On February 20th 2024, Professor Nancy Rushohora from the University of Dar es Salaam gave a presentation on German Colonialism in Tanzania and its remaining memories for an audience of 15 people. Rushohora is also a postdoctoral fellow at Stellenbosch University in South Africa where she studies historical trauma and transformation. Rushohora began by discussing the historical trauma left by the Maji Maji War, an armed uprising in contemporary Tanzania against colonial German rule. She identified three distinct forms: transgenerational narratives, colonial archives, and the landscape itself.
Throughout her presentation, Rushohora questioned the exportation of human remains from Tanzania to Germany. She reiterated how the Tanzanian people have asked for the remains of the “first heroes” of their country, but their requests have not been met to this day. To further showcase the loss of dignity, Rushohora revealed that the death count for the war is a mere approximation as German forces neglected to collect crucial information.
Resultantly, every February 26th, Tanzania demands justice and seeks spiritual solace through a mourning ritual. The ritual serves as a place to mourn, and red is worn in order to symbolize the bloodshed during colonial resistance efforts.
Rushohora concluded by sharing a preview of a documentary, which is set to be released in May 2024. Titled “Justice, Never Again, Correction of the Past for the Future”, the film discusses the legacy of German colonialism. She also shared that although the colonial archives were inaccessible to the public, she entered them for the first time last year in order to digitize them. The digitalization of the colonial archives, which were written by German missionaries, remains significant as the archives would have been lost otherwise. One step at the time, Tanzania continues to ensure that the suffering during its colonial history continues to be heard and remembered.