Belgian Congo Research Articles

Between colonial medicine and global health: protein malnutrition and UNICEF milk in the Belgian Congo

AbstractDuring the last decades of colonial rule, Belgian colonial authorities, health agencies and researchers intensely engaged with kwashiorkor, a severe syndrome that was deemed widespread among young children in some parts of the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi and chiefly attributed to protein malnutrition. To fight kwashiorkor, the Belgian government, in the early 1950s, set up a joint milk distribution campaign with the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, Food and Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization, the first of its kind in colonial Africa. Placing this campaign in the context of mounting international and inter-imperial concern about kwashiorkor and other nutritional problems in Africa and across the globe, this article explores its rationales, mechanisms and consequences, and in particular, how the campaign was shaped and publicised by FORÉAMI, one of the main health providers on the ground. It not only contributes to the history of European colonial medicine and nutritional policies, but also opens new perspectives on international health collaboration during late colonialism. It argues that Belgian authorities were wary of international interference in colonial policies, but that especially FORÉAMI also viewed and used the campaign as an opportunity to display its ‘mastery’ in rural and infant healthcare and control the narrative on Belgium’s colonial medicine.

Newly Discovered Archival Data Show Coincidence of a Peak of Sexually Transmitted Diseases with the Early Epicenter of Pandemic HIV-1.

To which extent STDs facilitated HIV-1 adaptation to humans, sparking the pandemic, is still unknown. We searched colonial medical records from 1906–1958 for Leopoldville, Belgian Congo, which was the initial epicenter of pandemic HIV-1, compiling counts of treated STD cases in both Africans and Europeans. Almost all Europeans were being treated, while for Africans, generalized treatment started only in 1929. Treated STD counts in Europeans thus reflect STD infection rates more accurately compared to counts in Africans. In Africans, the highest recorded STD treatment incidence was in 1929–1935, declining to low levels in the 1950s. In Europeans, the recorded treatment incidences were highest during the period 1910–1920, far exceeding those in Africans. Europeans were overwhelmingly male and had frequent sexual contact with African females. Consequently, high STD incidence among Europeans must have coincided with high prevalence and incidence in the city’s African population. The data strongly suggest the worst STD period was 1910–1920 for both Africans and Europeans, which coincides with the estimated origin of pandemic HIV-1. Given the strong effect of STD coinfections on HIV transmission, these new data support our hypothesis of a causal effect of STDs on the epidemic emergence of HIV-1.

Operation Refugee: the Congo Crisis and the end of humanitarian imperialism in Southern Rhodesia, 1960

ABSTRACT Thousands of whites fled the former Belgian Congo in the weeks after independence. This movement had a significant impact on the politics of Southern Rhodesia. Disquieted whites in Rhodesia feared they might face a similar fate. They apprehensively mobilised in an effort known as Operation Refugee to support the displaced. Conversely, black nationalists were energised by the disruption. Their ranks increased and their rhetoric became more confrontational. While the transnational Congo Crisis is routinely evaluated through the framework of the Cold War, in the region’s white settler territories, the decolonisation imperative was another critical perspective through which the events in the Congo were perceived.

Linking finance, decolonization, and trade. Italy’s Mediobanca in sub-Saharan Africa, 1944–1971

ABSTRACT Research on Italy’s post-war international economic relations has so far mainly focused on European and transatlantic links. Yet, Africa played an important role in Italy’s new foreign economic policy. In the 1950s and 1960s, Mediobanca, Italy’s merchant bank, developed close economic relations with African countries mainly in three ways: through export credit, also in the form of ‘tied-aid’ credits; through equity participations in commercial banks and national development banks; through the establishment of trading companies, starting in Liberia, and expanding – or trying to expand – to former Belgian Congo, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, and former Rhodesia. The article uses unpublished sources from various archives including Mediobanca’s, recently made available to the public. Via Mediobanca and its unpublished sources, the article looks at general issues such as Italy’s place in the world economy, and the interplay between Cold War, decolonization, and European integration.

