Belgian Congo

Fiscal history is a booming field of research that shines a new light on colonial state formation, the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized and the political economy of colonialism in Africa. The fiscal history of colonial Africa has been interpreted on different levels: local, colonial, imperial and global. This case study on colonial taxation in the Congo Basin emphasizes the importance of an additional historical layer. I argue that trans-colonial and trans-imperial connections are essential to take into account in order to fully understand the fiscal histories of the Congo Free State and the Belgian Congo, and the French Congo. The two Congos continuously had to adjust their customs policies to fiscal decision-making across the border.

Apres un rappel concernant l'histoire des editions Marabout depuis l'immediat apres-guerre, l'article s'interesse aux deux collections destinees a la jeunesse : 'Marabout Junior' avec comme heros recurrent Bob Morane, et 'Marabout Mademoiselle', avec comme personnage principal Sylvie, hotesse de l'air. C'est ce personnage, cree en 1954 par l'ecrivain Rene Philippe, qui retient ensuite toute l'attention, en particulier parce que l'etude s'attache a la maniere dont cette serie destinee aux jeunes filles se fait l'echo du monde colonial (le Congo belge), puis de la decolonisation et enfin du tiers-mondisme.

Lucas Catherine poursuit son travail à propos du Congo dit précolonial entamé il y a quelques années, en s’attardant ici sur la figure de Mwenda Msiri/Mushidi Ngelengwa Shitambi (vers 1830 – 1891), l’empereur du Katanga. Historien revendiqué des vergeten zaken (« affaires oubliées »), l’auteur entend remettre le public belge en contact avec le passé colonial, « dont il ne [lui] reste que des bribes et des préjugés » de par son parcours scolaire.

VAN HERCK, J., Een Politiek Verleden in het Belgisch Parlement: 'Compromis à la Belge'. Historische commissies en de moord op Patrice Lumumba en Julien Lahaut (1999-2015), Onuitgegeven meesterproef, KU Leuven, departement Geschiedenis, Leuven, 2016.


De moord op zowel voormalig Congolees premier Patrice Lumumba als communistisch parlementslid Julien Lahaut werd door twee parlementaire onderzoekscommissies onderzocht. De vijftien parlementsleden van de commissie-Lumumba (2000-2002) riepen hiervoor de hulp in van vier expert-historici. Het werk van de commissie-Lahaut (2008-2015) daarentegen werd door de Senaat uitbesteed aan de wetenschappelijke overheidsinstelling CegeSoma, die een team van drie historici inschakelde.

Deze twee casussen passen binnen een algemene trend die na de Koude Oorlog ontstaat, om 'historische fouten' via zogenaamde historische commissies te behandelen. Zulke commissies zijn vanaf de jaren 1990 in veel Europese landen opgezet, met als voornaamste thema de Jodenvervolging tijdens Wereldoorlog II. Het doel daarbij was om dit onverwerkt verleden een plaats te geven, binnen een samenleving die nog steeds worstelde met de impact ervan.

Historische commissies vallen onder de (sub)discipline Publieksgeschiedenis. Hierbij treedt de historicus uit zijn spreekwoordelijke 'ivoren toren' en zet zich - via de politiek - in voor de maatschappij. De rol van de historicus als rechter, die oordeelt over historische fouten en eventueel morele of zelfs juridische oordelen uitspreekt, geeft daarbij wel aanleiding tot debat. Zo keurde de academische wereld de commissie-Lumumba af, omdat haar politieke karakter de wetenschappelijkheid van het werk zou schaden. De resultaten van de commissie-Lahaut werden dan weer goed onthaald, tenminste voor zover er discussie was, aangezien hun rapport grotendeels onopgemerkt bleef.

Via de twee casussen bepaalt deze studie de exacte aard van de relatie tussen de historicus en de politieke wereld. Daarbij komt aan bod hoe deze commissies functioneren en tot stand komen, in welke mate de historici onafhankelijk van de politiek kunnen werken (of die juist beïnvloeden), en in hoeverre politieke steun soms nodig is voor een goed verloop van het onderzoek. Daarnaast worden de commissies zowel met elkaar als met buitenlandse voorbeelden vergeleken, om te bepalen welke van de gebruikte formules het meest geschikt is. Tot slot wordt ook de werking van een historische commissie kort afgemeten aan onderzoek dat plaatsvindt binnen een meer 'klassiek' academisch kader.

