The Leopard, the Lion, and the Cock

Front matter

MATTHEW G. STANARD

THE LEOPARD, THE LION, AND THE COCK

Colonial Memories and Monuments in Belgium

Index

List of Illustrations

"In the Rubber Coils,” Linley Sambourne, Punch, 28 November 1906

Memorial fountain for Pierre Ponthier, Marche-en-Famenne, 2003

Plaque to colonial pioneers, Anderlecht, 2018

Plaque to native sons who died in the Congo, Bonlez, 2018

Borgerhout plaque to colonial pioneers, 2018

Verviers plaque to native sons who died in the Congo, 2018

Arlon monument to Leopold II and colonialism, 2003

"Before" plaque, Arlon monument to Leopold II, 2003

"After" plaque, Arlon monument to Leopold II, 2003

St. Gilles monument to Baron Tombeur de Tabora, 2018

Statue of Leopold II in Mons, 2018

Statue of Leopold II in Mons in 2002 and 2018

Memorial plaque to Nicolas Hardy, Elsaute, 2018

Saint-Roch d'Elsaute, 2018

Detail of monument to Chaltin and the CVC, 2018

Monument to Colonel Chaltin and the CVC, Erpent, 2018

Monument to Albert Thys, Dalhem, 2003

Street sign for rue des Colonies/Koloniénstraat, 9 May 2018

“Preparations for June 30th,” De Standaard, 22 June 1960

Plaque to colonial pioneers, Seraing, 2018

Monument to 1908 annexation ofthe Congo, Antwerp, 2013

African masks and statuettes for sale, place du Jeu de Balle, Brussels, 2018

Schaerbeek Force publique monument, 2018

Plaque on birth home of Émile Wangermée, Tienen, 2018

Detail of monument to Albert 'Thys, 2018

Monument to Albert Thys, Brussels, 2018

An entrance to the Pétillon metro stop, Brussels, 2018

Monument to Edmond Thieffry, Etterbeek, 2018

Monument to Jules Cornet, Mons, 2018

Mechelen memorial to colonial pioneers, 2013

Statue of Leopold II in Namur, 2018

Hasselt colonial monument, 2003

Monument to war dead, église Saint-Martin, Thisnes, 2018

Street sign, Anderlecht, 2018

Street sign, Brussels, 2018

Street sign, Etterbeek, 2002

Street sign, Deinze, 2018

Memorial to Louis-Napoleon Chaltin, Ixelles, 2009

Memorial to Crespel, Ixelles, 2018

Plaque honoring Gustave Dryepondt, Bruges, 2018

7 Wollestraat, Bruges, 2018

Monument to Jules Van Dorpe and E. J. B. Van Risseghem, Deinze, 2018

Commemorative plaque for Mons pioneers, 2018

Tireur à l'arc by Arthur Dupagne, Etterbeek, 2018

Plaque to P. A. Druart, Quaregnon, 2018

Vuakusu Batetela défendant une femme contre un Arabe, C. Samuel, 1897

Arsène Matton, L'esclavage, 1920

Colonial Monument, Brussels, 2018

Close-up of Colonial Monument, 2002

Close-up of Colonial Monument, 2013

The Arc du Cinquantenaire, Brussels, 2018

The De Bruyne-Lippens Monument, Blankenberge, 2018

The murder of De Bruyne

The murder of Lippens

Postcard of De Bruyne-Lippens Monument, Blankenberg, ca. 1938

Bust of Émile Storms, Brussels, 2002

Monument to Alphonse Louis Lange, Wenduyne, 2018

Monument to Jozef and Lieven Van de Velde, Ghent, 2018

Monuments to colonial pioneers and Leopold II, Ghent, 2018

Memorial to Hubert Lothaire in Rochefort, 2003

Lothaire's funerary monument in Ixelles, 2002

Leopold II monument, showing memorial plaques to Aristide Doorme (left) and colonial pioneers (right), Ostend, 2018

Postcard of Leopold II monument, Ostend, ca. 1940s

Depiction of European and Africans, including one with severed hand, Ostend monument to Leopold II, 2018

