Dr. Messan Tossa forscht zu dem Phänomen der sogenannten "Hofmohren", also Menschen mit dunkler Hautfarbe, welche in Europa an Adelshöfen als Diener angestellt waren, aber auch zumindest in Teilen eine akademische Ausbildung in Europa und Deutschland vollzogen. Im Rahmen eines Forschungsprojekts, welches die Afrikastudien in Deutschland durch die Linse der kritischen Rassentheorie untersucht, haben wir mit ihm über seine Forschung gesprochen. Da er sich dabei auch mit deutscher und afrikanischer Philosophie auseinandersetzt, sprachen wir auch über das Verhältnis der akademischen Welten der beiden Kontinente zueinander und seine Perspektive auf postkoloniale Strukturen und Rassismus.
(English)
Dr. Messan Tossa is researching the phenomenon of the so-called "Hofmohren", people with dark skin who were employed as servants at aristocratic courts in Europe, but who also completed at least part of their academic education in Europe and Germany. We spoke to him about his research as part of a research project examining African studies in Germany through the lens of critical race theory. As he also deals with German and African philosophy, we also talked about the relationship between the academic worlds of the two continents and his perspective on postcolonial structures and racism. The Interview was conducted in german, but we've provided an english transcript below.
Skript:
Interviewer: Welcome to the Podcast Africa Studies in Germany. I am your host today Aljoscha Hartmann and my colleagues Yusuf Serunkuma and Annika Meyer have compiled this podcast and this is our second episode, we already had a longer conversation with students studying Africa Studies in Germany, and in this episode we speak with Dr. Messan Tossa, a scholar of German philosophy. Dr.Tossas research focuses on so-called black court morns, the „Hofmohr“ in the German Enlightenment, i.e. domestic servants for the aristocracy who were people of color or in bourgeois, richer families. Dr. Tossas is also recipient of a DAAD scholarship.
Interviewer: Welcome to the Podcast, Dr. Tossa.
Dr. Tossa: Thank you.
Interviewer: Dr. Tossa, how did you actually come to this topic, was this practice so widespread in Germany or Europe that you thought a scientific Investigation was worth it from your perspective? How did that come about?
Dr. Tossa: So the phenomenon of the black court was very widespread at German courts in the early modern age and I was in Dresden's Residenzhof, there I saw a painting, where the sovereign is actually shown, but in the back there is a black figure. I was completely surprised to see something like this in Dresden, so it was in 2019 and then I did not yet known that this phenomenon was so widespread. So I already knew about Anton Willhelm-Amo and Jakob Captain, but I didn't know at all, that the phenomenon was so widespread and when I asked the question whether dark-skinned people at the time were on the pictures, I was told, yes, that was actually a very well-known practice for the then sovereigns to bring people to the courts, who belonged to their courts, so the phenomenon is very widespread and there are traces of it in France, in Russia and also in Austria.
Interviewer: How would you also understand or use this context or history to also discuss the place or the way being black is perceived in Europe or in Germany?
Dr. Tossa: Yes, so in order to understand this relationship clearly, one must actually understand the historic context, of the first phase of globalisation, in Europe in the context of transatlantic Slave trades where people were sent from African coasts to America and in this context the possession of people of color has a symbolic value for the German princes or dukes accompanied in the sense that the presence of these people at the courts was also a kind of symbolic or political privilege. On the aesthetic level there is also this tendency to see the black Skin as a kind of contrast to white skin so that when these people of African origin stood behind European princes on the paintings, then it is also an aesthetic question in the sense that the white skin color is then valued more highly. In addition to this aesthetic question, there are other dimensions, as well as the political and also the pedagogical because at that time they had been attempted to investigate whether these People of Color could be educated. So some European princes had these people not only as servants, but they have given them the opportunity to get educated. In this context comes the case Anton Wilhelm Amo, who managed to attain an elite position in the then intellectual circles in the German Reich.
