Photo: Tim Lüddemann via flickr
This article was first published (in German) on the website of the Communist Organisation: https://kommunistische-organisation.de/klaerungunddebatte/die-in-europa-gestrandeten-verdammten-dieser-erde-muessen-sich-vereinen/
Topics: German imperialism , imperialism and neocolonialism
Photo: Tim Lüddemann via flickr
On January 7, 2005, Oury Jalloh was murdered and burned in a police cell in Dessau. His friends organized themselves and joined forces with The VOICE Refugee Forum and the Caravan for the Rights of Refugees and Migrants. In early 2006, they launched a nationwide information campaign and organized a mass demonstration on April 1 to clarify Oury Jalloh's murder. They subsequently fought for justice in court and in public and organized solidarity with Oury Jalloh's family. The police officers responsible for the deaths of Oury Jalloh and others—Mario Bichtermann and Hans-Jürgen Rose—have not yet received any significant sentences.
We spoke with two comrades from the caravan about the Oury Jalloh case, the colonial roots of the racism prevalent in Germany and the connections between colonialism, imperialism, flight and migration.
The interview was conducted in written form by Noel Bamen with Araz and Mbolo, who have been politically active in the caravan for years.
KO: Since 2005, you and others have been fighting for clarification and justice in the Oury Jalloh case. Can you briefly summarize the most important milestones of these 20 years and the current status?
Caravan : After the barbaric murder of Oury Jalloh, it was a matter of supporting the family and friends and demanding clarification. At the same time, without knowing the details or facts, we were all convinced that Oury Jalloh had been brutally murdered and then burned. In this first phase, the aim was to bring about a public trial, which was only achieved through persistence and the slogan "Oury Jalloh, that was murder!" This slogan bothered not only the police and state institutions, but also left-wing German activists and members of the anti-racism scene. Because such slogans cannot be shouted without evidence. For us, people from Abya Yala [pre-colonial name of America, note: KO], Africa, and Asia, however, this kind of barbarism was nothing new and was part of the 500-year subjugation of our continents. We trusted our centuries of experience, especially when Oury's friends told us about his joy of life and his pride as a father. So, we had to assert our slogan not only against the police and administrative authorities in Dessau, but also against well-intentioned advice from the German community sympathetic to the refugees.
The first interim victory was achieved, and the first trial was opened. The goal here was to use all the inconsistencies that emerged to expose the racist and barbaric background. At the same time, however, it was clear to everyone within the Caravan network and The VOICE : This struggle must lead to refugees and migrants—armed with an awareness of society's inhumane attitudes—becoming more committed to their future. This means combining the struggles against police brutality, against deportation, and against interventions in our countries of origin, and confronting the master mentality as a colonial legacy.
Unfortunately, after the first court ruling, we witnessed a disintegration and fragmentation. We saw associations and NGOs integrate the struggles into the bourgeois camp and take the lead out of the struggle. Everyone knew that Oury Jalloh had been murdered, everyone wanted to talk about it, but no one demanded consequences.
Oury Jalloh was neither the first victim nor the last to be murdered. Everyone saw in December 2024 how the five officers who shot Mouhamed Lamine Dramé with 18 bullets in Dortmund were acquitted. Our goal was to continue to raise the issue, if necessary, but to link it to all the other cases and our general work so that the struggles could relate to each other and target the core of the problem.
KO: As you said, Oury Jalloh was neither the first nor the last victim of racist police violence in Germany. Black people are particularly often affected. Why is that?
Caravan: It's due to the long oppression of the three continents during and after the colonial period. It's about the fact that others, whose land, property, and lives were brutally taken and murdered, had to be dehumanized. Since the Valladolid Dispute in 1550 [a dispute in Spain about the legality of the enslavement of indigenous peoples, KO's note], those who declared the victims barbarians have triumphed, while slaughtering people in the mines of Peru, chopping off hands in the Congo, or bombing ancient cultures in China. This long oppression of humanity by the European minority has led to a self-image that those here in Europe and North America are the ones who know what the world should look like. The other, poorer and more backward people from the aforementioned continents cannot do it, and above all, cannot do it better.
