Belgium confronts its heart of darkness

King Leopold was hailed as a hero for 'civilising' the Congo. Now a remarkable exhibition in Brussels tells the forgotten history of a brutal exploitation that killed millions and shamed a nation
By Michela Wrong
23 February 2005

In the sprawling palace of Tervuren, in a leafy suburb of Brussels, Leopold, King of the Belgians has finally been dethroned. A daunting statue of the hook-nosed monarch has been heaved from centre stage in the royal museum that was his brainchild and built with the proceeds of his African adventure.

The avatar of the former national hero now skulks in a distant corner; in his place are a series of antique black and white photographs of mutilated bodies in turn-of-the-previous-century Congo. One of the stark and disturbing images shows a father from the Nsala tribe contemplating the chopped-off hand and foot of his daughter in front of him. The sepia-tinted horror show is part of "Memory of Congo, The Colonial Era" a remarkable exhibition that has set off a critical re-examination of Belgium's grisly record in its only colonial possession.

As the decades roll by and the surviving archives are dusted off and opened up, the European powers that colonised Africa in the 19th century's undignified scramble for land are becoming accustomed to an unpleasant, prickly emotion: shame. Whatever our own Gordon Brown may have said during his recent trip to the continent, the time for apologising for colonialism's errors is by no means past. On the contrary, humble pie is more firmly on the menu now.

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