THE BELGIANS' COLLECTIVE AMNESIA

"Yet time has erased the severity of this tragedy. The Belgian people adopted a policy of national amnesia. Leopold II is praised today for bringing "civilization" to Congo (ignoring the fact that the Congolese civilization goes back several centuries). The records of the financial exploitation remain a Belgian state secret to this late date. And while the Belgian royal family amassed an extraordinary fortune from its plunder of the Congo resources, it has yet to offer any official statement of remorse for the massacres which took place under Leopold II."

Phil Hall [ AfricanFilm.com ]

Leopold II's reputation today

In Belgium: Leopold II is perceived by many Belgians as the "King-Builder" ("le Roi-Bâtisseur" in French, "Koning-Bouwer" in Dutch) because he commissioned a great number of buildings and urban projects in Antwerp, Brussels, Ostend and elsewhere in Belgium. The buildings include the Royal Glasshouses at Laeken, the Japanese tower, the Chinese pavilion, the Musée du Congo (now called the Royal Museum for Central Africa) and their surrounding park in Tervuren, the Jubilee Triple Arch in Brussels and the Antwerp train station hall. He funded these buildings with the wealth generated by the exploitation of the Congo. There has been a "Great Forgetting", as Adam Hochschild describes in his book 'King Leopold's Ghost': "The Congo offer a striking example of the politics of forgetting. Leopold and the Belgian colonial officials who followed him went to extraordinary lengths to try to erase potentially incriminating evidence from the historical records."

Photo: The Royal African Musuem in Tervuren; like many other Belgian monuments of the 19th Century it has been built on the blood of the Congolese people

Remarkably the colonial Royal Museum for Central Africa (Tervuren Museum) does not mention anything at all about the atrocities committed in the Congo Free State. The Tervuren Museum has a large collection of colonial objects but of the largest injustice in Congo, Hochschild wrote: "there is no sign whatsoever."

The fact that the most popular recent book written on King Leopold's depredations, Adam Hochschild's "King Leopold's Ghost, was the work of an American outsider rather than a Belgian speaks volumes about the deliberate amnesia Belgium developed on the actions of its beloved king. Marc Reynebeau, who has written a political history of Belgium, is among those to highlight the national importance of the horrors on show at the controversial royal museum. "Belgian colonisation of Congo is seen as horror and violence," the author said. "The pictures of children with chopped-off hands are the ultimate symbols. It took Belgium a century to recognise that past. The exhibit 'Memory of Congo' is the first impetus for change, the first time Tervuren recognises the horror. But the real work has yet to start." Although the museum in Tervuren may be belatedly changing, it seems likely to be a long time yet before Belgians look at statues of Leopold ll with anything other than respect. 

Another example to understanding of the insane national amnesia of Belgian's is best known by the invention of fine chocolate hands which are considered "delicious" -- see to believe.

Comment: After watching the video excerpt a 'normal person' might wonder how far the folly of man can go. Please remember it when you enter a Belgian chocolate store.

While renown Belgian chocolate makers offer to unaware tourists their horror chocolates, some of the museum directors involved into the dispute regarding the restitution of looted African artifacts are badly caught by collective colonial insanity. 

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WOULD WESTERN MUSEUMS RETURN LOOTED OBJECTS IF NIGERIA AND OTHER AFRICAN STATES WERE RULED BY ANGELS? RESTITUTION AND CORRUPTION -  by Dr. Kwame Opoku

"There are times, young fellah, when every one of us must make a stand for human right and justice, or you never feel clean again."

Lord John Roxton in 'The Lost World' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle