Stolen artefacts and time’s harsh march forward
It’s been 140 years since the Berlin Conference formalised Europe’s pillaging of Africa. Most of that loot hasn’t been returned.
Shola Lawal in Berlin
Today’s No 77 Wilhelmstraße is unremarkable: a residential building blending into the block of flats in Berlin Central. Paintings in a German pub to its left depict the grand castle that once stood here. But it was at this address on 15 November 1884, that German chancellor Otto Von Bismarck gathered European leaders to carve up a continent, in what is now known as the Berlin Conference. It’s here that the countries of the jagged puzzle now known as Africa were created in disregard of established boundaries or kingdoms.
Contrary to popular myth, the Berlin Conference did not start the violent project of Africa’s colonisation. Rather, it codified the rules of the game to avoid conflict between European powers, who were at the time mainly jostling for coastal Africa and had already conquered about 10% of it. The scramble greatly intensified after the meeting. By 1914, Europe had invaded, plundered, and subjugated nearly 90% of African territory.
Central to the colonial quest was the looting of important ritual artefacts – some not meant to be seen or touched by mere mortals, others spiritually useful only for a time period. Looting was often the sole motivation, scholars Felwine Sarr and Benedicte Savoy wrote in a 2018 paper. To blur the blood-soaked mass robbery of “primitive objects”, colonisers used words like “harvest” or “collect”.
For African communities, that cultural theft was as painful as the physical domination of their land, an identity looting that violently interrupted spiritual memories. Now, more than a century later, African activists are calling loudly for those spoils of war to be returned – with some success in recent years.
But if the taking was problematic, the return too is riddled with challenges.
The looting continues.
The Berlin Conference declared the land of the Nso kingdom in present-day Cameroon to be part of the German empire. But actual contact between Germans and the Nso didn’t happen until 1902. Months after first contact, the Europeans invaded and burned down the Nso king’s palace and stole Ngonnso, a regal idol made of cowries, named and modelled after the kingdom’s female founder. Sylvie Njobati, daughter of Nso, began campaigns for Ngonnso’s return on social media, and through protests, to fulfil her grandfather’s dying wish. In 2022, the German government promised to give the statue back. But two years later, Ngonnso is still locked up in Germany’s Humboldt Museum.
The German government is negotiating the return with Cameroon – a state created by colonisation, and which didn’t exist in 1902 when Ngonnso was stolen – and not the native activists who kickstarted the movement.
Yaoundé isn’t nearly as invested in Ngonnso’s return as Njobati. “The government formed a commission to oversee the return process but there’s no clarity on how they want to go about it,” Njobati told The Continent.
Where the Nso would prefer a careful repatriation that includes a formal apology, talks on other looted items, and compensation for the crimes of conquest, Yaoundé wants to negotiate a one-off return which Njobati said is “shallow” – akin to ticking a box. “They’re not negotiating with care. I fear community representation is threatened. It’s likely that people will protest decisions made on their behalf.”
Ticking the box has often been enough for modern-day governments. In January, to the chagrin of art scholars, Ghana accepted gold treasures looted from the Asantes “on loan” from the British who have tied their own hands with antiquity laws forbidding outright returns.
And return has not always been an unqualified good. In at least one case, it destabilised modern-day local communities.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo – where Belgian King Leopold II oversaw a vast slave operation, the deaths of as many as 10-million people, massacres, rape campaigns, and punitive maiming – colonisers also stole the sacred Kakungu Mask.
Its owners, the Suku and Yaka people, believed it granted them invincibility.
International monitors have linked its 2022 return to intensifying conflict between the Tekes and the Mobondo, a Yaka-Suku militia which appears emboldened by the mask’s presence.