Halle city park monument to Leopold II, 2018

Halle city park monument to Leopold II, with explanatory plaque, 2,018

Statue to colonial pioneers, Halle, 2018

Equestrian statue of Leopold II, Brussels, 2018

Plaque dedicated to colonial pioneers, Liege, 2018

Bust of Leopold II, Ostend, 2018

Memorial to Justin Malfeyt, Ostend, 2018 Statue of Leopold II, Ekeren, 2018

Statue of Victor Roelens, Ardooie, 2003 Statue of Constant De Deken, Wilrijk, 2018 Monument to Leopold II, Auderghem, 2018 Memorial to colonial pioneers, Vezin, 2018 Close-up of memorial to colonial pioneers, Vezin, 2018 Plaque to colonial pioneers, Leuven, 2018 Bust of Leopold II, Forest, 2013

Missing bust of Leopold II, Forest, 2018 Memorial to colonial pioneers, Ixelles, 2018

The number of Belgians living in the Congo plotted against the number of Congolese living in Belgium, 1945-2010 Plaque to Paul Panda Farnana, Ixelles, 2013

254 260

To Jean-Luc Vellut

Acknowledgements

Although this is a sole-authored book, several people and institutions helped make it possible, and I am happy to recognize them here. It was Idesbald Goddeeris who first suggested that I publish this study, and for that I am much obliged. The research that went into this book was supported by funding and sabbaticalleave from Berry College, which made multiple trips to Belgium possible. During my visits to Brussels, Meredith and Adolf Spangenberg were welcoming and generous to a fault, always. A 2016 Festschrift conference in honor of John M. MacKenzie helped me think through several aspects of the historiography of Belgian colonial culture, and I am grateful to Bryan Glass, John MacKenzie, and Nigel Dalziel for that opportunity.

Several other individuals and institutions were generous with their assistance as I researched and worked on this study: Jason Lantzer, Noemi Sarrión, Daniel Cabral, Vincent De Santis, Maéline Le Lay, Mathilde Leduc-Grimaldi, Martine Boucher, Tobias Alain Gérard, David Hensley, Tom Kennedy, Pierre Dandoy, Brad Adams, Els De Palmenaer, Moise Cohen, Lydia Burton, Hannah Brunner, Els Vande Kerckhove, Patricia Van Schuylenbergh, Zana Aziza Etambala, Maarten Couttenier, Tobias Wendl, Anne Cornet, Bambi Ceuppens, Veerle Soens, Vincent Grégoire, Pierre Lierneux, Sarah Van Beurden, Boris Wastiau, Florence Gillet, Todd Timberlake, Kayla Fuss, Anne-Sophie Gijs, Jon Atkins, Larry Marvin, Ivan and Marlon Stanard, and the staff at the hótel de ville in Liege. I appreciate all the help I received from staff at the archives and libraries I visited while at work on this subject: the Bibliothèque royale in Brussels; the Archives Africaines at the Belgian Federal Public Service for Foreign Affairs (Brussels); the Archives historiques privées at the AfricaMuseum in Tervuren; the BOZAR archives (Brussels); the Archives dela Ville de Bruxelles; and at the Berry College Memorial Library. Thank you also to Nathalie Tousignant, who generously agreed to read an earlier version ofthe book, and who provided useful feedback. It has been a pleasure working with Veerle De Laet, Mirjam Truwant, Annemie Vandezande, and the layout designers at Leuven University Press, all of whom helped bring the book to fruition.

I owe an especially fond debt of gratitude to Guy Vanthemsche, who in addition to being an inspirational scholar ofthe first order is also invariably welcoming, helpful, and kind. What is more, Guy read the entire manuscript.

His extensive feedback and key insights— several of which are indicated in the book's references—have improved the final work substantially.

This book is dedicated to Jean-Luc Vellut. Nearly twenty years ago now, as a graduate student on my first research trip to Belgium, I reached out to Jean-Luc for guidance, and he warmly invited me into his home. He has been unfailingly generous to me over the years; much more so than I deserve. His work is of the very highest quality, as is his advice, even if I have not always followed it. Although I suspect he might take issue with some of the conclusions presented in this book, it is dedicated to him with affection, gratitude, and great admiration.

Naturally, any errors or shortcomings in the text are the responsibility of the author alone.

Acronyms and Abbreviations

AA ACED

AIA ARSOM/KAOW

BCB

BOZAR

BRT BRUNEAF CADTM CD&V CEGESOMA

CFS CRAOCA

CVC IBERSOM

IMNC/Z Inforcongo

KADOC KVS MAS MRAC

RTBF

Archives africaines, Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs, Brussels

Association citoyenne pour un espace public décolonial

Association internationale africaine

Académie royale des sciences d'outre-mer/ Koninklijke Academie voor Overzeese Wetenschappen

Biographie Coloniale Belge/Belgische Koloniale Biografie and Biographie Belge d’Outre-mer/ Belgische Overzeese Biografie

Palais des Beaux-Arts/Paleis voor Schone Kunsten, Brussels

Belgische Radio- en Televisieomroep (today VRT) Brussels Non-European Art Fair

Comité pour l'abolition des dettes illégitimes Christen-Democratisch en Vlaams

Centre for Historical Research and Documentation on War and Contemporary Society Congo Free State (État indépendant du Congo) Cercle royal des anciens officiers des campagnes d'Afrique/Koninklijke Kring van de Oud Officieren en Kaders van Afrika

Corps des volontaires congolais

Institut belge pour l'encouragement de la recherche scientifique outre-mer

Institut des musées nationaux du Congo/Zaire Office de l'information et des relations publiques pourle Congo belge et le Ruanda-Urundi Katholiek Documentatie- en Onderzoekscentrum Koninklijke Vlaamse Schouwburg

Museum aan de Stroom

Musée royal de l'Afrique centrale (AfricaMuseum), Tervuren

Radio Télévision belge francophone

STIB UFRACOL ULB UMHK UN UROME

VLD VRT

VUB

Société des transports intercommunaux de Bruxelles Union royale des fraternelles coloniales Université libre de Bruxelles

Union miniére du Haut-Katanga

United Nations

Union royale belge pour les pays d'Outre-mer/ Koninklijke Belgische Unie voor de Overzeese Landen

(Open) Vlaamse Liberalen en Democraten Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroeporganisatie (formerly BRT)

Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Introduction

"Ofall the former colonial powers, we are probably the nation which has been happiest to shed light, with no concessions or taboos, on our past history in Africa." — Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel, 2004

“No colonial master has more to apologise for, or has proved more reluctant to acknowledge and accept its guilt, than Belgium." — British journalist Michela Wrong, 2005

Some people still like King Leopold II of Belgium. In 2015, the city of Brussels planned to celebrate the king with “un hommage sur la place du Tróne, devant la statue de Léopold II" (a tribute at the place du Tróne, in front of the statue of Leopold II), a large equestrian monument that sits just outside the Royal Palace along the capital city’s inner ring road.* The event was meant to observe the 15oth anniversary ofthe king’s ascent to the throne on 17 December 1865, and to honor his contributions to the cityscape of Brussels, of which there are many. The commemoration was planned despite the fact that Belgium's second king was infamous both in his home country and abroad for a colonial misrule in Africa so brutal that he had been compared to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Planners must also have been oblivious to the “Rhodes Must Fall" campaign that began months earlier in South Africa, which initially centered on the presence ofa statue to arch-imperialist Cecil Rhodes at the University of Cape Town, and which led to its removal by the university in April. Two months afterward, in June 2015, a mass shooting by a deranged white supremacist in Charleston, South Carolina, led to soul-searching in the U.S. about that country's history of white oppression of blacks. Some states began taking down Confederate monuments and other symbols ofthe country's history of slavery and oppression. South Carolina and Alabama removed the Confederate battle flags from their state capitols, and the University of Texas took down a statue of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, which students had voted to remove the previous March.

In Belgium's capital, however, authorities decided to honor a worldhistorical colonialist with a December celebration at the city's most prominent monument to him, accompanied by a conference on the subject of Leopold IT's contributions to the urban space of Brussels. In the end, the conference took place, but the tribute before the statue did not. As word spread ofthe planned commemoration, protests emerged, and then grew to such an extent that the city cancelled it. Brussels MP Bruno De Lille (Green Party) came forward to say that such an event would have been “morally reprehensible,” and would have mocked “the suffering ofthe genocide victims and their families.” What happened instead was a counter-protest at the same place du Tréne, during which the equestrian statue was vandalized, including being sprayed with red paint to symbolize Leopold Ils bloody colonial rule.*

As these events in 2015 suggest, the colonial legacy in Belgium is complex. The colonial era had numerous long-term effects on Belgian culture, some of them profound, and most of them poorly understood, if recognized at all. This book examines the long-term effects and legacies of the colonial era on Belgium and its cultures after 1960, which was the year the Congo gained its independence, even if these legacies were almost always overshadowed by other factors such as the country’s north-south language divide. The three animals of this book’s title refer to the Congo (the leopard, symbol of the authority of Mobutu Sese Seko, dictator in the Congo from 1965- 1997), Flanders (the iconic lion ofthe Flemish Community), and Wallonia (the region's symbol, the coq hardi). Although the entire country dealt with the colonial past, there were significant differences in how its French- and Flemish-language communities grappled with memories and other aftereffects ofthe colonial experience. Ongoing relations with the Congo after 1960 and remembrances of the colonial era interrelated with developments within and between Belgium's two main language communities after 1960.

The significance of "colonial culture"

In the very title oftheir 2005 book, Benno Barnard, Tony Judt, and their coauthors rightly asked, "How Can One Not Be Interested in Belgian History?” The story of Belgium, including its colonial rule in Africa, is fascinating. The country's history arguably stretches back more than two millennia to when the area we know today as the Kingdom of Belgium was conquered along with the rest of Gaul in the last century BCE by Julius Caesar, turning it into the "Gallia Belgica" region ofthe Roman world. The area was central to the Carolingian Empire, whose former capital, Aachen, is today located just a few kilometers from Belgium's border with Germany. Following the collapse of Charlemagne's empire the area became an economic, religious, cultural, political, and linguistic crossroads of medieval and early modern Europe. Towns like Bruges became leading centers of commerce, and the larger region was the base ofthe northern Renaissance. The Low Countries straddled the linguistic frontier between Germanic- and Romance languagespeaking Europe. Throughout the early modern period the Continent's major powers fought over this rich crossroads as the Low Countries changed hands among Holy Roman emperors, Burgundy's powerful dukes, Iberian or French Catholic monarchs, and Habsburg Austrians. Following the Reformation, the Low Countries found themselves on the front lines of Europe's Protestant-Catholic conflict, leading to a split between a mostly Protestant north—which became the Dutch Republic—and a mostly Catholic south, which later emerged as the Kingdom of Belgium. At the time of Belgium’s independence in 1830, the country led the shift to industrialism on the Continent, beginning its transformation into one ofthe globe's richest and most industrialized countries. In 1914, Belgium found itself at the very center of a global war, and then suffered conquest, occupation, and devastation during the Second World War, including being centrally involved in that conflict's fundamental issues: ideological competition, collaborationism, and the war on Europe's Jews. After 1945, the country's service sector took off, which was related to twentieth-century bureaucratization, including the move toward European unification. Indeed, Brussels became Europe's "capital." Another late-twentieth-century transformation resulted from waves of migration, as Belgian typified the Western European experience by seeing its population reshaped by non-European immigration. In sum, this one small country embodies many if not most of the central strands of European history: Rome and its legacies; Charlemagne's rule; the medieval revival oftrade; the Renaissance; early modern wars of religion; Great Power rivalries; industrialization; two world wars; the Holocaust; the rise of the service sector; and post-war immigration.

Alongthe way Belgium also played a role in yet another fundamental stage in Europe's long history, namely late-nineteenth century overseas expansion, a development that left significant culturallegacies in the country. Examining the inheritances of Belgian overseas colonialism, and ofthe decolonization that ended it, entails delving into Belgian culture and identity—or cultures and identities —which are complex subjects. The country was an “artificial creation" when it emerged in 1830, so-called because it was a buffer state negotiated among the Great Powers rather than a nation-state that, supposedly, would have emerged more naturally or organically. It was divided between a Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north and a francophone Wallonia in the south, meaning the country lacked a single language that unified all Belgians. French was the language of politics, of the state administration, and of the country's elite, and Flemish was discriminated against. Whereas Marquis d'Azeglio said after Italian unification that, ^we have made Italy, now we must make Italians,” in 1912, after more than eight decades of Belgium’s existence, Walloon socialist politician Jules Destrée wrote in an open letter to King Albert I, his famous Lettre au roi: “permit me to tell You the truth, the great and horrifying truth: there are no Belgians.” As the late Simon Leys (Pierre Ryckmans) put it, “at bottom, Belgianness is a diffuse awareness of a lack.”

