LITR 5831 Colonial-Postcolonial
Literature
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Veronica Ramirez
Research Post: Royal Museum of Central Africa:
A
Colonizer’s Museum
Earlier this year I traveled to Europe, which included stops
in Belgium, both in Brussels and Brugge. A lot of the standard tourist
attractions stuck out and seemed to be non-native to Belgium, such as the
chocolate and diamond shops and the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA). This
inspired me to find out about more about the history of the Belgians in the
Congo since I knew little except that
Heart of Darkness was written about it. The most interesting and yet random
finding in my research, was the RMCA, which stood out as something of an
artifact of the Belgian colonial experience. I reframed my research post to
focus on the RCMA from a post-colonial perspective and tried to answer the
following question: Why had the RCMA
not changed substantially since its opening and what does that say about the
Belgian attitudes?
The RCMA was built specifically to
exhibit
King Leopold II's
Congo Free State for the 1897 World Exhibition,
mainly as a visual representation of the economic gains of Africa, and to show
that Belgium was educating the Central Africans and protecting them from the
Arab slave traders. The Museum’s name
changed along with the relationship that the Congo had to Belgium. It began as
the “Museum of the Congo”, when the Congo was under Leopold II’s direct control
as the “Congo Free State” (1885-1908). When Belgium annexed the Congo as a
Belgian colony and it became the Belgian Congo, as a response to political and
public outcry of the atrocities on the native African population (1908-1960),
the name was then changed to “Royal Museum of the Belgian Congo” (1952).
In 1960 the Belgian Congo became
independent and became The Democratic Republic of Congo, and the museum changed
its name to the “Royal Museum of Central Africa” (1960). Even with all the name
changes, the permanent exhibits of the RCMA remained mostly unchanged, and
without really exhibiting any negative impacts of colonization. The Royal Museum
for Central Africa website states that the RMCA “is one of the world’s most
fascinating and visually striking institutions devoted to Africa” and even the
current website tends to only focus on the beauty of African culture, flora and
fauna and doesn’t dwell on the details of colonization.
The museum serves as a symbol of the
attitudes of the colonizers more than a century ago, as it has “memorial(s) to
Belgians who died in the Congo, but there is no hint that there might have been
Congolese victims” (Ewans 170).
Adam Hochschild in his article “A
Holocaust we yet have to Comprehend” states that in the RMCA “the signs in its
20 large exhibition galleries say not one word about the millions of Congolese
who died”, and compares the feeling of the museum “as if there were to be a huge
museum of Jewish art and artifacts in Berlin--with no mention of the Holocaust.”
Hochschild also explains how the museum mirrors literature and public feelings
depending on “which voices from the past we listen to--both in the academic
history of textbooks and the public history of monuments and museums.”
The new critical articles and books
regarding the Belgian colonization are
helping the “African voices still mostly
unheard in Europe” and are helping uncover the” colonial history [that] remains
largely swept under the
rug” (Hochschild). Martin
Ewans also explains in “Belgium and the Colonial Experience,” how the history
behind the colonization of Africa by the Belgians has been modified, either by
teaching only that the Belgians Colonizers were “persons of brave and
self-sacrificing individuals” that “had brought the light of Christianity and
civilization to a savage and heathen continent” or by choosing not to address it
by the “Belgian Amnesia” (170). The
Director of the RMCA stated that his “generation was brought up with the view
that Belgium had brought civilization to the Congo, that we did nothing but good
out there...I don’t think that in my entire education I ever heard a critical
word about our colonial past”(Ewans 170).
