KU Leuven Lecture Series

CHRIST (Deemed to be University) in collaboration with Katholieke Universiteit at Leuven, Belgium, convened a lecture series for students of History in October, 2020, aimed at exploring themes of post-colonial/subaltern theory and experience. The second of the two parts of the lecture series, held on 12th October, 2020, 7AM onward in Belgian time and 10:30AM onward in Indian time, was delivered by Dr Idesbald Goddeeris, a Belgian academician and professor of History at KU Leuven. The lecture titled ‘Post Colonial Memories’ was complemented by a captivating visual presentation. It was followed by Q&A and an exchange of observations and opinions. Professor Goddeeris set out to articulate Belgian independence from the Dutch in 1830, and the arrival of Belgium as a colonizer in the world stage. He spoke about how King Leopold II of Belgium bargained at the Berlin Conference (1884-85) to acquire private ownership over what came to be known as the Congo Free State (1885-1908), though at home in Brussels, he was only a constitutional monarch. Political violence was immanent in Leopold’s Congo. As a consequence of the gruesome atrocities, there was even a population decline in the central African territory under Leopold. By the 1900s, international pressures had consolidated firmly against Leopold’s rule, leading to the Belgian parliament annexing in 1908 what had hitherto been Leopold’s private territory. From this point, Congo remained a Belgian colony until it gained its independence in 1960. Not to mention, there were other smaller territories that the Belgian colonial empire encompassed. In 1922, following World War I, Rwanda and Burundi were brought under Belgian control. Elsewhere, there were smaller enclaves that Belgium administered. While colonialism begins in the politics of territoriality, it does not end with the transfer of land and power to rightful successors. Colonialism lives on in the memory of idiosyncrasies and peculiarities, which are expressed and represented and standardized. Professor Goddeeris illustrated this with comic strips from ‘The Adventures of Tintin’ which is of Belgian origin. Tintin in Africa is depicted as concocting a Belgian identity of his local Black peers of Congo. When in India (en route China), Tintin is seen to be received by a Maharaja (note the white supremacist implication) and then shown in a rendezvous with a fakir (note the exoticism). India, in general, is represented as exotic, mystical and savage, yet also poverty-stricken and fraught with squalor. Professor also underscored similar orientalistic representations of India in the movie ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’. From popular culture, Prof Goddeeris then moved into exploring the public space through a post-colonial lens to locate offensive iconography and language. He presented pictures of monuments and statues built in the honour of the European leaders who were also the spearheads of colonial violence, and maps entailing street names that incite a painful recall of historical oppression of the Orient. Leopold II, for instance, is widely represented in statues. Acts of protest against colonialism have sometimes manifested as vandalism, as in the recent Black Lives Matter movement. The state response has been that of antipathy to such expressions of anger and resentment. The vandalized statues and monuments have, as a matter of convention, been restored, and it is only recent that the state chooses to remove the symbols of colonial oppression from public spaces. Alternatively, there have also been drives to present full awareness about artifacts of heritage through information plaques and guided walks. Professor Goddeeris concluded on the positive account of Indian nationalist MK Gandhi’s statues having been erected and standing in India’s colonizer - Britain, as an admittance of the wrongs done by Imperial Britain and lessons learnt.