A Decolonial View

Africa has some of the fastest-growing economies in the world. This has in turn enabled infrastructure development across the continent easing, for the most part, road transport. This has created a population that has some disposable income allowing domestic and intra-African travel. Whilst some border entry procedures happen without an issue, traveling across Africa has exposed Africans traveling within Africa to corruption, passport privilege, and colonial practices carried over to modern times despite the existence of regional and continental treaties allowing for ease of movement for people and goods. This article focuses on land border points because most movement in Africa is done by road even when traveling to other countries.

90 PKD Participants and ePassport issuing states and entities as of 10th March 2023. Image by ICAO

On 28^th January, Ghanaian YouTuber, Wode Maya posted this on his YouTube Channel ‘Fighting Immigration at Togo Border because I refused to pay a bribe’[i]. Mya explains in the video that most people avoid the Ghana- Togo land border post because of the passport-stamp-bribe regime present there.. Later on, Namibia and Botswana entered into a bilateral agreement allowing citizens from both countries to cross each other’s border points using their national identity cards[ii]. On 10^th March 2023 Kenya and Egypt agreed to work towards visa-free processes between the two nations by October 2023 to promote the flow of goods, people, and other economic activities[iii].

Interestingly, 25^th February 2023 marked 150 years since the 1^st Berlin conference that divided Africa as per the spheres of influence in Europe at the time. The Berlin Conferences laid out much of the national boundaries in Africa today, some of the unresolved boundary disputes, and divided communities along state lines. The harshness of colonial law enforcement procedures still lingers across security forces in Africa today, reflected in the border police and migration officials manning them. Indeed, the first port of call regarding a border dispute involves migration officers threatening to call law enforcement officers and not resolving disputes civilly as would be expected. ‘I will call the police on you’ is a threat used at the port of entry when a misunderstanding occurs.

How do we decolonize intra- African borders?

Decolonization of law enforcement training and decolonizing border entry points is important if the AfCFTA (African Continental Free Trade Area) Treaty that calls for the elimination of barriers to trade in Africa and boosts intra-Africa trade[iv] and its flagship project Agenda 2063 is to be implemented. Checks on travel documents are standard practice in all parts of the world. However, the threat to use force may scare away African tourists (who find it harder to travel out of Africa) affecting tourism and business economic activities.

Use of technology and language

Technology including CCTV cameras, easier pre-entry e-visa processes and updated immigration department websites will enable the ease of travel in Africa.  This will allow for the availability of travel information, fees to be paid if any as well as custom requirements. Such information should be available in all the official languages of the African Union (French, Arabic, English, Portuguese, Spanish and KiSwahili)

Eliminate corruption in the immigration recruitment processes

Demand for bribes is a show of a lack of integrity and ethics in the recruitment processes.  Immigration officers are the nation’s first point of human contact with new arrivals.  Their conduct and treatment of visitors reflect a nation’s soul and international image. In the age of vloggers and other social media, information is dispensed globally, in real-time. African countries should ensure that recruitment and hiring processes are devoid of corruption that bedevil the continent. Cash-free immigration processes should be implemented and reporting processes made easier.

Actualize the AfCFTA in full

Full implementation of the AfCFTA Treaty will enable the state parties to ensure the movement of people, goods and capital across the continent. This serves two important goals of the AfCFTA Treaty ensuring intra-African growth and improving the economic and social lives of the state parties.

Implement ICAO ePassport requirements  

Admission of entry into a sovereign state is a preserve of that particular state. While some may allow entry using national identity cards and temporary passes, others may require the possession of an ePassport. ePassports contain electronic chips to enhance security. This includes conformation that the ePassport was issued by a bonafide authority, contains biometrics of the holder and be authenticated[v].  According to ICAO, Africa has the lowest implementation of the ePassport. This could be a reason why travelling on some African passports is problematic as their authenticity cannot be validated under ICAO procedures.

In conclusion, the spirit of Ubuntu needs to be practiced on African border points. Charity begins at home, doesn’t it?