The Congo Museum (1898–1910): On collaboration, conflict, bureaucracy and immorality

ABSTRACT Based on archives long assumed lost, this article tries to provide an insight into the organization of the (Belgian) Congo Museum in Tervuren between 1898 and 1910. Who was in charge of the museum and the scientific institute and how was the division of labour between staff members organized? Answers to these questions are telling of the authority of Leopold II but also reveal the fairly unknown power struggles between staff of the Congo Free State administration. Collaboration and bureaucracy resulted in (un)realized exhibitions, (un)published scientific work, (un)accepted resignations and secret nicknames.

Navigating ethnicity, nationalism and Pan-Africanism – Kimbanguists, identity and colonial borders

The Kimbanguists, whose church is based on the healing and proclamation ministry of Simon Kimbangu in 1921 in the Belgian Congo, challenge colonially defined borders and identities in multiple ways. Anticolonialism is in the DNA of Kimbanguism, yet in a manner that contests the colonially inherited dichotomy between religion and politics. Kimbanguists draw from holistic Kongo traditions, where the spiritual and material/political are inherently interwoven. Kimbangu’s home village, Nkamba, is the centre of the world for them, and Kongo culture and the ancient kingdom form the backdrop of the Kimbanguist view of the new eschatological order to come. The reunification of the kingdom from the two Congo states and Angola will mark the inauguration of the new era. This will not, however, mean a splintering of the Democratic Republic of Congo but rather a removal of the colonial borders. That hints towards a Pan-African vision of a united Africa and even a universally united Black race that will play a central role in the eschatological salvation historical drama. The Kimbanguist vision also contains global dimensions, and their view of borders and identities is like Nkamba-centred ripples in water. This vision wipes away colonial borders and relativises ethnic, national and racial identities whilst strongly subscribing to a salvation historical narrative that places Africa and Africans in the centre.Contribution: This article contributes to the study of nationalism as well as of African Instituted Churches. The analysis of how the Kimbanguists relate to (Kinshasa) Congolese nationalism, Kongo ethnic identity and Pan-Africanism as well as of their global missional views reveals layers and complex patterns of relationship between all these. What facilitates the simultaneous subscribing to all these layers is an openness of identities (Kimbanguist national, ethnic, etc.), as well as a tendency to see the world as consisting of interdependent areas and human communities with their holy city, Nkamba, in the centre.

When the Physician Becomes an Apostle

Abstract Missionary medicine, especially healthcare offered by Catholic missions, is a rather neglected field in the study of colonial medicine. In addition, the potential of analytical tools such as the circulation of knowledge or attention for professional identities has not been fully explored yet. In this study of physicians in the Belgian Congo, we argue that a new professional identity – or persona – of the Catholic colonial doctor arose as a result of Catholic religious doctrine, missionary politics and biomedical developments. The persona of the mission’s main healthcare provider, with a strong commitment to curative medicine, was a metropolitan professional identity shaped by older missionary narratives. In colonial day-to-day reality, however, where tensions between physicians, missionaries and state officials abounded, this discursive identity proved difficult to maintain.

Curvularia eragrostidis isolates (Dematiaceae) for biocontrol of crabgrass (Digitaria spp.) in Canada

ABSTRACT Large crabgrass (Digitaria sanguinalis (L.) Scop.) and smooth crabgrass (Digitaria ischaemum (Schreb.) Schreb. ex Muhl.) arrived into North America from Eurasia with immigrants as promising grain and forage crops, but they have become troublesome invasive weeds in cropland and turfgrass. Twenty-three foliar pathogens were isolated from crabgrass near Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, Canada and evaluated as potential microbial herbicides. Four Curvularia eragrostidis (Henn.) J. A. Mey., [Anamorph, (Meyer, 1959). Moisissures du sol et des litières de la région de yangambi (Congo belge). Publications de L'Institut Agronomique du Congo Belge, 75, 211 pp., Synonym of Cochliobolus eragrostidis (Tsuda & Ueyama) Sivan, Teleomorph, (Sivanesan, 1987). Graminicolous species of Bipolaris, Curvularia, Drechslera. Exserohilum and Their Teleomorphs. Mycological Papers, 158, 1–261] isolates were pathogenic on both large and smooth crabgrass. Two isolates with superior virulence proceeded to a host range assessment on 21 non-target grass species. Many plant species tested were not damaged, but timothy, creeping bentgrass, colonial bentgrass, and smooth bromegrass, were highly susceptible to these isolates. In addition, oats, millet, and sorghum were also susceptible. Susceptibility of these crops raises conflicts of interest and highlights the non-target risks of proceeding with the development of this microbial herbicide. Contra-wise these forage grass species are also recognised as undesirable invasive weeds in native North American grasslands. When the efficacy of Canadian isolate Dip0307 was compared to C. eragrostidis QZ-2000 bioherbicide from China, there was no difference in the control of large crabgrass. Further studies with the isolates are needed to verify their microbial herbicide potential for crabgrass suppression. Resolution of any conflict of interest will require consultation amongst various stakeholders, and if there is an apparent conflict, this needs to be resolved, if not beforehand then at least in parallel with any further studies.

