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.

Sylvie Vernyuy Njobati in front of Humboldt Forum in Berlin, where „Ngonnso“ is now presented Foto: Lia Darjes

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.

Im Interview: Sylvie Vernyuy Njobati

Educational Career Sylvie Vernyuy Njobati was born 1991 in a village in Banso, a „tribal area“ in the highlands of Bemanda, Northwest Cameroon. She belongs to a folk called Nso. The Nso try to stick on their pre-colonial traditions. Njobati grew up with her grandparents who were Christians. Her grandfather was pastor in different congregations in the region and refused to play the role that the Nso tradition suggested for him.

In 2012 Njobati moved to the capital Yaoundé where she studied business management and development. There she had to learn the ongoing conflict between the French speaking majority and the English speaking minority the hard way. As Anglo-Cameroonian she was discriminated when she was looking for a job and in other parts of life. Since then the conflict has turned into open civil war, anglophone seperatists are fighting for a couple of years for their own state.

In 2016 Njobati founded in Bamenda, the capitol of the Northwest region, the cultural center „Sysy House of Fame“. There she stage-manages theatre plays and model shows and initiates cultural projects to empower young Nso people. One of the projects is called „Colonial Dialogue & Reconciliation“, in this context #bringbackNgonnso has started als social media campaign.

In 2018 Njtobati participated in a film workshop of Goethe Institut in Yaoundé named „Heritage & Colonial History“. One result was her first shortfilm aobout Ngonnso: “The Twist of Return“, that was screened on some festivals in Africa und Europe. Since then she is working on a long film about Ngonnso with the document filmer Marc Sebastian Eils from Berlin. Since 2019 Njobati is studying for a Master in Theatre, Television and Film Studies at the University of Bamenda.

About Ngonnso In 1903 the wooden and mussel-decorated figure (see picture) came to Berlin as „donation“ of the prussian officer Kurt von Pavel. He was commander of the imperial troops and led several „punishment expeditions“, with which the Germans wanted to devastate the anti-colonial resistance in Cameroon. In the course of this Pavel came in the region of Banso and the city of Banko in January 1902. On this occation Ngonnso probably came into his hands – how exactly is still not known. (Sum)

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?

Ngonnso in the museum: Ethnological interesting „art“ – or a piece with high utility value for a people? Foto: Lia Darjes

I started the hashtag #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 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.