Symbols In The Builder King
As for Leopold II, he died a year after Belgium came in possession of the Congo, but his imprint on
the Belgian landmark is still visible. With the money gained from his Congo, he was able to realise his
wish for grandeur and architectural magnificence. The Builder King , as he is often referred to in
Belgium, provided numerous cities over the country with gorgeous buildings and monuments, and
reshaped their urban landscapes with squares, avenues, and parks. The two cities which benefitted
most were Brussels, the capital, and Ostend, a fishing harbour on which Leopold set his heart. Under
Leopold II, Ostend was adorned with a splendid sea walk, luxurious hotels, villas, a race track, and
quickly became known as La Reine des Plages ( The ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...
Street monuments, by nature, have a political meaning and remind the passer by s of the persona
memorialised and his (or her) deeds. The monuments achieve this significance with the particular
choices made around their erection: their style and design, emplacement, and scale. In Ostend, the
gigantic statue depicts a triumphant Leopold on horseback, with a crowd of his adulating subjects
(both Congolese and Belgians) at his feet. It is strategically placed on the sea promenade, is very
almost aggressively high and can thus be seen from far away. Yet, public statuary can also encourage
demonstrations of resistance: in 2004 a group of local anarchists called De Stoeten Ostendenoare
symbolically sawed the hand of a Congolese among the statue complex in order to denounce the
abuses committed by the colonial regime (such as the severing of hands in this case) and the role
played by the King in the Congo. Initially, the city council was in favour of leaving the altered statue
as such, as a reminder of Leopold s dark colonial past. Yet, to this day, the debate concerning the
suitability of a repair and replacement of the hand is still running. In Brussels as well, Leopold s
monumental statue is in a public thoroughfare, upright on his horse, looking masterly over a big
boulevard and offices, and with the Royal Palace behind him. Ironically, he is facing Matongé, the
district of Brussels where the Congolese immigrants settled down during the past decades. This statue
has also been victim of vandalism, when, in 2008, the anti establishment writer Théophile de Giraud,
climbed on it and painted it in red, symbolising the blood shed by Leopold II in the Congo. He was
protesting against the fact that a man who committed crimes against humanity was commemorated as
one of the nation s great men, and was pleading for the removal of the statue.
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