[i] Maya Wode. 2023.  ‘Fighting immigration at Togo border because I refused to pay a bribe’ YouTube. January 28^th, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBip0enddzc

[ii] Khumalo Khayelihle. 2023. ‘Identity cards to be used as travel documents between Botswana and Namibia’ SABC News, February 22^nd, 2023.  Accessed March 3^rd, 2023 https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/namibians-to-use-identity-cards-as-travel-documents-in-botswana/

[iii] Kamunde Muraya. 2023. ‘Kenya, Egypt working towards visa free regime by October 2023’.KBC News, March 10^th 2023.  Accessed March 10^th, 2023 https://kbc.co.ke/top-story/article/36605/kenya-egypt-working-towards-visa-free-regime-by-october-2023

[iv] AfCFTA. 2023. ‘Creating one African market’ Accessed March, 10^th 2023. https://au-afcfta.org/

[v] ICAO. n.d.  ‘ePassports Basics’ Accessed March 10^th, 2023. https://www.icao.int/Security/FAL/PKD/Pages/ePassport-Basics.aspx

[1] Maya Wode. 2023.  ‘Fighting immigration at Togo border because I refused to pay a bribe’ YouTube. January 28^th, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBip0enddzc

[1] Khumalo Khayelihle. 2023. ‘Identity cards to be used as travel documents between Botswana and Namibia’ SABC News, February 22^nd, 2023.  Accessed March 3^rd, 2023 https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/namibians-to-use-identity-cards-as-travel-documents-in-botswana/

[1] Kamunde Muraya. 2023. ‘Kenya, Egypt working towards visa free regime by October 2023’.KBC News, March 10^th 2023.  Accessed March 10^th, 2023 https://kbc.co.ke/top-story/article/36605/kenya-egypt-working-towards-visa-free-regime-by-october-2023

[1] AfCFTA. 2023. ‘Creating one African market’ Accessed March, 10^th 2023. https://au-afcfta.org/

[1] ICAO. n.d.  ‘ePassports Basics’ Accessed March 10^th, 2023. https://www.icao.int/Security/FAL/PKD/Pages/ePassport-Basics.aspx

Sharon Muriuki

About the protests against brown coal mining in Lützerath, Germany

Protesters walks towards Lützerath, which is surrounded by police, 14/01/2023, Foto: Marco Molitor.

On Saturday 35.000 protesters, including renown climate activists such as Greta Thunberg from Sweden and Peter Donatus from Nigeria, gathered on the fields surrounding the village of Lützerath, protesting against its destruction at the hands of the energy giant RWE which plans to mine and burn the 280 million tons of brown coal located below Lützerath. Brown coal, also called lignite, is known for its ineffectiveness producing energy compared with other types of coal and fossil fuels (e.g., lignite from Lützerath produces half of the heat which hard coal can produce), its disproportionally high levels of CO2 pollution (1 ton CO2 per ton lignite), the destruction of entire landscapes and communities through enormous open pit mines and the systematic artificial lowering of ground watertables (BUND n.d.; n.d.). Thus, brown coal has been called the most climate-damaging fossil fuel. Germany has been one of the largest producers of lignite worldwide since the industrial mining of lignite started in the beginning of the 20^th century and has only in recent years been surpassed by China (Enerdata 2023; Baum 2018; Herpich et al. 2022).

Since Wednesday, 18 January 2023, police forces have been evicting activists from the protest camp in Lützerath, which has existed for two years as a dynamic space of anticapitalist grassroots organization. By now, Lützerath is located directly at the open pit mine Garzweiler near Cologne. Heavy police force, drawn together from all over Germany, has been used to evict activists from Lützerath during the past days. As soon as one of the many occupied trees, treehouses, wood constructions, buildings and a self-built tunnel had been cleared from or left by activists, the places have been razed to the ground. As I am writing this text, the initiative “Lützi bleibt!” (Lützi stays!) announces that Lützerath has been evicted completely. Despite intense police presence, a two-fold fence around the village and heavy police violence during the protests and the eviction, activists continue to fight for the brown coal to stay in the ground with clandestine actions in the brown coal mining area in Rhineland Westphalia and solidarity demonstrations around the globe.

Police starts to evict the occupied house “Paula” (left) in Lützerath, 12/01/2023, Foto: Stefan Müller.

RWE, which is the biggest coal mining company in Europe, the German government, and the government of the bundesland Rhineland Westphalia argue that the brown coal below Lützerath is needed to secure electricity during the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. They support their point of view with studies which have been commissioned by Rhineland Westphalia. Other studies have come to the conclusions that (1) the amount of brown coal that RWE can mine in the neighboring coal pit Hambach, already exceeds the amount of coal RWE has been allowed to mine in the so-called German coal exist law of 2019 and (2) that the coal from Lützerath is not needed to get through the energy crisis (Heinrich Böll Stiftung KommunalWiki 2021; Herpich et al. 2022; Oei et al. 2023). Instead, the reason for mining below Lützerath is, according to the study of the FossilExit research group of the University of Flensburg, that RWE can make a lot of profit from the coal especially now during the energy crisis (Herpich et al. 2022). Both the national government and the government of Rhineland Westphalia consist of coalitions of the conservative party CDU and the Green Party, and on the national level the neoliberal party FDP, additionally. The Green party has been in the focus of the critique by climate activists as several representatives had promised that “all villages [in the Rhine area] would stay” (Virnich 2022).

