Since the death of African-American George Floyd following a police intervention on May 25 in the United States, demonstrations have multiplied in the country but also around the world. One of these rallies is being held Sunday afternoon on Place Poelaert in Brussels.
Besides the questions he raises about sanitary conditions, this event challenges racism in Belgium. Are racism and violence suffered by the black community purely American problems? No, they are indeed here too, according to the speakers present on the set of C’est pas tous les jours dimanche.
Several of them recount the acts of verbal and physical violence of which they were victims, sometimes coming from members of the police. Zamora Mopafiba testifies to have undergone numerous abusive controls by the police from an early age.
The question of the colonial past
This international movement of indignation reactivates an already old debate in our country: the colonial past of Belgium, and more precisely the role of Leopold II in the violent colonization of the Congo. Statues of the King have been vandalized again in recent days. Should they be unbolted as requested by many associations?
According to Kalvin Soiresse MP Ecolo Brussels, co-founder in 2012 of the collective Mémoire coloniale, “people cannot make the link between colonial memory and racism. The problem is that racism is structural and the problem of structures is not tackled”. He considers that the problem of racism will continue “as long as we do not settle the historical question, the question of memory”
“Smartly unbolt”
Thus, the statues of Leopold II, symbol of the country’s colonial period, must be unbolted “intelligently”, believes Zamora Mopafiba. “If we unbolt them directly, it will seem as if we were erasing the colonial history of Belgium. However, that is not what we are looking for. We are trying to educate the Belgians because many people glorify Leopold II but do not know what he did”. Deputy Prime Minister David Clarinval (MR) agrees with the need to educate the population about the colonial past while rejecting the need to remove the statues.
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