25/10: online event 'The erased history of slavery in the Cape and the need for reparations'
In December 2022, Prime Minister Rutte offered his apologies on behalf of the Dutch State. On July 1, 2023 the King apologized as well. These apologies were historic and an important form of recognition for the Dutch role in slavery. However, South Africa was not even mentioned in this apology. Who remembers the history of Indian Ocean slavery? How does this history affect people in current-day South Africa? And why is this history largely forgotten in the Netherlands?
For thousands of years, |xam, Khoekhoe, and many other peoples lived in Southern Africa. From 1652, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) established a colonial settlement in the Cape, which by 1658 relied completely on an inhumane system of slavery, one that also linked Utrecht to the Cape. This history laid the foundation for the cruel system of apartheid, which is a Dutch word.
During the abolition of slavery in the Netherlands, the perpetrators of slavery received a form of ‘compensation’, rather than the victims. Reparations have been given to victims of inhumane crimes in other instances. However, when it comes to Transatlantic and Indian Ocean slavery, it is often seen as an ‘uncomfortable’ topic.
On October 25th 2023 we will engage in an online trans-Atlantic conversation with Diane Ferrus (poet), Panashe Chigumadzi (writer), Calvyn Gilfellan (CEO Castle of Good Hope), Nancy Jouwe (cultural historian) and Mitchell Esajas (co-founder The Black Archives) about the erased history of VOC slavery in the Cape and its legacy. We will also talk about the meaning of the apology and what healing and reparations could mean in the context of the Cape.
When? Wednesday October 25th 2023
Where? Online
Time? 7 - 8.30 PM
This event is part of the public program of the exhibitions 'CAPE x UTRECHT' & 'No Healing, Without Repair'
CAPE X UTRECHT: hidden histories of Slavery & its afterlives is a collaborative project of HKU fellow Nancy Jouwe and The Black Archives. The exhibition features unique archival material and art works by Jasper Albinus, Diana Ferrus, Neo Muyanga, Shishani Vranckx, Judith Westerveld, alumna HKU Photography Farren van Wyk, and Carine Zaayman.
For thousands of years, |xam, Khoekhoe, and many other peoples lived in Southern Africa. From 1652, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) established a colonial settlement in the Cape, which by 1658 relied completely on an inhumane system of slavery, one that also linked Utrecht to the Cape. This history laid the foundation for the cruel system of apartheid, which is a Dutch word.
During the abolition of slavery in the Netherlands, the perpetrators of slavery received a form of ‘compensation’, rather than the victims. Reparations have been given to victims of inhumane crimes in other instances. However, when it comes to Transatlantic and Indian Ocean slavery, it is often seen as an ‘uncomfortable’ topic.
On October 25th 2023 we will engage in an online trans-Atlantic conversation with Diane Ferrus (poet), Panashe Chigumadzi (writer), Calvyn Gilfellan (CEO Castle of Good Hope), Nancy Jouwe (cultural historian) and Mitchell Esajas (co-founder The Black Archives) about the erased history of VOC slavery in the Cape and its legacy. We will also talk about the meaning of the apology and what healing and reparations could mean in the context of the Cape.
When? Wednesday October 25th 2023
Where? Online
Time? 7 - 8.30 PM
This event is part of the public program of the exhibitions 'CAPE x UTRECHT' & 'No Healing, Without Repair'
CAPE X UTRECHT: hidden histories of Slavery & its afterlives is a collaborative project of HKU fellow Nancy Jouwe and The Black Archives. The exhibition features unique archival material and art works by Jasper Albinus, Diana Ferrus, Neo Muyanga, Shishani Vranckx, Judith Westerveld, alumna HKU Photography Farren van Wyk, and Carine Zaayman.
Live stream
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Diana Ferrus – I've come to take you home
Diana Ferrus (Western Cape, 1953) started writing poetry at the age of 14. While doing the Gender Studies program at Utrecht University in 1998, she wrote her most famous poem for Sarah Baartman, ’I’ve come to take you home’. Khoekhoe woman Sarah Baartman was born on August 9, 1789 in the Gamtoos Valley and was brought to Europe from the Cape. In London she was put on display after which she ended up in Paris. After her death, her remains were put on display in the Musée de l’Homme until 1986. The poem’s impact helped return Baartman’s remains to South-Africa. |
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Panashe Chigumadzi
Panashe Chigumadzi is an award-winning writer, scholar, and cultural historian writing across gender, geography and generation in her exploration of themes ranging from race, religion and spirituality, to African Philosophy and Cosmology, Black Consciousness, Black Feminism, Black Internationalism and Pan-Africanism, to the afterlives of settler colonialism, Transatlantic Slavery, global (anti-)Blackness, and the indignity of Black life under crippling poverty and violence. Chigumadzi is the author of These Bones Will Rise Again (2018). She is a doctoral candidate at Harvard University’s Departments of African and African American Studies and History, and holds a masters degree in African Literature from the University of the Witwatersrand. Panashe Chigumadz, Marcus Tebogo Desando and Jerry Afriyie delivered the 4th ZAM Nelson Mandela Lecture on 5 February, 2023, in the International Theatre Amsterdam. More about Panashe |
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Calvyn Gilfellan
Mr. Calvyn Gilfellan is the CEO of the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town, South Africa. Commissioned by the Dutch East India Company, the Castle of Good Hope was built between 1664 and 1679 and is one of the oldest existing European structures in South Africa. |