Unesco decided on Friday to remove from the list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity the “Ducasse d’Ath” in Belgium, a festival in which a “Savage” appears in black makeup, chains around his wrists.
Several African countries raised the issue at the 17th session of UNESCO’s Intangible Heritage Committee in Rabat. Delegates in particular discussed the context of the “Black lives matter” movement in the United States as well as the migrant crisis.
“We are universalists […]. This element [le personnage du festival, ndlr] cannot be accepted by Unesco. I am African and I am deeply shocked by these elements”, declared the permanent representative of Morocco and chairman of the session, Samir Addhare.
Belgium itself “condemned all forms of racism and discrimination” during the session, saying it was “aware of the seriousness of the situation” while inviting the city of Ath to reflect for itself on the message that broadcasts its festival.
But Brussels, in view of the debates which were generally unanimous, then officially requested the withdrawal before the decision was adopted. Some members, however, expressed the wish that beyond this decision, the offending character be removed from the festival.
The ducasse of Ath, in Wallonia, has existed since the 16th century and brings together tens of thousands of people on the last weekend of August, culminating in the Sunday procession of which the Savage is the star.
The procession was listed by Unesco in 2008 as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity, integrated into “the element” Processional Giants and Dragons of Belgium and France “”, according to the UN organization whose headquarters is in Paris. .
Several organizations have risen in recent years against the symbols it conveyed. In August 2019, the anti-racist collective Bruxelles Panthères had thus put into circulation a petition against a practice assimilated to “Black face” – the fact for a white man to make up a person of color – and denounced as “a vestige of the setting in slavery”.
At the end of 2019, Unesco had already removed from its list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity the Belgian carnival of Aalst, accused of anti-Semitism.
It was the first time that this organization had taken such a decision, this time looking at the presence in the parade of a caricaturing float of hooked-nosed Orthodox Jews, seated on bags of gold, which had outraged community representatives. of Belgium (about 40,000 people).