Sexually transmitted infections, their treatment and urban change in colonial Leopoldville, 1910–1960

AbstractDuring the colonial period sexually transmitted infections (STIs) came to be recognised as a major public health problem in African cities. Thus, STI control and urban modernisation became deeply entangled as authorities redrew spatial and social boundaries to manage populations and their cross-cultural interaction. Public health measures, urban planning and policing were part of a coordinated effort to neutralise the potential impact of rapidly growing African urban migration on the Belgian Congo’s ‘model’ capital Leopoldville. While STI control was facilitated by new drugs (arsenicals, sulfonamides and antibiotics) to treat syphilis, chancroid, gonorrhoea and chlamydia (bacterial STIs), the effects of the 1929 economic crisis and urban social change illustrated the limits of colonial authority. Redesigning urban spaces and repressive measures to curb polygyny and prostitution operated in a parallel fashion with the expansion of health coverage, new treatments and awareness campaigns. To gain a better understanding of the evolution of STI incidence among African urban populations during the colonial period between 1910 and 1960, extensive archival records and secondary literature were consulted to assess the interplay between improved screening, diagnostic and therapeutic methods with demographic and social change. They show that STI rates, probably peaked during the pre-1929 period and apart from a short period in the early 1930s associated with mass screening, declined until becoming residual in the 1950s. Reflecting upon sanitary interventions and their broader dimensions, the article analyses the evolution of treatment regimes and their impact in the changing urban organisation and environment of the colony’s capital.

A Lesson of Sustainability Given by The Tropical Modernism in Kinshasa: The BCB Headquarters by Maurice Houyoux

The tropical region is often considered as a region where the sun shines intensely and the temperature varies at certain times of the year. In the case of Congo, the average weather condition is considered cool, however, there have been cases where the temperature reached up to 43° C. It is therefore imperative for buildings in this region to take into account the temperature variation while considering the comfort of the users. During the design and construction of the Bank of Belgian Congo, the availability of data to assist the architect Maurice Houyoux in meeting the challenge of the region was unavailable. The architect had to be creative in planning and overcoming the challenges posed by the environment. This paper seeks to examine the issues confronted by Maurice Houyoux and the design solutions he provided to ensure that the building was functional and responded to the tropical challenges. In undertaking this study, a historical approach was adopted through the review of relevant literature on the building and designs within the period of the development of the bank. An observation method was also deployed to verify some of the information found in the literature. The findings are presented using pictures and sketches to explain some of the key issues relevant to the design of the bank. The findings showed that despite the reduced number of published data for designing in such a region, the architect was able to examine the existing buildings and discuss with users of other constructions to obtain relevant data. The findings also showed that the building was able to respond to peculiar requirements to be functional. The paper concludes that the local building materials and traditional builders can be used to achieve a contemporary building that fits into the context towards sustainable architecture.

