frica

Is Very Far Away

Belgium and its Colonial Past in Congo

In contrast to many other European countries, Belgium never seemed to The steamboat Princess

have many colonial ambitions. During the first wave of colonisation, from Clementine, laden with rub-ber, on the River Congo.

the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, circumstances were distinctly un- Photo Royal Archives,favourable. The Southern Netherlands, the precursor of modern Belgium Brussels.

which only became independent in r 830, were, largely for political reasons,unable to develop a seafaring tradition in spite of attempts by Ostend ship-owners to establish colonies — in the Canary Islands for instance. DuringEurope's second wave of expansion in the late nineteenth century, the youngBelgian state pursued economic expansion at home. It was the first continen-tal country to develop into an industrial nation. The only Belgian who stilldreamed of turning the country into a colonial power was King Leopold ii,who reigned from 1865 until his death in 1909.

Leopold cherished high ambitions for Belgium, which naturally wouldalso enhance his own standing. He regarded the acquisition of a colony asthe crowning accolade for little Belgium's industrial success. The King ex-plored nearly every continent for an opportunity to lay his hands on extraterritory. But he could generate little enthusiasm for this within the ultra-cautious economic elite, while the political elite — consisting largely of thesame people — was afraid that overseas adventures would be too costly for

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The missionaries of the treasury and hence the taxpayers. The socialist movement, which wasKimuenza and their pupils, relatively powerless but gaining in support, felt that colonial expansionPhoto Royal Archives,Brussels. would swallow up resources that should be devoted to social emancipation

within Belgium. Furthermore, they were afraid that the military input re-quired would put the lives of `working lads' at risk for a cause that would beof no benefit to the working class.

Leopold's own country

The fact that Belgium nevertheless did embark on an ambitious colonial ad-venture in the last quarter of the nineteenth century can therefore be at-tributed to the initiative of one man, Leopold ii . He seized his chance to rakein, as he put it, his slice of the African `cake' : the immense Congo. Still al-most impenetrable, Central Africa had not been explored and no colonialclaims had been laid upon it. It was the Anglo-American journalist and ex-plorer Henry Morton Stanley who mapped out the region and found inLeopold a financial backer and patron. The European powers already activein Africa had little difficulty in agreeing with Leopold's plans. Belgiummight be an industrial power and one of the world's leading exporters, butmilitarily and diplomatically it was insignificant. And whatever was allo-cated to Leopold would at least be kept out of the hands of other major colo-nial competitors. Furthermore, the King appeared, at least outwardly, to becommitted to praiseworthy humanitarian concerns — spreading Christiancivilisation and combating the slave-trade. And what was even more impor-tant for the other European colonisers was Leopold's promise to respect freetrade in `his' colony so that everyone could benefit commercially. An in-

tensive lobbying campaign that even extended to the United States ensuredthat Leopold got what he wanted.

Congo became literally his colony. The Belgian government, for financialreasons, would have nothing to do with Leopold' s plans but it was preparedto accept that the King, in his personal capacity, should become thesovereign of the new Congo Free State and even the personal owner of alarge part of it, the so-called Crown Domain.

How Congo would be exploited economically only became clear as thehuge territory — about 8o times as large as Belgium — was opened up. At firstCongo mainly produced ivory, but this was soon overtaken by rubber forwhich there was a large and growing market, fuelled by its use, amongst oth-er things, for bicycle and car tyres as well as for numerous industrial appli-cations.

For the production of rubber, Leopold imposed a harsh regime of forcedlabour on the Congolese. The systematic military pressure and intimidationthat accompanied it led to violence, brutality and atrocities which wreakedhavoc among the Congolese population. Exploitation, hunger, sickness, ter-ror and outright massacres caused a demographic `shortfall' that has beenestimated at over ten million persons. The images of hacked-off hands — thepunishment for Congolese who failed to achieve their production quotas —date from this period, though it is not clear how widespread this barbaricpractice was. These excesses provoked international protest in a campaignwhich included among its supporters the American writer Mark Twain.Although the campaign, like Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1902), ex-pressed a genuine humanitarian indignation, colonial rivalry also played itspart since very little had come of Leopold's promises of free trade in theFree State.