With the rise of mass nationalism in the late 1800s, north-south divisions emerged to the forefront, especially Flemish resentment at the dominant francophone bourgeoisie’s discrimination against Flemish culture and language; the supremacy of that class had only strengthened as industrial Wallonia’s economic growth boosted its financial, social, and political power. World War I unified the country and pushed the language question into the background, but also added a new dimension with the annexation of German-speaking Malmedy and Eupen in 1920.'? World War II toned down the language dispute again; some French speakers perceived it as a threat when it emerged renascent in the 1960s, around the same time that the country’s economic center began to shift decisively northward.” In that same decade, former Foreign Minister Pierre Wigny (1905-1986) quoted a stand-up comedian who said, “Belgium is the only country in the world where various oppressed majorities coexist, three groups that each have a certain supremacy and that feed an inferiority complex.”

Identity and culture are not only determined by language, and Belgium has had multiple, historically overlapping layers that have shaped the ways in which its peoples have assigned their loyalties and how they have selfidentified. Added to the three language communities are four regions: the Flemish-speaking north; the French-speaking south; the German-speaking East Cantons of Eupen and Malmedy; and the predominantly francophone but officially bilingual Brussels, which is geographically situated within Flanders. Politically and socially, three political and social pillars—socialist, liberal, and Catholic—gave shape to social and political life in the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century. Although Belgium’s Catholicism contributed to its independence from the Protestant Netherlands in 1830, the late 1800s witnessed growing secularism and anti-clericalism, which was strongest among urban industrial workers, who formed a new social class often at odds not only with the bourgeoisie but also with those living and working in rural areas. As time passed, a shared history as well as a myth of oppression by foreign nations and a general disassociation from nearby neighbors came to comprise other layers of Belgian identity, including opposition to those with whom Belgians shared a language: French speakers did not generally see themselves as French, and many Flemish speakers found the Dutch language and culture foreign. These many overlapping layers made national identity in Belgium a “lasagna,” as one writer put it.”

Up to the 1960s, theunitary state, the unifying force ofthe monarchy, and to a lesser extent Catholicism— sapped as it was by growing secularism— acted as the pan that held the Belgian lasagna together. A shared identity further coalesced around the experience of two foreign occupations in less than three decades, and perhaps to a degree around a shared national project in the form of a massive central African colony. After World War II, questions of collaborationism and left-right ideological conflict tore into the national fabric. Since theloss ofthe Congo in 1960, the breakdown ofthe unitary state and the creation of separate government jurisdictions have both tracked longstanding cultural and language divisions, and deepened them. In 1963, the language border between the French-speaking south and Dutch-speaking north was fixed. A first major state constitutional reform, passed in 1970, created three cultural communities (Dutch-, French-, and German-speaking) and enshrined language divisions into the kingdom's constitution. A second reform in 1980 created Flemish and Walloon regions and devolved further governance competencies to them and the communities. In 1988-1989, yet another state reform was passed, which both created a third community— the Brussels-Capital Region—and transferred responsibility for education to the communities. This was followed four year later by another major state reform, in 1993, which turned Belgium into a full-blown federal state, with directly-elected parliaments in each of the three communities. This fourth state reform also led to the division of the province of Brabant into Flemish Brabant and Walloon Brabant. Further modifications in 2001 and 2011 transferred additional competencies to the communities and regions.

