The City of Geneva is set to reassess statues and street names and root out those deemed racist or problematic.
Around 30 sites are being looked at, including a bust of the naturalist August Carl-Vogt – who gives his name to a university building and a major boulevard.
He put forward theories now considered racist – he believed each different race evolved from a different ape. A theory which was largely rejected by his peers in the 1860s.
The Quai Wilson is also under the spotlight. Named after the US president Woodrow Wilson who held racist views and was an apologist for slavery. Views that were questionable even during his time as president in the early 1920s.
The rue du Village-Suisse in Jonction is named after the national exhibition held in Geneva in 1896.
One of the exhibits was a human zoo called the ‘Black Village’ which held around 200 people from Senegal. It’s said to have conveyed a stereotypical view of Africa and was part of colonial imagination.
Sami Kanaan is in charge of culture in the city and he admits it’s a sensitive subject and assures that the idea is not to erase history.
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