Traces of existence: public monuments and the dead

Caring for the dead, remembering and showing respect are essential to any community. Those who do not know where their relatives and ancestors are buried, often feel disoriented and erased from history. This article discusses the impact of the (broken) relationship between the living and the dead on current conflicts over public colonial monuments. To understand the protests, this article examines the significance of the so-called ‘necropolitical space’ (Ruin 2018): the ongoing connection between the living and the dead that holds a community together. Monuments play an important role in this space. In the first section, I explain the meaning of necropolitical space by referring to the iconoclastic French revolutionaries in 1793 and the reburial of Civil War victims in present-day Spain. Then, using this concept, I focus on the controversy surrounding the colonial statue of J.P. Coen in the Netherlands. Its prominent location and visual language ignore the 1621 massacre on the Banda Islands by the Dutch, much to the dismay of the descendants who are demanding recognition for their culture. I conclude that the protests can also be interpreted as a call to restore the relationship with the ancestors.