The violence, intergenerational harm and structural inequalities European colonialism has produced are alive and constitute a reality that reproduces itself and shapes the lives of billions of human beings.
The near-monopoly of Western museums’ possession of the global South’s cultural heritage in particular represents one of the continuities between the age of empires and our time.
It is estimated that a mere few universal collections host between 90 and 95% of African cultural heritage. Museums as classic ‘implicated subjects’ have benefited from past colonial regimes although they were not a central actor in the colonial administrations.
In recent years, as demonstrated by protest movements like the ‘urban fallism’, the urge to engage with the multi-layered legacy of colonialism has gained momentum.
In line with the position of the Africa Union, it therefore challenges the common argument of former colonial powers that, although morally appalling, colonialism was not illegal according to the standards of the time.
