<
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/mar/08/how-africa-hopes-to-advance-campaign-for-reparative-justice>
"One afternoon last October, at a hotel in a forest in a Nairobi suburb, a few
dozen people sat quietly in a room watching the 2020 documentary
If Objects
Could Speak, which explores restitution by tracing the roots of a Kenyan
artefact stored in a German museum.
The people were at the two-day Wakati Wetu (“Our Time” in Swahili) festival,
aimed at sparking global conversations on reparative justice.
Last month, the African Union adopted a motion put forward by Ghana to label
slavery and colonialism as crimes against humanity. This month, the motion will
be tabled at the United Nations, with demands made for redress.
The motion, which was first announced at the UN general assembly last
September, is the latest move in a strategic push by the African continent to
seek reparative justice.
The AU declared 2025 the year of reparations, with a theme of Justice for
Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations, marking the first
time the 55-country bloc had put the issue at the centre of its agenda. By
July, the AU had extended the timeline by declaring 2026 to 2036 the Decade of
Reparations to mobilise support for justice.
For decades, African countries suffered numerous injustices by the west,
including colonialism and the forced enslavement of its people. Efforts to
redress these injustices and their lasting economic, social and psychological
impacts have been few and far between, and largely confined to academia and
nonprofit spaces. Progress has also been hindered by a lack of resources and
coordinated strategy among activists, and reluctance by European governments to
reopen old wounds.
With the Nairobi event, organisers hoped to get reparative justice movements on
the continent to utilise arts and culture in their campaign. Liliane Umubyeyi,
the co-founder and executive director of African Futures Lab, one of the
organisers, said the arts could help make reparation discussions more
accessible.
“The arts … can speak to each one of us as Africans,” she said. “Art is a
universal way to experience things. You don’t have to have a degree to learn
music.”"
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
