The deputy president has stressed that remains are “locked away as prisoners of science” in museums across the world, awaiting repatriation
South African Deputy President Paul Mashatile has called for the repatriation of human remains and cultural artifacts taken from the country during colonial rule and apartheid, the office of the South African president reported on Wednesday.
Speaking at Heritage Day events, Mashatile said many traditional and Khoisan leaders were killed in resistance wars and their remains taken abroad.
“To this day, some of these sacred human remains of our worthy ancestors remain locked away as prisoners of ‘science’ in museum cupboards across the world, still awaiting their rightful repatriation,” he said, mentioning the 2002 return of Sarah Baartman’s remains from France as a landmark moment. Baartman, a Khoisan woman exhibited in Europe in the 19th century, is now a symbol of restored dignity and national remembrance.
He said authorities are working to identify museums and institutions still holding South African cultural property with a view to launching formal repatriation efforts.
“This is a call to decolonize our museums, to Africanize them through a people-centered process of knowledge production and co-curation for a new era, a post-colonial era,” he said.
Heritage Day, observed every year on September 24, celebrates South Africa’s cultural and linguistic diversity and honors the country’s traditional leaders.
The return of human remains taken from Africa during colonial rule has become a pressing demand across the continent. In August, France returned three human skulls taken from Madagascar and kept for over a century in a Paris museum. One skull is believed to be that of Malagasy King Toera.
Earlier last month, the UK agreed to repatriate the remains of Zimbabwean freedom fighters killed during the 1896-97 First Chimurenga uprising. The skulls of rebel chiefs and spiritual leaders, including Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi, were taken to Britain as war trophies. Talks on their return began more than a decade ago, local media reported.
Speaking in Moscow in July, Mozambican Foreign Minister Maria Manuela Lucas said “everything that was brought away from Africa must be returned to the continent.”
