Encounters of Creolizing Conviviality in a Context of Critical Diversity Awareness
by Sarah Van Ruyskensvelde and Mieke Berghmans*
From periphery to center: Belgium’s decolonization debate
Over the last decades, the Belgian public has, on many occasions, been confronted with the problematic nature of its colonial past. A secretive activist organization for instance cut of the hand of a King Leopold II monument in Ostend. Media regularly covered the works of a commission of inquiry that investigated the murder on Patrice Lumumba. The debates on Saint Nicholas and Black Pete – a holiday tradition in which Saint Nicholas’ helper is depicted as a blackface stereotype- flew over from the Netherlands to the Belgian public every year, and so on. These events appeared on and disappeared from the media scene and contributed to some public debate about (the effects of) the Belgian colonial period. These discussions however remained at the periphery of the public debate. They touched upon matters that were controversial and contested, but only concerned a specific historical event, a specific institution, or a specific cultural phenomenon and as such did not require a general moral response.
Continue reading “POLYLOGUES AT THE INTERSECTION(S) SERIES: In Pursuit of Decolonization in Belgium”