Lignite is mined with 200 meter long excavating machines, of which this is only the bucket wheel. The excavators work 24/7, 03/01/2023, Foto: Stefan Müller.

The German state and RWE are intertwined on several levels. 24% of RWE shares are owned by approximately 140 German communes and state-owned companies, i.e., that these communes make profit if RWE makes profit (Heinrich Böll Stiftung KommunalWiki 2021). Also, Germany has been the number one in Europe regarding state subsidies for fossil fuel industries (Investigate Europe 2020). The so-called coal exit law mentioned above has also been accused of being a coal prolonging law, as it promises 4.35 billion euros to RWE and another coal mining company, LEAG (WECF 2020). More visibly is the collaboration of state politics, state forces and the energy company in how the police has defended the interests of RWE against protesters and how the police and RWE have collaborated. For instance, the police uses transport cars of RWE to hold activists from Lützerath in custody (Der SPIEGEL 2023). Heavy police violence against activists and demonstrators in Lützerath has once again been denied and/or defended by high-ranking politicians, such as Olaf Scholz, the current German chancellor (tagesschau.de 2023; Krüger 2023). But while the political debate about Lützerath now centers around the violence by police against protesters, this text focusses on the (neo)colonial dimensions of the coal mining in Lützerath (tagesschau.de 2023). The (neo)colonial dynamics of what happens in Lützerath have been highlighted by many activists who have stayed at Lützerath during the past years, including e.g., Vanessa Nakate (Fridays for Future Uganda), Juan Pablo Gutierrez (ambassador of the Yukpa), Kaossara Sani (Act on Sahel movement), Ina-Maria Shikongo (Rise up movement, Fridays for Future Namibia) and Adrián Moyano (Author: Cronicas de la resistencia mapuche).

The history of coal mining in Rhineland Westphalia is connected with the German history of colonialism and World Wars, as the coal mined in the area was used to produce enormous amounts of iron and steel for the weapon and war industry, as well as gasoline and fuel for military vehicles and aircraft (Cioc 2002, 79; Baum 2018). In the late 19^th and early 20^th century German colonial police forces colonized areas in present-day Togo, Cameroon, Tanzania, Namibia, South Africa, China, the Pacific Islands and New Guinea with the help of weapons made with energy from burning coal (Cioc 2002; Conrad 2016). These weapons enabled the German colonial police forces to commit genocides such as the genocide against the Ovaherero and Nama in present-day Namibia on the basis of which German settlers stole the most fertile land available in the region, which their descendants occupy until today (Ossenbrink 2021; Melber 2019). As a European colonizing nation Germany contributed to the expansion of capitalism to a global scale which has resulted in the extraction of natural resources in the global South for the benefit of the global North. Lützerath is a relict and reminder of the destruction that capitalism has also imposed on Europe and especially, on its working class. However, the violence and intensity of destruction still differs: The severity of capitalist exploitation and the (state) violence connected to it is more intense and a lot deadlier in the global South than in the global North (Greenfield 2022).

Riot police stand face to face with protesters heading towards Lützerath, 14/01/2023, Foto: Stefan Müller.

Wouldn’t it be better if Germany used its own coal than energy resources from the global South which are mined under a lot more violent and polluting conditions? Of course, “exporting the problem” to the global South and/or occupied Indigenous lands as done by the German state importing hard coal from Russia, the USA and Colombia is not a solution (Still Burning – network against hardcoal and neo-colonialism 2021). Long term solutions lie in a system change, in a society which is not based on making profits, i.e., non-capitalist, and in renewable energy production, which of course is not free of difficulties either, but at least enables a massive reduction in CO2 emissions. And this is where Germany – as Greta Thunberg said on the demonstration close to Lützerath on Saturday – has an enormous responsibility. Germany belongs to the countries which historically have produced most CO2 and are therefore responsible for the climate crisis (Müller, Braun, and Kriegler 2017). Germany’s wealth as a nation relies on its industry which as mentioned before has been fueled by fossil fuels, especially coal. Germany’s wealth must also be understood in the global colonial and capitalist matrix of power, which over the past centuries has led to the accumulation of wealth in the hands of especially white men of the propertied class (Moore 2019; Mignolo and Walsh 2018; Conrad 2016). In the case of RWE, it is three white men and one white woman of the propertied class who make up the management of the company (RWE 2023). As environmentalist Jason Moore says: We are not equally responsible for the climate crisis, the people who truly benefit from colonial capitalism are only few, they have names and addresses (Moore 2019). In the case of Lützerath, these people are, amongst others, Andree Stracke, Gunhild Grieve, Peter Krembel and Ulf Kerstin from the RWE management (RWE 2023). Of course, it is more complicated than that, because managers can easily be replaced.

