# taz.de -- Cameroon activist about colonialism: „The pain is still there“
> Sylvie Vernyuy Njobati wants that „Ngonnso“, stolen by Germans in
> colonial times, will return from Berlin to the Nso people in Cameroon.
(IMG) Bild: Sylvie Vernyuy Njobati in front of Humboldt Forum in Berlin, where „Ngonnso“ is now presented
Taz: Mrs Njobati, you came to Berlin to bring Ngonnso from the Humboldt
Forum back to Cameroon. First of all it would be nice if you tell us: Who
is Ngonnso?
Sylvie Vernyuy Njobati: Ngonnso is the founder of my people, the Nso People
in Northwest Camerun. Ngonnso had two brothers. They fell into a conflict,
and so she had to move separate from the brothers and then found the Nso
land where we are today. And so for us, she she's not just a founder, but a
unifying element. Also, because every time she kept moving because of the
topography, I mean, in an experimental phase, she was trying to find
suitable places for people to live. And so when she kept moving, she moved
with her people to the present site. And so for us, she's not just an
object that is standing somewhere in the museum on display for people to
see what I still do not understand until today. She is our identity. She is
our history. She's our culture. She is the essence of our existence today.
When we look back, we don't see anything because we are unable to see
Ngonnso. Ngonnso makes us who we are and connects us to our ancestors. She
gives us meaning and history to hold on to.
Is she also a kind of goddess?
This would not be an appropriate way to describe Ngonnso. On the one hand
it's not just about what you see. It is spiritual, it's something more felt
than seen to us. But I wouldn't say she is a goddess in the world goddess,
though. I would say she is very like a powerful identity for us.
And the wooden statue that is now here in Berlin, is it really the only
statues or picture of her?
It is the original statue of Ngonnso. It is the only thing we have. There
are no photographs. There's no picture anywhere. There is no other item or
object that signifies her. We felt her absence. We felt the lack of
spirituality, something we would look up to and be reminded who we are and
why we are, where we are today. And so there was a replica made and stands
in front of the palace, so the people can see it. It is also very
significant during our Ngonnso festival that is paying homage to Ngonnso.
This statue is a reminder that we have a bigger battle to fight that there
is our real identity. And so it's like: Here I am, don't forget me, bring
me back home, bring the original me back home.
But why is there only one original statue?
Ngonnso wasn't just there to be an image that we see. It has traditional
elements attached to it. It has spiritual significance. Ngonnso invokes
fertility, for example, when the crops were not doing very well, literally
we communicate through Ngonnso to the ancestors. We are highly traditional.
It’s just like when you are troubled and even if your mother is dead or far
away you can always talk to her.
Ngonnso is now 100 years away. How can you keep up these traditions?
Since Ngonnso was taken away, I would say that the land has never been the
same. We had two Fons, two traditional leaders, who prematurely died. It
was believed, and it's even documented by seers, that they died because of
the absence of Ngonnso. I mean, since then, Nso Cameroon has been a land of
chaos. We're in an armed conflict in Cameroon now, there is just so much
fighting, people being killed. We strongly believe that the return of
Ngonnso is going to make it different. These fightings are also about an
identity crisis. It's about colonialism. It's about being ruled by three
different colonial masters. You look at yourself and you don't even know
who you are. You're trying to borrow language from the English and you're
trying to borrow culture from the French. And then there is still that
stronghold of German. You've been a puzzle that has just been picked from
different places and fitted is being forced to fit in together. And then
you just don't know who you are as a person. And that's what is troubling
for us. That's what we are suffering from.
How long is it now that the Nso people are demanding back Ngonnso?
We found out that Ngonnso is demanded back since the Seventies. Ever since
then, Nso people have been struggling to get Ngonnso back. But now the
question is, what channels have they been using? There were many different
people having the same goal, the same interest, but also taking different
routes to communicate to be able to ensure repatriation. It's difficult to
trace exactly when the request started. I know about a letter from around
1998. But I think it should be close to 30 years that Nso people have been
after Ngonnso. I always tell everyone that if it was not something that was
very important, we would have given up. Because in 2011, there was this
correspondence with the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, and the response
was that Ngonnso was their legal property that they cannot restitute. That
was really a dead end. If it was something that didn't mean anything to us,
we would have given up.
In her speech on the opening ceremony in the Humboldt Forum the Nigerian
writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie mentioned Ngonnso. Was that a surprise for
you?
