24 October 2024, Berlin, Refugio, Axel Hochrein, Hirschfeld-Eddy Foundation Board
A warm welcome to everyone at the conference “Cultures and Colonialism – Decoloniality and LGBTIQ+ Human Rights”. Thank you for coming, and we are very happy to see the great level of interest. It is an honour for me to open this event, which is part of our “Cultures and Colonialism” project this year. The project was made possible by a year of funding from the Federal Ministry of Justice in response to a resolution by the German Parliament, for which we extend heartfelt thanks.
Today our topic will be a critical examination of German colonial history, along with queer colonial experience and new forms of international solidarity in working for the human rights of LGBTIQ+ people. Our aim is to develop postcolonial and decolonial strategies in human rights work.
European colonial powers imposed rigid gender roles in the colonies, and criminalized same-sex relations. Their legal systems systematically suppressed local cultures, especially indigenous ones, which were open to same-sex ways of life. To this day, many countries continue to pursue criminal prosecutions of LGBTIQ+ people on the basis of colonial laws. These legacies not only hinder societal progress, but also pose serious threats to human rights.
Find conference inputs, photos and the video here:
Konferenzbericht
Einladung und Programm / Invite and program
Fotos der Konferenz
Keynote Decolonize foreign policy, Stella Nyanzi
Keynote Dekolonialisierung und die Menschenrechte, Max Lucks
Video message The Pacific Islands and the Fight for Decolonization, Ymania Brown
The project’s title comes from the 13-point list of requirements formulated in 2017 by the Yogyakarta Alliance for the German federal government. To be precise, it comes from point 10, in which we called on the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) to launch a special “Cultures and Colonialism” program. The aim here is to support organizations, persons and groups in partner countries that examine the histories, life stories, genders and traditions of precolonial and current homosexualities. The idea is to support them in compiling and documenting gender histories in order to confront widespread anti-queer hate speech with facts, and to promote discourse based on human rights.
The Hirschfeld-Eddy Foundation, which is the human rights foundation of the LSVD+ Queer Diversity Federation in Germany, views itself as part of the international queer civil and human rights movement. We are involved in national and international networks. Together with the Yogyakarta Alliance – many of whose members are here today – we successfully lobbied for an German government´s “LGBTI inclusion strategy for foreign policy and development cooperation” Postcolonial and decolonial approaches are mentioned in it. Why should decoloniality play an important role in foreign policy and development cooperation at all?
1. Credibility: Commitment to LGBTIQ+ human rights worldwide can only be credible if we also undertake a critical examination of our own colonial history.
2. History: Germany has a violent colonial history that has been dismissed or downplayed for too long.
3. Decoloniality: Decolonial approaches are increasingly important to the organizations and people that we work with every day.
At the same time, LGBTIQ+ human rights work and feminist approaches are often vilified as “neocolonial”. The people and groups who make these accusations, however, are silent about how evangelical groups from North America and Europe, for example, exert anti-queer and anti-feminist influence on policy in African countries.
How, then, can we work for LGBTIQ+ human rights without replicating colonial mechanisms in the process? This question will accompany our conference today.
The diversity of people and groups present today – NGO members, human rights activists, development cooperation experts and MPs, along with representatives of queer and decolonial communities, federal ministries, academia and research, and diaspora groups – provides precisely the right framework and superb conditions for conducting this discussion in nuanced ways.
We are pleased to provide this space today for discussions and the exchange of ideas.
I invite each one of you to openly contribute your perspectives and knowledge. Let us transcend borders to learn together, let us redefine global solidarity, and let us work together on a more just approach to the rights of LGBTIQ+ people. For human rights are universal and indivisible, and the routes to achieving them must be shaped in ways that are context-based and respectful.
Our program today features two fascinating keynote addresses and two highly interesting panels. There will be a coffee break after the first panel, and at 6 pm we will close with a summary of the conference, followed by a get-together with food and drink.
I wish us all an inspiring, respectful and productive conference, and look forward to stimulating discussions.
Many thanks!
Axel Hochrein, board member, Hirschfeld-Eddy Foundation
Links:
• https://www.hirschfeld-eddy-stiftung.de/schriften/flyer-kulturen-und-kolonialismus
• https://www.hirschfeld-eddy-stiftung.de/kulturen-und-kolonialismus
This conference is part of the “Cultures and Colonialism – LGBTIQ+ rights and the decolonialization debate” project from the Hirschfeld-Eddy Foundation.
