Latest / The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History / The 1897 Tervuren Museum: Belgium's Imperial Showcase
Transcript
- Lucas: Welcome back to The History of Belgium. I'm Lucas, and as always I'm here with Luna. Today we're stepping away from the rubber quotas and the Force Publique mutinies to look at something that's still standing: the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, just outside Brussels. Luna: I've heard of it — isn't it the one with the huge rotunda and the statue of a Congolese man? Lucas: Exactly. It was built for the 1897 World Exhibition, and Leopold II poured a lot of his Congo fortune into making it a showcase. The official name at the time was the Museum of the Congo, and it was meant to convince Belgians — and the world — that the Congo Free State was a noble, civilising enterprise. The building itself is a masterpiece of Art Nouveau, with these grand iron and glass halls that were very cutting-edge for the 1890s. Luna: So it was essentially a propaganda piece from the start. Lucas: Absolutely. The centrepiece of the exhibition was a 'human zoo' — 267 Congolese men, women, and children were brought to Tervuren and housed in a recreated 'native village.' They were put on display, performing dances, weaving, and making tools, while Belgian visitors gawked at them. It was called the 'Congolese Village,' and it was one of the most popular attractions of the fair. The museum's curators, like Édouard Dupont, framed it as an educational exercise, but really it was about reinforcing racial hierarchies and justifying colonial rule. Luna: What happened to those people after the fair? Lucas: Most were sent back to the Congo, but many fell ill — tuberculosis, pneumonia, the Belgian winter took a toll. At least seven died during the exhibition. It's a grim chapter. But the museum itself became permanent. After the 1897 Exposition closed, Leopold II decided to keep the building and expand it into a full research institute. The collections grew rapidly: thousands of ethnographic objects, animal specimens, geological samples — all shipped from the Congo. By 1910, the museum had over 60,000 artifacts. Luna: And it stayed pretty much unchanged for a century, right? Lucas: Largely, yes. The museum was renamed the Royal Museum for Central Africa in 1960, after Congo's independence, but the displays remained deeply colonial in perspective. The big diorama of a 'typical' Congolese village, the mannequins in 'traditional' dress, the emphasis on Belgian scientific achievement — it all told a story of a backward Africa that needed European guidance. For decades, it was a place where Belgian schoolchildren went on field trips to learn about 'our' colony. It wasn't until the 2000s that serious calls for change began. Luna: It feels like a lightning rod for the whole debate about colonial memory. Lucas: Exactly. And in 2013, the museum closed for a five-year, 66-million-euro renovation. When it reopened in 2018, the curators had tried to recontextualise everything. The old 'native village' dioramas were replaced with panels discussing colonial violence. The human remains — skulls and skeletons taken from Congo — were put in a separate, reflective space with explanations. There are now sections on the rubber terror, the Force Publique, the resistance leaders like Simon Kimbangu. But it's still controversial. Luna: I imagine a lot of people think it doesn't go far enough. Lucas: Absolutely. Some activists want the museum to be renamed entirely, or even turned into a memorial. There are ongoing demands for the repatriation of artifacts, especially the looted royal objects from the Kongo kingdom and the Luba empire. The museum has returned a few items, but it's a slow process. And then there's the question of the building itself — the architecture is inseparable from the colonial fantasy. The rotunda, the murals of 'civilising' the Congo, the statue of Leopold II outside — all of it was designed to glorify empire. Luna: So you're saying the museum is still, in a way, a monument to colonialism, no matter how much they update the labels. Lucas: That's the central tension. The museum tries to be both a historical document and a critical institution, and it's really hard to do both at once. The current director, Guido Gryseels, has talked about wanting to create 'a place of reflection' — but reflection for whom? For Belgian visitors, it can be a shock to see the violence laid out so plainly. For Congolese visitors, it can feel like the same old story being repackaged. There's no easy answer. Luna: Honestly, if today was worth a coffee to you, that's the link — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Yeah, listener support is what keeps this ad-free. We really appreciate it. Luna: So, let's talk about some of the specific objects in the museum. I've read about the Kuba mask collection — is that still on display? Lucas: It is, and it's one of the most impressive parts. The Kuba kingdom, in what's now central Congo, had a highly sophisticated court art tradition. The museum holds dozens of their royal masks, like the mwaash aMbooy, which represents the founding hero. These were taken during colonial expeditions in the early 1900s, often under dubious circumstances. The museum now labels them as 'acquired during the colonial period' but doesn't always detail the force used. Luna: It's a bit like the British Museum with the Elgin Marbles — but even more personal, because it's tied to a single family's rule. Lucas: Exactly right. And the Congo museum has a unique feature: it's built on the site of the old Tervuren Park, which was Leopold II's hunting grounds. So the whole landscape is imperial. There's a long avenue, the Tervurenlaan, that was designed to connect the museum to the royal palace in Brussels — a straight line through the forest, symbolising the link between the king and his colony. When you walk it, you feel the scale of the project. Luna: What about the Congolese perspective? Is there any input from Congolese scholars in the current museum? Lucas: Some. The renovation included a partnership with the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren's counterpart in Kinshasa, the National Museum of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They've loaned objects, and there's a joint research program. But critics say the power still lies in Brussels. The Congolese curators are more like consultants than co-directors. And the museum's board is still predominantly white and Belgian. Luna: It sounds like a microcosm of the whole post-colonial relationship. Lucas: It really is. And the debate got a lot more public in 2020, after the Black Lives Matter protests. Statues of Leopold II were defaced across Belgium, and there were demands to remove his statue from the Tervuren museum park. The museum eventually added a plaque acknowledging the statue's contested history, but it's still standing. The director said it's part of history — but so are the atrocities, and they're hidden in the basement of the museum. Luna: What do you mean, hidden in the basement? Lucas: In 2019, a researcher named Maarten Couttenier published a study revealing that the museum's basement holds thousands of human remains — mainly skulls and bones — taken from Congo during the colonial era. Many were collected by the Force Publique as trophies, or by doctors studying racial differences. They were never put on public display, but they were stored in unmarked boxes. The museum has now begun a project to identify and repatriate them, but it's a slow, expensive process. Luna: That is chilling. I had no idea. Lucas: It's one of those things that doesn't fit the museum's narrative of scientific progress. The same institution that presented itself as a centre of enlightenment was also a repository of colonial violence. And the museum is still grappling with that. In 2021, they launched an online database of their entire collection, including the human remains, to be transparent. But transparency doesn't automatically lead to justice. Luna: So where does the museum go from here? Lucas: That's the million-dollar question. Some advocate for a complete decolonisation: renaming the museum, changing its governance to include equal Congolese representation, returning all looted artifacts and remains. Others argue that the museum should remain a place of research and education, but with a critical lens. The Belgian government has set up a commission on colonial pasts, but it moves slowly. In the meantime, the Tervuren museum remains a powerful, contradictory monument — a place where you can see both the beauty of Congolese art and the ugliness of how it was obtained. Luna: It's a mirror for Belgium itself, isn't it? A small country with a giant colonial legacy that it's still learning to face. Lucas: Exactly. And that's probably the most honest thing the museum can do — force us to look at that mirror. Next time, we'll dive into the 1908 Reform Edict, and how the Belgian parliament finally took control of the Congo from Leopold II. Until then, keep questioning the monuments around you.