"Belgium’s revamped Africa Museum is a magnificently bizarre hybrid."

“Colonialism as a system of governance is now considered immoral, authoritarian, racist, based on military occupation and exploitation.”
-- Guido Gryseels

I'm an unrepentant fan of most things Belgian, including beer, food, beercycling and the invention of the saxophone; in a pinch, you can even throw in Jean Claude Van Damme, who was born in Brussels in 1960, 70-odd days after me (in New Albany).

However, the story of Belgium's colonial experience is sad and instructive. It cannot be repeated often enough. King Leopold is one of those nasty historical figures best forgotten, except doing so would risk burying the complete story of his genocidal reign in the Congo.

King Leopold and "The Horrors of Belgium's Congo."

I was unaware that the Royal Museum for Central Africa had undergone an ideological refit. During two or three of my visits to Belgium, I was within range, but wasn't able to seek it out.

Next time, maybe it will be possible.

The struggle to tell the story of colonialism: Belgium’s revamped Africa Museum is a magnificently bizarre hybrid (The Economist)

It is a magnificently bizarre hybrid. Still officially called the Royal Museum for Central Africa, but better known as the Africa Museum, it cannot help but ooze colonial triumphalism, despite recent protestations of egalitarian diversity. Housed in a majestic purpose-built palace 20 minutes’ drive east of Brussels, it stands above a lake amid parkland. Immaculate gravel paths sweep around the site. However radically the interior may have been refashioned to reflect new attitudes to Africa, the grandeur of King Leopold II’s design and the fervour of his desire to promote his imperial venture into the continent’s heart still overwhelm the visitor. The monarch ruled Congo as a private estate nearly 80 times bigger than his European homeland from 1885 until a year before his death in 1909; his double-l motif is embossed on almost every wall and above many an alcove.

Short of knocking the entire edifice flat, the museum’s current regime, run since 2001 by Guido Gryseels, a 66-year-old agricultural expert, has spent the past five years behind closed doors seeking to put a modern imprint on an irredeemably archaic structure. It reopens on December 9th. “We’ll be criticised on both sides,” predicts Mr Gryseels, who, like many modern museum bosses, is perforce a canny diplomat. “For not going far enough and for being too politically correct” ...

King Leopold and "The Horrors of Belgium's Congo."

My affection for Belgium and the Belgians precludes overt flippancy, but it does not prevent an honest examination of King Leopold's legacy.

It's not a pretty sight, and it's hard not to be scathing about it. It helps to know that Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness was derived from the Belgian colonial subjugation of the Congo.

European royalty boasts its fair share of rogues and scoundrels, but as a dismal human being, Leopold truthfully was in another league. His personal Congolese wealth-extraction mechanism cost the lives of 10 million persons, and in many respects the Congo hasn't ever recovered from it.

Last week I watched a documentary, described here.

The Horrors of Belgium's Congo, by Manohla Dargis (New York Times)

A latecomer to colonialism, King Leopold II of Belgium searched the world for a satellite to call his very own, finally finding his prey in the Congo region of Africa. Hiding his greed behind the twinned fictions of charity and philanthropy, the king entered the Congo with the help of the explorer Henry Morton Stanley and quickly strong-armed tribal chiefs into signing away their future. Soon after, representatives from Europe and the United States delivered the region -- renamed the Congo Free State, later Zaire and now the Democratic Republic of Congo -- into Leopold's rapacious care.

The ghastly story of Leopold's reign of terror in Africa during the late 19th- and early-20th centuries forms the subject of the documentary "Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death," from the British filmmaker Peter Bate.

It's not for the squeamish.

Many Americans first became aware of this through a book.

King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa (1998) is a best-selling popular history book by Adam Hochschild that explores the exploitation of the Congo Free State by King Leopold II of Belgium between 1885 and 1908, as well as the atrocities that were committed during that period.[1] In doing so, the book aimed to increase public awareness of these Belgian colonial crimes,[citation needed] successfully as it turned out.

It was refused by nine of the 10 U.S. publishing houses to which an outline was submitted, but became an unexpected bestseller and won the prestigious Mark Lynton History Prize for literary style. It also won the 1999 Duff Cooper Prize. By 2013 more than 600,000 copies were in print in a dozen languages.

The book is the basis of a 2006 documentary film of the same name, directed by Pippa Scott and narrated by Don Cheadle.

I may or may not watch this second documentary. To be sure, there are heroes in this story; primarily journalists and missionaries, who adopted the simple expedient of telling the truth.

History. It really does matter.

"The biggest illusion, of course, was that victory would be quick and easy."

It has been 16 years since Adam Hochschild's gripping King Leopold's Ghost, which tells a story none of us know, but should.

King Leopold's Ghost (1998) is a best-selling popular history book by Adam Hochschildthat explores the exploitation of the Congo Free State by King Leopold II of Belgium between 1885 and 1908, as well as the atrocities that were committed during that period.^[1]

The book aims to increase public awareness of crimes committed by European colonial rulers in Africa. It was refused by nine of the ten U.S. publishing houses to which an outline was submitted, but became an unexpected bestseller and won the prestigious Mark Lynton History Prize for literary style. It also won the 1999 Duff Cooper Prize. By 2013, more than 600,000 copies were in print in a dozen languages.

Ironically, Germany's violation of Belgian neutrality in 1914 brought England into the Great War, which began when Austria-Hungary armies invaded Serbia ... and as we'd say in these parts, had their asses handed to them, at least at first. Hochschild later wrote about the people who opposed the conflagration.

"To End All Wars" redux.

In short: It was a hundred years ago today. We really ought to know and remember these things.

Colonial Folly, European Suicide, by Adam Hochschild (NYT)

TURNER, Me. — ONE hundred years ago today, Austro-Hungarian artillery and gunboats on the Danube began shelling Serbia — the first shots of the great cataclysm that over the next four and a half years would remake our world for the worse, in every conceivable way. We think of the First World War as having its causes in Europe, where the greatest bloodshed and destruction would take place. But several of the illusions that propelled the major powers so swiftly into war had their roots in far corners of the world.