The Missionary: Figure of Reconciliation with the Colonial Past in Flanders (2007-2012)

Abstract

During the colonial period and because of his prominent place in Belgian public life, the missionary was a crucial figure in forging a connection between Congo and the metropole. For the catholic part of Belgium, Congo was identified first and foremost as a mission area. The past decade the missionary knew a remarkable revival because of the popularity of the play Missie (2007) and the documentary Nonkel Pater (2012), in which he once again became an expert witness and ethnographic authority on life in Congo. This “ knowledge” has to give authority to a paternalistic narrative about the country and its inhabitants. At the same time, this focus on the missionary offers the audience – and society as a whole – the opportunity to avoid painful questions about the colonial period by concentrating on the “ humane” side of the colonial endeavour (healthcare, education). Beside all this, the cultivation of a “ Flemish folk figure” like the missionary offers a chance to escape the multicultural present and instead wallow in nostalgia to an imagined Flanders of the fifties and sixties.