Why colonial-era statues with racist, oppressive legacies still stand tall in African countries
The history of these statues in post-colonial African countries exposes the challenges of truly moving beyond the colonial world and order.
In 2020, the murder of George Floyd in the US served as a catalyst for the global Black Lives Matter movement. It sparked widespread protests against police brutality and systemic racism. It also ignited debates about historical symbols of oppression, such as statues of figures associated with racial injustices.
These debates presented colonial statues in Africa as having been contested and toppled for many years, ever since African states gained independence. Indeed, colonial statues were at the heart of the colonial world, symbolising its violence, white supremacy and the erasure of precolonial history. But colonial monuments in African public spaces have much more complex and often overlooked histories.
As a scholar of African heritage, I recently published a study examining colonial statues and how they have been regarded in postcolonial Africa. My historical investigation highlights three major phases.
First, in the era of independence of African states, from the 1950s to 1980, some statues were removed from public spaces, but many remained.
Second, the 1990s and 2000s were marked by the “return of empires”: statues that had been removed were put back in public spaces and new neo-colonial monuments were constructed.
Third, the renewed challenges to colonial statues from the 2010s faced some strong resistance. Understanding this history is crucial, as it exposes...