In June 2020, colonial monuments, often of the Belgian King Leopold II, were removed from their pedestals in various Belgian cities. The Black Lives Matter marches accelerated the debate about colonial monuments. However, research shows that colonial heritage in many Belgian cities is still the same as in 2020.
On a sunny morning, about ten people gather at the Borgerhout district hall. Behind the group, on the facade of the imposing district hall in neo-Renaissance style, a gray-white memorial stone stands out: a tribute to Borgerhout colonials, who died in Congo before October 14, 1908. It is mainly local residents who have registered for the tour of the ‘colonial scars’ of the Antwerp district.
The guide asks whose family once worked in the Belgian colony. Here and there a few hands gently raise in the air. When the guide explains how many places in Antwerp still honor colonials, the group seems stunned.
The walk along colonial heritage is part of a broader decolonization process of the Borgerhout district of Antwerp. Three years ago, the board stated that it wanted to create awareness about contested heritage. Between 2022 and 2023, the district entered into a dialogue with its residents. The central question: what is the future of colonial heritage in the streetscape of the district?
‘When we started this project, we had some trepidation ourselves. We thought the issue would raise extreme opinions on both sides. But that wasn’t too bad,’ says Inne Peeters, cultural employee at the district.
During three discussion evenings, residents were able to come and discuss heritage in the district hall. ‘Some wanted to remove the colonial heritage, but there were also residents who preferred to keep everything the same. It was striking how willing everyone was to listen to each other.’
The result: on the other side of the district hall, a memorial stone was erected a year ago for the victims of Belgian colonialism. Information boards are now being placed on the squares and streets with colonial references with additional explanation. “The signs are there and will remain there,” says Peeters proudly. “If they are vandalized, we repair them and put them back.”
Monuments as propaganda
In Antwerp, but also in other Belgian cities, colonial history still occupies a prominent place in the street scene today. From the 1920s onwards, colonial heritage was used to gain support for the unpopular colonial project in Congo. Through monuments, the government, church and business community promoted the idea of a civilizing mission: it was Belgium’s so-called duty to ‘civilize’ the people of Congo.
Leopold II, already controversial because of his mismanagement in the Congo Free State, was rehabilitated and given busts and equestrian statues all over Belgium. And that colonial heritage in the public space remained uncontested for a long time. Only since the 2000s, and especially in the last decade, have monuments, square and street names been increasingly questioned. But boards chose to leave the monuments standing, at most with the addition of an information board.
The spring of 2020 was a pivotal moment for Belgium. During the protests that followed the killing of American George Floyd, monuments and memorials linked to racial injustice were vandalized or removed across the United States. It didn’t take long for the wind to blow over to Europe. In Belgium, numerous colonial monuments, mainly statues of King Leopold II, were damaged.
“Many considered the fact that such monuments often stood in public spaces without critical explanation as a form of symbolic violence against the victims of the colonial past,” says historian of colonial history Idesbald Goddeeris (KU Leuven).
On June 9, 2020, the destroyed statue of Leopold II in the Antwerp district of Ekeren was removed. “A unique event in Belgium,” says Goddeeris. “Previously, vandalized colonial monuments were cleaned and simply replaced.”
The turbulent weeks of protest forced local authorities to work headlong on colonial monuments in the streets. The then Flemish Minister of the Interior Bart Somers came up with a manual that could help local authorities in the debate around colonial references in the public space.
“What ultimately happens with controversial references in the street scene is a decision by the municipal council,” Somers said. Municipalities were advised to work on an inclusive public space in which all citizens could identify. To tackle colonial heritage, they offered a number of options, such as placing information signs, providing counter statues, removing monuments or visually adapting them.
No action
Four years later, major interventions in the colonial heritage in the 13 Flemish central cities have largely failed to materialize. Since 2020, new information signs have been installed at only two colonial monuments, counter statues have been placed at two monuments and four colonial monuments have been removed (two of which during the BLM protests).
No action has been taken at 67% of the colonial monuments in the Flemish central cities since 2020. Only two street names with a colonial reference were given an interpretation, three streets were given a different name. The promises that the central cities made in the summer of 2020 often remain a dead letter.
“BLM was indeed a moment of acceleration for us,” Peeters agrees. ‘The spirit of the times was in favor of finally tackling the colonial heritage in Borgerhout.’ Nevertheless, the district remains one of the only ones where the decolonization of public space goes this far. Borgerhout is also alone within Antwerp.
This research was supported by Journalismfund.
