Congo-Arab Heritage in Historical Narratives -CAHN (CAHN)

During the second half of the nineteenth century coastal merchants from the Swahili city-states on the African Indian coast engaged in the trade of slaves and ivory and gained control over the Upper Congo Basin in eastern Congo. The Congo-Arab War (1892-1894) between the colonial troops of King Leopold II and the coastal merchants ended the Swahili-Arab hegemony in the eastern Congo. The war became embedded in the narrative of the anti-slavery campaign as well as in the legitimation of the Congo Free State. Objects, taken as war trophies, found their way from family heirlooms to the Royal Museum of Central Africa (RMCA) and the War Heritage Museum (WHM). They too became tools of colonial propaganda, translated by their conqueror’s narrative display at both museums that as such sustained the one-sided imagery of Arab slave traders. However, the Arab presence had a lasting impact on the populations in the region, where Swahili is today the common language, and where coastal dress and the practice of Islam are well established and where questions on the context and whereabouts of this legacy remain unanswered. It is precisely this legacy, which includes the connection between the source communities and the objects that needs to be explored in order to construct a multi-vocal perspective on Congo-Arab history and heritage. Because of separate research traditions, created by colonisation, no intensive research has been carried out on these objects. As a multidisciplinary team we propose to re-engage with these collections in a threefold approach: (1) investigating their provenance from a transnational perspective, (2) their biographies, and (3) enabling dialogue between the source communities in the DRC and along the slave trade routes, the Congolese diaspora, the research community and civil society. Data on the collections will be integrated into the museums’ current databases in order to facilitate their online access for the various stakeholders. This will comply with institutional policies concerning collection management including conservation matters and communication strategies of the RMCA and the WHM. The agency of source communities and diasporic actors will constitute a crucial element in formulating historical questions of provenance. Comparative research in museums in Tanzania, Oman, Germany and Great Britain will add complementary data to issues of provenance, the movement of objects and their separation. Source communities in the DRC and the Congolese diaspora will also participate in object biographies through recollection of places and stories linked to the objects. This will inform on the transformation of meaning of objects when context changes. In order to introduce the resulting historical narratives into society - thereby fostering a more nuanced historical understanding and critical historical consciousness by challenging the stereotypical dualism between the ‘bad’ Swahili-Arab slave traders and the ‘good’ Belgian colonizers - we will establish a collaboration between scholars in educational science for teaching programs, artistic interpretations and public oriented events such as exhibitions. Most importantly, this implies an active role for the various stakeholders in the civil society in order to identify the most suitable and sustainable formats for sharing and valorising the new insights in this historical period.