Uit die analyse komen twee belangrijke vaststellingen naar voren: enerzijds geeft een verschil in politieke afstand andere connotaties aan de onderzoeksresultaten en anderzijds wordt het historisch werk van commissies aan andere standaarden onderworpen. Verder staan de historicus en de politiek in een constante wisselwerking met elkaar, waarbij de actualiteit van een verleden een cruciale rol speelt. De 'klassieke' onderzoeksmethode die deze paper hanteert, wordt trouwens verder ondersteunt via interviews met de betrokken actoren. Deze studie levert zo een bescheiden bijdrage aan het debat over dit thema, dat zich situeert op het kruispunt van geschiedenis, politiek en maatschappij.

Plunderde een meedogenloze Leopold Congo met geweld leeg om zijn honger naar macht, prestige en geld te stillen? Of is enige nuance aan de orde? Hoe werd Congo in de praktijk bestuurd en geëxploiteerd? Werd er echt zoveel geweld gebruikt en zo ja, waarom? En wat was de impact hiervan op de bevolking? Welke rol speelden Congolezen in dit koloniale systeem? En hoe wist een Belgische koning eigenlijk een koloniale staat uit te bouwen in het midden van Afrika?

Publiched in I International Colloquium -The Great War in Phaleristics – Papers.

The victory of Tabora in 1916 has a great impact because it is the first great Belgian victory of the war. It will lead to the creation of the first Belgian campaign medal for the 14-18 campaigns.
 
On February 16, 1917, a project is submitted by the Minister of the Colonies Mr. J Renkin to King Albert for the creation of a commemorative medal for the campaign of Africa "to bring a testimony of particular concern to the soldiers and officials who have participated directly in the African campaigns of 1914, 1915 and 1916 ".

Two classes of medals are planned, one in silver for Europeans who took part directly in the military operations and a bronze medal for the Congolese who participated in the war operations.

The African Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs unveils the genesis of the creation of the medal and the various projects and this before the end of the campaign of Tabora and allow to determine the number of medals initially made in France and the number of attributions . The archives of the sculptor Arsène Matton at the Museum of Louvain-la-Neuve make us discover the drawings of the projects of the medal.

This chapter analyzes the uneasy conundrum of colonial violence and anxiety in the creation of interracial sexual dangers in the Belgian Congo. It chronicles the surveillance of interracial sex (including sexual violence) through ambiguous strategies combining legal measures and policing tools (both in the Congo and at the imperial level), and also the transgression of these measures by various actors. The chapter addresses the specificities of the Belgian–Congolese context and the ways in which an insatiable quest for bourgeois exemplarity, paradoxically rooted in the violent history of early colonial rule, shaped an enduring regime of moral surveillance of interracial sexual encounters. It also shows that colonial legal and judicial interventions related to interracial sexuality operated in close interaction with the experiences, contestations, and (instrumental) investments of African people, developing along evolving political and coercive lines that shaped a distinctive racialized economy of sexuality and of the sensitivities that surrounded it.

The monument for Congo (1912-1921 - officially called "the monument built for the first Belgian pioneers") is an edifice located in the Parc du Cinquantenaire (Brussels) built and decorated by the Belgian leading sculptor of his time, Thomas Vinçotte (1850-). A biography of the artist is given (mirrored by the biography of Jef Lambeaux), as well as the genesis of the monument (1912-May 11, 1921). It is argued that the reception of such a group is inverse to the other ambitious piece of sculpture located not even 100 m far in the same corner of the park of the Cinquantenaire, the Passions humaines of Jef Lambeaux. While the Monument du Congo was inaugurated with great national pride, its colonial and paternalistic iconography are no more accepted as political correct meanwhile the Passions humaines of Jef Lambeaux, which was immediately closed as to licentious to be shown, is no more a matter of scandal by our modern standards.

