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E-book Unfinished Histories : Empire and Postcolonial Resonance in Central Africa and Belgium

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Penilaian

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Belgium once had an empire in Central Africa. The historical processes inform-ing this imperial presence – the foundation of the Congo Free State (CFS) in 1885, its demise, the emergence of the Belgian Congo in 1908, and the subse-quent absorption of ‘Ruanda-Urundi’ by Belgium under the aegis of the League of Nations in 1922 – are well documented and have generated a voluminous collection of responses in all fields of knowledge and human activities. This edited book will reflect on this colonial past but, more crucially, appraise the many post-colonial traces and legacies of this past in Belgium, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Rwanda, and Burundi.1 The post-colonial period and the independence of the Congo (1960) and that of Burundi and Rwandain 1962 did not herald a completely new era but marked, more prosaically, the beginning of decolonisation. This process, which is unarguably still unfolding now, cannot be univocally defined. One of the chief aims of this volume will be to explore how this contested notion has shaped cultural debates and responses in the geographical areas under scrutiny. It would be an understatement to say that this post-colonial period has been marked by violence. Real violence, as tragically exemplified by the continuous string of civil wars, pogroms, ethnic cleansing, and genocides, but also cultural and epistemological violence as political emancipation did not elicit the expected cultural autonomy.This period has witnessed the rise and often the fall of extraordinary and larger-than-life political figures, such as Mobutu Sese Seko, Patrice Lumumba,2Pierre Mulélé, Prince Louis Rwagasore,3 Laurent and Joseph Kabila, Jean-Bap-tiste Bagaza, Juvénal Habyarimana, and Paul Kagame. It has also coincided with cultural experiments in the field of literature, thought, music, and the arts and the emergence, in Central Africa and in the diaspora, of formidably creative indi-viduals and (public) intellectuals like Sony Labou Tansi, V. Y. Mudimbe, Papa Wendo, Clémentine Faïk-Nzuji, and Tshibumba Kanda Matulu. At the same time, Central African cultures have continued to attract the attention of scholars and have, in fact, often been mobilised to develop original empirical and theoret-ical research, as illustrated by the works by Jan Vansina, Johannes Fabian, Colette Braeckman, Luc de Heusch, Bogumil Jewsiewicki, Filip De Boeck, Mathieu Zana Aziza Etambala, Sammy Baloji, David Van Reybrouck, Thierry Michel, Isidore Ndaywel è Nziem, Didier Gondola, and Nancy Rose Hunt. In the wake of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, other important statements have appeared, not only to account for this unfathomable tragedy, as exemplified by the vast corpus of novels, films, and testimonies on this event, but also to reappraise more distant events such as Leopold’s anti-slavery campaign, the Red Rubber Scandal, the publication of Tintin au Congo,4 and the assassination of Lumumba, in addition to the role and significance of the AfricaMuseum in a post-colonial Belgium.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

960 FRA u

Penerbit

Belgium : Leuven University Press., 2022

Deskripsi Fisik

427 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9789461664914

Klasifikasi

960

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

-

Subjek

History of Africa

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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