Fighting To Survive: A Panel on Black and Indigenous Liberation

"The place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it”.

-James Baldwin

On 8 October 2019, I co-organized an event for Berlin’s first Anti-colonial Month at be’kech anti-cafe in Wedding, a working class neighborhood in Berlin. This is part of growing concerns about the ways that the legacy of colonialism live on today and the extent that we can foster conversations with people from the Global South. One thing that I learned from curating this event is that the borders that separate do not need to be so fixed or permanent and that there are other ways for us to connect our struggles to survive and thrive. At the same time, we have the power to learn from each other, to grow together, and to win together.

Panelists for “Fighting to Survive”: Helo, Gabiel, Edna, and Melody.

The event featured filmmaker/lecturer/Black Lives Matter activist Melody Howse, Black Brazilian leftist/poet Gabriel Silva, with Portuguese-English translations by Brazilian anti-colonial month organizer Helo Yoshioka. These were activists and scholars who unpacked the ways that various nation-states monitor, regulate, and criminalize people of colour and how these modes of surveillance are tied to legacies of colonialism and slavery in Brazil and Europe. As fascist movements undergo a surge in North America, South America and Europe, Black and indigenous people have been subjected to various forms of state violence, whilst developing new political languages to survive.

While there is no single definition of freedom, the Black American activist Fannie Lou Hamer said:

“If I fall, I'll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom. I'm not backing off.”

Decolonization in Action

Last weekend, I launched “Decolonization in Action” a podcast series that I co-created. The podcast interrogates decolonization in the arts, sciences, and beyond. While calls for decolonizing science, education, and museums are becoming more prominent, knowledge practices of western academia and of present-day colonizing nation states remain largely unchanged. In conversation with historians, activists, artists, and curators, this podcast aims to unravel how decolonization is understood, and most importantly to give attention to how decolonization is being practiced today.

Logo designed by Nina Prader.

In our first episode, we interiewed Dr. Noa Ha and Prof. Dr. Tahani Nadim to discuss the relationship between German colonial history and Berlin—the metropole of that colonial past. We focus on Berlin’s street names and the Natural History Museum as spaces of remembrance and resistance. In this episode we ask ourselves, in what ways does colonialism continue to shape Berlin institutions and the city of Berlin itself? You can also find the podcast on Spotify at here.

Special thanks to Gina Grzimek, Stephanie Hood, Anja Krieger, Nina Prader, Dr. Lisa Onaga, Prof. Dr. Dagmar Schäfer, Karin Weninger, and Danyang Zhang.

Also, be sure to check out the following resources in Berlin:

Anticolonial Month in Berlin
Berlin als postkoloniale Stadt kartieren
Berlin Postkolonial
Critical Ethnic Studies Association
Dead Wasps Fly Further, Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin
Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland Bund e.V.
korientation. Netzwerk für asiatisch-deutsche Perspektiven e.V.
Migrationsrat Berlin e.V.