In his play Vielleicht, French-Ivorian director Cédric Djedje lays bare Germany's colonial past, through the story of the 40-year struggle of Afro-descendants to change the names of three streets dedicated to German colonialists in Berlin's African quarter.
Djedje aims to confront “German colonial ignorance” with the work, explaining that Germany's colonial history in Africa is rarely discussed, even largely unknown, in the country.
RFI met with him at the Centquatre-Paris cultural centre, where the actor and director – born in Paris to Ivorian parents – presented Vielleicht (meaning "perhaps" in German) as part of the Impatience theatre festival.
RFI: As a Franco-Ivorian born in France and educated in Switzerland, what led you to a project confronting Germany's colonial past?
Cédric Djedje: Basically, nothing. But I moved from Lausanne to Geneva and the city of Geneva has artists' residencies, particularly in Berlin. As it happens, the year before I moved I went to Berlin and fell in love with it. I didn't really have any plans, but I came across this story about the African quarter in Berlin, in the Wedding district. It spoke to me straight away. I got this residency thanks to this project.
The African quarter in Berlin is not the same as African neighbourhoods in Paris, London or Brussels, though ...
The difference is that these are street names linked to African [colonial] history. This is not at all the case in Paris, where the African quarter has no street names that have anything to do with Africa. It just so happens that in Berlin's African quarter, there is an African population, but it's much smaller than the African districts in Paris, London or Brussels. Berlin's African district is really a German colonial fantasy.
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Your play Vielleicht tells the story of the 40-year struggle by Afro-descendants to change the names of three streets in Berlin. What is the colonial history behind these street names?
The three people [that these streets are named for] – Adolf Lüderitz, Gustav Nachtigal and Carl Peters – founded German colonies in Africa, they were founders of colonial empires. Unlike in other places, they were really private companies. In fact, that's one of the main differences with German colonisation, which was colonisation by private individuals and companies.
Lüderitz arrived in Namibia and was one of the first to found a German colonial empire there, thanks to Bismarck who supported him. The story of Lüderitz is important because, unlike the others, he signed a treaty – well, it wasn't him directly, but one of his emissaries. A treaty that resulted in spoliation, hence his nickname “Lügen-Fritz” [The typical German name “Fritz” was often used pejoratively, and the verb lügen means “to lie”].
He signed this treaty in Namibia, which gave him seven times more land than the Namibians thought they were selling. Can you imagine that?
You've been working on the show since 2018, when you felt that collective imaginations were struggling to decolonise. However, the three streets in question were recently renamed (in December 2022 and August 2024). Has your show become outdated now?
No ... or maybe. In fact, that's not for me to say. The idea of the show is also to get feedback on the question of techniques used to achieve a political victory. The idea is to dissect the different techniques used by activists. And even more important than the techniques is the emotional impact this has on people's lives. Political battles are often completely disconnected from the emotional impact on everyday life.
And I think that whatever happens, even if the streets have been renamed, we don't realise that 40 years of struggle are not just 40 years. It's 40 years of daily struggle: the fatigue of the body and the mind also means taking your time, voluntarily.
For example, in the show, we say that even managing to have the Lüderitz Straße renamed in 2022 and dedicated to Cornelius Fredericks [Fredericks was one of the resistance leaders of the Nama rebellion in Namibia against the Germans, and was imprisoned in a concentration camp. His body was decapitated after his death in 1907 and his skull sent to Berlin for “research into the racial superiority” of the Germans], took time.
That alone was 10 years of struggle and that has an impact on things. Also, even if the streets have been renamed, it's still important to say what the consequences were and what it took for people to rename these streets.
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At the time, Otto von Bismarck, the Imperial Chancellor of Germany, wanted to hide the reality by saying that these African countries were not colonies, but “protectorates” – in other words, “protected” territories. In your show, you say that it's important to stop talking about “colonialism” and use the word “Maafa” instead.
Maafa means “the great destruction”. Because “colonialism” can also mean “taking care”, and for me that's already a misnomer. The idea conveyed [in the play] by Marianne Ballé Moudoumbou [co-founder of the Central Council of the African Community in Germany] is that decolonising also means decolonising words.
You can't use just any word to open up imaginations. If we use words that mean “taking care” when it's not a question of taking care, but of people being murdered, tortured, kidnapped ... it doesn't make sense. Maafa, “the great destruction”, makes it clear that it was a destruction. This makes it possible to rename reality and history more precisely.
What's the difference between presenting this show in Switzerland, a neutral country that has never owned any colonies, or showing it here in France, where colonial history is very present, and showing it in Germany, where, to this day, very little is said about German colonial history?
Yes, very little is said about this in Germany. As far as Switzerland is concerned, it doesn't have a direct colonial history. In fact, it hasn't had any colonies, but there is a colonial imagination that is shared with other countries. So the play can speak to them. There are also activists in Switzerland who have been campaigning for some time to rename certain streets bearing the names of people who had links with colonial companies – Swiss, French, German ... So Switzerland isn't completely neutral either.
And this is beginning to appear on the [cultural] agenda. In Zurich, there's a big exhibition on colonialism in Switzerland [Colonial, at the Landesmuseum]. There's also an exhibition at the MEG [Museum of Ethnography] in Geneva on colonialism and the private impact on people [entitled Remembering].
And for us, it's really important to always link this story to the place where we're performing. That's why we always bring in a local activist at the end. Here in Paris we invited Reha Simon, who co-hosts on the Histoires Crépues channel, so that people wouldn't think: 'No, but this is Germany, the Germans are colonialists, but we're much more open.'
Performing the show in Berlin was very special. People were very sceptical and doubtful, in the sense that it's a story they don't know. Strangely enough, I think people in Switzerland and France are perhaps more familiar with this story than in Germany. In Berlin, people were a bit taken aback. The craziest thing was that Berliners who were born in Berlin or had lived there for a long time didn't even know this district. That says a lot about German colonial amnesia or ignorance, at least in Berlin.
Is Vielleicht a play, an activism performance, an anti-colonial event or community activism?
I'd say it's a documentary show that retraces the life of a person who is interested in what it means to be an activist and what activism is ... I could say that it's a show that questions what militancy is. To say that it's a militant show would be to say that it's a successful show.
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At the end of the show, you display a kanga, an emblematic Tanzanian fabric known for carrying messages. What message does your piece carry?
There's the idea that many small fish have managed to find the fisherman's net, that collective strength can bring about change. It's not just because there are a lot of us. Collective strength means we can support each other emotionally and financially too. It's that strength that counts.
Vielleicht is directed by the collective Absent.e pour le moment, designed by Cédric Djedje and performed by Safi Martin Yé, Cédric Djedje and Reha Simon. It will be presented in 2025 at the Mantsina Sur Scène festival in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo.
This article has been adapted from the French version of the interview, and lightly edited for clarity.
