"L’Afrique belge", land of historical explorations

Re-examining colonial history, in particular, that of the Belgian Congo, certainly isn’t a walk in the park – far from it. There is indeed a significant risk of falling into the traps of oversimplification and categorising everything into good or bad. Things are not as simple as some journalistic lampoons would make us believe... Beware of clichés and anachronisms! Thankfully, we are reminded of this in a recent publication: “L’Afrique belge aux XIXè et XXè siècles – Nouvelles recherches et perspectives en histoire coloniale” (Belgian Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries – New research and perspectives in colonial history), published by P.I.E. Peter Lang(1). A collective work involving the participation of Catherine Lanneau, Charlotte Braillon, Dantès Singiza et Jan Vandersmissen, historians and law historians from the University of Liège.

“In the past fifteen years”, Catherine Lanneau, historian and  lecturer at the University of Liège, and secretary for the FRS-FNRS contact group “Belgique et mondes contemporains” (Belgium and contemporary worlds), immediately points out, “there has been significant renewed interest in colonial studies in Belgium”. With the emergence of a new generation of researchers – who haven’t been directly confronted with colonisation -, new avenues of research have opened up. The diversity of the subjects dealt with has increased. And researchers are looking to share their experiences far more than in the past. Hence, historical research today necessitates a close network for those devoted to it, allowing them to share views, methods, sources, research tools, etc.

While we may lament the fact that this revival is still unknown to the general public – including in the educational and cultural domain in general -, we should however note that in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, the “Belgium and contemporary worlds” contact group has done a great deal over the past few years to boost research, in close collaboration with the FRS-FNRS “History and History of Art” doctoral school and other research centres. Since 2010, this contact group has been organising very successful study days and seminars on Africa, and Central Africa in particular.

“About thirty Belgian and foreign researchers, both beginners and experienced, usually attend these study days”, Catherine Lanneau explains. “They regularly contribute to a theme linked to the study of Africa. Their exchanges are particularly fruitful and involve a far more comparative historiographical and less linear viewpoint than in the past”. For instance, there is the field of the history of mentalities and colonial culture, which involves tackling subjects as diverse as colonial propaganda, ceremonies and festivities, mixed cultural approaches regarding heritage and colonial legacy, the diaspora (African in Belgium, European in Central Africa), etc.

The work in question – L’Afrique belge aux XIXè et XXè siècles – comprises a collection of the papers presented at two of these study days, one organised in May 2011 at the Université Catholique de Louvain (“La Belgique et l’Afrique. Aggiornamento historiographique”), the other in February 2012 at the Royal Museum for Central Africa (“Nouvelles études congolaises”).

As the historians Michel Dumoulin and Pierre Tilly write in the preface, “the publication of this volume marks the end of the first stage and the link to the next one. It is important that the effort is maintained beyond this initial work and that greater emphasis is placed on contacts with foreign researchers, especially Dutch-speaking researchers”. In this respect, Catherine Lanneau points out that contrary to foreign researchers, Flemish researchers “don’t exist” in the eyes of the FNRS, and therefore can’t claim any expenses for their participation in the said study days. The same is also true for French-speaking researchers vis-à-vis the FWO, the Flemish equivalent of the FNRS. “An administrative anomaly as a result of the institutional organisation of Belgium”, regrets the historian from Liège.

Explaining the nuances

When reading the book, it quickly becomes apparent that the colonial past is making a big comeback in today’s reflections. But as one of the authors, Patricia Van Schuylenbergh, quite rightly says, “this renewed enthusiasm does little to conceal the ambiguities in the content of colonialism and the ways of dealing with it, which crystallise the ideological and political divisions and bear witness to the difficult weight of this past” in our country and elsewhere.

Catherine Lanneau is in full agreement: “In a context that is currently increasingly marked by a tendency towards a global, transnational and interconnected history, the rewriting of colonial times also involves collusion, and often a marked confusion between the professional writing of history, the essay or journalistic lampoon, non-fiction, the novel, the life story, and personal or group memoirs of former colonials. It’s not easy to find your way among this profusion where the undiscerning apology rubs shoulders with the virulent denunciation, whether it’s a matter of colonisation in general or a facet of it, such as the Leopoldian era”. It is true that at the moment, a sort of expiatory memory of colonisation is being widely expressed in discussions, as though, after a phase of denial and repression, the former colonising countries were currently tending towards what Benjamin Stora refers to as “memory overload”. Beware of the clash between history, political stakes and memories, with one commanding the other to tell the truth.

