In 2005, the management of the Augsburg Zoo came up with a special “attraction”. Under the title “African Village”, those responsible planned a kind of Africa festival with the usual booths and performances. When this plan became known to a person in Switzerland, he wrote to the management of the zoo to communicate his irritation (unfortunately, the letter of the Swiss himself was not published), to which the director of the zoo, Barbara Jantschke, replied as follows:
“Your letter only speaks for the fact that you were not at all interested in what is offered during this event – just by the title ‘African Village’ (is also wrong, by the way, the event is called ‘African Village’) you got the impression that an African Village is to be presented to the astonished audience. If you had only familiarized yourself a little with the event, it would have become clear to you immediately that your accusations are absolutely groundless.” (Reply letter Barbara Jantschke, February or March 2005)
When the ISD was informed about what was going on, it decided to write directly to those responsible:
Munich 18.05.2005
Dear Sir or Madam,
The black German community has noted with marked surprise that a kind of African village is to be set up at Augsburg Zoo from June 9 to 12. “Around a unique African steppe landscape are grouped artisans, silversmiths, basket weavers, braid weavers” – so an excerpt from the advertising text of the organizers. That this is an event directly in the tradition of ethnological shows, both conceptually and practically, is evident from the letter of reply from Dr. Barbara Jantschke (Augsburg Zoo), sent in response to a perfectly justified and concerned inquiry from a black Swiss citizen. According to this, the Augsburg Zoo is “exactly … the right place … to also convey the atmosphere of exoticism.”
Quite obviously, the organizers do not seem to have grasped the historical dimensions of their project, which, against the background of the discussions on the implications and consequences of German colonial rule that are now also taking place publicly in Germany, points to an astonishing resistance. The reproduction of colonial gaze relations, in which black people can be seen as exotic objects, as un- or subhumans in cosy unity with the animal world in an apparently timeless village and serve the majority Germans as inspiration for future tourist destinations, can hardly be understood as an equal cultural encounter. Apart from the fact that the African continent does not only consist of “savannah” and “village” and cannot be subsumed under a singular cultural concept (“African Village”), the entire approach of the organizers speaks of a frighteningly unbroken displacement of historical continuity, with which the appropriation and incorporation of supposedly exotic places and people can be justified again and again.
We would like to remind the organizers that in the history of the Ethnic Shows, not only were racial anthropological examinations performed on the performers, but many of them died as a result of the poor working and living conditions. Furthermore, we emphatically point out that Black Germans were also forced to perform in Völkerschauen during National Socialism, namely from the interwar period until the 1940s, because other professional spheres were closed to them. Many Black people perished in the course of racially based vilification and legally legalized persecution during Nazism. In the ahistorically situated context of the Augsburg Zoo, not only are the (survival) stories of black colonial and Nazi victims mocked in a tasteless manner, but it is also to be asked to whom the carefree claim, explicitly articulated by the organizers, to “promote tolerance and international understanding” can actually be directed.
The addressees are certainly not Black German people or those with a migration background. Otherwise, how about a – in our opinion typically German – backdrop of the red deer or wild boar enclosure, in front of which Bavarian mountain villagers can be marveled at and, with their handicrafts and culinary specialties, also show us the tourist vastness of German countryside in an authentic way? The addressees are certainly not the many white people in this country who are striving for an equal coexistence, for openness and respect and for overcoming the historically conditioned borders in the minds and an accompanying ignorance. It is time to both acknowledge and deal with Germany’s several centuries of entanglement in colonial history as a historical fact and to break with the country’s history-less and folkloric portrayal and treatment of people of African descent. A colonial racist display in the zoo does not do justice to any human being!
The Black German community calls for protests against the “African Village” event at the Augsburg Zoo. We call for breaking with colonial racist traditions now and in the future!
Please address your protest directly to the organizers
Dr. Barbara Jantschke (Director Augsburg Zoo)
barbara.jantschke@zoo-augsburg.de
Tel.: 0821 / 567 149-0
Fax: 0821 7 567 149-13
and to the agency responsible for project idea and implementation:
maxVita GmbH – Mainzer Str. 15a 80804 Munich
Tel: 089-780 60 70 – Fax: 089-780 60 725
E-mail: info@maxvita.de; mailto:info@maxvita.de
Please send us a copy of your protest letter or let us know of other protest actions.
Sincerely yours,
Peggy Piesche (Literature and Cultural Studies, Black European Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz)
Nicola Lauré al-Samarai (Historian, TU Berlin)
Tahir Della (Board of Directors ISD-Bund e.V./ Munich)
Jasmin Eding (Board ADEFRA e.V./ Munich)
After neither the director nor the responsible agency of the ITS answered or took a public position on the criticism, the ITS wrote another letter:
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Zoo Director Jantschke,
Dear Mr. Medhat Abdelati, Dear Mr. Mayor Wengert,
A few days ago you received a statement from the Black Community in Germany regarding the event planned for June 9-12, 2005 at the Augsburg Zoo entitled “African Village.”
In it, we expressed our well-founded protest against the commercialization of African people while reducing their cultural achievements in an African-like steppe landscape recreated in the German zoo. We protest against the fact that herewith consistently in colonial-racist tradition, at the expense of the human image and under disregard of the human dignity of ALL people with exoticism shall be advertised and the fast money shall be made. In our opinion, such a setting cannot be about tolerance and understanding, but rather about the fact that the perhaps unbroken market value of exoticism (translated: Eurocentric, colonial appropriation) should ensure full coffers for the organizers. Our statement and our protest were followed by voices from Germany and abroad that are also critical of the planned event and call on you to either cancel the event or at least move it to another location that is not correspondingly polluted. We attach some of those voices to this letter. We note that to date there has been no response or statement from those responsible at the zoo and the event agency regarding the criticism expressed. We expect you to respond clearly to the criticism of the black community in Germany by June 4, 2005 at the latest, or to submit proposals on how the matter can be settled to the satisfaction of us all. We are ready to talk with those responsible, if you are willing to take our protest seriously and respond to it.
Our demand is:
No “African Village” in the zoo – humans do not belong in the zoo!!!
If we have not received a response by the above-mentioned deadline, we will call a press conference to kick off the event and also make our concerns and objections known to the general public on site. You can assume that an “African village” in the Augsburg Zoo will be accompanied by us critically audible and visible.
Only now did Ms. Jantschke admit “that the exhibition serves clichés” and that the name of the event had not been chosen very happily. As compensation, she offered a discussion , which never materialized.
The Lord Mayor of Augsburg, Dr. Paul Wengert, spoke out in a press release on June 1. There he stated:
“I expressly reject the accusation that the planned event is reminiscent of the earlier so-called Völkerschauen, which contributed to the formation of racist attitudes in Germany. Such accusations are baseless, inaccurate, and completely fail to recognize historical context.”
Further, he noted that there would be no African village at the event, only 40 booths “from which Africans often sell art, jewelry and consumer goods of mostly African provenance.”
On June 9, the matter was settled for the Augsburg Zoo and no further correspondence followed.