Now, that Lützerath has been evicted, what comes next? For now, the coal is still in the ground, and protests continue to keep it there. The global and local ties of resistance against (neo)colonial capitalism which have flourished during the occupation of Lützerath can be seen as a path towards more joint action which hopefully will be more successful in other places.

Maria Fahr

The construction “Denkmal” at Lützerath before it was destroyed by police, 04/01/2023, Foto: Stefan Müller.

For information about the protests against brown coal mining in Lützerath from an activist perspective follow the telegram channel “Lützi – On Site – Ticker”, Invitelink: t.me/onsiteluetzi

Literature

Baum, Carla. 2018. “Flöze, Gruben, Schächte – Geschichte der Braunkohle in Deutschland.” Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung. 2018. https://www.boell.de/de/2018/12/27/floeze-gruben-schaechte-geschichte-der-braunkohle-deutschland.

BUND. n.d. “Braunkohle und Klimaschutz.” BUND für Naturschutz und Umwelt in Deutschland. Accessed January 17, 2023a. https://www.bund-nrw.de/themen/braunkohle/hintergruende-und-publikationen/braunkohle-und-umwelt/braunkohle-und-klima/.

———. n.d. “Braunkohlentagebaue und Gewässerschutz.” BUND für Naturschutz und Umwelt in Deutschland. Accessed January 17, 2023b. https://www.bund-nrw.de/themen/braunkohle/hintergruende-und-publikationen/braunkohle-und-umwelt/braunkohle-und-wasser/.

Cioc, Mark. 2002. The Rhine. An Eco-Biography, 1815 – 2000. Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

Conrad, Sebastian. 2016. Deutsche Kolonialgeschichte. 3. Auflage. C.H. Beck Wissen 2448. München: C.H. Beck.

Der SPIEGEL. 2023. “Lützerath. Warum die Polizei Fahrzeuge von RWE zum Gefangenentransport nutzt,” January 14, 2023, sec. Panorama. https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/luetzerath-warum-die-polizei-fahrzeuge-von-rwe-zum-gefangenentransport-nutzt-a-17703854-058e-4302-9dc8-4b40cb646e33.

Enerdata. 2023. “Coal and Lignite Production Data.” 2023. https://yearbook.enerdata.net/coal-lignite/coal-production-data.html.

Greenfield, Patrick. 2022. “More than 1,700 Environmental Activists Murdered in the Past Decade.” The Guardian, September 28, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/29/global-witness-report-1700-activists-murdered-past-decade-aoe.

Heinrich Böll Stiftung KommunalWiki. 2021. “RWE Und Kommunen.” 2021. https://kommunalwiki.boell.de/index.php/RWE_und_Kommunen.

Herpich, Philipp, Catharina Rieve, Maren Krätzschmar, Nora Stognief, Paula Walk, Johannes Probst, Alexandra Krumm, Arne Arens, and Pao-Yu Oei. 2022. “Das Rheinische Braunkohlerevier. Aktuelle Zahlen, Daten und Fakten zur Energiewende.” Flensburg: Fossil Exit, Europa-Universität Flensburg. https://vpro0190.proserver.punkt.de/s/cDRQN4pJ9M8a8nY.

Investigate Europe. 2020. “Milliarden-Subventionen gegen die Klimaziele.” Investigate Europe (blog). July 1, 2020. https://www.investigate-europe.eu/de/2020/milliarden-subventionen-gegen-die-klimaziele/.

Krüger, Anja. 2023. “Interview mit Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz. ‘Ich bin gerne Auto gefahren’.” Die Tageszeitung: taz, January 13, 2023, sec. Politik. https://taz.de/!5905418/.

Melber, Henning. 2019. “Colonialism, Land, Ethnicity, and Class. Namibia after the Second National Land Conference.” Africa Spectrum 54 (1): 73–86. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002039719848506.

Mignolo, Walter D., and Catherine E. Walsh. 2018. On Decoloniality. Concepts, Analytics, Praxis. Durham, US: Duke University Press.

Moore, Jason W. 2019. “The Capitalocene and Planetary Justice.” Maize 6 (July): 49–54.

Müller, Boris, Julian Braun, and Elmar Kriegler. 2017. “A Brief History of CO2 Emissions.” UCLAB FH Potsdam (blog). 2017. https://uclab.fh-potsdam.de/projects/co2/.

