Unesco decided Friday to remove from the list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity this Belgian festival in which appears a “Savage” made up in black, chains around the wrists.
Several African countries raised the issue at the 17e session of the Intangible Heritage Committee of Unesco, in Rabat. Should we downgrade the Ath festival in Wallonia or not? A manifestation that has existed since the 16the century and brings together tens of thousands of people on the last weekend of August. With as a high point the Sunday procession of which the Savage is the star
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 (the character of the festival, editor’s note) 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 has “condemned all forms of racism and discrimination” during the session, thinking “aware of the gravity of the situation” while inviting the city of Ath to think for itself about the message that its festival broadcasts.
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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 procession had been 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 headquartered 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 enslavement”.
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. Jew from Belgium (about 40,000 people).
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