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Papier blanc, encre noir: Cent ans de sulture francophone en Afrique centrale.
Marc Quaghebeur et al., eds. 2 vols. Brussels: Ed. Labor, 1992. 690 pages.
These two volumes are the result of a Belgian francophone project which consists of a first inventory in book form of colonial and postcolonial cultural activities in former Belgian-occupied territories in Central Africa and an exhibition under the same title. The book presents an interesting selective history of cultural activities and intellectual thought related to Central Africa spanning an entire century, though former colonizers and colonized are not given equal footing. Both volumes contain much information from and about (francophone) Belgian perspectives, since the book contains numerous essays on what they thought of Africans and Africa "la bas" and what their life was like in Central Africa--from the time of King Leopold's Independent Congo State, to the "real" Congo colony, the Belgian protectorate Rwanda-Urundi, and finally the post-independence period of the three countries Congo/Zaire, Rwanda, and Burundi. In fact, the language restriction--only francophone texts are taken into account for selection--is somewhat arbitrary, as the editors themselves admit. It would have been relevant to add at least a few translated samples of texts in African languages as well as in Dutch, the other official Belgian language (for quite some time obligatory in the colony), which played--and continues to play--a considerable role in the Africa-inspired literary production of Belgian authors. Still, in spite of the restriction, the project has yielded two voluminous books full of interesting information: a cultural and intellectual mirror of the rather agitated history of Central Africa.
We learn significantly...