Educação pode mudar sua vida

AFTER A NEAR-200-YEAR ODYSSEY IN EUROPE,SAARTJIE Baartman, a.k.a. the “Hottentot Venus,” will final-ly return home. In 1810, the young Baartman was lured awayfrom her Khoisan kin in South Africa, under the illusion thatshe would earn a fortune by showing off her body in the Northern Hemisphere. Instead she became the star of various “freak shows” from London to Paris, where she wasogled by the masses and “studied” by scientists fascinatedby her so-called exotic ethnicity and dramatically protruding genitalia.
Baartman’s exploitation continued long after her death in1815. Her genitals and brain were displayed at the Museumof Mankind in Paris until the 1970s for all to gawk at. But nowthose years of firm indignities may be about to end. NelsonMandela and other politicians have long demanded thatBaartman’s remains be returned for a proper burial in hernative land. And last week the French Senate passed a lawproviding for just that. Perhaps this will at last bring to a closeone of the sordid chapters in African colonialism.