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Germany confronts colonial past through return of ancient cross to Namibia

A German museum was set to announce Friday that it would restitute to Namibia a key 15th-century navigation landmark erected by Portuguese explorers, as part of Berlin's efforts to face up to its colonial past.

Germany confronts colonial past through return of ancient cross to Namibia
The cross on display at the German Historical Museum in Berlin. Photo: DPA

A German museum was set to announce Friday that it would restitute to Namibia a key 15th-century navigation landmark erected by Portuguese explorers, as part of Berlin's efforts to face up to its colonial past.

Placed in 1486 on the western coast of what is today Namibia, the Stone Cross was once considered to be such an important navigation marker that it featured on old world maps.

In the 1890s, it was removed from its spot on Cape Cross and brought to Europe by the region's then German colonial masters.

SEE ALSO: Art reparation: Colonial ghosts haunt German and other European museums

Since 2006, it has been part of a permanent exhibition of the German Historical Museum in Berlin.

But in June 2017, Namibia demanded the restitution of the cross, which stands 3.5 metres tall and weighs 1.1 tonnes.

After holding a symposium in 2018 with African and European experts on the issue, the museum's supervisory board was due to formally announce Friday its decision to return the monument.

Germany has pledged to accelerate the return of artifacts and human remains from former African colonies.

On the eve of the planned announcement, Germany's minister of state for international cultural policies, Michelle Müntefering, said: “The return of cultural objects is an important building stone for our common future with Namibia.”

SEE ALSO: Germany confronts colonial past through 'largest return' of Aboriginal remains

'Historical injustice'

In a column in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the president of the museum's foundation, Raphael Gross, noted that the Cross “is one of the very few objects that documents the occupation of the country by the Portuguese and with that the slow beginning of colonial rule in present-day Namibia”.

“For the people in Namibia and their cultural and political self-image, it is today of great significance because it stands for the experience of colonial rule from the perspective of those who were subject to it.”

For Gross, a restitution would be an “important gesture” for both Namibia and the museum, which would serve as a “recognition of historical injustice”.

“In this respect, it can act as an intervention that allows a new chapter to be opened up in the consideration of the common history of both Germany and Namibia.”

SEE ALSO: Berlin to change street names which honour brutal colonial past

Berlin ruled what was then called South-West Africa as a colony from 1884 to 1915.

Germany has on several occasions repatriated human remains to Namibia, where it slaughtered tens of thousands of indigenous Herero and Nama people between 1904 and 1908.

The German government announced in 2016 that it planned to issue an official apology for the atrocities committed by German imperial troops.

But it has repeatedly refused to pay direct reparations, citing millions of euros in development aid given to the Namibian government.

Beyond the former South West Africa, the German empire also held the colonies of Togoland, now Togo, Kamerun (Cameroon) and Tanganyika (Tanzania), as well as some Pacific islands.

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RELIGION

Al-Azhar university calls for Sweden boycott over Koran burning

The Sunni Muslim world's most prestigious educational institution, Al-Azhar in Egypt, has called for the boycott of Swedish and Dutch products after far-right activists destroyed Korans in those countries.

Al-Azhar university calls for Sweden boycott over Koran burning

Al-Azhar, in a statement issued on Wednesday, called on “Muslims to boycott Dutch and Swedish products”.

It also urged “an appropriate response from the governments of these two countries” which it charged were “protecting despicable and barbaric crimes in the name of ‘freedom of expression'”.

Swedish-Danish far-right politician Rasmus Paludan on Saturday set fire to a copy of the Muslim holy book in front of Turkey’s embassy in Stockholm, raising tensions as Sweden courts Ankara over its bid to join Nato.

EXPLAINED:

The following day, Edwin Wagensveld, who heads the Dutch chapter of the German anti-Islam group Pegida, tore pages out of the Koran during a one-man protest outside parliament.

Images on social media also showed him walking on the torn pages of the holy book.

The desecration of the Koran sparked strong protests from Ankara and furious demonstrations in several capitals of the Muslim world including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Yemen.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry “strongly condemned” the Koran burning, expressing “deep concern at the recurrence of such events and the recent Islamophobic escalation in a certain number of European countries”.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson condemned Paludan’s actions as “deeply disrespectful”, while the United States called it “repugnant”.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price on Monday said the burning was the work of “a provocateur” who “may have deliberately sought to put distance between two close partners of ours – Turkey and Sweden”.

On Tuesday, Turkey postponed Nato accession talks with Sweden and Finland, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned Stockholm for allowing weekend protests that included the burning of the Koran.

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