Dans les premières années du 20e siècle, alors que l'expansion belge au Congo n'en est qu'à ses débuts, l'une des premières préoccupations de l'administration coloniale est de faire bâtir des centres de détention destinés aux Congolais et aux étrangers ayant contrevenu aux dispositions légales ou s'étant opposés à l'autorité coloniale. L'une des plus grandes prisons édifiées alors se situe à Stanleyville, aujourd'hui Kisangani, et est surnommée Cent mille briques.


Cet ouvrage s'intéresse à la fois aux aspects organisationnels, idéologiques et humains qui ont présidé à la construction et au fonctionnement de cet établissement. Au croisement des disciplines, Bérengère Piret a étudié à la fois les projets pénitentiaires; l'architecture et ce qu'elle traduit du projet colonial; ainsi que les acteurs qui sont internés, vivent ou travaillent dans la prison de Stanleyville. Le lecteur est ainsi entraîné de l'autre côté du mur, derrière les Cent mille briques où, aidés des nombreux clichés du cinéaste belge André Cauvin, il peut observer la vie carcérale. A travers la découverte de ce quotidien et, plus particulièrement, de l'organisation des principaux temps de la détention (travail, enseignement et loisirs), l'auteure a mis en évidence l'existence et la nature d'un véritable projet colonial belge où théories, pratiques et normes se superposent et parfois se heurtent, tant aux plans politique et juridique que social

PIRET Bérengère, Les cent mille briques. La prison et les détenus de Stanleyville, Lille, CHJ Éditeur, 2014 (coll. Colibris)

Kolonialismen kommer i många olika skepnader och underordning. Militären och missionären möttes i en gemensam självpåtagen roll att sprida civilisation av kristendom och många gånger var de också ömsesidigt beroende av varandra. Denna essä är en närläsning av Svenska missionsförbundets verksamhet i Kongodeltat

Between the end of the Second World War and the decolonization process, Congolese cities grew spectacularly, leading in some cases –such as in the capital Kinshasa- to a fourfold increase in African urban residents. These radical transformations of the colonial landscape (both spatial and social) raised new security challenges for Belgian authorities. Indeed, as their development coincided with dramatic social changes and with the rise of anticolonial disorders, urban spaces generated specific anxieties over the dangers of unruly "detribalized" Africans (and their proximity to white populations), and over the weaknesses of colonial control and police institutions. This paper aims at interrogating the role played by urban areas in the construction of new security threats and their impact on police reform projects in a late-colonial context. Based on unexplored archival material, it examines the (re)making of colonial (urban) order (as it was debated not only by colonial policy makers but also by urban "experts" and African elites) and the ways in which these new "threats" informed colonial police priorities and structures. Engaging with recent work on policing and colonial order, it argues that the dynamics of postwar (attempted) reforms of the Congolese law and order apparatus were largely influenced by the rise of urban security concerns that challenged previous definitions of repressive strategies to preserve colonial order.

D'une grande figure héroïque belge, Léopold II est devenu le méchant de l'Histoire, jugé coupable de crimes contre l'humanité. Croqué par la plume, le crayon et fixé sur la pellicule, le Roi est de plus en plus réduit aux traits romanesques et caricaturaux de sa vie comme de son règne.

Ce livre aborde pour la première fois le fonctionnement de l'État indépendant du Congo et le rôle de Léopold II en vue de mieux comprendre les atrocités liées à la récolte du caoutchouc ainsi que les actions du souverain.

Enrichie par de nombreux témoignages inédits, de documents confidentiels et même d'anecdotes, cette étude nuance notre vision du Congo léopoldien, tout en n'évitant pas les questions qui fâchent, telles le nombre de victimes, la responsabilité de Léopold II ou encore son enrichissement personnel.

Au début des années 1930 au Congo
belge, l’administration diligente une
série d’enquêtes ethnographiques visant
à connaître, pour mieux les contrôler, les
Congolais. Benoît Henriet relate la façon
dont ces derniers usent cependant de
l’ignorance des fonctionnaires belges pour
contourner les ambitions hégémoniques de
l’État colonial. Au Congo comme dans le
reste de l’Afrique subsaharienne, loin d’être
vertical, le pouvoir circule entre l’ensemble
des acteurs qui donnent corps à la société
coloniale.