No. I was just quite impressed that she mentioned Ngonnso. We worked very
hard to make sure that the world would know that we were working on it. The
approach had always been a more diplomatic approach, sending mails here and
there, waiting for feedback, God knows for how long. And so for me, when I
started to try to bring back Ngonnso, I just wanted to take it to the
streets and just do it. So for me, it was about taking the activism
approach and going out there and also adding another angle to it, which was
a digital approach. Also, because the idea was how do we communicate and
then ensure that this communication is two ways? I didn’t want the Germans
talk about restitution without us. And so we took it to Twitter and social
media in general, imploring different multimedia tools to enhance the
campaign. If we talk about the spiritual significance and the cultural
value, Ngonnso is one of those thousands of objects where it's very clear
that restitution should happen and should happen really now. It doesn’t
need to be contemplated upon. I think it should go.
Is it you who is the head of the campaign?
I started the hashtag [1][#BringBackNgonnso], and I started this as part of
a program for an organization that I founded and that I'm working for. It's
called [2][Sysy House of Fame]. We have a program called Colonial Dialogue
and Reconciliation, and the idea is also just to encourage communities to
reflect on, and confront the colonial past and their respective roles in
order to be able to create a pathway for dialogue, healing and even
closure. We realized how much people are burning inside when we talk about
colonialism, and we've worked with some people back home and I've been a
part of some conferences with a great institution back home and the pain is
still there. It's so much time passed already, but I think this is one
thing that time has refused to heal. When we had these conferences, there
was always this pain and focus on on the devastation of colonialism, on the
violence, on how much people suffered. We realized that there is a need for
people to heal or just to be able to have these conversations in a mature
way, in a way that is productive. And so we decided to focus on Ngonnso as
one of our main project. And so when I started the hashtag it was important
for me to unify all of the voices, we have a lot of people in the Nso that
have done work to ensure that restitution happens. We have people who have
traveled to Germany back and forth to participate in conferences to share
their research. We have people doing their own provenance research back at
home, and we have artists that have already done so much to also just
educate people on Ngonnso. So it was important to bring all of these
efforts together in one place to be able to, you know, harness the energy
and put it in the right direction. The challenge it's always been: Who do
we talk to? Where is the right person that is at the level of decision
making? Through the social media campaign we were able to connect to the
German Contact Point for Collections from Colonial Contexts…
…which is seated at the Cultural Foundation of the German Federal States.
What did they say to your request?
We met online and we talked about the campaign and the need to bring back
Ngonnso. So they were able to give us directions on how to go in, who is
necessary for the campaign and what steps we should take in prospect of how
these could go.
While we are talking to each other here we are being filmed by a team. You
told us beforehand that you were working on a film about Ngonnso. How come?
I studied film in Cameroon. In 2017 I met the filmmaker Marc Sebastian Eils
on an exchange project between filmmakers from Berlin and Bamenda. We
initially had the idea of making a documentary about Ngonnso independently
of each other and then got together to tell the story from a
German-Cameroonian perspective. And then in 2018, I was doing a traineeship
program for documentary filmmaking in Cameroon, and I was selected by
Jean-Marie Teno for a film project on Colonial Heritage. I decided to work
on Ngonnso as my focus for my first short film and then Marc and I decided
to continue telling the story of Ngonnso in another documentary.
But now you are rather the subject of the documentary?
Actually, yes. I mean, I also contribute to the vision of how I wanted this
film to be. And we had some plans for 2020, but it was really difficult
because he couldn't travel to Cameroon, I couldn't travel to Germany. And
for us, we found it very important to also see how these conversations are
happening on both ends. Both in Cameroon and Germany, so we use the current
modus to do more of the planning, which is good too.
In Germany it is said that for many African objects, we don't know the
exact way how it came to Germany. What do you think about this?
Provenance research becomes problematic when it's one sided, when the
Germans want to tell our a story for us, when they want to ignore the fact
that we also have our history that is handed down from generation to
generation. I recognize very much the lapses in oral history, that some
facts could be distorted when handed down. But the basic facts are there.
So if we had if we have ten people from my generation saying that their
grandfather told them that Ngonnso was stolen in an expedition that burned
the palace, then you really cannot contest that, I mean you are allowed to
contest that by proving otherwise. And until now, it hasn’t been proven.
Is that the story that you were told?
Yes. But we also have historians who are professors at universities. There
is also a research which ist demystifying the circumstances surrounding the
disappearance of Ngonnso. We strongly believe that Ngonnso was stolen.
But does ist really matter how it came to Germany? Isn't it more important
what Ngonnso means for you?
Well, the Germans are trying to make it matter.
You met Hermann Parzinger, the president of the Stiftung Preußischer
Kulturbesitz for the first time in the end of September in Berlin. What did
you tell him?
