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The other day, an astonishing piece of news was posted here to the
effect that the Congolese minister of Culture Muzungu (in
Swahili: white man) ordered the re-erection of the statue of the Belgian
King Léopold II. Before I could respond to Salifou's query as to my take
on the news, a second posting informed us that the statue had been taken
down a day later. What I was going to respond to Salifou was that it
appeared to me that the decision to resurrect Léopold was probably taken
without much thought or consultation, like so many others before it. If
Mobutu ordered the statue taken down in 1967, it was less because of
nationalism than because Léopold's statue represented a rival in
Congo's historical pantheon. Mobutu went on to rule as ruthlessly and as
long as Léopold (32 years for Mobutu, 33 for Léopold before Congo became
a Belgian colony in 1918). The other rival he toppled and assassinated,
of course, was Lumumba. When he realized that he could not govern
without invoking his name, he promised (also in 1967, if memory
serves) to erect a statue to honor his memory. He never built such a
monument. The
Congolese minister named Muzungu who ordered the re-erection of
Léopold's statue on the pretense that history should be remembered
should remember that the Congolese children today do not have a statue
of Lumumba to gaze at to remember the history that is closer to them.
My Togolese brothers and sisters will forgive me, but in Eyadema, who
has just passed away, Mobutu had an excellent pupil. I once spent a week
in Lomé. Watching local TV, listening to all the songs of adulation to
the all-powerful "Father of the Nation" I could have sworn I was in
Mobutu's Kinshasa. Léopold, Mobutu, Eyadema. An era has passed: Sic
transit gloria mundi
AS
Aliko SONGOLO <[log in to unmask]>
Professor
*****************************
- Dept. of French & Italian
- Dept. of African Languages & Literature
Van Hise Hall
University of Wisconsin
1220 Linden Drive
Madison, WI 53706
Fr&It 608-262-5937,-3941,265-3892(fax)
AL&L 608-263-3891,2-2487,265-4151(fax)
***************************
----- Original Message -----
From: Aggo Akyea <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Friday, February 4, 2005 9:50 am
Subject: Statue of Congo's Hated King Taken Down
> Statue of Congo's Hated King Taken Down
>
> By BRYAN MEALER, Associated Press Writer
> Thu Feb 3, 2:18 PM ET
>
> KINSHASA, Congo - A statue of the late King Leopold II, whose
> Belgian government was responsible for the deaths of millions of
> Congolese, was mysteriously taken down Thursday, a day after it was
> re-erected to remind people of the horrors of colonial rule.
>
> The 20 foot statue went up late Wednesday in downtown Kinshasa
> after being hauled from a garbage dump. Monique Pikinini, Congo's
> general secretary in the Ministry of Arts and Culture, said it's
> not clear what happened to the statue, though she believes it was
> taken down by the government.
>
> Several people within the government, who spoke on the condition of
> anonymity, said President Joseph Kabila ordered the statue taken down.
>
> Earlier in the day, cultural minister Chris Muzungu said the statue
> had been re-erected to remind Congo's people of the country's
> horrific colonial past, so "it never happens again." He said a
> plaque was to be added later to explain Leopold's legacy.
>
> Leopold, who took control of Congo in 1885 and died in 1909,
> enslaved much of its people to collect rubber, which helped fuel
> the Industrial Revolution in the West. In Congo's interior, Belgian
> and Congolese colonial troops often burned and massacred entire
> villages that didn't comply with Leopold's work decrees, or simply
> didn't collect enough rubber.
>
> Late Wednesday, the statue of Leopold on a horse was put up in a
> traffic circle at one end of Kinshasa's June 30 Boulevard ? the
> street named for named for the date of Congo's independence from
> Belgium.
> Muzungu said the government had pulled the statue from a garbage
> dump where it had been discarded in 1967, seven years after
> independence, by Mobutu Sese Seko, Congo's longtime dictator.
> Mobutu, overthrown in 1997, saw the statue as a reminder of
> Leopold's legacy.
>
> Thursday night, a group of homeless street-kids practiced dance
> where the statue had been re-erected.
>
>
>
> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
> Aggo Akyea
> http://www.tribalpages.com/tribes/akyea
>
> "Instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my
> baskets,I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them."
> WALDEN by Henry David Thoreau ? 1854
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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