A statue of the king of the Belgians Leopoldo II, a controversial figure from Belgium’s colonial past, was removed from a public square in Antwerp and kept in a museum. In England, while activists demonstrated against the statue of businessman Cecil Rhodes in Oxford, another, of slave trader Robert Milligan was withdrawn in London.
The removal of the statue of Leopoldo II comes after the demonstrations that brought together thousands of people in several Belgian cities against racism and in honor of George Floyd, the American killed two weeks ago by a policeman in the United States.
The statue in question, located near a church in Ekeren, had been vandalized last week. Its removal, according to Johan Vermant, spokesman for Antwerp’s mayor, Bart De Wever, was already planned in the context of a remodeling of the square scheduled for 2023, but the transfer to the Middelheim Museum was anticipated after have been “seriously vandalized last week”.
“Due to the renovation of the square, the statue will not be placed there again and will probably remain part of the museum’s collection,” Vermant told AFP.
Leopoldo II (1835-1909) has long been a controversial figure in Belgium for the crimes of his government in the former Belgian Congo, today the Democratic Republic of Congo, including, according to historians, the death of about 10 million Congolese, but public discussion around the former monarch it was rekindled with the George Floyd case.
This month, the majority parties in the Belgian parliament asked the executive to create a working group for the “decolonization” of public space, by reviewing and removing the names of streets and squares related to the country’s colonial history.
In the past few weeks, several statues of Leopoldo II across the country have been vandalized and a petition has been launched, by a group entitled “Repair History”, for the removal of the statues and busts of the former king of the Belgian capital.
“These statues do not take place in Brussels, with its 118 districts with almost 200 nationalities represented”, reads in the petition, which already has more than 40 thousand signatures and is open to subscribers until June 30, the 60th anniversary of the Congo’s independence.
Congo was declared a colony of Belgium in 1885, during the Berlin Conference, which divided Africa between the European colonial powers. The colonization of Congo allowed Leopoldo II to transform Belgium into a power through the exploitation of Congolese resources, namely rubber.
To compete with the countries that exploited the vast rubber plantations of Latin America and the southeast Asia, Leopoldo II enslaved the Congolese population and subjected it to great violence, with historians estimating that, during his rule, the population of Congo was reduced half, as a result of violence, hunger, exhaustion and disease.
At the Universal Exhibition held in Brussels in 1897, Leopoldo II approved the exhibition of a “human zoo” of Congolese men, women and children, today a symbol of the dehumanization of Congolese promoted by the monarch.
After Bristol, London and Oxford
In the UK, anti-racist activists show signs of wanting to continue removing the statues to eliminate the symbols of the British colonial past, after they toppled one in Bristol on Sunday.
In London, Tower Hamlets City removed the statue of Robert Milligan, an 18th century slave trader.
Coinciding with Floyd’s funeral on the other side of the Atlantic, British activists also demonstrated in Oxford against the statue of Cecil Rhodes, mining magnate and colonial politician active in South Africa in the 19th century that named Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) .
In 2016, protests had already been organized against the effigy of Rhodes, which adorns an Oriel College building in that renowned university city. The activists did not achieve their purpose, but now they are encouraged after on Sunday, demonstrators dropped the statue of Edward Colston, a slave trader in the late 17th century, in Bristol.
The statue of the one who financed numerous institutions in that city in southwest England was pulled from its pedestal and thrown into the river, and with that it opened a national debate.
Street artist Banksy, originally from Bristol, proposed a solution for defenders and detractors to reach an agreement: “We took the statue out of the water, put it back on the pedestal, tied a cable around his neck and added bronze statues, life-size of the protesters taking it down “, reproducing the Sunday scene, proposed on Instagram. “So everyone is happy,” he suggested.
Boris Johnson does not accept vandalism
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he understood the revolt of people protesting the death of George Floyd, but he warned that he would not tolerate violence or violations of social detachment.
“And then I say yes, you are correct, we are correct, in saying that the lives of black people matter. And to all those who chose to protest peacefully and who insisted on social detachment, I say yes, of course I listen and understand you “, said the head of conservative government in a video message released on Monday night.
However, as the UK, the second country in the world most affected by the new coronavirus, with 50,000 deaths, gradually leaves confinement, Johnson warned that it will not support those who break the rules of social distance due to the risk of new infections . And not only: “And no, I will neither support nor yield to those who break the law, attack the police or vandalize public monuments.”
The debate over the UK’s colonial past is not a recent one and the country has long been pressured to return works such as the fronts of the Parthenon in Athens, displayed at the British Museum in London.
“The time has come for a frank national debate about the legacy of colonialism,” tweeted Labor Party MP Layla Moran, who asked to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes, “a white supremacist who does not represent Oxford values in 2020”.
The fight has also spread to other parts of the United Kingdom, such as Edinburgh, Scotland, where the statue of politician Henry Dundas, who worked to delay the abolition of slavery, is also controversial. Mayor Adam McVey said that if the statue was removed it would not be missed.
In London, close to Parliament, the statue of former conservative Prime Minister and WWII hero Winston Churchill, whose statements on racial issues are controversial, was also attacked over the weekend.
O mayor from the capital, Sadiq Khan, said the protests highlighted the lack of diversity in public spaces. And he announced the creation of a commission to solve the problem.
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