This dehumanization, reproduced daily in the media, public debates, etc., makes the life of the "other" less important. If they have a knife in their hand, they are immediately shot, with multiple bullets, like Dominique Kouamadio in Dortmund in 2006 or Mouhamed Lamine Dramé 16 years later. When a woman like N'deye Mareame (Maryama) Sarr insists on taking her children home, it is not her husband, who unjustly took the children, who is attacked, but Maryama Sarr, who is shot. It was a repeat in the Dresden courtroom on July 1, 2009: Marwa El Sherbini , victim of a racist, was sitting in the courtroom and was attacked by the accused. Marwa's husband, who ran to her aid, was shot by the police, not the accused racist with the knife. We feel the 500 years of colonial education in our everyday discussions, not only as Black people, but especially as Black people. Every life in Ukraine is worth more than the lives of hundreds of Palestinian children and more than the lives of half a million people in Tigray. Racism, as a logical consequence of colonial conditions, is part of this society. One will not disappear without the other.
KO: The Caravan sees itself as an anti-colonial movement. Your motto is: "We are here because you are destroying our countries." How are migration and flight connected to colonialism and imperialism?
Caravan: Colonialism made Europe rich. The booty provided the seed money for industrialization and capitalism, which has now transformed into imperialism. The network first coined the slogan in 1999 in Cologne at the summit of wealthy industrialized nations. It had also been used earlier in England by students from former colonies. With this slogan, we deliberately wanted to identify the cause of flight and migration. At the time, politicians tried to distinguish between “good” and “bad” refugees, between political and economic refugees. We said this was unimportant because the economic reasons were also political in nature and a consequence of the division of the world.
Look at today's numbers: According to Jason Hickel and his colleagues, in 2021 alone, rich nations robbed workers in the Global South of 826 billion hours of work. The British Empire robbed India of $64.82 trillion. While the elite can celebrate on the stock exchange in London, children in India are starving or forced to work at an early age. Flight and migration are natural consequences of the conditions created by the old colonial countries and are perpetuated by the concentration of power in the corresponding global institutions (finance, technology, communications, agriculture, etc.).
The slogan is intended to make everyone here in Europe reflect on their role as human beings and decide what to do.
KO: Oury Jalloh also came to Germany as a refugee. He was considered "tolerated." You also describe the German asylum system as a colonial system. What do you mean by that?
Caravan: Oury Jalloh came to Germany as a victim of the war over blood diamonds. His asylum application, like that of many others, was rejected. After that, under the German system, one is only "tolerated" until deportation. We describe the German asylum system, or rather its instruments of deterrence and discipline, as a legacy of the colonial system. The residency requirement restricts freedom of movement, just as in South Africa or other African countries like Togo and Cameroon, people were assigned specific territories. The camp system, in which people are held for years, not only destroys people's psyches but also creates even more hatred and incitement. It was tried and tested in the colonies and later perfected under German fascism. The first concentration camps existed, for example, in present-day South Africa, Namibia, and Algeria.
Among many other examples, the attitude of the authorities and officials is always the same: you're treated like a small, naive creature from the desert or the jungle. Thus, both in the implementation of the administrative rules and in the attitude, the system could be described as colonial. Furthermore, the German or European system protects the stolen wealth by murdering its rightful owners on a daily basis at Europe's external borders.
KO: There are different positions on the political left regarding flight and migration. In your view, how should fundamental anti-imperialist and anti-colonial positions address the issues of flight and migration in a country at the center of imperialism, such as Germany?
Caravan: We believe that refugees and migrants must emancipate themselves and show solidarity. "The wretched of this earth" stranded in Europe must unite and fight for their causes. They must create spaces to formulate and defend their own concerns here. They must be careful that their concerns are not appropriated and exploited by others. The basis for true international solidarity can only be an analysis of our history in our countries of origin and a clear awareness of the true nature of German rule. Democracy may be a beautiful veil to disguise the racist nature that murdered Oury Jalloh and many others, to hide the brutal, cold Europe that turns away thousands every year at its external borders and lets them die at sea or in deserts, to embellish the imperialist barbarism that is responsible for almost all of the wars currently underway and that supports the genocide in Gaza with its arms deliveries.
We can only rely on our own strength and knowledge. Therefore, we are convinced that we can only make long-term progress through shared learning and solidarity with those who are oppressed and who see themselves as such.