Congo in Leopold's rubbercoils. Cartoon in Punch,1906.

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Although a great deal of money was being made in Congo, virtually noneof it benefited the colony itself. King Leopold, who never set foot there,used the proceeds to build up his personal fortune and to finance prestigiouspublic works in Belgium, particularly in Brussels and Ostend. By buildingparks, avenues, buildings and monuments, the King wanted to give hiscountry a grandeur which the political classes, in his eyes, were too petty,too tight-fisted and too narrow-minded to do. The cost of all this, however,together with the international discredit into which his Congolese adventurehad brought him, obliged Leopold in 19o8 to transfer control of Congo tothe Belgian state, which accepted the territory more out of necessity than im-perial ambition.

The Société Générale and the Church

During the half century that Congo remained a colony, Belgian politicsshowed practically no interest in it. Successive governments, whatever theirpolitical make-up, went no further than a cost-benefit analysis: all that wasrequired was that Congo should bring in more money than it cost. So whenthe colonial budget started to show a structural deficit in the 1950s therewere few who opposed decolonisation. This lack of interest meant that theactual rulers of the Belgian Congo enjoyed a high degree of political and fi-nancial autonomy. This went so far that when Belgium was occupied byNazi Germany during the Second World War, voices were raised in Congoin favour of giving the colony a neutral status. The desire to continue trad-ing with both the Germans and the Allies outweighed any sense of (finan-cial) solidarity with the motherland in its war effort. When at that time theUnited States obtained the monopoly on Congolese uranium — which wasused for the atom bomb that destroyed Hiroshima — it occurred without theBelgian authorities having any say in the matter.

The actual running of the colony was in the hands of a few powerfulgroups, the colonial companies and the Church, who worked closely withthe colonial administration. It was not until the early decades of the twenti-eth century that it became apparent that Congo had immense mineral re-serves, including copper, gold, diamonds, uranium and cobalt. Only then didthe colony attract the attention of the economic interest groups that wereconcentrated in a few conservative capitalist holdings with a strong aversionto risk. The most important of these was the Societe Generale, which set upnumerous subsidiaries in the Congolese mining industry. The Union Mi-nière du Haut-Katanga, which was engaged in extracting copper in thesoutheastern province of Katanga, even grew into what was effectivelya state within a state.

The Catholic Church undertook wide-ranging missionary work in Congo.Large numbers of Belgian, mainly Flemish, priests and nuns travelled to thecolony to face an often hard and thankless existence. The missionaries tooka grand view of their task: not only did they have to convert the Congolese(in which task they engaged in a grim struggle with their Protestant com-petitors), but they also tried to instil western, Catholic norms and values intoan `uncivilised' local population. At the same time they constructed a wideeducational and medical infrastructure for, just as in Belgium, the Church

considered the expansion of schools, hospitals and cultural institutions asthe backbone of a social network in which Christian faith could flourish.

The Societe Generale isinvesting: a provisionalbridge on the River Kengein 1894. Photo KADOC,

Leuven.

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A Belgian family in Angoin the 1950s. Photo RoyalArchives, Brussels(© H. Goldstein).

A model colony with apartheid

Belgium's colonisation was not one of settlement. Only a small elite was al-lowed to settle in Congo. Colonisation was rooted in a marked paternalismthat regarded the Congolese as immature children who needed to be educat-ed. They therefore had to be permanently surrounded by a white, Belgianclass of teachers, engineers, doctors, managers, officers and officials.Underlying this was a barely disguised racism: blacks were not consideredcapable of taking responsibility or carrying out any task which was regard-ed as in any way `sophisticated' . Racial segregation turned Congo into anapartheid regime. Whites and blacks each had their own residential districtsand social facilities; the death penalty was only imposed on blacks, not onwhites; higher education was virtually closed to Congolese and so on. Andthe greatest racial barrier was created by the huge difference in income be-tween blacks and whites. The regime did allow for a middle category, theso-called évolués, the Congolese who `civilised' themselves by studyingand adopting a western (i.e. Belgian and petty bourgeois) life style. Butthose who aspired to this had to take special exams and submit to inspectionsof their homes, during which they had to show that they used a toilet or atewith a knife and fork.