Viability and profitability of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia)’s Copperbelt Mining Companies during the Great Depression, 1929–1939

The development of large-scale mining on the Northern Rhodesian / Zambian Copperbelt coincided with the global economic slump between 1929 and 1939. In this period, the Copperbelt mines were linked to the regional and global mining industry through foreign private capital, multinational corporate integration, labour strategies, trade networks, and market ties. Because the Northern Rhodesian mining sector depended on foreign capital and international markets, the rapid development of the Copperbelt mines would have been hampered by the global economic downturn. But as it turned out the Great Depression proved to be only a transitory setback for the Northern Rhodesian mines. Thus, this article examines factors that enhanced the financial performance of the Copperbelt mines vis-à-vis their established counterparts in the Belgian Congo and United States of America during the Great Depression. In contrast to studies emphasising the importance of labour strategies in influencing the productivity and profitability of the Copperbelt mines, the article examines the part played by a range of factors from quantity and quality of ores, through to interlocking corporate strategies and managerial innovations, to an economic boom in the copper business on the world market, which affected the overall viability of the Northern Rhodesian mining industry during the Great Depression.

On the taxonomy of Zeuzera boisduvalii Herrich-Schäffer, 1854 (Cossidae, Zeuzerinae) species complex with description of a new genus and three new species

The article contains the description of a new genus, Davidlivingstonia Yakovlev & László, gen. nov. (Type species Zeuzera boisduvalii Herrich-Schäffer, 1854) and three new species: D. staudei Yakovlev & László, spec. nov. (Type locality: Zambia: Samfia, Mukushi, reg. Liubwe), D. prozorovi Yakovlev & László, spec. nov. (Type locality: Congo Belge, Congo River), and D. lenzi Yakovlev & László, spec. nov. (Type locality: Zambia: Ndole Bay, shores of the Lake Tanganyika). The new combination Davidlivingstonia boisduvalii (Herrich-Schäffer, 1854), comb. nov. is established. New records of D. boisduvalii for Benin, Burkina Faso, and Togo are provided. The article is illustrated with 25 figures of adults, male and female genitalia and distribution maps.

On the taxonomy of Zeuzera boisduvalii Herrich-Schäffer, 1854 (Cossidae, Zeuzerinae) species complex with description of a new genus and three new species

The article contains the description of a new genus, Davidlivingstonia Yakovlev, gen. nov. (Type species Zeuzera boisduvalii Herrich-Schäffer, 1854) and three new species: D. staudei Yakovlev, spec. nov. (Type locality: Zambia: Samfia, Mukushi, reg. Liubwe), D. prozorovi Yakovlev, spec. nov. (Type locality: Congo Belge, Congo River), and D. lenzi Yakovlev, spec. nov. (Type locality: Zambia: Ndole Bay, shores of the Lake Tanganyika). The new combination Davidlivingstonia boisduvalii (Herrich-Schäffer, 1854), comb. nov. is established. New records of D. boisduvalii for Benin, Burkina Faso, and Togo are provided. The article is illustrated with 25 figures of adults, male and female genitalia and distribution maps

2012: An elemental force: Uranium production in Africa, and what it means to be nuclear

ABSTRACT Uranium from Africa was, and remains, a major source of fuel for atomic weapons and power plants throughout the world. Uranium for the Hiroshima bomb, for example, came from the Belgian Congo. During any given year of the Cold War, between 20 percent and 50 percent of the Western world’s uranium came from African places: Congo, Niger, South Africa, Gabon, Madagascar, and Namibia. Today, there is a renewed uranium boom throughout the continent. The author writes on the ambiguities of the nuclear state, and the state of being nuclear, and why the nuclear designation matters. She looks at two countries to uncover different dimensions of nuclearity: Niger, which has long struggled with France over the price of its uranium; and Gabon, where cancer and other illnesses related to four decades of uranium production remain invisible.

‘From Cape to Katanga’: South African Expansionism, White Settlers and the Congo (1910–1963)

ABSTRACT This article considers the history of South African imperialism and claims over a white Southern Africa, throughout the period between 1910 and 1963, and how it affected colonial rule and practice in the Belgian Congo. The article thereby adds to our knowledge of South African claims in the wider Southern African region and calls for a better understanding of external, and trans-imperial, anxieties underlying colonial rule in the Belgian Congo, and particularly in the mining province Katanga. The central hypothesis is that the South African danger confronted colonial rule in a dual way: in its territorialism, but also in its utopia of a white controlled Southern Africa. Either could lead to a loss of empire. Focusing in particular on Katanga, the article argues that migration, labour, development and settlement policies increasingly aimed at preventing the creation of a ‘white man’s country’ akin to South Africa. The immediate postwar years, 1918–1922, were a defining moment, when South African influences and trans-imperial white labour solidarity in Katanga were particularly strong. Ultimately, this article analyses two clashing models of empire in Africa – one of autonomous white settler rule against centralised European metropolitan interests – and their implications for racial relations and colonial practice.