Oei, Pao-Yu, Catharina Rieve, Philipp Herpich, Claudia Kemfert, and Christian von Hirschhausen. 2023. “FAQ Und Faktencheck: KEINE Energiewirtschaftliche Notwendigkeit Für Die Abbaggerung von Lützerath | Coal Transitions.” Europa-Universität Flensburg, Technische Universität Berlin, Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung. https://coaltransitions.org/publications/faq-und-faktencheck-keine-energiewirtschaftliche-notwendigkeit-fur-die-abbaggerung-von-lutzerath/.

Ossenbrink, Lisa. 2021. “‘If Germany Wants to Reconcile, They Must Give Our Dignity Back.’” Al Jazeera. June 1, 2021. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/1/ovaherero-nama-descendants-criticise-germanys-reconciliation.

RWE. 2023. “Management RWE Supply & Trading GmbH.” 2023. https://www.rwe.com/en/the-group/rwest/management.

Still Burning – network against hardcoal and neo-colonialism. 2021. Coal, Colonialism & Resistance. Centering Voices of Affected Communities and Warning of False Solutions. stillburning.net. https://stillburning.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Still_Burning_2021.pdf.

tagesschau.de. 2023. “Räumung Lützeraths. Gegenseitige Gewaltvorwürfe.” tagesschau.de. January 16, 2023. https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/gesellschaft/luetzerath-protest-demonstration-105.html.

Virnich, Birgit. 2022. “Proteste gegen Braunkohleabbau: ‘Werden Lützerath nicht aufgeben.’” tagesschau.de. 2022. https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/luetzerath-101.html.

WECF. 2020. “Milliarden-Subventionen Für Braunkohle.” July 7, 2020. https://www.wecf.org/de/milliarden-subventionen-fuer-braunkohle/.

An analysis of the Moderate party’s electoral program

Photographer: Michael Krause

In September 2022 an extreme right government constellation was voted into power in Sweden. A party that was founded by (neo-)Nazis in the late 1980s, the so-called Sweden democrats (SD), became the second largest party in the national parliament as they gained 20,5 % of the votes. A minority government, which relies on the support of SD, has been formed by the conservative parties the Moderates (M), the Liberals (L) and the Christian democrats (CD). The cooperation of the conservative minority government and the extreme right SD has been institutionalized by the so-called Tidö agreement which grants SD major influence regarding migration and law giving.

The pre-election debate was dominated by one topic: gang-related violence. In this blog post the policy program of the Moderates, whose candidate Ulf Kristersson is now Sweden’s prime minister, will be analyzed. The focus of the analysis lies on the Moderates’ political discourse on “gang criminality”. The complex issue of gang-related violence itself will not be examined here.

The Moderates’ policy programs regarding migration and gang criminality intersect, naturalizing a supposed causal relation between migrants and criminality. For example, criminality is the first issue that is mentioned on their website on migration, introducing the Moderates’ claim that immigration to Sweden should be reduced. This racist discourse follows a pattern of color ignorance, which critical whiteness scholars have analyzed as a pattern in Swedish political discourse. Color ignorance refers to the denial of race and, with it, racism. For instance, the Swedish political discourse on gang-related violence does not mention race. But race plays a crucial rule in the discourse. The participants in the political discourse know very well that the “vulnerable areas” in the suburbs of larger Swedish cities are poor and racialized, a topic that is frequently mentioned under the term “segregation”. As these quarters are then described as the origin of gang-related violence, gang criminality becomes racialized, without mentioning race.

The picture of “the immigrant” in Swedish political discourse is racialized and forms the fundament of the racist discourse on gang-related violence. He (the immigrant is also gendered) is imagined as the Other of a Swedish national self-image which centers around whiteness. Following the pattern of color ignorance, this is almost never mentioned directly, but shows for example in the stark contrast with which refugees from Ukraine, who were perceived as white and Christian, have been welcomed in Sweden, under the premise that “they are like us [Swedes]” in comparison to racialized refugees. I say “perceived” here, because whiteness has previously been withdrawn from people from Eastern Europe (anti-slavic racism), and since only mentioning Christianity homogenizes a religiously diverse group and silences the existence of the large Jewish community in Ukraine. The religious component of the Swedish national self-imagination as Christian is of importance for the construction of the Other as Muslim. This results in a binary of white Swedishness as opposed to a non-white Other, who is imagined as racialized and Muslim. To describe the Other a range of terms of ethnicities and nationalities is falsely used synonymously. This means that all racialized people in Sweden are not perceived as Swedish, no matter if they have Swedish passports or not.

