A Silenced History from Belgian Congo: A Mixed Race History



You haven’t heard much from me lately. I was writing a book and it’s finally finished and published. The book I wrote together with Kathleen Ghequière traces back a history of Africa and Europe that has been ignored for too much time. Some of you know about the mixed race children of Australia thanks to movies such as ‘Rabbit Proof Fence’ or even Baz Luhrmann’s latest ‘Australia’. But concerning Africa this history is unknown.

It seems as if the European colonizer didn’t have intimate relationships with the African colonized. But many children were born out of relations between white Europeans and black Africans during colonization. These children undermined the racial colonial order with their existence. These children have been hidden and their stories silenced. At least for the Belgian Congo this story is now unveiled and in this book the mixed race children of Belgium and Congo express their history freely.



Through the testimony of two dozens of mixed race Belgians born in Congo we have tried to tell a story which is mostly unknown to the Belgian and Flemish public. Kathleen Ghequière interviewed them. They were all people born during colonization from one black and one white parent. Some of them grew up in their families but most of them weren’t recognized by their fathers and were taken away from their mothers at a very young age. The colonial authority separated these children from their mothers to raise them in schools only for ‘mulatto children’. At independence the colonial authorities decided to deport the younger once (between 2 and 16 years old) to Belgium to be adopted in Belgian families. The circumstances are still unknown, which children were send over and why is still a mystery. Even the exact number of children deported is hard to tell.

Kathleen Ghequière found many of them living in Belgium who were prepared to tell their side of the story. I edited these interviews, translated those done in French and tried to make of more than a thousand pages of testimony an accessible and readable book. It became a book of 250 pages full of beautiful pictures from the colonial past out of their personal archives. Filip Claus took recent pictures of the witnesses and I added with some academic assistance some social historical explanation and maps.

I am very happy with the result and hope that the book will be translated in French soon. It was mostly important to publish the book in the Flemish part of Belgium because the Flemish don’t know anything about the mixed race children of their country. In French neutral terms such as ‘metissage’ and ‘metis’ define these people in a positive way. But Dutch lacks this kind of vocabulary, mostly because the Dutch speaking people lack any knowledge about this part of their history. The Dutch language lacks emotionally and politically neutral terms for mixed race people (generally the Dutch and Flemish use English or French to express these terms for which they don’t have their own words). Journalists in progressive newspapers in Belgium refer to Barack Obama as a ‘mulat’, a word perceived by many Dutch speaking blacks as offending. We decided to take a provocative and colonial title with a more explaining subtitle in which we introduce a new word in the Dutch language: metis.

De Bastaards van onze kolonie. Verzwegen verhalen van Belgische metissen (The Bastards of our colony. Hidden stories of Belgian metis) is published by Roularta and available at all good book stores in Belgium. You can also order it online

Wednesday 16th of June is the official release at Vooruit (culture center) in Ghent, Belgium. The entrance is free


11 Comments

  1. Congratulations Sibo! I must admit that I didn't expect that also Belgium had a special “race policy” for mixed race children. That these children were separated from their Congolese mothers because there were mixed is new to me. I hope it will be translate into French.

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  2. This book seems very interesting! I had never heard of anything close to this! I wish I could read it- are there any plans for it to be published in English?

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  3. We hope to translate it, but first we'll have to see how the book will be received in Belgium. I am definitely working on it to reach a wider audience. Thx for the support!

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  4. Parabens Sibo!!!!

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  5. Don't you know if it will be translate into English? I would be interested in reading the book being someone of British heritage.

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  6. I'm a Belgian from Liege (Luik) and now living in the USA (Washington DC area)but my parents are originally from the DRCongo. I'm new in the writers world. I already publish a book for children in french in Canada but I am looking for a good publisher. it is not easy. Where did you publish your book? Do they take new writer.
    My blog is Fremonsa
    Best regards,

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  7. Hi Freddy

    The book was published in Dutch by a Flemish publisher (Roularta). If the sales keep on being good we will translate it in French. But not at the same publishing house. Roularta has some agreement with French speaking publishers though and we will have to work with them. if I get to know more I can give you some info.

    Language is still a barrier as publishers only work withing one language (as far as I know). And finding a 'good' publisher is indeed not easy. This is my first publication and even if the sales are good, I nearly did this for free. A good publisher for me is one who uses all media contacts to bring your work to the forefront. This is a start though, and that's what matters more.

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  8. Thank you Sibo Kano. By the way, a big CONGRATULATION for your first book. I'm waiting for the French or English version.
    And I am waiting for your infos.

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  9. Sibo: First, Congrats on your interesting book. Next, I am editing a special issue of a Afro-European magazine on Black Europeans, and I would like your participation. Yes, there is pay. Please contact me at geepoet@gmail.com.
    Thanks,
    Gyavira Lasana

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  10. I hope you published the book in English because blacks in the Americas could spread the book more into a wider audience. Anyways I am Haitian and I am not suprise at all what happened to blacks and mixed race children during those times.Still today blacks have to fight to get in higher places look at the way the world view blacks not good why because of negatives the Europeans told the world.

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  11. My mom tells me stories about her family, and one story she enjoys telling me about is of my great uncle who was mixed. Apparatantly at those times Congolese women would have children with Europeans and then run away 5o villages in fear of their children being taken away from them. I used to think that was rubbish:why would they rake their babies away? But nie I see the truth ...

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