Daniel P. Biebuyck: 1925–2019

October 01 2020 Daniel P. Biebuyck: 1925–2019 Allen F. Roberts Allen F. Roberts Allen F. Roberts is Distinguished Professor of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA and a member of the African Arts editorial board. aroberts@arts.ucla.edu Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Allen F. Roberts Allen F. Roberts is Distinguished Professor of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA and a member of the African Arts editorial board. aroberts@arts.ucla.edu Online Issn: 1937-2108 Print Issn: 0001-9933 © 2020 by the Regents of the University of California.2020The Regents of the University of California African Arts (2020) 53 (4): 15–16. https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00547 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Search Site Citation Allen F. Roberts; Daniel P. Biebuyck: 1925–2019. African Arts 2020; 53 (4): 15–16. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00547 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentAll JournalsAfrican Arts Search Advanced Search Daniel P. Biebuyck died on December 31, 2019, aged 94. First trained in philology and law at the University of Ghent, Dr. Biebuyck took advanced degrees in cultural anthropology at the London School of Economics. Working for the Belgian Institute for Scientific Research in Central Africa from 1949 to 1961, he undertook detailed ethnographic studies in east-central Belgian Congo among Lega, Nyanga, Bembe, and related peoples. He wrote monographs and scholarly articles from these experiences, and through shorter IRSAC projects, he visited more than fifty other Congolese ethnic groups, contributing to wide-ranging overviews such as Congo Tribes and Parties (1961) that he coauthored with Mary Douglas. Through a position at the University of Delaware in 1961, Dr. Biebuyck helped found the Department of Anthropology. After teaching anthropology at UCLA from 1964 to... © 2020 by the Regents of the University of California.2020The Regents of the University of California You do not currently have access to this content.

Katherine Groo, Bad Film Histories: Ethnography and the Early Archive

Katherine Groo begins Bad Film Histories with a story of chance and serendipity. Having contacted the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in the hopes of acquiring a copy of Martin and Osa Johnson’s Simba: King of the Beasts (1928), she discovered when the DVD arrived that ‘it carried with it an unexpected surplus’ (p. 1). Accompanying Johnson’s work was an unidentified four-minute film shot in the Belgian Congo, consisting of a series of images familiar to viewers of ethnographic cinema: rivers, grasslands, a hunter killing a deer, women preparing food. Curious about this clip, Groo contacted the archivists but they could provide her with no further information. This chance encounter, Groo recalls, both ‘revealed – and blurred – the dividing line between good and bad objects, between the “real” (desirable, nameable, archivable) collection and the ethnographic scrapheap’ (p. 2). In Bad Film Histories Groo attends to the ‘vast margins of the archives’ that are composed in large part from these scraps and fragments (p. 2). She does not argue for the unrecognized value of such material or for overturning entrenched critical hierarchies about what merits scholarly attention; instead she uses these largely forgotten films to prompt a deeper consideration of ‘film history, historiography, and the archive’ (p. 3).

Looking at Africa with Lisbon Eyes

Suddenly, in the summer of 1960, the map of Africa gained a new political outline, with the proclamation of nine independences. But the majority of Luanda’s newspapers appeared not to see the ‘wind of change’ blowing through the continent. In its pages, the news of Africa would barely mention more than the crisis in one of its neighbours, the former Belgian Congo. The analysis of the news about the proclamation of independences leads us to formulate the hypothesis that the relative invisibility of the smooth transitions and the major emphasis given to turbulent situations in the continent contributed to value the Portuguese colonial model. Crossing the analysis with research made in archive, this article also contributes to the characterisation of the Angolan daily press on the eve of the Portuguese colonial war.

Fetishizing the Foot: Mobility and Meaning in Indian Ocean Sandals

Fetishizing the Foot: Mobility and Meaning in Indian Ocean Sandals

My Unexpected Journey to Psychiatry

My Unexpected Journey to Psychiatry