Rahier
in his article “The Ghost of Leopold II: The Belgian
Royal Museum of Central Africa and Its Dusty Colonialist Exhibition” goes
farther than just a national idea of separation from the past, and explains that
the “images of the permanent exposition of the RMCA are both symptoms of and
supports for racism” (Rahier 61). Rahier’s
article was written in 2003, and at that time there was only one painting which
depicted abuse at the museum. It was a “white,
colonial man ordering an African man to whip another African man who is attached
to a pole,” and Rahier found out that “that the presence of this painting—added
to the permanent exposition relatively recently—is due to the insistence of one
of the staff historians” (Rahier 67). One painting, one painting in a room full
of busts of colonizers and a full statue of Leopold II, in a museum devoted
entirely to showcasing Africa? As of
today, there is hope for the RMCA, as the museum
starts renovations this year. The RCMA website states that
the “permanent
exhibition is also
seriously outdated
and contrasts
sharply with the temporary exhibitions that are more in line with the up-to-date
nature of the collections and scientific research” and also explains that a
“steering committee consisting of scientists and museum staff is tackling the
aspect of content and is working on a
new concept
for the exhibition in cooperation with external experts and representatives of
the African Diaspora.” (RCMA
website, website emphasis) I
believe that the RCMA is finally looking at itself and it sounds like the museum
will be modernized, and is trying to figure out a balance amongst all the
current condemnations.
My research turned from general information about Belgium as a
colonizer to a museum that seems to exemplify the Belgian attitudes about
colonization. The Belgian people
did not want to acknowledge the past, or were not taught about it, which has
been reflected in the museum across time. Several
critics have acknowledged that books and articles within the last twenty years
have really started up discussions in Belgium, and specifically started
discussions on adding more relevant exhibits to the RMCA regarding colonization.
I learned that while my ignorance of Belgium was just a lack of personal
knowledge, it is not unique to an uneducated American, but that even Belgians to
this day are not fully aware of the full scope of the Belgium’s colonization of
Central Africa. After learning about the
museum, I saw how important literature was in exposing Belgian’s colonization
methods, by informing all people by books and articles. Yet if these facts are
not presented accurately in the public scope that knowledge can be perverted.
It would be interesting to keep tabs on
the museum and see the extent of the changes.
I felt that I should’ve stopped at the museum (though the
Africans living in the mock African village are probably gone) instead of eating
mussels and French fries, and drinking Belgian beer. It might have been the only
opportunity to step back into time, to experience a colonizer’s viewpoint of
colonizing. I learned that a country’s resistance to face it past can be seen
through extensions of presentations of knowledge such as a museum.
For my second post I would like to explore the anti-colonialism movement
during the colonial period, for example Swift mentions colonialism in Gulliver’s
Travels, and Mark Twain wrote about Belgian colonization. Leopold II would have
continued to increase his personal wealth, if his treatment of the African
population had not been exposed and anti-colonialist attitudes within Belgium
had not arisen. I believe that there were people during the colonizing times
that stood up against the forced colonization of people.
REFERENCES
Sources for historical background
of the Congo:
http://www.yale.edu/gsp/colonial/belgian_congo/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_colonial_empire
Sources for the RCMA:
RCMA Website :
http://www.africamuseum.be/home
Collections:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcML1Vo3RaE&feature=fvst
Ewans, Martin. “Belgium and the Colonial Experience”.
Journal of Contemporary European
Studies 11.2 ( November 2003): 167-180.
Hochshield, Adam. “Leopold's
Congo: a Holocaust We Have Yet to Comprehend.”
Chronicle of Higher Education 46.36
(May 200): ( No page numbers available).
(Adam Hochschild also wrote
King Leopold's Ghost: a Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa
(Houghton Mifflin, 1998) which is mentioned in almost every source I used. It
has received a lot of negative press in Belgium for sensationalizing the Belgian
Colonial impacts and comparing them to the Holocaust. I did not use this book
because I shifted my focus to the museum and away from the historical background
of the Congo
but it is definitely on my list of books to read.)
Rahier, Jean Muteba. “The Ghost of Leopold II: The Belgian
Royal Museum of Central Africa and Its Dusty Colonialist Exhibition.”
Research in African Literature 34.1
(Spring 2003): 58-84.
