Confronting colonial past: What's at stake in Belgian king's visit to DR Congo?

Imperialism is a word on a lot of lips these days. Ukrainians use it to denounce an invasion that they say recalls the days of Czarist Russia, while Vladimir Putin uses it to rally support against the US and its allies. In the spotlight over the next week is one of the darkest examples of imperialism as the King of Belgium kicks off a tour of DR Congo.

What words should King Philippe employ in evoking what was originally not a colony but the personal property of his forefather King Léopold II? Six decades after independence, what kind of reception will he receive from the Congolese?In the annals of imperialism, the expansionist scramble for power and riches in Congo stands out as a particularly grim tale. What can we learn from the 19th-century slaughter and enslavement of a land 77 times bigger than Belgium? How does the ruthless extraction of rubber and wood back then inform today's scramble for the commodities of the information age: precious metals like cobalt, mined essentially in DR Congo?More broadly, how to address the past to inform the present, whether it's France in Algeria, Britain in Kenya or Belgium in DR Congo?Produced by Charles Wente, Elise Marné and Guillaume Gougeon

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