Belgium's AfricaMuseum Slowly Confronts Dark Colonial Past

Several Western European museums, including the Humboldt Forum in Berlin and the Musée du quai Branly in Paris, continue to display racist artefacts and narratives depicting Africans in a derogatory manner, reports Julien Bobineau for The Conversation Africa.

Scholars and activists have criticised these museums since the 1970s for their handling of looted objects from the colonial period and their racist representations. The AfricaMuseum in Tervuren, Belgium, is one of these museums. It was founded in 1897 as a colonial human zoo and served to legitimise the brutal colonial rule in the Congo Basin. The museum's exhibits were mostly looted from the DR Congo by Belgian officials, the military, and private individuals.

The AfricaMuseum holds over 125,000 ethnographic objects. It has 300,000 geological specimens, 8,000 musical instruments and nearly 10 million biological exhibits. It also holds sound and film recordings. A few human remains are among the museum's collections. The origin and exact circumstances of the acquisition of these objects remain largely unexplained. It can be assumed that most of the collection was illegally looted during the colonial period.

In recent years, the AfricaMuseum has made some progress in addressing its troubled history. Belgium has also taken steps towards restitution, transferring ownership rights of looted objects to the DR Congo, proposing a bilateral restitution treaty. However, there is still a long way to go in achieving post-colonial reparation and promoting transparent dialogue.