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Gold Coast (2015) and Danish Economies of Colonial Guilt

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Gold Coast (2015) and Danish Economies of Colonial Guilt Journal of Aesthetics & Culture ISSN: (Print) 2000-4214 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/zjac20 Gold Coast (2015) and Danish economies of colonial guilt Lill-Ann Körber To cite this article: Lill-Ann Körber (2018) GoldCoast (2015) and Danish economies of colonial guilt, Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, 10:2, 1438734, DOI: 10.1080/20004214.2018.1438734 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/20004214.2018.1438734 © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Published online: 06 Jul 2018. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 120 View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=zjac20 JOURNAL OF AESTHETICS & CULTURE, 2018 VOL. 10, NO. 2, 25–37 https://doi.org/10.1080/20004214.2018.1438734 Gold Coast (2015) and Danish economies of colonial guilt Lill-Ann Körber Department for Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway ABSTRACT KEYWORDS The article discusses Daniel Dencik’s feature film Gold Coast (2015), about the last phase of Danish colonialism; Ghana; Danish colonialism in today’s Ghana, as an example for recent representations of Danish Danish film; memory culture; colonial history. Combining historian of ideas Astrid Nonbo Andersen’s exploration of Danish guilt management; slavery; narratives of “innocent colonialism”, Gloria Wekker’s concept of “White Innocence”, and film whiteness; US Virgin Islands historian Thomas Elsaesser’s model of “guilt economies” as a feature of the legacy of perpetrator nations (2014), the article provides a framework within which to examine figura- tions of colonial guilt and innocence in Gold Coast. The main argument is that the film’s treatment of colonial guilt primarily takes the form of maintenance of innocence. It thereby contradicts the challenges currently being pitted elsewhere against the narrative of innocent colonialism. Daniel Dencik’s Gold Coast (Guldkysten, 2015) is one unforgivable,” allowing them to express regret but of the first feature films to thematize Danish colonial avoid an actual apology.6 On the same occasions, history,1 and the first to focus on the former Danish colonial history and enslavement were described as possessions in West Africa, the Danish Gold Coast, “shameful,” pointing at the affective dimension of a part of today’s Ghana.2 Gold Coast depicts, from the nation’s coming to terms with the past that is inter- point of view of a young official new to the coast, the connected with economic and political aspects.7 The last phase of Danish colonialism in these parts, and last occasion occurred in November 2017, when the process of its decomposition. Queen Margrethe II. paid Ghana a state visit accom- The film includes multiple references to historical panied by politicians and business representatives. facts, persons, and places, and in so doing contributes While the Queen herself in public remarks declined to acquainting the audience in Denmark and abroad any present accountability for past Danish involve- with a presumably little known chapter of Danish ment in the slave trade,8 foreign minister Anders history. In this sense, Gold Coast belongs to a recent Samuelsen used the same phrasing as Prime wave of Nordic cinema addressing Scandinavian Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen had used earlier in colonialism and race ideology.3 It also belongs to the year.9 His speech was widely, but falsely, under- the most recent phase of Denmark’s addressing its stood and reported as an official apology.10 legacy as a colonial power, which culminated in 2017, Historian of ideas Astrid Nonbo Andersen when the centennial of the transfer of the former describes in detail the trajectory of Danish debates Danish West Indies—today’s US Virgin Islands—to about official apologies and compensations in her the USA was commemorated by a considerable num- book Ingen undskyldning (No Apology, 2017). She ber of memorial events, historical and art exhibitions, hasalsobeenasought-afterexpertwhenquestions panel discussions, and conferences.4 One of the main of apologies and reparations were much debated foci of the public debate on this occasion was the again in 2017. She links the reluctance with which question of whether or not Denmark is comparatively claims for apologies have been treated in Denmark guilty or innocent, and can be held accountable for to a fear of claims for compensation, but also to violence and power imbalances past and present. The persistent imaginations of an “innocent colonial- issue manifested itself for instance in renewed claims ism” central to Danish narratives about the colo- about apologies and reparations.5 No official apology nial past. Those narratives have tended to to those affected by the transatlantic slave trade and downplay violence and oppression (16f), and enslavement has been offered so far, or can be have instead been characterized by a trust in expected in the foreseeable future. Instead, the choice good intentions and the emphasis of good deeds. of words of Danish politicians on several occasions I will argue that those features—initial innocence throughout the year was the phrase that slavery “is and restoration of innocence—are relevant for CONTACT Lill-Ann Körber [email protected] Department for Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, University of Oslo, Norway, Oslo http://www.hf.uio.no/iln/english/people/aca/lillanak/index.html © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 26 L.