#NIGERIA: Colonial British Deportation of Bini King - The late Oba Ovonramwen N’Ogbaisi, who was exiled in February 1897 to Calabar, reportedly lived in peace notably with the people.....
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https://m.guardian.ng/news/oba-of-benin-to-establish-memorial-c8entre-i…
The Slave and Colonial culture of Deportation
Updated 9.10.2017
When a deportation is executed, it is the last ring of the slavery and colonial chain. All racial, racist and murderous policies that come before are there to legitimize, legalize and facilitate the last ring of this chain.
It is nothing new that torture, subjugation, racism; arbitrariness, absurdity and repression accompany the regulation of the movement of people by states, particularly at borders. But a contemporary analogy takes us down the memory lane outlining the fact that deportation has not always been about the regulation of the movement of people by states, particularly at borders. It has been an instrument of power by the oppressors against the subalterns. This process does not start with repatriation; repatriation is just the beginning of the end. The actual deportation to other countries, not to the home countries of the deportees is the added manifestation of these slavery and colonial powers.
We should never forget that during the times of the Trans-Sahara and Trans-Atlantic slavery, millions of African women, men and children were deported from the motherland to other parts of the world to work as slaves. Kings and queens that resisted slavery and colonization were captured and deported to other parts of Africa but also out of the continent. Oba Owonramwen, the king of the Benin Empire, was deported to Calabar by the British Colonizers in 1897 during the British invasion as he did not accept the British dominance over his kingdom. (link) Also during the times of the German Owa-Herero and Nama massacres and extermination in Namibia, those who escaped and resisted the Germans were deported to many other African territories including those controlled by Germany at that time, like Cameroon and Togo-land. The same fate awaited freedom fighters of other African countries who resisted and fought their slaves and colonial masters.
In the German extermination politics of the Nazi regime, especially against the Jews, in the last century, this could be perfectly executed through deportation into concentration camps not only in Germany but also into other concentration and extinction camps in the other European territories. And in all these times, deportation was legal just like today.
Today, we may be fighting a different type of deportation but the rationales behind this murderous policy is the same, the extermination, subjugation and control of people deemed subaltern.
There are individual and mass deportations by the European FRONTEX, with Germany playing a leading and conspicuous role, both in individual and mass deportations.
The mass deportations have been an instrument to sustain imperialism, global capitalism and global apartheid and has been taking racialized and militarized dimension. Citizens of so-called developing countries especially in Africa and now in war-torn Middle East Asia are more and more being targeted by powerful western countries, including Germany.
This could only be made possible through coercive state apparatus, a vulnerable labor force and a global market for goods and services. While on the one hand, the deporter most often than not has a history of being the oppressor, the deportee has almost always a history of persecution.
That is why the fight to stop deportation and the anti-deportation struggles should be a fight that should go beyond the justification against persecution in our home countries or beyond integrationist and assimilative reasons. It should be seen as a fight against imperialism, capitalism, racism, slavery and colonialism.
It is a fight against impunity and for a different world order. If we succeed in stopping deportation, it will be a revolution.
The deportation culture of Germany did not start today but it should be stopped today. It is a part of its colonial legacy and an injustice that should not go unpunished.
The revolution is near.
The VOICE Refugee Forum