Whichever way you look at it, the Belgian king and queen should have made the visit they have undertaken this week to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) long ago. It was first postponed as a result of the pandemic. Then, because of the war in the Ukraine. It had been 12 years since a Belgian head of state had traveled to the former colony but, in reality, there are many more years lost due to political indifference to the fate of a country so closely linked to its history.
Turning the page and moving towards a future of collaboration and trust is the ambitious mission that the Belgian Government has set for itself with its seven-day official visit to the DRC, a trip full of symbolism in which King Felipe has inaugurated the restitution process of African cultural assets with the delivery to the National Museum of the Congo of a kakuungu, a gigantic and extremely rare mask used by the Suku ethnic group for initiation rites. It is as valuable as a Rubens or a Rembrandt, according to specialists.
It was no easier to transport than the object that many Congolese really long to see back in the country, the only known relic of anti-colonial leader Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected head of the Congolese government, who in 1961 was assassinated by rebels with the support of the metropolis, as was demonstrated decades later. Politically, however, it was much easier for Belgium to return the imposing mask than to throw the small gold tooth of the Congolese national hero into the king’s suitcase.
The piece was kept by a Belgian agent as a “hunting trophy” after his corpse was dissolved in acid. In 2016, the Belgian justice requisitioned it. After multiple requests from their descendants, the Belgian authorities agreed two years ago to return the tooth, but it will be the Government who is in charge of the management. His widow has already died, but several of Lumumba’s children will attend the June 20 ceremony in Brussels, organized in conjunction with the DRC embassy. “For us, as Africans, the duel began 60 years ago,” said his son, Roland Lumumba. With the delivery of the relic, which they have never seen, “we can end the duel and move forward. It’s a relief for us.”
The return of the relic and part of the thousands of objects that the Tervuren Africa Museum treasures is part of the process of recognizing the horrors of Belgian colonialism that arose from the wave of global protests over the death of George Floyd in 2020 That year marked the 60th anniversary of the DRC’s independence and the king sent an unpublished letter to its president, Félix Tshisekedi, to express his “deep regret” for the acts of violence and cruelty committed during the colonial period, that caused millions of deaths. It is the same message that he transmitted to them in Kinshasa on Wednesday.
“Although many Belgians were sincerely committed to and deeply loved the Congo and its people, the colonial regime as such was based on exploitation and domination (…), on an unequal relationship, in itself unjustifiable, marked by paternalism, the discrimination and racism that gave rise to abuse and humiliation”, recognized the King of the Belgians. “I wish to reaffirm my deepest regret for these wounds of the past,” he said in the presence of the highest Congolese authorities and thousands of people gathered in front of the National Assembly, adorned with a giant banner with the slogan A common history.
The king did not apologize for the abuses, as some expected, but it is not ruled out that the Government will do so later, when the parliamentary commission in charge of examining the matter delivers its conclusions and recommendations, which could open the door to the demand for repairs. Felipe intervened in the same place where in 1960 his uncle, King Baudouin, stood up in the middle of Lumumba’s intervention when he spoke of the abuses and blows that the Congolese suffered under Belgian rule. Historians say it was the speech that killed him. What was then an unacceptable affront to Brussels, today is part of the reconciliation discourse with which Belgium tries to respond to the desire for cooperation existing in both countries. “We have not forgotten the past, but we look to the future,” said the young country’s Communications Minister, Patrick Muyaya. “The future is more important than the past.”
