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Call for Brussels statue to be melted and made into memorial for Congo victims
Mon 21 Feb 2022
A bronze statue of 19th-century Belgian king Léopold II in the centre of Brussels could be melted down and turned into a monument to the millions who died during his brutal rule of the Belgian Congo and other victims of colonialism, an expert group has suggested.
The group of historians, architects and other specialists, commissioned by the Brussels regional government, also suggests a second option for the Léopold II bronze: creating an open-air statue park to house the equestrian work, along with other controversial monuments to figures of the colonial past.
The two scenarios were proposed in a 256-page report on the “decolonisation” of public space in the Belgian capital, which was commissioned by Brussels after Black Lives Matter protests swept across the city in 2020.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-congo-victims
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