The process of decolonialising life and thinking in Europe must start with education. The ever-present legacy of Belgian colonialism is a good place to start. In the opinion of many historians, the Belgians of the 19th century applied the most brutal and racist form of colonialism.
From the early years of the 19th century, they drew their ideas and approaches from some of the pre-colonial theories about African people. There was an obsession with the myth of a “Bantu-Nilotic” political bipolarization – a myth still used today by political leaders in DR Congo. This invented, wholly unscientific narrative, rooted in pre-colonial anthropological and religious studies, categorized non-Tutsi people as “Bantus” and Tutsi as “Nilotics” merely based on physical characteristics. Etymologically, Bantu is an umbrella term that describes a group of linguistic similarities in Central and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The above racist theories became a way that many Africans see or define themselves. There is a sense of internalisation and appropriation of these imported concepts.
Nilotic is a geographical or anthropological term that refers to the peoples of Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia and parts of Kenya whose linage was thought to have started along the river Nile. Geography also influenced the divisions, views and aspirations of the Belgians. The Walloons (French-speaking Belgians) and Flemish (Dutch-speaking Belgians) influenced colonial policy in the Great Lakes Region of Africa but were antagonistic and significant economic competitors.
Belgian and application of an ideology of hate in DR Congo
Belgian colonialists established a citizenship policy involving two forms of citizenship: native (meaning autochthonous) and civic (belonging to a nation). Congolese Tutsi were perceived with little evidence apart from the physical differences of their faces and their height as ‘non-native’, ‘indigenous’ autochthons. They were referred to as “those who came from somewhere”, ‘historic invaders’, and of a ‘superior race’.
Western thinking at the time was influenced by a heightened consciousness of social class that prompted the categorisation of the Africans they found in the territories they controlled as: natives, settlers, invaders, conquerors or foreigners. These terms were commonly used throughout the conversation among and between the colonial powers. Biblically derived myths led pre-colonial anthropologists to divide all humans into the descendants of Noah’s three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth. Dark skinned peoples were thought to be the sons of Ham (Hamites) the lighter skinned and straighter haired peoples who spoke Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic were sons of Shem (Semites) and the pale skinned Europeans were seen as the sons of Japheth. Where the sons of Ham mixed with the sons of Shem was thought to be along the Nile and so Nilo-Hamitic were thought to be superior to pure Hamitic.
Impact
As a result, in Rwanda, racial identity cards were issued in 1931, stating whether the bearer was Hutu (Bantu) or Tutsi (Nilo-Hamitic). These differences between people who before colonisation had lived largely peacefully in the same regions for centuries, were largely determined by stereotypical physical features. The identity cards separated the financially and politically better off cattle herding Tutsi from the poorer Hutu farmers. Access to education, job prospects, health care and life expectancy was all affected by this false division implemented throughout the Belgian colonies.
This divisive policy was seen as a reality by the colonised as well as colonial and the policy of separation was continued after the 1960s by the post-colonial Hutu-led regime in Rwanda, Burundi and DR Congo. The colonial policy of division by physical appearance and fake anthropology led to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and continues to fuel genocide today in the Great Lakes region.
The Bantu and Hamitic racist theories are today instruments and language of dehumanisation, exclusion and discrimination. These racist imported concepts became reinforced and mainstreamed and operationalised in the governance system in DR Congo. In eastern DR Congo, various factions of local armed groups, perceiving themselves as indigenous ‘Bantu’, see their pursuit of violence as ‘legitimate’ actions against the conquerors, ‘Nile-Hamitic’ people (Congolese Tutsi).
The decolonisation process must start by revising the history syllabuses taught in the Great Lakes Region of Africa which sanction the racial division of the ethnic components of the Congolese nation into native and non-native peoples, thereby privileging the ethnic majorities on the basis of an assumed prior right to occupation of the land, whereas apart from the pygmy people and according to the history of African migrations, all the other ethnic groups have in fact come from somewhere.
Belgium, as former colonial power, must address its colonial past by beginning with reparations that include accountability for its crimes against humanity.