The Moderates, as well as the majority of voices in the Swedish political discourse, do not include structural and institutional racism as factors into their analysis of segregation, poverty, and gang-related violence. Instead, their policy programs indirectly blame racialized people for all of these issues. The Moderates suggest that gang-related violence will be reduced by letting fewer racialized people come to Sweden, increasing punishments for gang-related violence, increasing opportunities for the police to survey people who are suspected to be part of gangs (i.e., racialized people) “as a preventive measure”, and giving the police the task to frequently conduct racial profiling in Sweden. Racial profiling means that the police targets racialized people in supposedly random controls. The Moderates write in their policy program on migration that “the police will be instructed to conduct more ‘utlänningskontroller’ (= controls of foreigners) within the country to find more persons who do not have the right to be in Sweden”. As Swedes imagine themselves as white, foreigners are imaged as non-white, which will mean that all racialized people in Sweden, no matter if they are foreign or not, will be targeted under this policy.

The most absurd policy suggested by the Moderates comes from their section in Stockholm. They have proposed – as one can read on the official website of the Moderate party – to combat gang criminality with ADHD testings in schools in “vulnerable areas” of the city. This policy builds on vague associations of mental health and criminality which are not evidence-based and stigmatize people with mental health issues. Once again, Moderates’ focus is not on how structural racism in Sweden contributes to the development of racially and class-wise segregated quarters and youth delinquency, but the problem is sought in (often racialized) children who happen to live in the so-called “vulnerable areas”. This speaks of a political ignorance towards poverty and racist discrimination in housing and employment in Sweden which indeed can have influence on the health of racialized people.

The Moderate party must stop targeting individual children, poor and racialized people to combat structural and complex social issues such as gang-related violence. The discourses on criminality and migration need to be detangled from each other. Instead of structural racist discrimination, the Swedish government should implement nationwide programs for anti-racist education and support for those who are affected by racist discrimination and violence. The United Nations expert group which visited Sweden in the beginning of the month came to the same conclusion urging Sweden to “step up efforts to fight systemic racism and focus on strategies to restore trust between police and minority groups”.

Zingiber officinale, an example of a medicinal plant used in multiple cultures

Biopiracy is a term that describes the extraction and use of traditional knowledge and genetic resources to be used in research as well as in the development of commercial products when this extraction is made without taking into consideration national legislation of the country of origin but also the rights of indigenous communities. Typically biopiracy does not provide any sharing of the benefits between countries (and communities) of origin and entities exploiting it.

The inventions that are the result of biopiracy are very often protected by patents, making it impossible even for the original holders of the genetic resources to exploit them commercially. Zingiber officinale is an illustrative example. This is a plant found in India and South China. The English botanist William Roscoe gave the plant the name ‘ Zingiber officinale in 1807.

In fact recent biotechnological research related to ginger some new ingredients were obtained, such as zingerone, shogaol, and paradol. Zingerone (4-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)-2-butanone) is in fact a nontoxic and inexpensive compound with varied pharmacological activities.

Zingerone was first isolated from the ginger root in 1917 by Hiroshi Nomura, a chemistry professor at Tokyo Imperial University. Zingerone is absent in fresh ginger but cooking or heating transforms gingerol to zingerone. Zingerone is closely related to vanillin from vanilla and Zingiber officinale, an example of a medicinal plant used in multiple cultures

eugenol from clove. Zingerone has potent anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, antilipolytic, antidiarrhoeic, antispasmodic properties. Furthermore, it displays the property of enhancing growth and immune stimulation. It behaves as appetite stimulant, anxiolytic, antithrombotic, radiation protective, and antimicrobial. Also, it inhibits the reactive nitrogen species which are important in causing Alzheimer’s disease and many other disorders. To say the least, this is an ingredient with numerous pharmaceutical applications of major importance. Some of them are obviously also applications with lucrative commercial exploitation potential.

While this is a plant found and commonly used in Kerala, Andhia Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Maharashtra, for its medicinal properties, the patent rights to be granted to the inventions, that are the results of modern research will be granted to the private companies and research institutes of the past. The communities that have developed the traditional knowedge on which modern research has built upon, and the countries of origin will not receive any benefits from the commercial applications of the modern re-packaging of this well-known traditional medicinal plant.

Frantzeska Papadopoulou

”When we were Samis”/”När vi var samer” by Mats Jonsson

For the lucky ones who can read Swedish there is a book I would warmly recommend to read! This is Mats Jonsson’s book, ”När vi var samer”, published in 2021. It tells the story that we are longing to find out more about, the story of the Samis. Unravelling his own family story and looking into his Sami roots, Mats Jonsson, dives into Sami history and of course most certainly thus Swedish history since the 1600s. The book is not a traditional book. It is written in a cartoon form and in black and white. To be honest, that non-conventional way of writing was peculiar to me and the first pages were difficult to follow and digest. But after page 40 (this is also when the real story starts), everything changes, you are taken away by the narrative, and I (personally) got used to the ”cartoon-like” way of writing.

