Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Thursday 27 June 2019

Revamped museum takes new look at Belgium’s colonial past

By RAF CASERT pulsed by the old museum.
Associated Press When Congolese-born
TERVUREN, Belgium (AP) Aime Enkobo moved to
— For decades, Belgian Brussels and wanted to
schoolchildren had come show his children his heri-
to the Africa Museum near tage, he came to the Afri-
Brussels to marvel at the caMuseum.
stuffed animals, drums, ritu- “For me it was to show them
al masks and minerals that our culture. What artists did,
glowed in the darkness of created, the aesthetics,
vast cellars. Old colonialists to explain that. It is what
lounged for languid lunch- interested me. It was not
es, reminiscing about their the images that showed
glorious past. that whites were superior
Hidden out of sight was the to blacks .... My kids asked
dark side of colonialism in me no questions on that,”
Belgian Congo — the kill- Enkobo said.
ings, the sepia photos of Still, controversy is increas-
Congolese whose hands ingly commonplace — and
were hacked off purely out it has come from Belgians
of petty retribution. as well as the Congolese
Not anymore. The museum, diaspora here.
long called the last colonial Critics have increasingly
museum in the world, is re- questioned street names
opening on Saturday after Museum director Guido Gryseels, left, looks out from the new visitor center onto the original Africa honoring colonialists, and
more than 10 years spent Museum in Tervuren, Belgium, Friday, Aug. 3, 2018. statues have been giv-
revamping the building Associated Press en explanatory plaques
and overhauling its dated, the new exhibition space, ing debates on art restitu- el on colonial exploitation. highlighting the death
one-sided approach to his- while many statues rep- tion and disagreements After Leopold handed over and destruction colonial-
tory. resenting the most deni- among researchers and Congo to the Belgian state, ism spawned. A sculpture
It’s been a huge challenge grating, clichéd views of the African diaspora. “The the tiny nation continued of Leopold II has had its
for director Guido Gryseels, the Congolese have been king tends to go to events to hold sway over an area bronze hand chopped off,
who has to put Belgium’s rounded up into a window- where consensus reigns,” a 80 times its size half a world and another was targeted
colonial abuse in its context less room. palace official said. away, until independence with rude graffiti last year.
in the very museum that Still, the palatial 1910 mu- Gryseels maintains that his- in 1960. A lot of work is left. “You
the chief perpetrator of the seum is a protected monu- tory has its place, but he Colonialists have long re- won’t find a town or city
horrors of Congo had built ment, and erasing all the says he’s not an apologist garded the museum as a in Belgium, where you
for his own glory. Worse, the fingerprints of the king and for colonialism or Belgium’s haven of nostalgia. “For don’t have a colonial
culprit was a former mon- perfidious glorification of suppression of Congo. them, this is their home street name, monument or
arch — Leopold II — whose colonialism was never an “It’s immoral. It’s based on and they are very nostalgic plaque. It is everywhere,”
dark legacy has long re- option. Leopold’s double- the military occupation of about this place,” Gryseels said activist and historian
mained shielded from full L anagram is still plastered a country. It’s based on said. They see Belgium’s Jean-Pierre Laus.
scrutiny. on walls and ceilings as the racism. It is based on the role in Congo as benign: He was instrumental in get-
With the museum’s reopen- defiant stamp of a bygone exploitation of resources,” building roads, provid- ting one of the first explana-
ing, “we provide the critical era, and gold-lettered he said amid crates, lad- ing health care, spread- tory plaques next to a Leo-
view of the colonial past,” panels still lionize “Belgium ders and protective foil dur- ing Christianity and giving pold statue in the town of
Gryseels said in an inter- offering civilization to Con- ing the final stages of reno- Congo a standard of living Halle, just south of Brussels,
view. “We try to provide go.” vation. few others in Africa had at almost a decade ago. In-
the Africa view of coloniza- The Royal Palace said that “I must say that in recent the time. stead of glorifying the mon-
tion.” King Philippe will not attend years the dialogue has be- “They’re a bit disappointed arch, it now reads: “the rub-
A Congolese artist’s statue Saturday’s ceremonial come more difficult. The about the critical view,” he ber and ivory trade, which
receives pride of place in opening, citing continu- younger generations are said. was largely controlled by
far more militant,” Gryseels It’d be wrong to assume the King, took a heavy toll
said. “What they say is: ‘The that all Africans were re- on Congolese lives.”q
proof of the pudding will be
in the eating’.”
Leopold’s ruthless early rule
over Congo from 1885 to
1908 is notorious for its bru-
tality when the Congo Free
State was practically his
personal fiefdom.
American writer Adam
Hochschild alleged in his
1998 book “King Leop-
old’s Ghost” that Leop-
old reigned over the mass
death of 10 million Congo-
lese. In fiction, Belgian Con-
A sculpture called the ‘Leopard Man’, second left, is stored with go provided the backdrop
others in a cavernous room at the Africa Museum in Tervuren, for “Heart of Darkness,” Jo- A stuffed elephant on display in the halls of the Africa Museum
Belgium, Friday, Aug. 3, 2018. seph Conrad’s classic nov- in Tervuren, Belgium, Thursday, July 12, 2018.
Associated Press Associated Press