Interviewer: I would come back to Anton Wilhelm Amo later, but maybe just before that, just asks a little bit more about how the European philosophy interacts, when we discuss education, with African philosophy, as you study philosophy yourself. Is there a connection between these two?
Dr. Tossa: I believe that the problem is already in the way and how the Europeans stiled themselves, so that it there wasn't a relationship at eye level. From the experience of European travellers in African coastal areas, they came to quite subjective conclusions, in the sense that they decided that people who lived in Africa had no sense of philosophy or knowledge at all.
Interviewer: And in today's context there is still a strong disregard, or has that changed?
Dr. Tossa: I think you have to include the historical dimension when it comes to to analyze the two philosophies in a comparative manner. I think from a special perspective, there is already this question of power relations, which has already put the focus on the European Epistemology, that is, European knowledge, in the sense that Europe was conceived as the centre of the world. From this perspective, European philosophy has a certain priority. And what I'm gave special attention too in my research topic is to take into account the fact that there are points of reconciliation between European and African Philosophy, but it is more necessary to consider the differences on the basis of which the World history or global history has gone in a specific direction. So when we consider the history, this plays an important role. And as far as the African concept of the subject is concerned, this subject is almost in the sense of a collective, so that the question of subjects, subjectivities, compared to how this question is considered in European philosophy, this is a big problem. And this problem also influences the way the European modernity carries itself over into the non-European space, namely because this concept is completely different if you transfer it to an African or Subsaharan context.
Interviewer: Then I would ask a very short question. Under the term Global Studies there is an attempt to build bridges and if you would want to establish a European-African connection in the discipline of philosophy, what role does African philosophy and African philosophers play, in the context of what is called Global Studies?
Dr. Tossa: I assume that even in the context of global history, the marketrelationships play a major role. It is therefore possible to understand that African philosophy still plays an almost marginal role considering which position African academics play in the World Constellation of Research Institutions.
Interviewer: If we only look at European philosophy, what is your impression of this European
Philosophy when talking about the African continent? Do you believe that these views are still held within European science, that is, in science as a whole, and in what forms?
Dr. Tossa: Yes, I do not think the problem has to do with those who today produce knowledge, but it is about this story articulating around a red thread that focuses on the exploitation conditions, in this sense and in the way, as today knowledge or scientific narratives are produced by this process, still lays hegemonic tendencies, so that those who today produce knowledge on Africa or about African peoples, work in the background of this asymetry and it depends on whether you have the courage, but also the scientific instruments to fix this asymmetric approach.
Interviewer: I would then come to speak briefly on Antony Wilhelm Amo, very briefly, Antony Wilhelm Amo was the first known philosopher of African Origin in Germany, who taught at the universities in Wittenberg, Halle and Jena and you also know that the University in Halle has been organizing the annual Amo Memorial Lecture. What place do you think German philosophy and public consciousness take for him here, or what place should it take?
Dr. Tossa: I believe that German philosophy plays a very special role for modern philosophy in the sense that you have to referr to german philosophers like Hegel, Kant and Hiedegger. And concerning the case of Anton Wilhelm Amo, this is symptomatic for a special attitude that teaches us how to use knowledge and what worth it can have if it comes from a subaltern. I would like to raise the question of how Antony Wilhelm Amo is taken into account in the european and german history of knowledge and I also wonder whether only Anton Wilhelm Amo is the visible part of a, that is, the visible part of a phenomenon, because we historically did not know about the many people of color who had stayed in Europe at the time and the few people who appeared in public are the only ones we can take into account today. But there is this view that there may be other eminent people of color who lived in Europe at the time, but who at that time were hardly paid attention to, so they are simply forgotten. As far as the purely intellectual dimension of Amo is concerned, I would like to stress that he certainly had an interesting contribution to the German tradition, but we also have to consider his personal lifestory in German society and Europe, and how he was also the victim of discrimination, so that his intellectual position didn't protect him from prejudices.
