THE FALSE NOSTALGIA OF A LUMUMBA SQUARE IN OSTEND

On the eve of Africa Day 2025, as I delivered my opening remarks prior to Professor P.L.O. Lumumba taking the stage as Keynote Speaker, I was reminded once more of the unfinished business of memory and justice. It was a poignant moment. Not simply because I share with Professor Lumumba a Belgian experience. His was brief, spending time in Ghent, a short drive from Ostend my adopted hometown, taking his doctorate. And mine becoming enduring having made Belgium home since the past three decades. Brief or enduring, we both carry the heavy legacy of a nation that refuses to reckon with its past.

Nine years ago, in May 2016, I introduced a motion in the Ostend City Council. The motion was to name a public square in honour of Patrice Emery Lumumba. Not as an act of provocation, but as an act of memory, justice, and hope. The motion sparked public debate. And with it, a flurry of reactions. Some were thoughtful, many spiteful, and a few, frankly, racist. One such reaction was based on an article on 20 May 2016 published in the Zeewacht newspaper about my motion. It was magnified on social media, dripped with cynicism and ignorance. It mocked my proposed “Lumumba Street” by listing a litany of dictators and insurgents as possible alternatives. It was more than a rejection of the proposal. It was a rejection of the very idea that history should be re-examined. That wounds should be acknowledged, and that the silenced should be heard.

The opposition I encountered then was significant. It lingers today. This resistance was rooted in what I have come to understand as false nostalgia. This is a sentimental yearning not for the Congo as it was. It is a longing for a time when its suffering under Belgian colonialism was comfortably ignored. This is nostalgia not for memory, but for amnesia. For a past airbrushed of its atrocities. And this brand of nostalgia is dangerous. It breeds indifference and erects barriers to healing. It also robs our children and grandchildren of the chance to learn the truth about the world they have inherited.

Naming a square after Patrice Lumumba is not about erasing Belgian heritage. It is about enriching it. It is about admitting, however late, that Belgium’s imperial footprint has left scars. It has left deep, painful, and still visible scars. But it is also about choosing to build monuments not to domination, but to dialogue. Not to silence, but to truth. Lumumba was more than the first Prime Minister of an independent Congo. He was the voice of a people long dehumanised and exploited, a pan-African beacon extinguished far too early. He was, undeniably, a victim of an international conspiracy in which Belgian complicity is no longer contested. To honour him in Ostend is important. The sea fittingly links Belgium to the wider world. It also does so symbolically. This would be a powerful gesture. It would be a gesture of reconciliation. It would say to our grandchildren: we no longer turn away. We confront, we acknowledge, and we grow.

I am the Patron of The AfrikaFora, convener of Nzuko2025. Yesterday, this event brought together Africans, Europeans, and global citizens under the theme “Sovereignty and Independence of African States.” I reiterated that governance is a continuum. Our past, glorious or grotesque, can’t be divorced from our current. I formally retired from Belgian party politics in December 2024. Still, I am confident in my colleagues like Silke Beirens, Sofie Cloet, Herman Lodewyckx, Natacha Waldmann, and Wouter De Vriendt. They continue to champion the values we collectively stood for, though I had the international development portfolio. Together, we understood that the Lumumba Square proposal was not about one man’s legacy. It was about Europe finding the moral courage to reimagine itself.

History has shown that symbolic gestures, when grounded in truth, have corrective and restorative power. Germany’s remembrance culture stands today not as a scar, but as a source of moral strength. South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, imperfect as it was, offered a framework for healing. Belgium too must find its way. A Patrice Lumumba Square in Ostend would be a step – modest, yes, but meaningful – towards that destination.

The battle for truth and justice is never truly won or lost. It is passed along, from generation to generation. I trust that the people of Ostend, and of Belgium, are ready to move beyond the comfort of false nostalgia. They are prepared to embrace the courage of historical responsibility.

It’s time. Let us name it: Patrice Lumumba Square.