Providing a review for this book is not a simple endeavour. History is narrated together with family history (a part of the book that I was not always able to follow). And from the discussions on the history of the ”coffee tree” (the tree where the predecessors of the author used to hang their coffee pot), to the terrible story of “Stor-Stina” the author keeps the reader’s interest. ”Stor-Stina”, Kristina Katarina Larsdotter (1819–1837), who was shown as a freak, never stopped growing, died young and whose skeleton was then displayed at Karolinska Institutet’s museum, directed by the notorious Anders Retzius – the father of craniology, who developed theories about short- and long-bald people – by extension the basis for theories about cultural stages, in short racism.

”When we were Sami”, provides an illustrative description of the struggle between Sami history and identity and the Swedish colonial empire. Although it includes sad elements, it is not a sad book. The quest for the author’s identity, history, becomes a quest for Swedish history, the real, the whole history, including the dark sides of Sami exclusion and cultural extinction.

Mats Jonsson’s storytelling technique is also so liberating, the alternation between reportage and fiction manages to communicate a difficult subject in an entertaining and easy way.

Frantzeska Papadopoulou

Discussion about colonialism and postcolonialism in Polish discourse is relatively fresh. However, it is not fresh in terms of discussion of French, British and other countries’ colonialisms, but the one that would be directly connected with the country itself. Relatively new are discussions that would combine the issue of Poland being colonized. However, the interesting thing that is taking place is connecting anyhow Poland with the issue of colonialism and being seen as a colonizer. Further, apart from the dominant discussion about colonialism and Polish neighbours, many interesting stories about this topic appear in the form of interesting facts.

Therefore, by conducting a very quick and short search through google, I was curious what could be found under the phrase “Polish colonialism”. I anticipated that the topics would be connected with dominant issues. However, what brought my attention were the articles in which Poland was presented as a colonizer. It would not be surprising if the articles spoke about early Polish times but recalled the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Such example is the idea to move (the entire) Polish population that would be independent to an island in The Pacific Ocean. Even though the idea was more than controversial, the thinking behind was that such a move would set Poles free from the neighbours. So considered was choosing the independence for the sake of the Polish.

Another interesting attempt to start participation in colonialism was Liga Morska i Kolonialna (Naval and Colonial League), which aimed to open the path to Polish colonialism by buying overseas lands. Even though the interest in this movement was significant, the idea collapsed once the Second World War broke out.

Even though digging deeper into these areas would probably reveal other nuances, it is interesting to see that such ideas were present. Connecting Poland based on analogies with colonialism by being colonized is one thing already present. However, less often is the discussion about Poland as colonizer, which seems to be interesting especially based on the times in which the claims were made.

By Katarzyna Kiryluk

This blog will be a bit personal, but I believe it will make it more interesting. In the centre will be the book “The Heart of the Darkness”. It is a publication widely known in the area of colonial and postcolonial studies and was one of the first books that we were talking about in the first classes of the master´s programme. It makes it crucial. We spent quite some time discussing its meaning and relevance, and only at the end of our classes devoted to the book, did I realise I know the book. From where? It was a compulsory book when I was in high school, and during classes at LNU I was shocked to see how much I did not understand the book while reading it at school, and it made me think why, but also how it is possible that I was discussing the book that I have read without knowing it. Especially a book like this one.

The book is full of references and meanings, which as a teenager, who did not know the context, I was unable to understand. What do I remember from reading the book back then? That it was weird, mysteriously ridiculous and that it was the most confusing book that I had to read at school.

Having this book as compulsory must have been an important step to reveal the importance of literature and its message. Therefore, this blog does not aim to either prise or criticise this title for high schools students. On the other hand, it aims to present how the perspective can change and how interesting can be approaching the same book in different parts of our lives. Reading it now primarily gave me an understanding of the book, but I am curious to see how I will approach it, in let´s say, ten years and later.