Nevertheless, at first sight the Belgian Congo seemed to be a modelcolony. It had an excellent administrative, medical, educational and trans-port infrastructure and it achieved a general level of development that wascomparable to, for instance, the Portugal of that time. But when in the late1950s the decolonisation of Africa became inevitable, it was clear thatCongo was not going to be an exception. Bloody riots in the capital,Leopoldville, in 1959 made that perfectly apparent, much to the astonish-ment of the Belgian colonists who, blinded by racial prejudice, had ex-pected more gratitude from their black pupils. Nevertheless, no Belgiangovernment would have been prepared to wage a colonial war to prevent in-

The Congolese painterCélestin Nzita and his wifein their Leopoldville home.The interior is a testimonyof their efforts to be`evolués' . Photo RoyalArchives, Brussels(© J. Makula Inforcongo).

dependence, despite speculation along such lines in right-wing circles andin the conservative milieu of the young King Baudouin.

By then there was little that could be done to block the colony's indepen-dence and in any case, although the term had not yet been coined, Brusselsalready had a `neo-colonial' future in store for Congo. Political sovereigntymight be handed over to the Congolese but the instruments of state powerwould remain in Belgian hands. The officer corps in the army as well as theexecutive ranks of the administration were staffed exclusively by Belgians.The economic balance of power also remained completely unchanged,though most of the colonial companies did move their headquarters fromCongo to Belgium. The colony was therefore totally unprepared for its in-dependence planned for 30 June 1960. No indigenous elite had emerged andpolitical life, still in its infancy, had only been able to develop along lines oftraditional tribal loyalties. Only one important political party opted for

Colonial propaganda; the Congolese nationalism and a genuine independence struggle: the Mouve-text on the sign reads:`three grateful children' .

ment National Congolais (M N C) whose leader, Patrice Lumumba, became'

Koninklijk Museum voor Congo's first Prime Minister.Midden-Afrika, Tervuren. Only a few days after 30 June 1960, Belgium's post-colonial construction

collapsed. The blunt refusal to Africanise the army led to a violent mutinyby the rank and file. Many Belgians fled the country, leaving the Congolesestate structure fatally weakened. Old tribal rivalries degenerated into vio-lence and the country descended into chaos. The rich copper province ofKatanga under the leadership of Moise Tshombe declared itself indepen-dent, after which the United Nations (UN) despatched a large body of troopsto restore national unity in Congo. This operation brought the UN to thebrink of bankruptcy and occasioned the death in murky circumstances of theUN Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld. And yet the Katangan pariahstate enjoyed the barely-disguised support of Brussels. With the active co-operation of King Baudouin, who feared that the legacy of his predecessorLeopold II would be lost in the Congolese debacle, right-wing circles in the

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Congo, 30 June 1960:Patrice Lumumba (1.) takesthe floor. King Baudouin(r.) is shocked by his words.

Mobutu in Kinshasa, April1977. Photo Henri Bureau /SYGMA.

Belgian political, economic and aristocratic establishment viewed theKatangan secession as an opportunity to protect their interests and `arrangematters' in Congo. This megalomaniac scheme gave rise to huge politicaltensions in Brussels itself.

An estranged motherland

The Congolese crisis soon became `internationalised' and was therebycaught up in the Cold War. Washington feared — wrongly — that PrimeMinister Lumumba would lead Congo and all its strategic mineral wealthinto the Soviet sphere of influence. Instructing the CIA to work out a plan tohave Lumumba murdered, it organised a coup d'état against him. Brusselstoo wanted to get rid of Lumumba because he constituted a serious obstacleto Belgian neo-colonialism. In early 1961, the Prime Minister was murderedin Katanga. The UN crushed the Katangan secession and Joseph-DésiréMobutu, the army's Chief of Staff, assumed power in Congo with the back-ing of the US and Belgium. By 1965 nothing was left of the young Congo-lese democracy.