I told him that we don't just want them to give us Ngonnso back when they
think that it is convenient for them. If it's a dialogue and we have two
people involved, we should have conversations that fit both people, we
should find a way. We should find a common ground. And so when we talk
about acquisition, how it was acquired, I mean, the museum keeps saying
it's their legal property. They are saying it was not stolen. So I mean,
then there must have been a way it was acquired. So how then was it
acquired and what proof do you have that it was acquired like that?
Did he give you any proof?
No, there’s no proof yet. We don't have anything. And as far as I'm
concerned, unless they prove to us that Ngonnso was taken legally, then it
was taken illegally.
What did he answer to your demand concerning Ngonnso?
I would say the position of the museum shifted from what it was. In 2011
they offered to loan Ngonnso to us – which in my view was an abuse of the
civility of the community who owns it.
This was the idea of Parzinger: To circulate objects between countries
because they are seen as „shared heritage“.
But imagine the absurdity: They'll give it to us as a loan and we will have
it only for some time and then bring it back. But I think meanwhile the
position is shifting. When I talked with Parzinger I had the impression
that he has understood the value of the object for us now. And he was
saying that there is a possibility of a restitution to happen. So I was
holding him to time, asking: When is this going to happen? We cannot wait
another ten years. And se said okay, but it has to start with a dialogue.
They always talk about dialogue.
Exactly. I told him people have been having dialogues forever. So when is
this dialogue supposed to happen? He said: „Al right, we are in contact
now. We need someone who is like a legal authority of representation from
Nso people to whom we can talk to.“ So now we will have a workshop in
November, early December. That's the start. And he said, the decision if
restitution will happen can even be made next year.
Can you believe this?
In general it is hard for me to believe officials like him. But I was able
to believe him when he said that he believes that something good will come
out of the dialogue. In the end I also handed over a letter to him, a
formal request from the Fon of the Nso to him. And Parzinger said: „Your
letter is in good hands.“
In earlier times it was a problem that the Germans always wanted to talk to
somebody from the government. Maybe they realised now that their
counterpart could also be a traditional leader of a community?
I am wondering if they really accept that. But these objects were often
taken from communities and not from nations.
You mean the Ngonnso is not that important for Cameroon as a nation?
We Nso people are the only ones who understand what we go through in the
absence of Ngonnso, someone out of Nso doesn't really understand it. It's
not a national symbol, it's not a flag, for example, or an item that it's a
collective country item or object. Ngonnso is a community specific object.
So I believe that the conversations should be with these communities – Nso
and Berlin.
When was it that you personally came in touch with Ngonnso the first time?
When I was a child I lived with my grandparents, basically because my
mother delivered me when she was still in school. When I was growing up,
there was always this this conflict between tradition and christianity or
religion. My grandfather was supposed to be like a traditional ruler, but
he also believed that he had this calling to be a pastor. So I grew up in a
well-grounded environment at home, but when it came to spirituality and
identity it was very confusing for me.
Did you grow up in a village?
My grandfather was a pastor, so he was always moving to different
congregations where he was transferred to. Most of the places were within
Bui Division, Nso is a part of this region. So I've grown up in various
villages in the region where the Nso live – actually very, very small
villages. And I also witnessed him struggle with himself about the issue of
tradition and religion. You have to know: We have smaller communities
within the bigger community which are called big compound. And in our big
compound he was supposed to be the traditional ruler but he couldn't see
himself to rule traditionally. And because this role is handed over from
grandparents to parents in a defined line of succession, and because he was
the only child from the succession lineage, there was no one else who could
do it apart from him.
So he was supposed to fulfill this traditional role, but he didn't?
Yes, he refused, he preferred to serve as a pastor. And so the whole
compound just went into ruins, for more than 15 years people moved out, no
real tradition or rituals were happening. So when I grew up and I moved
into boarding school and from there to university, I became totally lost
because I wasn't the Christian child anymore neither was I very inclined to
tradition. So I just stayed away from both.
Is this something that many people of your generation share?
Yes, yes. I think most people growing up in this generation still do not
understand that there is a very big connection between the Nso tradition
and christianity. People think that you have to choose between both, but
you don't have to. You can perfectly blend both. There was a point in my
life when I had to move from the English speaking region to Yaoundé in the
French speaking region. For the first time I was on my own. This was the
most difficult time of my life because then I also had to start struggling
to adapt to the French culture, French institutions, French administration
and French lifestyle, which was not really working.
Why not?
Because there is a big difference. The majority, 80 percent in Cameroon, is
French – and the influence is really so hard. I wouldn't have access to
places just because I speak English. I wouldn't have access to jobs. I
would be discriminated upon. I would be insulted because I speak English.