-A. KÖRBER Gold Coast, too. One could conclude the following reviewer summarized the film accordingly as “ana- logic: as long as Denmark clings to the idea of a chronistic delirium” (Kristiansen 2016).13 humane, innocent colonialism, there is no recog- Focalized through its main character, the film tells nition of any debt, and thus no reason to feel the story of the young and idealistic botanist and guilty, to apologize, or to “repair.” Yet there is a agriculturalist Wulff Frederik Wulff (Jakob growing number of voices both in Denmark and Oftebro).14 Wulff arrives on the Danish Gold Coast in the former colonies that challenge the narrative in the year 1836 on order of the Danish king to of innocent colonialism and increase the pressure establish coffee plantations. The transatlantic slave to acknowledge colonial guilt and indebtedness to trade has officially been abolished, but not slavery those still underprivileged as a consequence of itself. Only a few officials are left to administer European colonial expansion.11 Danish interests on the coast from Fort Christiansborg.15 Wulff is enthused by the flora and fauna, but dismayed by the decadence and corruption of his fellow countrymen, including their orgies and Approaching Gold Coast rape of local women. He also quickly encounters To discuss Gold Coast in the framework of an obstacles to his mission: the first plantation is exploration of colonial innocence, guilt, and obliga- destroyed by warriors of the local Asante kingdom tion seems relevant not only given the context of resisting colonization of their land, and many of the specific national historiography, or the context of Danes suffer and die from illnesses. A turning point this publication. The film itself, including its produc- arrives when a Danish missionary (Danica Curcic) on tion process, offers an occasion to discuss anew pat- her deathbed urges Wulff to fight for the emancipa- terns and implications of claims of innocence, of tion of the enslaved. As a next step in his maturation, culpability, and of the feasibility of redemption. Wulff witnesses a nightly illegal embarkation of a In what follows, I will provide a more detailed slave ship and puts together an army in order to contextualization by explaining how Danish narratives overthrow Henrich Richter (Wakefield Ackuaku), a of innocent colonialism have unfolded. I will ask merchant of mixed European-African descent reign- whether such claims can be conceptualized as exam- ing in a former Danish fort,16 and in order to free ples of “white innocence,” similar to Dutch discourses enslaved men and women from his dungeons (Figure and practices recently analyzed by Gloria Wekker 1). He gets punished and imprisoned by the governor (2016). As yet another step towards a theoretical fra- and his assistant who thereby reinstall the fragile mework within which to study Gold Coast (and other, political and economic order. At the end, the ema- especially filmic, narratives of Danish innocent coloni- ciated and hallucinating Wulff is rescued by his slave alism), I will present film historian and cultural critic Lumpa (John Aggrey), in whose village he ultimately, Thomas Elsaesser’smodelof“guilt economies” devel- peacefully, dies. oped in his book about terror and trauma in German So, how approach Gold Coast from the angle of its post-Holocaust cinema (2014). This combination of thematization of Danish colonial guilt? approaches allows me, then, to examine figurations of colonial guilt and innocence in Gold Coast pertain- ing to the development of the main character, issues of White innocence? focalization and imagery, the depicted historical era, In her book White Innocence: Paradoxes of ’ and the film s production process. I will argue that the Colonialism and Race (2016), Gloria Wekker offers a ’ film s treatment of colonial guilt primarily takes the reading of narratives of innocence connected to form of maintenance of innocence. It thereby limits and undermines the force of challenges pitted against the narrative of an innocent colonialism. Gold Coast is the first narrative film by writer and film director Daniel Dencik. An art house film rather than a blockbuster historical drama, Gold Coast did not do particularly well at the box office,12 and received mixed reviews.
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