Interviewer: I would just like to ask a question because at the beginning we talked about the fact that quite some people of color were at the courts and you now just raised the question of how much remains invisible. Is there any chance to find out with some research and reveal more about the stories and perspectives, of those that we don't know about currently?
Dr. Tossa: Sure, for example, if you look at the book by Mrs Kullmanns, at the end of the book there is a database, this database counts thousand of such "Hofmohren", and these are just those who were known at the time. I think there were more people of color back then in Europe then we know of today, and over the centuries they went into an assimilation or integration process, making it difficult to trace them today.
Interviewer: The discussion we had with students was also very much about Africa studies, as they are currently studying the topic here in Germany at their universities and there was a point where we discussed the question, who actually teaches whose books, which ones are suggested as reading material and I wanted to ask you about your impression whether there is a difference between the way in which studies on Africa or Africa studies in Europe and studies on Africa or African studies on the African continent itself is actually conducted, what is your perception?
Dr. Tossa: From my perspective, the European or the German African Studies is faced by two challenges: One is, that you are dealing with an object that is already shown so negatively in the picture books and also in everyday language that you already have a view about it before entering your studies, which is a challenge and the second challenge comes in connection with the first and this is that, how do you go further with these negative typologies of Africa, which has influenced the European mental history so deeply, that the books and also the didactic matter, which are intended for the Studies are sometimes characterized by these traces. This means that you must place a greater emphasis on objectivity when dealing with Africa from a European perspective. Of course, since some decades there has been an effort to establish a kind of balance between African and European sources, but the question of this mental history is very relevant and I have the hope that those who choose it as the subject of their studies show the courage to deconstruct the constructed materials of their history in order to approaching the Reality of Africa.
Interviewer: Our project here, i.e. African Studies in Germany from the perspective of Critical Race Theory is concentrated, among other things, on the consciousness of racism and the role of race as a term throughout science and to strengthen this awareness of what that means and I would be curious to hear what you think about racism in German society. In an interview, you stated that you always have to expect to be treated as a person of lesser value in Germany. Why is that so, even though Germany and Europe as a whole have also made progress in terms of racism?
Dr. Tossa: The problem is not only institutional, I believe there are institutions that are aligned against racism. The problem has multiple dimensions. For example, lets look at the educational dimension. For centuries, books have been written on the what is reality in Africa without representing this objectively. For centuries, concepts have been developed and popularized, which are actually affirming the so-called lesser value of Africans. Children who have grown up with this mentality must face a problem when they are told later that this is racism or this is racism or this is discrimination. So, the roots of the problem are actually already in pedagogy, so in educational Books. And what is written about Africa in the textbooks? How is Africa portrayed in these textbooks, or how are people of color described in these books. What terms are used in the families when they speak about Africa or about Africans? These are aspects that need to be taken into account when fighting racism efficiently. Another aspect that is very relevant is the economic dimension. All that was written in the early modern age about people of color at that time, or said, or shown on a stage, was based on the the fact that at the time these people were used for an economic system, so that the ethical question about slavery was pushed away. The main issue however, was the question of the economic exploitation of these people, and these exploitation conditions were continued in other ways in global history, during European expansion in Africa and then later within the post-colonial power relations, which again put Africans into an asymmetric power relation to European countries. This historical constellation is articulated around exploitation conditions, and these Relationships are also internalized, and if you want to initiate a relationship at eye level now, it is necessary to show the willingness to deconstruct the epistemological and historical and economic basis of this exploitation. And the question is, how can this even be achieved if one considers that the economic situation of Europe is is based on the fact that most European countries are involved in market relations with African countries that aren't operated at eye level. That is actually the essential point. Even if the art-historical artefacts are returned to Africa, this represents only another aspect of the problem. The core of the problem actually lies in the question if we want to destroy the underlying asymmetry to build new conditions that can be built on mutual respect.
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