Mission 21
Missionsstrasse
21, 4055 Basel
By
Saskia Bryner
The past of the Mission 21
Located at Missionstrasse
21, you find the Mission 21. Today, Mission 21 is a worldwide community of
partner churches that carries out international development projects with
partner organizations in 20 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Its
origins lie in Christian missionary work, it is therefore worthwhile to look at
their long history of engagement in countries that were under colonial control.
Christian missionaries can be seen as the "religious arms" of
European imperialist powers. In this short paper, we show how the missionary
work was entangled with the economic activity of the mission in India and how the
latter contributed to the development of the Basler Trading company, which
later became the UTC. The Basel Mission was founded in 1815 and during the 18th
and 19th centuries, its missionaries worked in countries under European
colonial rule in order to bring Christian life closer to farmers in non-Western
cultures (Krüsi, 2020).
Figure
1
Sign at the Entrance to Mission 21. Photo S. Bryner 5.10.2021.
The Basel Mission was also involved in the
textile industry in India. They produced textiles for Europeans and became one
of the most important producers in the South Indian textile industry in the
19th century. They got involved in this trade because people who converted to
Christianity lost their caste, which had important social and economic
consequences for them, because with the loss of their social position, they
also lost their work and social network. Hence the Basel Mission opened its own
weaving mill and brick factories in order to ensure workplaces for the
converts. To sell their products, they cooperated with the Basel Trading
Company, which was founded in 1859 (Meyer et al., 2019). An indicator of the
close ties between the Mission and Trading Company is that the ideals of the
mission were inscribed in the statues of the Basel Trading Company. They
further had an agreement that neither alcohol nor weapons were traded, and that
a fixed share of the profits went to the mission (Mhf,
2015). In 1882 they merged and until 1917 the Basel Mission headed the trading
company. The Basel Trading Company also shipped European goods to India and
Ghana and traded in palm oil, cocoa, and cotton. The converts working in these
enterprises were taught the Christian principles of how to live a decent life,
such as discipline, punctuality, and diligence. After World War I, the United
Kingdom expropriated the missionary enterprises run by the Basel Mission,
classifying them as enemy property since most of the missionaries were German.
The missionaries had to leave the country and could not return until 1924.
Although the Basel Mission negotiated with the British authorities, it never
succeeded in regaining its economic influence. After the return of the
possessions, the company was rebuilt and henceforth called Union Trading
Company. In 1928, the Basel Trading Company became independent from the Basel
Mission and trading and production were thereafter carried out by UTC, which is
a subsidiary of the Basel Trading Company. Part of the profits continued to be
donated to Christian works. In 1995, UTC International AG's was active
worldwide and traded and produced consumer goods on all continents (Stettler,
2002). The former headquarters of the Basler Handelsgesellschaft
and its subsidiary Union Trading Company on Petersgraben
35, are now used by the administration of the University of Basel. The company
ceased its operations in 2000 (Arlt, 2002).
Figure 2
Mission 21 Building. Photo S. Bryner 5.10.2021.
The Basel Mission was involved in trade
relations with India abroad, but also in the creation of stereotypes about
Africans in Europe. In the archives of the Mission 21 one can find, among other
things, this collection box, which was used for collecting money for missionsworldwide
until the withdrawal of the European colonial powers from the African
continent in the 1960s. In German they are called “Nickn*”
because they thank you with a nod for the donations. It was the most popular
fundraising tool for missions in Africa for about a century and was found
standing by the Christmas crib in almost every church. The problem with this
tool lies in the idea of the civilising mission. The
notion of "the white man's burden", that is, saving the non-whites
who were considered less developed by the missionary societies, comes from an
1899 poem by Rudyard Kipling. According to imperialist thinking, the white race
is morally obliged to civilise the non-white
population of the earth and promote their advancement through colonialism.
After the Second World War, however, these representations came to be seen
problematic and no longer appropriate (Missionsspardose “Nickn*,” 2010) and in the early 1960s, there was a
letter from the bishoprics asking to remove the “Nickn*”
from the public (Werle, 2014).
Figure 3
Fundraising Tool used by Mission 21. Photo S. Rohner 28.9.2021.
Arlt, V. (2002). Aus dem Vermächtnis der Union Trading Company -
Westafrikanische Popmusik in Basel. Basler
Stadtbuch, 40–44. https://www.baslerstadtbuch.ch/stadtbuch/2002/2002_2785.html
Krüsi, S. (2020). Station 4: Die Basler Mission - eine ambivalente
Rolle. Bajour. https://bajour.ch/a/2nL1wl82QDBKQ7vq/station-4-die-basler-mission-eine-ambivalente-rolle
Mhf. (2015). Von der Basler Missions-Handels-Gesellschaft zur UTC | NZZ. Neue Zürcher Zeitung. https://www.nzz.ch/wirtschaft/von-der-basler-missions-handels-gesellschaft-zur-utc-1.18642593?reduced=true
Mission 21. (n.d.). Protestant Mission Basel | Mission 21. https://www.mission-21.org/en
Missionsspardose “Nickneger.” (2010, December).
Landesstelle Für Museumsbetreuung. https://www.landesstelle.de/missionsspardose-nickneger/
Meyer, P., Crain Merz, N., & Spillmann,
A. (2019). Indiennes: Stoff für tausend Geschichten. Basel : Christoph Merian Verlag.
Stettler, N. (2002). Basler
Handelsgesellschaft. hls-dhs-dss.ch. https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/043012/2002-07-03/
Werle, W. (2014). Neue Heimat für alte Spardosen. Volksfreund. https://www.volksfreund.de/region/bitburg-pruem/neue-heimat-fuer-alte-spardosen_aid-6473162