frica Is Very Far Away Belgium and its Colonial Past in Congo
In contrast to many other European countries, Belgium never seemed to have many colonial ambitions. During the first wave of colonisation, from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, circumstances were distinctly un- favourable. The Southern Netherlands, the precursor of modern Belgium which only became independent in r 830, were, largely for political reasons, unable to develop a seafaring tradition in spite of attempts by Ostend shipowners to establish colonies — in the Canary Islands for instance. During Europe's second wave of expansion in the late nineteenth century, the young Belgian state pursued economic expansion at home. It was the first continental country to develop into an industrial nation. The only Belgian who still dreamed 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 would also enhance his own standing. He regarded the acquisition of a colony as the crowning accolade for little Belgium's industrial success. The King explored nearly every continent for an opportunity to lay his hands on extra territory. But he could generate little enthusiasm for this within the ultracautious economic elite, while the political elite — consisting largely of the same people — was afraid that overseas adventures would be too costly for
The steamboat Princess Clementine, laden with rubber, on the River Congo. Photo Royal Archives, Brussels.
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The missionaries of Kimuenza and their pupils, Photo Royal Archives, Brussels.
the treasury and hence the taxpayers. The socialist movement, which was relatively powerless but gaining in support, felt that colonial expansion would swallow up resources that should be devoted to social emancipation within Belgium. Furthermore, they were afraid that the military input required would put the lives of `working lads' at risk for a cause that would be of no benefit to the working class.
Leopold's own country
The fact that Belgium nevertheless did embark on an ambitious colonial adventure in the last quarter of the nineteenth century can therefore be attributed to the initiative of one man, Leopold ii . He seized his chance to rake in, as he put it, his slice of the African `cake' : the immense Congo. Still almost impenetrable, Central Africa had not been explored and no colonial claims had been laid upon it. It was the Anglo-American journalist and explorer Henry Morton Stanley who mapped out the region and found in Leopold a financial backer and patron. The European powers already active in Africa had little difficulty in agreeing with Leopold's plans. Belgium might be an industrial power and one of the world's leading exporters, but militarily and diplomatically it was insignificant. And whatever was allocated to Leopold would at least be kept out of the hands of other major colonial competitors. Furthermore, the King appeared, at least outwardly, to be committed to praiseworthy humanitarian concerns — spreading Christian civilisation and combating the slave-trade. And what was even more important for the other European colonisers was Leopold's promise to respect free trade in `his' colony so that everyone could benefit commercially. An in-
tensive lobbying campaign that even extended to the United States ensured that Leopold got what he wanted. Congo became literally his colony. The Belgian government, for financial reasons, would have nothing to do with Leopold' s plans but it was prepared to accept that the King, in his personal capacity, should become the sovereign of the new Congo Free State and even the personal owner of a large part of it, the so-called Crown Domain. How Congo would be exploited economically only became clear as the huge territory — about 8o times as large as Belgium — was opened up. At first Congo mainly produced ivory, but this was soon overtaken by rubber for which there was a large and growing market, fuelled by its use, amongst other things, for bicycle and car tyres as well as for numerous industrial applications. For the production of rubber, Leopold imposed a harsh regime of forced labour on the Congolese. The systematic military pressure and intimidation that accompanied it led to violence, brutality and atrocities which wreaked havoc among the Congolese population. Exploitation, hunger, sickness, terror and outright massacres caused a demographic `shortfall' that has been estimated at over ten million persons. The images of hacked-off hands — the punishment for Congolese who failed to achieve their production quotas — date from this period, though it is not clear how widespread this barbaric practice was. These excesses provoked international protest in a campaign which included among its supporters the American writer Mark Twain. Although the campaign, like Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1902), expressed a genuine humanitarian indignation, colonial rivalry also played its part since very little had come of Leopold's promises of free trade in the Free State. Congo in Leopold's rubber coils. Cartoon in Punch, 1906.
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Although a great deal of money was being made in Congo, virtually none of it benefited the colony itself. King Leopold, who never set foot there, used the proceeds to build up his personal fortune and to finance prestigious public works in Belgium, particularly in Brussels and Ostend. By building parks, avenues, buildings and monuments, the King wanted to give his country 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 adventure had brought him, obliged Leopold in 19o8 to transfer control of Congo to the Belgian state, which accepted the territory more out of necessity than imperial ambition.
The Société Générale and the Church
During the half century that Congo remained a colony, Belgian politics showed practically no interest in it. Successive governments, whatever their political make-up, went no further than a cost-benefit analysis: all that was required was that Congo should bring in more money than it cost. So when the colonial budget started to show a structural deficit in the 1950s there were few who opposed decolonisation. This lack of interest meant that the actual rulers of the Belgian Congo enjoyed a high degree of political and financial autonomy. This went so far that when Belgium was occupied by Nazi Germany during the Second World War, voices were raised in Congo in favour of giving the colony a neutral status. The desire to continue trading with both the Germans and the Allies outweighed any sense of (financial) solidarity with the motherland in its war effort. When at that time the United States obtained the monopoly on Congolese uranium — which was used for the atom bomb that destroyed Hiroshima — it occurred without the Belgian authorities having any say in the matter. The actual running of the colony was in the hands of a few powerful groups, the colonial companies and the Church, who worked closely with the colonial administration. It was not until the early decades of the twentieth century that it became apparent that Congo had immense mineral reserves, including copper, gold, diamonds, uranium and cobalt. Only then did the colony attract the attention of the economic interest groups that were concentrated in a few conservative capitalist holdings with a strong aversion to risk. The most important of these was the Societe Generale, which set up numerous subsidiaries in the Congolese mining industry. The Union Minière du Haut-Katanga, which was engaged in extracting copper in the southeastern province of Katanga, even grew into what was effectively a 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 the colony to face an often hard and thankless existence. The missionaries took a 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 competitors), but they also tried to instil western, Catholic norms and values into an `uncivilised' local population. At the same time they constructed a wide educational and medical infrastructure for, just as in Belgium, the Church
considered the expansion of schools, hospitals and cultural institutions as the backbone of a social network in which Christian faith could flourish.
