Thread by @StefSimanowitz

1/. In 1898, Mbuya Nehanda & Sekuru Kaguvi who led a rebellion against British colonizers in what is now Zimbabwe, were hanged

Their heads & those of other rebel leaders were cut off, taken to Britain & displayed as war trophies

124 years on, their heads are in the @NHM_London

2/. “And they call us ‘savages’!”

Mbuya Nehanda & Sekuru Kaguvi were involved in the Ndebele-Shona revolt against the Cecil Rhodes’ British South Africa Company after the company introduced a hut tax

Discussions around repatriation began in 2014
#BringBackNehandaAndKaguvi

3/. Today we went to the Natural History Museum to see if we could get the director, Doug Gurr & curator @NatHistGirl to agree to send the skulls of Nehanda & Kaguvi back to Zimbabwe were they can be buried with the respect & reverence they deserve.
#BringBackNehandaAndKaguvi

4/. The @NHM_London keeps 20,000+ human remains

A museum spokesperson told me today

“We have the remains of eleven individuals from Zimbabwe but have found no evidence to suggest that they are the remains of Mbuya Nehanda or others associated with the First Chimurenga uprising”

5/. “In our culture, the spirit will hang in limbo because the body has not been buried properly,” says @VusiNyamazana a Zimbabwean involved with a newly launched campaign @BBOB_Zimbabwe

In London, campaigners unfurled a
#BringBackNehandaAndKaguvi banner today in the @NHM_London

6/. In 2015, Zimbabwe’s president Mugabe said Britain keeping war trophy heads “ranks among highest form of moral decadence”

Mugabe wasn’t in the best position to talk about morality but, in this instance, he is right

So why doesn’t the UK return them?
google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theg…

7/. At the @NHM_London, campaigners who unfurled a
banner were quickly moved on

But the questions won’t go away

Why has it taken so many years to repatriate these 11 skulls?

Please direct questions to @DCMS, @NadineDorries & her adviser, @hudson_roe
#BringBackNehandaAndKaguvi

8/. Ex-Colonial powers don’t like to dwell on the horrors they committed in the name of Empire: the enslavement, brutalisation & Genocide of entire populations

These horrors must be acknowledged

Proper amends must be made

Failure to repatriate the skulls rubs salt in the wound

https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/1468952700180054024

9/. “Back then I didn’t realist that you were a human being with rights, values & feelings like me. That’s my bad. But it was along time ago. I’m a different person now”

Refusing to return stolen artifacts is bad enough

Keeping human remains is ghoulish!

10/ Most societies have a concept of “redemption”

It requires 3 simple steps
1. Acknowledgment
2. Contrition
3. Making amends

At #COP26, this man did what our govt will not. Apologise

“I’m so sorry for what my nation did to your nation. What my ancestors did to your ancestors”

https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/1457362155829964810

11/. It’s not easy to look in the mirror & to acknowledge the true horror of colonisation (slavery, Genocide etc)

In this visual of world population though the ages keep an eye on #Brazil & #Mexico

Q. What happened in 1500AD?
A. White people happened

12/. This is not about judging past behaviour

It’s about acknowledging what happened & recognising that the past is still present

“The conqueror writes history. You don't expect the people who came to invade us to tell the truth about us” (Miriam Makeba)

13/. The past is still present

Invisible structures of coloniality shape our ideas & our realities

They divide the world into "the West & the rest" assigning racial, intellectual & cultural superiority to the West

Right now, Indigenous populations are fighting for survival.👇

https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/1457362155829964810

14/. It isn’t about applying modern standards to the past but rather acknowledging the moments where the world went wrong

In 1588, a mill here👇went from grinding corn to grinding gunpowder: from feeding people to feeding canons & muskets

So began 500 years of colonial conquest

15/. Prof David Stannard estimates that almost 100m Indigenous people in the Western Hemisphere were killed or died prematurely because of the Europeans & their descendants during the past 500 years

Raphael Lemkin believed colonization was in itself "intrinsically genocidal".

16/. "Today's generations aren't guilty of what happened in the past, but they bear the responsibility of repairing a little of damage that their ancestors inflicted. The first step should be the restitution of objects stolen & put in museums including human remains" María Zúñiga

17/. “If my ancestors played the drums, they’d cut off their hands. If they danced, they’d cut off their feet”

But the brutalisation isn’t just historical

Companies around Ruben Vucuname’s village in the Chiapas are felling trees, poisoning the soil & polluting the rivers.

https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/1457971757600710661

18/. “In African spirituality, death does not sever the link between the living & the dead”

@VusiNyamazana writes that the human remains of “the First Chimirenga heroes” should be “given the posthumous respect they deserve” @NadineDorries @NHM_London @AOC herald.co.zw/skulls-reconqu…