you yeah I can also recommend man's book it's amazing um I'm working on on four larger project at the moment actually I two books two films um I work on two documentary films um along with my co-director Yasha anupa and um they are all in the cosmos of East black East German history um two documentaries um one for art TF art um but we also we are working on an international um Cinema release as well um that is about the two visits of engeler Davis um in the gdr 1972 1973 explored through thei perspectives of black East Germans so we locally um we want to tell also a black East German history by that and um um bring more visibility to to Black East German perspectives that is one thing another documentary is um actually about the two roles or roles of the two germanies in South Africa and AP paride system South Africa um but I have a very personal approach to this film because like I said like I mentioned my father um came from South Africa from ASC member to the gdr and um I um there are still former ANC and MK members living in Germany who came to the gdr and we explore this geopolitic political story through very personal um stories of the people um that are the two films and um I I'm working on a novel which is um an auto fiction about my story but also includes a lot a ton tons of stories of um people of color in the gdr from 1980 till the early 2000s so it explores a world seeing so far um like immigrant immigrant Stories the Immigrant underground of the GD and it really um explores this world and um and um make it brings visibility to many many stories which I love but through an auto fiction and um I work on a edited volume along with um scholar um Dr Kine bar from um Kentucky University um which is about it's an academic um edited volume it's it includes um perspectives of color on the gdr in East Germany today so it is same same number one trick pony no it's a it's a huge Cosmos um and there are so many stories to tell and I feel so privileged and dedicate my work to um to tell the stories which so worse to tell and can tell us so much more about the present as well and about Germany yeah wow thank you very much [Music] [Music] [Music] together and I of thank
Origins & context
- Title
- Okwui Enwezor Distinguished Lecture 2024 - Invisible (Hi)Story. Exploring Black East German History
- Language
- English
- YouTube playlist
- Okwui Enwezor Distinguished Lecture
- Date
- August 23, 2024
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