As recently as World War I, Belgium was still actively trying to add to its colonies in central Africa. Just 40 years later, there was pressure everywhere to just leave. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
A stamp with a gorilla on it from a European colony in Africa. In todays world we are on dangerous ground. I considered not doing the stamp. At least the gorilla is native to the territory. I will report the intentions of the Belgian colonial administration and why it failed in it’s stated and real objectives. This I believe will show a large contribution to why the post independence countries were such failures.
Todays stamp is issue A29, a 10 Centimes stamp issued by the Belgian administration of the United Nation Trust Territory of Ruanda-Urundi in 1959. It was part of a 14 stamp issue in various denominations showing examples of the local wildlife. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether it is mint or used.
During World War I Belgium sent an invasion force into the area from neighboring Belgian Congo. The area was then part of German East Africa. The attack was successful and the wars end saw Belgium occupying the territory. Post war the League of Nations recognized Belgium’s administration of the area but put forth conditions that Belgium was to ready the area for independence by investing in education and economic development. The Belgians had invaded under the old profit model where the economic output of the area is first used to make remittances back to Belgium with only a fraction remaining in the area to fund progress in the colony. The Belgians stated their goals this way so as to justify an extended time of the area as a profitable colony. “The real work is to change the African in his essence, to transform his soul, to do that one must love him and enjoy daily contact with him. He must be cured of his thoughtlessness, he must accustom himself to living in society, he must overcome his inertia.” Not sure any amount of time or money could achieve all that.
The money to accomplish it was miniscule. The education system was mainly just charity through the Belgian Catholic Church. The economic output was mainly coffee plantations of the type that rarely survive independence. At the time of independence the two new countries had less than 100 native college graduates between them. There were Royal lines in the two countries that predated colonial times and still ruled aspects of the administration of natives. These were not popular and were from a minority tribe. It was still Belgium’s intention to turn the countries fully over to them.
The Crown Prince in Burundi tried a stunt to give the Royal line more legitimacy. He returned early from his Belgian education with no degree but marketing himself as a labor leader who was going to rid the place of the Belgians. His party did well in the Belgian organized elections. The Prince and now soon to be Prime Minister was then assassinated. The heads of the rival party were blamed and quickly executed. The show trials purported to show the Belgian Colonial Governor Jean-Paul Harroy was behind it. This got rid of the rival party and surely sped up Belgium’s departure.
The unproven accusations greatly damaged the reputation of Governor Harroy. He had been somewhat a star with a PhD in Colonial Sciences. Something I am sure that is not much studied anymore. His thesis on African soil erosion resulting from colonial agricultural methods was quite influential worldwide and part of the decolonization movement. In any case Harroy returned to Belguim to become a University Professor and both Royal lines were overthrown within a few years.
There was a well known movie called “Hotel Rwanda” that showed scared locals and westerners marooned there desperately trying to get the Belgians to intervene during one of Rwanda’s many troubled periods 30 years post independence. They didn’t of course, by then they knew that their original mission was impossible and the Africans were themselves the ones to end their troubles.
The Mountain Gorilla is native to that part of Africa. They are critically endangered with only about 880 remaining. This is a small improvement over a low of 410 estimated in 1981. There is a black market trade in gorilla babies stolen to be sold as pets or for Asian zoos. This also usually results in the death of an adult who will fight to the death for the baby.
Well my drink is empty and so I will open the discussion in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.