Colonial tales, trails and traces: a new must-read book about (de)colonisation in Belgium

Writer Nicholas Lewis (previously the founding editor-in-chief of The Word Magazine) lives and works in Brussels. He was born and raised there, but is wasn't until he decided to take a decolonial tour in his own city that he realized how deeply engrained colonial nostalgia and remembrance are in its urban fabric. After this eye-opening and moving experience, Nicholas dove into Belgium's colonial past as well as its decolonial grassroots militant landscape. His research resulted in this must-read book and its clear message: because of the continued presence of traces of the country’s colonial past in Belgian society and its streets, Belgium remains a fundamentally racist country.

The book takes Brussels’ colonial imprints – found in many of its statues, squares, street names, monuments, buildings and institutions - as a starting point to dive into Belgium’s colonisation of Congo, focusing specifically on the communes of Etterbeek, Ixelles and Schaerbeek as well as the areas surrounding the Place Royale and Cinquantenaire. With an entire chapter devoted to Tervuren’s controversial AfricaMuseum, as well as perfunctory essays by seasoned decolonial and anti-racist experts Véronique Clette-Gakuba, Anne M. Georgine Dibua, François Makanga and Anne Wetsi Mpoma, Colonial tales, trails and traces highlights the corrosive impact colonisation continues to have at every layers of contemporary Belgian society. 

The important and gripping message of this book is enhanced by its powerful design by Alliage, featuring photos of monuments, streets and museum rooms by Philippe Braquenier as well as artistic interventions by Laura Nsengiyumva: ​ in collaboration with Friedle De Meyere she created Countermonuments, a series of photos as performative answers to the monuments featured in the book. 

Colonial tales, trails and traces isn't only about deconstructing the Belgian colonial myth: it also points out there's hope for the future, thanks to the vibrancy and vitality of Belgium’s grassroots militant landscape, the incisive pertinence of its activist academic thought as well as the artistic impulse that continues to push back against the dominance of Belgium’s stubborn coloniality. As such, this book aims to contribute to an increasingly unavoidable paradigm shift, one defined by a deeper understanding of Belgium's part in what is universally agreed to be one of the darkest, most suppressed and contorted periods of its imperialist expansion.

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