English speaking people from Cameroonn are discriminated by the French
speaking ones?
Of course! Every person from the English speaking region would tell you the
same. So when I had all these tough experiences, I think sometimes around
2012, I realized that I was in a big identity crisis. I stood in front of
the mirror and I didn't know who I was. It was so tough for me. You just
have everything around you trying to influence who you are, you feel like
you're being controlled by everything that is happening around you. And I
was just that hybrid Nso child that didn't even know about its culture and
tradition. So at some point I decided to go back to my roots.
Was this the time when you learned about the meaning of Ngonnso?
Yes. I mean, I knew a bit about Ngonnso since I was a child, but we are not
taught about it in school. We are not taught about our own history in
school! The whole system fails every average person who wants to be an
independent person with an identity. In school our history starts around
1884, when christianity and colonialism started. I mean, I schooled in the
village, but we never learned anything about Ngonnso in school, no one ever
told us. At some point we were even taught by some of our teachers that it
was wrong for us to resist colonialism!
Really? And what else do you learn about colonialism in school? Because in
Germany, we learn basically nothing.
We learned about colonialism in school, but not in a reflective way. Not in
the way that you can reflect and be able to make a critique of colonialism.
Colonialism is given to us as information. So I think we need to
restructure this system and how the stories are told. We need to reflect
the role of history in people's lives and have a holistic way of teaching
history in schools. Then we would learn about our own traditions – and I
would go to the palace, see the replica of Ngonnso and learn about her
story.
How did you learn more about Ngonnso then?
My first step when I began my journey back to my roots was with my
grandfather. I heard about Ngonnso in the first place from him. But when I
was a child I was not very much interested, I wasn't a traditional person,
I wasn't linked to my culture. So when I went back to him I did have a
fireside chat with him. We had to start the conversation from what his
position is now, at his age, about culture and tradition and religion. It
was also important to understand how his perspective had evolved. He so
much regretted that he was unable to take his position as a traditional
ruler.
He regretted?
Yes, he did. And he did outline to me that the So culture and tradition and
christianity's basically they uphold the same values. Nso culture would
condemn what is bad, christianity condemn what is bad. Nso culture uphold
what is good, christianity as well. Nso culture would advocate for being
good to your neighbour and taking care of people. It's the same thing with
Christianity. So he's one of the first people that enlightened me on the
coexistence and the importance of the coexistence of tradition and
christianity in the same community. It was the moment for me to also ask
myself how much I could contribute to my tradition and my culture, how much
I could give back and not just expecting to receive. I also met with
Reverend Father Tatah Mbuy, who has also mastered the relationship between
religion and tradition. He did a lot of counselling for me. It also helped
me understand what I'm getting into and that it wasn't going to be an easy
journey. And I said to myself that I was ready for this journey.
Bring back Ngonnso is part of this journey?
When I spoke to my grandfather in 2018 the told me that he would wish that
Ngonnso come back before he dies – or before he goes to eternety as he
said. And he told me: „Go! Make sure you bring it, I know you will bring
it!“ I promised him I was going to do my best. Unfortunately I couldn't
make it: He died at the very day when the Humboldt Forum opened with the
exibition of Ngonnso and the other objects – when I was in Berlin.
9 Sep 2022
## LINKS
(DIR) [1] https://twitter.com/hashtag/BringBackNgonnso?src=hashtag_click
(DIR) [2] https://www.sysyhouseoffame.org/
## AUTOREN
(DIR) Susanne Memarnia
(DIR) Susanne Messmer
## TAGS
(DIR) Schwerpunkt Kunst und Kolonialismus
(DIR) Deutscher Kolonialismus
(DIR) Schwerpunkt Kunst und Kolonialismus
(DIR) Humboldt Forum
(DIR) Restitution
## ARTIKEL ZUM THEMA
(DIR) Raubkunst im Humboldt Forum: From Berlin with Love
Große Restitutionswoche in der Hauptstadt: Die Stiftung Preußischer
Kulturbesitz hat das Placet für die Rückgabe von „Benin-Bronzen“ gegeben.
(DIR) Rückgabe an Kamerun: Die Göttin darf gehen
Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz will mit Kamerun über Rückgabe von
„Ngonnso“ verhandeln. Aktivist*innen feiern die Heimkehr der verehrten
Figur.
(DIR) Aktivistin über koloniales Erbe: „Der Schmerz ist noch präsent“
Wahrscheinlich geraubt und jetzt im Berliner Humboldt Forum: Sylvie Vernyuy
Njobati kämpft um die Rückgabe einer Figur mit spiritueller Bedeutung.