BELGIUM'S MUSEUM AFRICA

Sam Daily Times : ''The Voice Of The Voiceless''................

BELGIUM'S Africa Museum reopens to confront its colonial demons. So, the museum is full of artifacts and stuffed wildlife, was often criticized for ignoring the-

The brutalities of King Leopold II's fiefdom, whose troops collected the hands of those who resisted slave labor at a time when millions of Congolese people are estimated to have died.

Many of the artefacts remain, but there is more commentary from African people on video screens, displays by Congolese artists, one including a 120-member family tree, in a bid to centralize Africans rather than Europeans.

Colonial history is now concentrated in one gallery, rather than dominating the whole  museum, which also deals with current issues facing Democratic Republic of Congo [DRC] and its diaspora.

''We also assume our representatives that for more than 60 years, we've diffused, we've disseminated an image of superior, western way of thinking to African cultures,'' said museum Director Guido Gryseels.

In the large rotunds, a statue remains of a European missionary with an African boy clutching his robes with a plaque that reads : ''Belgium brings civilization to Congo''.

But now the room is dominated by a giant wooden sculpture of an African man's head, sculptured by an artist born in DRC.

The museum also features a new entry pavilion.

Many Belgians remain ignorant of their country's harsh rule  in what is now Democratic Republic of Congo [DRC] in the late 19th century. It became the setting for Jospeh Conrad's influential 1899 novella : ''Heart of Darkness''.

Belgium's colonial past made the small European country one of the world's most successful trading economies

The Honor and Serving of the latest Global Operational Research on Colonial pasts continues. The World Students Society thanks Agencies.