missing Histories: Bangwa Queen
By Radikal Queen
Photo Credit: Musée Dapper, Paris (3343)
At first I was gonna try a gimmick
To force you to see me
I was gonna ask the able-bodied present to stand
while I sit
for a few minutes
In order to communicate the essence
of different perspectives.
For instance: if the rapist flings some coins
from the stolen purse
is that the same thing
as philanthropy? or remorse?
If not, why is the money coming back to Africa from violent, military, western regimes called ‘aid’?
In the end, I decided it’s futile to try and convince someone of your human status
if they have already made a social contract
If they’ve been trained to dehumanise you.
You see: missing histories present as invisible disabilities
within modern imperialist society.
But I only have a few minutes to discuss the bullshit of several centuries, to speak of the dishonesties
that are consistently swept under this particular (Probably Kashmiri) rug.
So let’s talk British heritage, eh?
British heritage places that which was freely commissioned and given alongside the forced ‘donations’ from Black and Brown nations.
And these involuntary extractions continue to this day
and are justified
by the prestigious institutions that see work from people who look like me
as “inspiration”,
whilst simultaneously dismissing and denigrating us,
All while we are imitated.
My evidence?
Oh well. In this room alone
I count at least three organisations and people
who have appropriated the fruit of my creative womb
to benefit a non-Black congregation.
They just snatched up my ideas in the interview or meeting
and passed them off as their own.
My bright birds are now embalmed and enthroned within the grey palace
of their new owners’ lacklustre imaginations
Some of these are now famous AND appropriated.
I partly blame the BAME-ness
that erases my Blackness
full access and permission to profit from my voice, and my Ways.
When you are mere anonymous ‘inspiration’, your skilled iridescence
is seen as a non-sentient manifestation of Beingness.
Like an unschooled sunset bursting with free beauty.
free booty.
Like the one you call ‘Bangwa Queen’, complete with scare quotes,
because how could SHE be royalty?
AND you think she is just a ‘figurine’!
Man Ray, Untitled (c.1933)
Photo Credit: Musée Dapper, Paris (3343)
Her real name is Ngwindem, meaning: ‘most high priestess of god’.
We in fact already told you this,
but we aren’t counted as real people by your limited scholars.
Ngwindem is the embodiment of an ancestor goddess who lived among us.
She rested in the Grasslands kingdoms of a nation neighbouring my own people in Central Africa, the Mbetu.
Then the deceitful german scientist
who first called her an ‘ethnographic artefact’ stole her,
and sent her back to his european museum.
His team took advantage of those five days they were graciously invited
and granted access to Agonyi’s kingdom.
They looted temples and stately houses and all without shame!
Hai! Is THIS your civilisation??
With regards to heritage, the relevance is that we are seen by imperialist academics
as unevolved hominids
and this belief that spouts uncontested from the Golden Bough
Of western european invention
bolsters their lie of racial superiority.
I say they are culturally invested
in our creative degradation.
So the kidnapped Ngwindem was renamed as your Bangwa Queen
and in the 30s was seen as ‘primitive art’,
then through Man Ray‘s modernist camera lens and borrowed perspective
she was re-introduced in the 50s
to represent western ideas of savage, and unthinking sexual expression.
He saw this as THE defining aspect of African womanity, of our womanness.
Man Ray, Helena’s Statue “The Bangwa Queen” 1937
And Ngwindem has been sold so many times
that she has been declared the most expensive example of African art
but not due to her inherent value or beauty.
It is because of the illustrious reputations of all of her previous creative enslavers.
Now I have
Questions.
What does it mean
that British museums
define British culture
as the accumulated weight
of stolen treasures?
Why is it that demanding transparency
is interpreted as the desire
Nah.
The column is fine, just make sure that little paper plaque
also tells us that he was an enthusiastic white supremacist.
The evidence shows
That he fully supported the enslavement of Black people in concentration camps
in the Caribbean.
Nelson counted the depraved serial rapists who ran those accursed plantations
amongst some of his closest friends.
You see: this is the true legacy
Of the brutish empire.
And yeah. I know why you were not taught this.
Your truth hurts.
The fact is that Churchill, like his less celebrated german contemporary
Set up concentration camps for the destruction of African communities
And also that selling and buying African bodies like mine
is how your people stole
the seed capital for your industrial revolution.
It’s time we looked at our heritage within the lens
Of accurate historical context.
Our ethnographic artefacts populate foreign museums,
And this appears to be what I hear being defined
as British heritage.
Surely british identity can do so much better
than this most gruesome aesthetic?
To be honest – I was surprised to be invited to speak here
to sit at this officially sanctioned table.
The likes of me are usually dismembered and served in the cultural buffet, later
while our fates and faces are discussed and decided
by those defined as whiter, I mean wiser, and more objective.
I do not accept this system, or its categorisations
as I have de-centred from a paradigm
that only sees me and mine
as plundered victims
and serves our arses as the main mother-fucking meal.
You can smell it.
But still the servers of my flesh and blood have the nerve
to ask me to hold their hands and IMAGINE
Sci-fi revisionism makes the purple people always so positive and see!?
The appointed tokens prove it!
They are the axes fashioned from the brown forest of our peoples
Whose job is to facilitate the cultural devastation, the artistic appropriation,
All in their roles as the most suitable replacement for our true leaders
Death-dealing and theft are reframed as capitalism.
Cultural appropriation is re-labelled ‘appreciation’.
The stolen booty is remembered
as one of life’s free donations.
In the end the British definition of heritage will be decided by voices
that will never live within the choices they are speaking on.
And although Ngwindem has been famous for well over 100 years
it appears you still refuse
to say her name.
Missing histories. and within that: another missing Herstory.
Ngwindem! Ngwindem! Ngwindem!
Ancestor goddess, who still breathes.