It is therefore an education in nuance and precision which the historians of colonialism offer us. A laudable challenge which they take up with brio throughout “L'Afrique belge aux XIXe et XXe siècles. Nouvelles recherches et perspectives en histoire coloniale”

From “genius”...

In her contribution, Patricia Van Schuylenbergh, head of the History and Politics section at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, first re-examines the historiography of colonialism in depth. Her report is enlightening.

As we know, the acts of violence committed under Leopold II in the Congo Free State (CFS) raised virulent national and international criticism at the time. When Belgium “inherited” Congo in 1909, the traditional establishment made sure it put an end to it by encouraging the emergence of a “heroic” history, through a multitude of works. This, the historian notes, would make abundant use – until the beginning of the 1950s – of the epic and self-justifying account of colonisation and its civilising values. This propaganda would help to shape a “colonial spirit” among the population. Above all, it became the tool of national patriotism where the King stood out as an inspired and visionary figure who bequeathed a prosperous colony to the nation.

During the 1950s, the situation gradually changed, under the influence of certain pioneering works such as those by Jean Stengers. However, the young professor from the Université Libre de Bruxelles had to face a generation of diehard pro-Leopold historians for many years, who were “highly oriented” in their vision of the colonial past.

After Congo’s independence in 1960, new perspectives opened up thanks to eminent historians, such as Jean-Luc Vellut and Jan Vansina, a pioneer in the collection of oral traditions in the field. Several schools gradually developed around university, academic, and institutional centres, and even around individuals. For instance, former colonial journalists (J. Kestergat and J. Massoz) published their field knowledge and experiences. Through Pierre Salmon, we also witnessed the arrival of ethnohistory, a branch of anthropology, which postulates the recognition of the history of societies with no written language.

In her very detailed general survey, Patricia Van Schuylenbergh also evokes the “diminishing importance of colonial history”, in Belgium and elsewhere, with Imperial history losing out to African history. “Indeed”, she writes, “the mental landscape of anti-colonialism and the appearance of African nationalism have modified historical habits”. In particular, these viewpoints led to an extension of the fields and places of research in Zaire itself. In the 1970s, the training of historians became widespread within the framework of the National University, which merged the three former history departments that existed in Kinshasa, Kisangani and Lubumbashi, the capital of Katanga. The history of Congo was reinforced by “nationals” trained in Belgium and in France.

... to the “embarrassment" of the Belgians

P. Van Schuylenbergh then explores the many historiographical trends that have given a new impetus to historical research, in Belgium and abroad, in the past 15 years. By revealing the darkest facets of the CFS and the Belgian colony, many authors, both historians and non-historians, she points out, decided to look at the colonial past in a different light. Furthermore, the media coverage of certain works – the most explosive example being King Leopold’s Ghost(1), by the American journalist Adam Hochschild – and certain audiovisual productions – such as the film White King, Red Rubber, Black Death (2) by the Englishman Peter Bate, would hurl colonialism to the front of the public arena. And... trigger a virulent “war of memories”, in particular on the subject of the rapacious exploitation of Congolese rubber, the focal point of the history of the CFS.

"It's another phenomenon to be taken into account", insists P. Van Schuylenbergh. “In a context of economic crisis and European politics, which is also experienced as a crisis of confidence in its basic principles and in its ability to manage it, the defence of moral principles becomes a fundamental duty of introspection and self-criticism, but also retrospection regarding a colonial heritage whose reach exceeds state borders. A new interpretation of the past is therefore part of a general movement which confronts the colonial pasts of European countries with the issue of the moral responsibility of colonialism, with increased attention on human rights and victims".

For the majority of the Belgian public born after 1960, our historian notes, colonial history is summarised in two symptomatic shortcuts – the violence of the CFS and the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in 1961 – which underlines the pathos of a “terrible colony”, relating less to the objective historical facts than to a “memory” of the history, such as it appears in the various channels where it is produced.

The right to remember against a duty to remember?

