Belgium Staggers Towards Decolonization, Dealing With Its Past Colonialism & Present Racism
- 'Belgium staggers towards decolonization.' DW, Feb. 1, 2021. Months after Belgium's Black Lives Matter protests, the country's reckoning with its past has come under the spotlight. For a group of Belgian activists, tackling race and colonialism-related issues needs a bigger push.
Ibrahima, a 23-year-old Black Belgian man, died in police custody in Brussels on January 9. Riots broke out a few days later. Angry citizens clashed with police officers and even attacked the Belgian king's car with the monarch inside. Local media reported around 150 arrests related to the night's incidents. Fearing the unrest would continue, Brussels' security forces were placed on high alert throughout January.
A few months earlier, Belgium had revived efforts to reckon with its colonial past, following the global Black Lives Matter movement. Belgian authorities made a chain of decisions to tackle the country's long-standing race-related issues: The history of cruel colonialism and the present systematic racism that continues to affect its Black citizens. The unrest that followed Ebrahim's death, showed that when it comes to combating racism and addressing its historical causes, Belgian authorities are yet to gain society's trust. Weary of the elite's reluctance to push for fundamental changes, local activists and diaspora groups have taken it upon themselves.
- A missionary posing with a likely victim of the Congo atrocities. Belgian Colonial Empire, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_colonial_empire
Reconciling the past: Last summer, after widespread anti-racist and decolonization protests in Belgium, the country's federal parliament set up a commission to study its colonial past. In July, King Philippe sent a letter to the president of the democratic republic of Congo and expressed his ''deepest regrets'' for the ''acts of violence'' committed by Belgium and linked that to racism today. Having rejected the calls for a long time, Flemish schools finally announced that lessons in colonialism and neo-colonialism, and decolonization will be included in their school curricula.
For many, the small steps Belgium took were necessary, yet too insufficient to induce fundamental changes.
.. Unresolved case of Lumumba: On a rainy January 13, dozens of people gathered to honor the memory of Patrice Lumumba, Congo's first democratically elected leader. In 1961, American and Belgian governments plotted his assassination and threw his body into acid after he was killed. There is a direct link between Belgium's nonchalance towards Lumumba's murder and "the Colonial mentality” that continues to influence Belgian society to the present day, according to Brända Audima's, who heads the Congo department of Intal Solidarity, an NGO that works to raise awareness about the ongoing aspects and impacts of colonialism.
"What led to the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, was the perception of supremacy; the mentality of 'we are better than you, we can come to your countries, take your resources and kill your leaders'," Audima said...
More, Photos, Film, https://www.dw.com/en/belgium-staggers-towards-decolonization/a-56406234
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