Katarzyna Kiryluk

I write this post with a few caveats. First of all, the fact that war (and especially highly medialised ones, such as the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine) uncovers acts of racialised violence and generally deep-rooted patterns of colonialism. Secondly, in any fruitful discussion of a topic as traumatic existentialist as that of war, be it in an academic or non-academic setting, one should be able to hold more than one thought in one’s head at the same time. This is not intended as a form of gatekeeping by demanding a certain level of academic professionalism when expressing a thought on a topic, but it has become clear in the last few days (especially when opening Twitter), that the condemnation of war crimes committed by anyone other than Putin’s forces, is  directly anti-Ukrainian and (in some extreme cases) also an apology of everything bad that went down in the Soviet Union (yes, apparently Russia in 2022 is a commie dictatorship). So when I voice an opinion against some of the atrocities that are being committed by other actors than the Russians, this by no means is to serve as an apologetic stance towards the illegal invasion by Russia. With that out of the way, let us look at a particularly under-reported topic, which might seem slightly trivial, but indeed is symptomatic for the policy of Europeans nations on the matter of refugees.

Since the invasion which began on the 24^th of February 2022, the international support for Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees has been overwhelming. Hitherto unprecedented economic sanctions (likened by some experts to economic warfare) has been put in place, not just by the West, but even by China. Countries, like Poland and Hungary, who earlier have expressed a, to put it mildly, firm stance against refugees, soon came with promises of being safe havens for the millions who fled the war. However, relatively soon, reports of gross racial violence against non-white Ukrainians and foreign students emerged. The accounts were brutal, and I find no reason to go into the gory details in this post but suffice to say that the UNHR issued a statement on the xenophobic violence (1).

While this form of brutality is nothing novel in war, and certainly not unique to this conflict, there is a certain case which caught my attention, and which demonstrates some of the more sinister and structural forms of racism in Europe.

The Nordic countries have, at least in terms of international standing, been regarded as relatively humane in their treatment of refugees. However, of these countries, Denmark has received quite a bit of criticism for passing laws aimed at altering the behaviour of non-ethnic Danes (read: Foucauldian bio power in its purest form). Among these were the controversial ‘Ghetto laws’ (2) and the insistence on people ‘shaking hands’ in a civilised matter when swearing the obligatory oath of loyalty to Denmark (3). These are certainly problematic in themselves, but there is one law which stood out: the jewellery law. It stipulates that the Danish state can confiscate any piece of jewellery possessed by asylum seekers who have passed through several “friendly” states to arrive in Denmark. It is a law, which now, might be revoked specially for Ukrainians.

Again, this is not a criticism of Ukrainians fleeing the war. I am personally for revoking the law. But I am also of the stout opinion that such a revocation should apply for everyone, and not, as in this case, as a loophole for certain people. It becomes, as I shall argue, a form of reversed state of exception (as postulated by Agamben) wherein the hastily inclusion of a demographic group becomes the variable which serves to highlight the exclusion of others. The controversial law which drew widespread international criticism (4) allows for the confiscation of valuables worth over 10.000 DKK and came in the wake of the 2015 refugee crisis. However, now the two biggest political parties in Denmark, the Social Democrats and Venstre (a market-liberal but quite value conservative ‘moderate’ party) are investigating the possibility for changing the law to exempt Ukrainians. It is as of now not yet clear whether this includes Ukrainians of colour. But what is clear is who it does not include: the Syrian refugees who was the primary target of the law when it was enacted in 2016.

The motivation for this, according to a spokesperson from the Social Democrats is that Denmark is a regional neighbour to Ukraine (5) (6). Another area being investigated is whether one could change the very law on asylum seekers, so as to circumvent ‘  flygtningeproblematikken’  (as a Dane myself, I would translate this as the ‘refugee issue’) in order to label Ukrainians not as asylum seekers, but a category for themselves (5). It has to be mentioned, that reports show that the jewellery law is seldomly, if ever, enforced. Yet it does highlight the categorisation, thinly veiled behind regional security policy, of certain peoples as wanted refugees against non-wanted refugees. And while I am all for opening the borders and supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression, it saddens me to see exactly how blatant the bias against refugees from what is deemed as the ‘periphery’ is. The state of exception in this case is a mechanism of power which becomes highly imperial in that it decides exactly who gets to live and who gets to die. It creates, as Agamben might have noted, the perfect homo sacer by imagining some people as legitimate refugees, and others as simply opportunistic.

Ejner Pedersen Trenter

Sources:

• https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=28194&LangID=E
• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/how-denmarks-ghetto-list-is-ripping-apart-migrant-communities
• https://time.com/5402715/denmark-handshake-citizenship-plan-muslims/
• https://www.thelocal.dk/20160127/denmark-faces-backlash-over-despicable-migrant-bill/
• https://nyheder.tv2.dk/politik/2022-03-03-smykkeloven-skal-annulleres-for-ukrainske-flygtninge-siger-to-partier
• https://www.thelocal.dk/20220303/danish-government-likely-to-exempt-ukrainians-from-controversial-refugee-jewellery-law/