Faced with the “duty to remember”, the “right to remember” resurfaces... P. Van Schuylenbergh also analyses the counterattack that has been organised by associations of former colonials over the past 15 years, such as “Mémoires du Congo” and “Afrikagetuigenissen”, who consider themselves the guardians of Belgian colonial heritage. According to the historian, they “vehemently, and even sometimes dogmatically, defend the founding memory of their particular identity”. Even if they are often inspired by sentimentality, these associations don’t hesitate to stand up, sometimes violently, when the King of the Free State and Belgian colonial deeds are attacked. To support their claims, they use the media tools of their critics: books, press articles, films, websites and the republishing of documents and historical works considered as references of the genre.

Within this particularly sensitive context, new historiographical and more innovative trends have nevertheless appeared. Patricia Van Schuylenbergh also reviews them. She particularly focuses on the works of the new generation of researchers. With study grants making it easier to travel abroad, in a world that has become a “global village”, these researchers have naturally turned towards overseas studies in the context of transnational and world history (“World-Global History”). Abandoning a number of habitual reactions – the denunciation of colonial experiences as simple cases of exploitation, for instance – these researchers are turning towards a comparative history that is “particularly rich in the study of cultural areas that offer a coherent and convincing framework of analysis”.

A collection of “views”

“L'Afrique belge aux XIX^e et XX^e siècles.” includes many other contributions that are all as interesting as each other. Pierre-Luc Plasman takes another look at the “paradoxes of Leopoldian Congo”. Lancelot Arzel establishes unexpected parallels between the realms of fighting and hunting. Mathilde Leduc-Grimaldi focuses on the unknown African stakeholders of the colonial enterprise. Jan Vandersmissen (University of Liège) studies the determining role of “geographical societies” in the materialisation in the field of Leopold II’s expansionist projects.

As for Bérangère Piret and Charlotte Braillon (University of Liège), they each deal with various aspects of colonial law, in their own way. Pierre Tilly also presents an interesting point of view in “Social policy in Belgian Congo, 1945-1960: a model colony?”, where he particularly refers to the relative failure of Congolese trade unions before and after independence. Guillaume Léonard examines the enduring establishment of an independent farming colonate, beginning in the 1920s, in Kivu. Etienne Deschamps explores “the various forms of the Eurafrique concept” in the interwar period, while Anne-Sophie Gijs analyses the way in which the Belgian colonial authorities attempted to bar the way to the “Communist threat” and the “danger of nationalism”, right in the middle of the cold war.

In this collection, the work of a young PhD student from the University of Liège, Dantès Singiza, particularly stands out. His contribution highlights the main documentary sources used in relation to the Ruzagayura famine, which he developed during his dissertation for his master’s degree. The famine, caused by drought, happened in Rwanda right in the middle of the Second World War. It was fatal for many - between 30 000 and 300 000 deaths, according to sources – and resulted in mass migrations, widespread insecurity and... the anger of the Rwandans. In his detailed investigation, the researcher measured the level of (in)efficiency of the measures taken by the Belgian and Rwandan authorities to eradicate this phenomenon. It took them more than a month to organise supplies for the victims of the disaster! In the doctoral thesis he is preparing, Dantès Singiza has focused on the history of Rwanda during the Second World War. The country’s participation in the war effort “sucked dry” the available food stocks and this was one of the causes of the dreadful Ruzagayura famine.

Continuing the effort

The book “L'Afrique belge aux XIX^e et XX^e siècles.” will undoubtedly catch the attention of all those who are passionate about Central Africa. It is already a reference work and, as we have said, a link. “It is important for the effort to continue beyond this initial work”, concludes Catherine Lanneau. “And we must ensure”, she repeats, “that we encourage the participation of Flemish and foreign researchers and thereby maintain contact with them”. Other study days have already been programmed.

(1) Van Schuylenbergh P., Lanneau C., PLasman P-L. (Dir), L'Afrique belge aux XIXe et XXe siècles. Nouvelles recherches et perspectives en histoire coloniale, Coll. Outre-mers, P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2014.

(1) Hochschild Adam, King Léopold's Ghost., Belfond, 1999.
(2) Bate Peter (Dir), White King, Red Rubber, Black Death, 2004.