Léon de Sousberghe was the author of L’art pende, one of the first in-depth studies of the arts of a single ethnic group in Africa. This obituary analyzes the conditions for research of a Jesuit anthropologist during the late colonial period in the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Rather than imagining that he was recuperating a pre-colonial past, de Sousberghe wrote with striking clarity: “We are speaking of contemporary Pende art.” As a consequence, he created an almost unique record documenting an African art tradition during the colonial period.

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899) is among the best works of literature of the 20th Century. The story of the journey up the Congo river in Africa, made by a sailor who was incharge of collecting the ivory from the colony can be read through several different criticalperspectives. The goal of this thesis is to apply a postcolonial reading (based, mainly, onEdward Said’s theory of Orientalism) in order to perceive how Conrad portrayed imperialismin the Belgian colony of Congo, as well as the mechanisms the author used to construct theblack African characters in his narrative. The narrative showed to be a reflection of the web of ambiguities and ambivalences that characterized the imperial ideology – theory and practice being so distant from each other.

Rethinking the Anthropocene.
Why we need perspectives from the Global South.
Colonial Anthropocene.

Aesthetizations of colonialism as something from a remote past became forms of anesthetizations: the inability to perceive the colonial present. The modality of coloniality (including its aesthetics), which we will focus on in this chapter, is not the spectral, but the real, and the one euphemistically called “Anthropocene.”
Unthinking Anthropocene’s eurocentrisms implies the need to look at it from the South. Since I will discuss Congo in particular, I will call this chapter “CONGOCENE.” The neologism will be the latest addition to the long list of -cenes, including Anglocene, Goracene, Blancocene, Eurocene, Occidentocene, Gringocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene, MisAnthropocene, Plantationocene, Homogenocene, Plasticene, Neganthropocene, Anthrobscene, AnthropoScreams, Neganthropocene, AnthropoScene, Symbiocene, Alienocene, Atomicocene, and White-Supremacy-Scene.
CONGOCENE shows that “decolonization,” rather than the colonial past, has been rejected, refused and amputated. This is visualized in a series of Congolese films on the mining area of Katanga, R.D. Congo. At stake here is not so much the “decolonization” understood as political and economic autonomy, but the undoing of the colonial relation to nature, which resulted in what is now known as the Anthropocene.

Peter Forbath no es un antropólogo o historiador, sino un corresponsal en África por la revista Time durante muchos años, por lo que su trabajo está mejor escrito (je). Sin embargo este libro, bastante bien hecho por cierto, es un recuento de las fantasías coloniales de Europa acerca  del río Congo y la materialización de la pesadilla, desde la figura mítica del Preste Juan, Enrique el Navegante, la resistencia del pueblo bakongo a los esclavistas portugueses bajo la figura de la profetisa sincrética Kimpa Vita y su revisión decolonial del cristianismo (algo que recuerda a la Ghost Dance del profeta Paiute Wovoka, o a la cruz parlante de la rebelión maya de Chan Santa Cruz, en estas latitudes), los exploradores victorianos que bajo la bandera del darwinismo y la búsqueda del exotismo legitimaron su etnocentrismo colonial, El rey Leopoldo y el genocidio colonial belga, la muerte de Lumumba auspiciada por los servicios de inteligencia franceses y la CIA, la rebelión Mau Mau y la imposición del dictador Mobutu. Un recorrido al “Horror” del Kurtz de Conrad. Una historia que suena conocida aquí en América Latina.

