Léopold II, Un Roi Génocidaire?
2006; Boston University; Volume: 39; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2326-3016
Autores Tópico(s)Cultural Identity and Heritage
ResumoLeopold II, un roi genocidaire? By Michel Dumoulin. Memoires de la Classe des Lettres, vol. 37. Brussels: Academie Royale de Belgique, 2005. Pp. 122. euro 17.00 paper. The deliberately provocative question that serves as the title of this slim volume stands out as an oddity for a piece of research presented in the otherwise staid sanctum of Belgium's Royal Academy. The austere imprint is unlikely to turn this work into a runaway best-seller, which is probably just as well since Michel Dumoulin (a Belgian historian) never really answers the question posed in the title, but merely pokes at it from a number of angles without ever reaching a firm conclusion. In the process, the approach shifts from content analysis (applied to recent coverage in the media) to the exhumation of historical minutiae of uneven relevance, or to the anecdotal chronicling of ongoing internecine quarrels among Belgian academics, as well as along ethno-political lines. In some ways, however, this rather disjointed work reflects the confused and somewhat puzzled reaction of the Belgian public toward the recent revival of interest (from different quarters, and with different purposes) in the country's colonial legacy. For most American readers, this would probably focus on Adam Hochschild's acclaimed (if unoriginal) Leopold's Ghost,1 which only met with a succes d'estime in Belgium inasmuch as it reiterated an account that had been offered many times, and came on the heels of a corpus of Belgian revisionist historiography-notably the works of the late Jules Marchai, to whom Hochschild acknowledges his indebtedness. The publication of Hochschild's book, however, coincided more or less with that of Flemish sociologist Ludo De Witte's investigation of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba,2 which eventually led to an extensive parliamentary inquiry, at the conclusion of which the Belgian government acknowledged its collective responsibility and offered its apologies to the people of the Congo3 Concomitantly, the overthrow and death of the Mobutu regime had also prompted a re-examination of the complicitous relationship between the former dictator and key governmental or business circles in Belgium (as well as in France and the United States). This often took the form of talk shows and documentaries broadcast on Belgian radio or television networks.4 It was a different sort of documentary, however, that served as a starting point for Dumoulin's rambling considerations about the black legend of King Leopold's Congo. White King, Red Rubber, Black Death, directed by Peter Bate, was shown on BBC Four in the United Kingdom in February 2004, and rebroadcast in Belgium two months later in a slightly abridged (and edited) version. Though shot by a British film maker and sold to the BBC, that documentary (or, more accurately, docudrama, as it uses a professional actor to impersonate Leopold, and reconstructions of a village burnt without warning, of its people rounded up and of its men sent off into the forests) was produced by a Brusselsbased firm, and financed by a conglomerate of eight television networks and three public agencies.5 Dumoulin shows some understandable annoyance with the film's format, which uses documented accounts of Congo atrocities to present an imaginary court case against Leopold (whom Bate compares to Adolf Hitler), and by the facile-if widespread-conceit that they somehow explain the Congo's past or current woes. Indeed, in an article posted on the BBC website, Mark Dummett, a former BBC correspondent in Kinshasa, muses that he covered stories that were loud echoes of what was happening 100 years earlier (...) What is now called the Democratic Republic of Congo has clearly never recovered. 'Legalized robbery enforced by violence,' as Leopold's reign was described at the time, has remained, more or less, the template by which Congo's rulers have governed ever since. Meanwhile Congo's soldiers have never moved away from the role allocated to them by Leopold-as a force to coerce, torment, and rape an unarmed civilian population. …
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