Equal rights for Africans in Germany and in the colonies: What 19 Africans in the Dibobe Petition 100 years ago, is a historic Protest. Now Berlin is honoring them with a commemorative plaque.
Martin Dibobe was the first African-born conductor of the Berliner Hochbahn
What Martin Dibobe and his comrades-in-arms challenge in the summer of 1919, it has with it. The young Weimar Republic, they vow namely, “unswerving Loyalty”. However, in submissions to the national Assembly and the colonial office asking for a small Revolution: Equal rights for Germans and Africans in Germany. A African Reichstag deputies (namely Dibobe self). More rights for the inhabitants of the German colonies in Africa, the end of corporal punishment and forced labour. “Through these conditions, they showed, indirectly, all of the errors of colonialism,” says the historian, Paulette Reed-Anderson DW.
A Pragmatic Approach
The injustice of the colonial system has experienced Dibobe on his own body. In 1876, he was born as the son of a chief in Cameroon, then a German colony. As part of an international look, which will satisfy the curiosity of the German and the enthusiasm for colonialism is to increase, he comes to Berlin. There, he worked for the first black train conductor in the case of the high line. Against great opposition, he marries the daughter of his landlord. At the same time, he is a tireless fighter for the rights of Africans. A clever Diplomat, recognizes the conditions of that time: “It made no sense to simply write: ‘We want independence’, because it was clear that they would not get. They were very pragmatic,” says Reed-Anderson, a specialist in the history of the African Community in Germany.
Already in 2016, a memorial plaque was unveiled at Dibobes former house
Dibobes Protest but it runs into the Void: Neither the national Assembly, the works in Weimar to a new democratic Constitution, the colonial office reply. After the peace of Versailles, Germany cedes its colonies to the victorious powers, France and great Britain. The 32 claims from the Dibobe-Petition will remain unfulfilled.
It will take 100 years for the use of the will be assessed a signatory to the public: a few days ago, a memorial plaque at the building of the former Kolonialamts in Berlin-Mitte, to the Petition and your name. “100 years ago, living in the immigrant, presented here in Germany from the German colonies of comprehensive claims: The 18 signatories called for independence, equality and legal certainty in the colonies. You are required to continue participation and representation in formulations, which sounded to reforms, but implicitly the System of colonial rule, on a fundamental inequality, and violence based, questioning,” said Berlin’s culture Senator Klaus Lederer at the inauguration.
Some of the conditions are not met until today
But Martin Dibobe is that it is the experience that things change. Unnerved by the racism in his adopted home of Germany, he returns to Africa. In Cameroon, now under French rule, is denied to the uncomfortable spirit entry. In 1922, his track in Liberia, Dibobe device is lost in oblivion. However, it is named after Petition, until today, meaning, says the German-Tanzanian activist Mnyaka Sururu Mboro. He is the co-founder of the Association “Berlin post-colonial”, initiated by the plaque.
Mnyaka Sururu Mboro does not believe that the claims of the Dibobe-Petition today to be fully realised
“You have demanded, for example, African members of Parliament,” said Mboro to DW. “It took almost 100 years and now we have a” (the one in the Senegal-born SPD members Karamba Diaby, d. Red.). Other claims were not fulfilled up to today, writes Mboro, living since 30 years in Germany: “Many Afro-Germans are still not always regarded as full-fledged German. Even if you live here, speak the language, you will not be accepted still.”
Also with the refurbishment of its colonial history, Germany is still difficult: A monument to the German colonialism, as demanded by the activists, there are in Berlin, still. In school textbooks and the media, the issue comes up hardly. Still road to remember the name of the colonial masters, what Parts of the civil society to be a thorn in the eye. The dispute there is also the return of human remains and cultural treasures from the Colonial Era. For Paulette Reed-Anderson, the claims of Dibobe and his 17 comrades-in-arms are only fulfilled if the Dibobe-Petition is recognized as part of the German past. “It is an important part of German history, the researches are still discussed and his influence on today’s society will have to be discussed.”