Why Europe needs to talk about colonialism. Right now.
2020 was a catalytic year for the fight against systemic racism. But Europe still struggles to “unsilence” its past.
As an independent magazine on European culture and identity, we’ve covered lots of themes over the past five years: elections, technology, religion, climate change and, most recently, the pandemic. But 2020 wasn’t only about Covid-19 — it also turned out to be a catalytic year for the fight against systemic racism.
Across the United States and Europe, activists inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement toppled statues of colonial-era slave traders and explorers. 2020 showed how important it is to talk about how history shapes our lives. In Europe, that means understanding the continent’s relationship with colonialism — past, and present.
That’s why, in the latest issue of our magazine, Unsilencing: The Colonialism Issue, we invited 46 amazing journalists and visual storytellers from all over the world to reflect on how colonialism has shaped their identities. We see this as the start of a long and vital conversation to try and “unsilence” the many facets of European colonialism.
Acknowledging the complexity and sensitivity of the topic, we asked our partners from the Solutions Journalism Network for guidance. They introduced us to a conflict mediation tool called “Complicating the Narratives,” which encourages journalists to listen differently and embrace complexity.
For our editors, producing this issue has been a rewarding journey, filled with countless editorial and human lessons along the way. We can only hope we’ve done it justice.
While the brutalities of colonialism are vast and the road ahead is long, we hope our magazine offers a glimmer of hope by unsilencing the past, and looking into the future.
Sneak peek — a selection from INSIDE THIS ISSUE
- How to decolonise academia in the U.K. and Belgium
- English language as a status symbol in Pakistan
- White saviour complex in the foreign aid sector
- The imperial origins of land grabbing disputes in Zimbabwe
- Does Greenland’s youth want independence?
- Should we commemorate colonialism in the same way that Germany commemorates the holocaust?
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** This post is an extract from the Editor’s Note in our upcoming magazine, “Unsilencing: The Colonialism Issue” and was written by our editors Priyanka Shankar, Inbar Preiss, Eddie Stok and Hanna Torseke. Our editor-in-chief Kyrill Hartog wrote a slightly adapted version for Medium. As with all our editorial projects, this magazine is am example of cross-border collaboration. Let’s change the conversation, together.