The Societe Generale is investing: a provisional bridge on the River Kenge in 1894. Photo KADOC, Leuven.
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A Belgian family in Ango in the 1950s. Photo Royal Archives, Brussels (Š H. Goldstein).
A model colony with apartheid Belgium's colonisation was not one of settlement. Only a small elite was allowed to settle in Congo. Colonisation was rooted in a marked paternalism that regarded the Congolese as immature children who needed to be educated. They therefore had to be permanently surrounded by a white, Belgian class of teachers, engineers, doctors, managers, officers and officials. Underlying this was a barely disguised racism: blacks were not considered capable of taking responsibility or carrying out any task which was regarded as in any way `sophisticated' . Racial segregation turned Congo into an apartheid regime. Whites and blacks each had their own residential districts and social facilities; the death penalty was only imposed on blacks, not on whites; higher education was virtually closed to Congolese and so on. And the greatest racial barrier was created by the huge difference in income between blacks and whites. The regime did allow for a middle category, the so-called ĂŠvoluĂŠs, the Congolese who `civilised' themselves by studying and adopting a western (i.e. Belgian and petty bourgeois) life style. But those who aspired to this had to take special exams and submit to inspections of their homes, during which they had to show that they used a toilet or ate with a knife and fork. Nevertheless, at first sight the Belgian Congo seemed to be a model colony. It had an excellent administrative, medical, educational and transport infrastructure and it achieved a general level of development that was comparable to, for instance, the Portugal of that time. But when in the late 1950s the decolonisation of Africa became inevitable, it was clear that Congo was not going to be an exception. Bloody riots in the capital, Leopoldville, in 1959 made that perfectly apparent, much to the astonishment of the Belgian colonists who, blinded by racial prejudice, had expected more gratitude from their black pupils. Nevertheless, no Belgian government would have been prepared to wage a colonial war to prevent in-
The Congolese painter Célestin Nzita and his wife in their Leopoldville home. The interior is a testimony of their efforts to be `evolués' . Photo Royal Archives, Brussels (© J. Makula Inforcongo).
Colonial propaganda; the text on the sign reads: `three grateful children' Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-Afrika, Tervuren. .
dependence, despite speculation along such lines in right-wing circles and in the conservative milieu of the young King Baudouin. By then there was little that could be done to block the colony's independence and in any case, although the term had not yet been coined, Brussels already had a `neo-colonial' future in store for Congo. Political sovereignty might be handed over to the Congolese but the instruments of state power would remain in Belgian hands. The officer corps in the army as well as the executive 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 from Congo to Belgium. The colony was therefore totally unprepared for its independence planned for 30 June 1960. No indigenous elite had emerged and political life, still in its infancy, had only been able to develop along lines of traditional tribal loyalties. Only one important political party opted for Congolese nationalism and a genuine independence struggle: the Mouvement National Congolais (M N C) whose leader Patrice Lumumba, became Congo's first Prime Minister. 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 mutiny by the rank and file. Many Belgians fled the country, leaving the Congolese state structure fatally weakened. Old tribal rivalries degenerated into violence and the country descended into chaos. The rich copper province of Katanga under the leadership of Moise Tshombe declared itself independent, after which the United Nations (UN) despatched a large body of troops to restore national unity in Congo. This operation brought the UN to the brink of bankruptcy and occasioned the death in murky circumstances of the UN Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld. And yet the Katangan pariah state enjoyed the barely-disguised support of Brussels. With the active cooperation of King Baudouin, who feared that the legacy of his predecessor Leopold II would be lost in the Congolese debacle, right-wing circles in the ,
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Congo, 30 June 1960: Patrice Lumumba (1.) takes the floor. King Baudouin (r.) is shocked by his words. Mobutu in Kinshasa, April 1977. Photo Henri Bureau / SYGMA.
Belgian political, economic and aristocratic establishment viewed the Katangan secession as an opportunity to protect their interests and `arrange matters' in Congo. This megalomaniac scheme gave rise to huge political tensions in Brussels itself.
An estranged motherland The Congolese crisis soon became `internationalised' and was thereby caught up in the Cold War. Washington feared — wrongly — that Prime Minister Lumumba would lead Congo and all its strategic mineral wealth into the Soviet sphere of influence. Instructing the CIA to work out a plan to have Lumumba murdered, it organised a coup d'état against him. Brussels too wanted to get rid of Lumumba because he constituted a serious obstacle to Belgian neo-colonialism. In early 1961, the Prime Minister was murdered in Katanga. The UN crushed the Katangan secession and Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, the army's Chief of Staff, assumed power in Congo with the backing of the US and Belgium. By 1965 nothing was left of the young Congolese democracy.