For decades articles and books have been published on the history of German foreign policy during Cold War. Regardless of whether Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, America or the world as a whole, the foreign affairs of the Western Federal Republic of Germany and the Eastern German Democratic Republic have been researched and analysed in context of a broad variety of locations. However, even though the list of publications continues to grow, the topic''s theses–especially its main thesis–do not show much progress. Already at an early stage, a central thesis–a core thesis–came to light, met no resistance and entered history''s and political science''s research canons on German foreign policy. This thesis reads: Inner German issues and the non-solved German question were so powerful, they dominated West and East German foreign affairs nearly right from the start. German foreign policy, that was the so-called Hallstein doctrine, that was the so-called German-German contradiction. And all studies–whether of history or political science, whether designed as a case study or as a global approach–confirm this thesis, use it as an integral part of their work–until today. But be that as it may. This study contradicts this thesis, this ''myth'' of German foreign policy. Instead it argues that neither the Hallstein doctrine nor the German-German contradiction, but national economic and international geostrategic interests dominated German foreign policy and German foreign activities–regarding the FRG, the GDR, and Germany as a whole. To proof this thesis, West and East German activities–of the two states, their economies and their societies–in nine Central African states between 1945 and 1975 are observed and analysed. More than a million file pages out of more than a dozen German archives were read to tackle this task–and shed some refreshing new light on the foreign policies of the two German states during Cold War.


Die deutsche Außenpolitik zur Zeit des Kalten Krieges stellt in historischer wie politikwissenschaftlicher Hinsicht einen Gegenstand dar, der mit gutem Gewissen als wissenschaftlich erschlossen bezeichnet werden kann. Zahlreiche Aufsätze, Artikel und Bücher sind in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten erschienen, welche die deutsche Außenpolitik in Europa, Afrika, Asien, Ozeanien, Amerika, oder auch gleich der Welt als Ganzem, in den Blick genommen haben. Dies gilt sowohl für die Außenpolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland als auch für diejenige der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. Früh – wenn nicht sogar von Beginn an – kam hierbei eine zentrale These, eine Kernthese, zum Vorschein, die, ohne auf Widerstand zu stoßen, Eingang in den historischen und politikwissenschaftlichen Forschungskanon fand und ihn bereits nach kurzer Zeit zu dominieren begann. Die Rede ist von der die deutschen Auslandsaktivitäten angeblich bestimmenden Hallstein-Doktrin und dem mit ihr in engem Zusammenhang stehenden deutsch-deutschen Gegensatz. In dieser Arbeit wird dieser Kernthese, diesem ''Mythos'' der deutschen Außenpolitik, vehement widersprochen. Weder die Hallstein-Doktrin, noch der deutsch-deutsche Gegensatz, sondern nationale ökonomische und internationale geostrategische Interessen haben die deutsche Außenpolitik – und darüber hinaus auch die gesamten deutschen Auslandsaktivitäten, der BRD wie der DDR – maßgeblich bestimmt. Zur Stützung dieser Gegenthese werden in der vorliegenden Studie die staatlichen, wirtschaftlichen und gesellschaftlichen Aktivitäten West- und Ostdeutschlands in neun zentralafrikanischen Staaten zwischen 1945 und 1975 kritisch dargelegt, umfassend analysiert und im Hinblick auf mehrere zentrale Thesen zu den deutschen Auslandsaktivitäten ausgewertet.

Approximately one thousand sailors and maritime experts from the Nordic countries worked for King Leopold II under the Congo Free State and the groundwork leading up to its establishment (1879–1908). This article discusses the various forms of river vessels that the Nordic mariners served on, how the vessels evolved, and what this might reveal about the phases in the colonization of the region. A sequence of waterfalls and rapids along the Cataracts, close to the Atlantic Ocean, represented a deterrent to steamboat navigation on the Upper Congo River and its tributaries. In the early years of colonization steam launches and barcasses, as well as Congolese canoes and steel barges, were used for the exploration and mapping of the territory. They were followed by relatively small flat-bottomed, shallow-draft steam-driven sternwheelers in order to estab- lish a rudimentary system of administration and occupation. In 1898 a railway circumvented the Cataracts and arrived at Léopoldville (Kinshasa), making it possible to launch larger sternwheelers on a river system that could reach 60% of the colony. The larger vessels would transport troops, ammunition, supplies and trade goods to a growing network of stations, from where the Congo Free State could reap the rich resources and make a profit. The fleet of river vessels was a necessary tool for building a civil and military infrastructure, and for controlling and dominating the Congolese, who repeatedly rebelled against the intruders. The brutal exploitation of people and resources in the Congo Free State has been described as one of the darkest chapters in colonial history.