The multiplication of overlapping governmental entities continued to the point of absurdity. Belgium is today a kingdom with a federal government (based in Brussels) that has three regions (the Flemish Region, the Brussels- Capital Region, and the Walloon Region, the latter including German-speaking cantons in the east), three communities (Dutch-speaking, French-speaking, and German-speaking), and four language areas (the Flemish-speaking north, bilingual Brussels, the French-speaking south, and the small German-speaking area in the east). Whereas the Flemish Community and Flemish Region opted for one unified government and parliament (based in Brussels), the French Community embraces French speakers in Brussels and Wallonia (with a capital also in Brussels), whereas the Brussels-Capital and Walloon regions have their own parliaments, the latter based in Namur, and also representing German-speaking Eupen-Malmedy. And all this is not to mention the country’s ten provinces (not counting the

Brussels-Capital area), and its hundreds of communes. When June 2010 elections famously led to a protracted government crisis in 2010-2011, it was said the country broke records for going the longest without a government. In truth, the country was governed throughout, it was just that government was on the regional, community, and local level rather than the national one. The experience suggested that the Kingdom of Belgium might not survive without a federal government, but that Belgians seemed capable of doing so with little problem.

At what level and to what extent has the colonial experience fed into regional and national identity in the country? Prominent histories of Dutch- and French-speaking identity, memory, and the Walloon and Flemish movements take into account neither the effects of overseas rule nor how memories of the colonial era might have played into those identities and movements post-1960.'^ And it is true that militants of neither the earlier-developing Flemish movement nor the later, more reactionary movement for Wallonia's independence or rattachement to France picked up and used “colonialism” to mobilize their respective movements after 1960. Instead, as we will see, overseas colonial rule acted at the margins of identity and nationalism in Belgium in multiple ways. Up until the 1950s, when the language divide was "exported" to the colony, the Congo acted as a unifying force to underpin Belgian nationalism, albeit not a particularly powerful one. The country was then unified, in a sense, by the shared trauma of decolonization and the end of empire. By contrast, as the years unfolded following the Congo crisis, Flemish- and French-speaking Belgians increasingly diverged in their memories of the colonial experience, and some actors occasionally instrumentalized the country’s colonial legacies to accentuate differences between the country's two main language communities, although in particular ways.

Historiography of European colonial culture

How the colonial experience has figured into the recent history of Belgium and Belgian culture is not a historical problem that boasts an extensive pedigree. Indeed, the long-term effects of the colonial era on Belgian culture, or cultures, has only recently become a subject of interest to historians and other scholars.'5 One reason this subject did not draw attention until recently is because people long believed that the colonial experience mainly affected non-European parts of the world. It is well known that sixteenth-century European maritime empire building and the Columbian Exchange remade the Americas, creating “neo-Europes” there, and then later in Australia and

New Zealand.'5 Subsequently, a massive new wave of expansionism beginning in the second half of the 1800s in many ways reshaped sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, Oceania, and to a lesser extent north Africa, the Middle East, and east Asia. The degree to which more recent overseas expansion and its end in the second half of the 1900s affected Europe itself was for long underappreciated, including its effects on Belgian history and culture. Half a century removed from the era of decolonization, European countries are only now coming to terms with the fact that they have not come to terms with decolonization, and that what is noteworthy about European culture and empire is not only the presence of empire but also its notable absence in Europeans’ understandings of their past history. In the Netherlands, for example, “despite having a colonial history in South East Asia that extends over 350 years, the crucial years of decolonization in the Dutch East Indies are particularly notable for their absence in the nation’s cultural narrative."7

There are reasons for the delayed coming to terms with Europe's imperial past and its aftereffects in Europe specifically. Into the mid-twentieth century, comparatively little had been written about the more recent European overseas colonialism. Then, with the era of decolonization—from India’s independence until the end of Portugal’s empire in the mid-1970s—history writing about Africa and Asia tended to focus on recently independent countries, not on imperialism per se, as newly-independent peoples tended toward the writing of national histories that legitimized emergent nation-states. Partly as a result, by the early 1980s the subfield of imperial history declined dramatically. In some cases it had never really taken off. As regards the historiography of German imperialism, for instance, scholars had almost completely neglected overseas colonialism, dwelling instead on historical problems of German empire-building in Europe, especially under the Nazi Empire. In the case of Italy’s overseas colonialism, Angelo del Boca was for many years almost alone in his extensive efforts to delve into that country’s colonial past. Into the 1970s Portugal’s “third empire” was still a going concern, and thus not much of an object for historical research. Generally speaking, research into the history of European overseas empire tended to focus on earlier subjects, such as the British East India Company, or seventeenth and eighteenth century competition among the European maritime powers for territories in the Americas, India, and southeast Asia. The focus tended to fall on strategy, diplomacy, governance, and economics, and by the early 1980s the field had become a backwater for historical research, a subfield in decline. At the time, historian David Fieldhouse compared the field to Humpty Dumpty, asking whether imperial history, fallen and broken, could ever be put back together again.’

