The Union
The Union: Shishani
'Forget To Remember'
I wrote 'Forget To Remember' on May 4, 2020. During Corona, even before the world was 'shaken awake' about racism due to the murder of George Floyd in the US.
As someone who grew up in the Netherlands but was born in Namibia, I have always noticed how little attention has been paid to the Dutch colonial past and how that violence plays out in the present. At school, we learned a large chapter about World War II. About Suriname, the Caribbean, and Indonesia a small paragraph somewhere in between. Apartheid was discussed, but it wasn't told as if the Netherlands had anything to do with it. Few people know that Namibia was colonized by the apartheid regime in South Africa and that we thus also fell under apartheid.
The invisibility and ignorance about all the places in the world where the Netherlands has plundered its riches has always been painful. The daily seeing and feeling of what racism and discrimination do in and through Dutch actions continues to cut. See Ter Apel. See the Mediterranean Sea. See the genocides that are taking place before our eyes. Especially at moments like May 4th and 5th, when we as a country dare to say "never again," the reality is a painful hypocrisy. And from that energy, I wrote 'Forget To Remember.'
Lyrics Shishani - Forget To Remember
Freedom for a few
Maybe if they look like you
Ooh ooh ooh
Ooh ooh ooh
Freedom for a few
Maybe if they look like you
Ooh ooh ooh
Ooh ooh ooh
I said how long
Will we keep on
Forgetting
(how long, keep on)
I said how long
Will we keep on
Forgetting
(how long, keep on)
Keti Koti, RMS
Black & brown lives matter in the US
Gaza and Syria
Still slavery in Libya
The Kurds, the Uighurs in China,
Myanmar and Nepal
What about Bosnia
What about Afghanistan
Freedom for a few
Maybe if they look like you
Ooh ooh ooh
Ooh ooh ooh
Freedom for a few
Maybe if they look like you
Ooh ooh ooh
Ooh I said how long
Will we keep on
Forgetting (How long, keep on)
I said how long
Will we keep on
Forgetting
(How long, keep on)
Congo, Tigray, Sudan
It’s like the whole world forgets Africans
Apartheid in our governments
Indigenous people not relevant
What about the San, the Aboriginals, Herero, Nama First nations, Amazonians, Polynesians, Indonesia
Free West Papua
Free Palestine
I said how long
How long will we keep on, keep on
Forgetting
(How long, keep on)
I said how long
How long will we keep on, keep on
Forgetting
(How long, keep on)
There’s a war on women every day
140 women slain daily,
By their partners, family
Cause we’re still seen as property
And my queer and trans community
It’s a warzone chronically
You see, Yemen is still hungry
Kids still in streets over there in Greece
I said how long
Will we keep on
Forgetting
And ooh
We forget to remember
It’s all of us
We forget to remember
It’s all of us
We forget to remember
I said how long
Will we keep on
Forgetting
