Power and Identity

The slow decline of America is equally focusing attention on the changing status of Europe. One of the most telling signs of global change is the more pronounced criticism of the old order. The virtues of Western Civilization are being exposed as myths, and many of the key elements of the past are being rewritten. At the same time the legacy of colonization and wars has created a new perspective of imperial conflict. European identity disguised as nationalism is seen as threatening the integrity of constructive politics. In their national elections, politicians in Germany, Italy, France and the United Kingdom have tried to define who rightfully should be citizens of their nations. Some candidates have selectively excluded all people of color and other Europeans suggesting that they should be labeled immigrants. Yet, many of the non-white residents have been in these nations longer than their white neighbors. Such discussions, which might resemble Brexit or America's White Supremacist language, are not isolated cases. Indeed, they have infiltrated the entire continent and grow stronger with each refugee crisis.  

Statistically, non-whites constitute a very small segment of every European nation's population. It is less than 10%. Hence, the anti-immigration stance is largely tied to the fear of integration and not the reality of being replaced. But, the visibility of the "other" and the role of "otherness" on culture and the impact of "otherness" in European society has been elevated by social media. It has heightened fears and brought out the worst even when the "other" is desired by some segment of the population. 

I think that the "other" has always been present in European history, but "it" has not been seen or accepted. I remember as an undergraduate talking to a professor about blacks in Medieval England and the professor shutting down the conversation. I had referred to two books by Frank Snowden, including one that was published by Harvard University Press, and it was as if I had made the whole thing up. That event, years ago, is very reminiscent to what is happening now. The larger society wants to ignore the truth to fabricate a different past. A past that proclaims a world where only one civilization is accomplished and worthy of discussion. This attempt, promoting Europe as the center, overlooks the contributions of other parts of the globe and forges the concentration of power in the hands of one group.

However, a more racially, culturally, sexually and gender oriented past is being reconstructed from the fragments of visible but ignored accounts. For example, it can no longer be disputed that there have been Africans in Europe since Antiquity. Accounts state that Africans were in Ancient Greece, were members of the Roman Empire and its society, and that they were clerics and warriors in Medieval Europe. Moorish Africans were part of the conquerors of Spain and Portugal and they remained there after the Spanish Inquisition in 1492. It is also known that Afro-Europeans traveled to the New World with the Spanish and the Portuguese.

Similarly, studies have also begun to highlight an Asian presence in Europe. Here too, the timeline ignores the reality. Instead of looking towards Antiquity, traditional accounts attempt to locate the earliest Asian arrivals with Chinese sailors in Britain in the 1920s. This construction overlooks Japonisme and Japanese visitors to France for the 1867 World's Fair.  An earlier Asian presence in Europe points to as warriors (such as Genghis Khan) and settlers during the Middle Ages. Eventually, when we place the Middle East within Asia, we will see Asians in Europe at the same time that Africans are in Greece and Rome. Indeed, when examining the three part portrait of Western Civilization Asians and Africans were visible in Pre-Medieval Europe, Colonizing Europe and Post Colonial Europe. 

Yet for obvious reasons, it is difficult for Europeans to acknowledge the legacy of an African emperor of Rome or the possibility of African clerics or a pope at the Vatican. Instead they choose to focus on the history of enslavement and colonization. Yet, even in this realm, non-white men play a role in the construction of modern Europe. The Netherlands, United Kingdom and France stand out in these narratives largely from their roles in the slave trade as they also brought bondsmen and bondswomen to European shores before 1700. Yet, even before the French Revolution, "free"Asians and Africans were writing about their travels in the United Kingdom becoming part of our literary canon. 

What European history fails to reveal is telling. While France (1794/1848) and England (1772/1835) outlawed enslavement at home and abroad, Holland never had slavery in Europe. As a result by 1863, when the Dutch freed their Caribbean and South American slaves, there was the possibility of hundreds of French, British, and Dutch South American and Caribbean Africans traveling to their European mother countries.  What happened in these cases and did these people receive complete emancipation and full citizenship? And when the British, French and Dutch released their reigns over Asian territories decades later what were the fates of these "colonized" people? Keep in mind that current European critics ignore that such events are transpiring years before the next and larger wave of colonial migrants come to Europe after World War II. 

I think we have the answers to these questions but traditional educators and conservative politicians don't want them taught. But this won't stop the new generation of scholars who will deliver their findings to the world. In the United Kingdom, for example, a group of authors are tackling these questions. Their work reveals that racism, not actual facts are the foundations for current politics. Some of this group includes: Claire Alexander, author of "Breaking Black: the death of ethnic and racial studies in Britain", Olivette Otele, historian and author of African Europeans An Untold History, Priya Atwal, historian and author of Royals and Rebels: The Rise and Fall of the Sikh Empire, and Kehinde Andrews, professor of Black Studies and author of The New Age of Empire: How Racism and Colonialism Still Rule the World.

Often the answers are literally in your face. It is always interesting to see the Africans captured in European art. Shakespeare wrote about Othello, we have the writings of Augustine, and there are Black Madonnas in the Renaissance. I think that his demonstrates that there is a story or stories that need to be discovered and shared. 

The Folger Library exhibit "We Were Here" looks at the African presence in Renaissance Art. https://www.folger.edu/blogs/shakespeare-and-beyond/we-were-here-untold-history-black-africans-renaissance-europe/. Its author, Fred Kuwornu "shares the diverse African presence in Renaissance Europe that he found: princes, ambassadors, saints, artists, scholars, and knights—all revealed through art from the period."

I offer the "Portrait of Juan de Pareja" by Diego Velázquez. This narrative is full of contrasts of enslavement and freedom in Europe. In 17th-century imperial Spain, new Christians, Afro-Hispanic enslaved people and formerly enslaved people were forbidden from becoming professional painters. Juan de Pareja is enslaved. He comes to work with Velazquez and then travels with him acquiring works of art for the Spanish king. de Pareja becomes a noted painter in his own right and Velazquez grants him his freedom. In "The Calling of St. Matthew" (1661), de Pareja's most famous work, a gathering of men meet Jesus. The artist includes himself in the painting holding what amounts to his "free paper".

Similarly, Rembrandt's artwork hints at the African presence in Europe. It is believed that the artist painted 20 to 30 portraits of Africans. A recent article by Jeroen Dewulf, "Being Black in Seventeenth Century Amsterdam vs New Amsterdam" https://www.gothamcenter.org/blog/being-black-in-seventeenth-century-amsterdam-vs-new-amsterdam highlights the status of Africans in the Netherlands. In examining the legacy of "freedom" in the Netherlands, Professor Dewulf shares Rembrandt's 1661 portrait "Two African Men" which was painted in Amsterdam.  Dr. Dewulf relies on the research of historian Mark Ponte explaining that most of the Dutch Africans were refugees from Brazil who lived in the city's Jewish district near their former Sephardic masters.

I believe the exhibits, articles and books strongly contest the contemporary image of non-whites in European history. I don't think that they will change the minds of the power brokers calling for a "whiter" Europe but they might influence a younger generation of students to see the world through a different lens.