The appearance of major works in the late 1970s and early 1980s initiated a revival, among the most notable being Edward Said's Orientalism (1978). Said's work showed how studies ofthe Arab and Eastern worlds by European "Orientalists" in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries revealed more about Europe itself than the ostensible subjects at hand. Instead of Europe being one fixed entity that had projected itself outward during the era of imperialism to leave its imprint on distant lands—and learning about and mastering those places as a result —Europe had in fact itself been shaped by imperialism, in no small part by defining itself against non-European "Others." Studies followed, branching out beyond the economics, diplomacy, and administration of empire to embrace new realms, many of them concerned with questions of culture, difference, and the exercise of power. As social and Marxist history frameworks to study the past fell out of favor with some, historians turned toward anthropology, structuralism, the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault, and language for insights into the workings of power. Some moved in new directions with the advent of cultural studies, the rediscovery of Antonio Gramsci's writings, and the coming into being of Subaltern Studies.

By the 1990s, the study ofthe history of recent overseas imperialism was flourishing. The return ofthe history ofimperialism as a vibrant area of study was not due to mere chance. Much of the world by the late 1970s had suffered a protracted economic downturn as the frentes glorieuses came to an end, and this included a drop in commodity prices that hurt much ofthe developing world. The hopeful expectations ofthe decolonization era had morphed into disappointment as neo-colonialism, slow economic growth, corruption, and military rule plagued so many parts of the former colonial world. More and more scholars turned to the past to explain the world of the late 1970s and 1980s. In addition, immigration into Europe from the Caribbean, Africa, and south Asia increased the numbers of people of non-European origin living there, which roused memories ofthe colonial past. With 1989 and the end of the Soviet empire in eastern Europe, some turned their attention to other forms of domination, discarding a Cold War or ideological framework for viewing the past in favor of one centered on empire building in its various guises, a shift only given further impetus by the threat of unrestrained U.S. global power after 1989. In addition, by the 1990s history writing on the Second World War had developed such that many more had come to better terms with Nazi empire building and the Holocaust (as much as that was possible), which opened up intellectual "space" to revisit overseas empire building.

In addition to Said another pioneering figure was John M. MacKenzie, who argued in Propaganda and Empire that British culture had been profoundly reshaped by empire by the twentieth century.'? MacKenzie’s initial work in the field became a touchstone for innumerable others that followed, many appearing in the Studies in Imperialism series that MacKenzie founded, and which now boasts some 150 titles.*° The literature that has emerged is enormous; it mostly addresses single nation-states in Europe and the impact of empire, with many contributions focusing on Britain and France and their imperial experiences.” Pascal Blanchard, Sandrine Lemaire, Nicolas Bancel, and Dominic Thomas’ Colonial Culture in France since the Revolution, for example, includes nearly fifty essays on France, and runs to nearly 650 pages.** Lora Wildenthal did pioneering work on Germany.” Gert Oostindie, among others, has recently tackled the long-term effects of the colonial era in the Netherlands.^* In sum, the intersection of European culture and empire has become a now well-established and burgeoning subfeld of study.

Thus the emerging historiography of Belgian "colonial culture" follows recent shifts in the study of European history more generally, namely the growing interest in Europe's "colonial cultures" deriving from overseas empires in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Much ink has been spilled regarding the colonial period's cultural and other legacies in Africa and Asia,^5 much less so empire's effects in Belgium. Some have considered the economics of decolonization, or how the Congo affected Belgium in terms of politics and foreign relations after 1960, but fewer have considered culture." Examinations of imperialism’s lingering affects on Belgian culture and memory are many but disparate. The subject of the francophone-Flemish cultural divide has been paramount in the years after 1960, but rarely does anyone incorporate an understanding of the loss of the Congo or the colonial past's enduring influence into studies of it. In general, the literature on the impact of the colonies on Europe is dominated by the former powers of France and Britain to the detriment of our understanding oflegacies of empire among the "lesser" colonial powers, including Belgium.