HALLE, Belgium: For a long time, few people in the small Belgian town of Halle paid much attention to the monuments. They were just fixtures in a local park, tributes to great men of the past.
But these are very different times, and yesterday’s heroes can be today’s racist villains.
And so it was that three weeks ago, a bust of Leopold II, the Belgian king who has been held responsible for the deaths of millions of Congolese, was spattered in red paint, labeled “Murderer,” and later knocked off its pedestal.
Nearby, a pale sandstone statue formally known as the “Monument to the Colonial Pioneers” has stood for 93 years. It depicts a naked Congolese boy offering a bowl of fruit in gratitude to Lt. Gen. Baron Alphonse Jacques de Dixmude, a Belgian soldier accused of atrocities in Africa.
These monuments, and others across Europe, are coming under scrutiny as never before, no longer a collective blind spot on the moral conscience of the public. Protests sweeping the world that followed the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed last month by Minneapolis police, are focusing attention on Europe’s colonial past and racism of the present.
Eric Baranyanka, a 60-year-old musician who came to Halle as a refugee from Belgium’s African colony of Burundi when was 3, said he has always found the statue of Jacques “humiliating.”
“I had this pride being who I was. It was in complete contradiction with that statue,” he said.
But Halle Mayor Marc Snoeck appears to be more representative of his citizenry. He said he “never really noticed” the monuments until an anti-colonial group raised awareness of them a dozen years ago in the town of 40,000 people about 15 kilometers (10 miles) south of Brussels.
“I’m part of an older generation and I heard precious little during my studies about colonialism, the Congo Free State and the Belgian Congo,” said the 66-year-old Snoeck, noting he was taught about how Europeans brought civilization, not exploitation and death, to the heart of Africa.
Statues of Leopold, who reigned from 1865 to 1909, have been defaced in a half-dozen cities, including Antwerp, where one was burned and had to be removed for repairs. It’s unclear if it will ever come back.
But Leopold is hardly the only focus. Snoeck found it remarkable that protesters have not targeted the statue of Jacques, which he called “possibly even worse.”
The mayor said the statue is known locally as “The White Negro,” because of the hue of the sandstone depicting the Congolese youth offering the fruit to the colonial-era Belgian who condoned or was responsible for murders, rapes and maiming workers in the Congo Free State.
Baranyanka was lovingly raised by a white foster family in Halle and said he never experienced prejudice until after he had been in Belgium for about a decade.
His 98-year-old foster mother Emma Monsaert recalls others in town asking her if she was really going to take in a Black youth in the 1960s: “I said, ‘Why not, it is a child after all.’”
But at school, Baranyanka found out how others felt about race.
One teacher poured salt on his head, he recalled, saying it would make it whiter. When he wanted a part in a school play of the 17th century fairy tale “Puss in Boots,” he was denied a role, with a teacher telling him: “Mr. Baranyanka, in those days there were no Blacks in Europe.”
He counts himself lucky to have had a close circle of friends that survives to this day. As a teenager, he often talked to them about the monuments, his African roots and Leopold’s legacy.
“They understood, and they were grateful I explained it,” he said.
On Tuesday, Congo celebrates 60 years of independence from Belgium. The city of Ghent will remove a statue of Leopold to mark the anniversary and perhaps take a healing step forward.
Eunice Yahuma, a local leader of a group called Belgian Youth Against Racism and the youth division of the Christian Democrats, knows about Belgium’s troubled history.
“Many people don’t know the story, because it is not being told. Somehow they know, ‘Let’s not discuss this, because it is grim history,’” said Yahuma, who has Congolese roots. “It is only now that we have this debate that people start looking into this.”
The spirit of the times is different, she said.
“Black people used to be less vocal. They felt the pain, but they didn’t discuss it. Now, youth is very outspoken and we give our opinion,” Yahuma added.
History teachers like 24-year-old Andries Devogel are trying to infuse their lessons with the context of colonialism.
“Within the next decade, they will be expecting us to stress the impact of colonialism on current-day society, that colonialism and racism are inextricably linked,” Devogel said. “Is contemporary racism not the consequence of a colonial vision? How can you exploit a people if you are not convinced of their second-class status?”
The colonial era brought riches to Belgium, and the city of Halle benefited, building a rail yard that brought jobs. Native son Franz Colruyt started a business that grew into the supermarket giant Colruyt Group with 30,000 employees — one of them Baranyanka’s foster father.
Halle has escaped the violence seen in other cities from the protests, and officials would rather focus attention on its Gothic church, the Basilica of St. Martin, as well as its famous fields of bluebells and Geuze beer.
Baranyanka, who will soon stage a musical show of his life called “De Zwette,” — ”The Black One,” returned recently to the park and the monuments.
Despite the hostility and humiliation he felt as a youngster, he didn’t consider their destruction as the way to go.
“Vandalism produces nothing, perhaps only the opposite effect. And you see that suddenly such racism surges again,” he said. “It breeds polarization again. This thing of ‘us against them.’”
Devogel, the teacher, says it is the task of education “to let kids get in touch with history.”
“Otherwise, it will remain a copper bust without meaning,” he said of the Leopold II monument. “And you will never realize why, for all these people, it is so deeply insulting.”
In Belgian town, monuments expose a troubled colonial legacy
In Belgian town, monuments expose a troubled colonial legacy
- Protests sweeping the world that followed the death of George Floyd are focusing attention on Europe’s colonial past and racism of the present
SpaceX’s latest Starship test flight ends with another explosion
Nearly two months after an explosion sent flaming debris raining down on the Turks and Caicos, SpaceX launched another mammoth Starship rocket on Thursday, but lost contact minutes into the test flight as the spacecraft came tumbling down and broke apart.
This time, wreckage from the latest explosion was seen streaming from the skies over Florida. It was not immediately known whether the spacecraft's self-destruct system had kicked in to blow it up.
The 403-foot (123-meter) rocket blasted off from Texas. SpaceX caught the first-stage booster back at the pad with giant mechanical arms, but engines on the spacecraft on top started shutting down as it streaked eastward for what was supposed to be a controlled entry over the Indian Ocean, half a world away. Contact was lost as the spacecraft went into an out-of-control spin.
Starship reached nearly 90 miles (150 kilometers) in altitude before trouble struck and before four mock satellites could be deployed. It was not immediately clear where it came down, but images of flaming debris were captured from Florida, including near Cape Canaveral, and posted online.
The space-skimming flight was supposed to last an hour.
“Unfortunately this happened last time too, so we have some practice at this now,” SpaceX flight commentator Dan Huot said from the launch site.
SpaceX later confirmed that the spacecraft experienced “a rapid unscheduled disassembly" during the ascent engine firing. "Our team immediately began coordination with safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency responses,” the company said in a statement posted online.
Starship didn't make it quite as high or as far as last time.
NASA has booked Starship to land its astronauts on the moon later this decade. SpaceX’s Elon Musk is aiming for Mars with Starship, the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket.
Like last time, Starship had mock satellites to release once the craft reached space on this eighth test flight as a practice for future missions. They resembled SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites, thousands of which currently orbit Earth, and were meant to fall back down following their brief taste of space.
Starship’s flaps, computers and fuel system were redesigned in preparation for the next big step: returning the spacecraft to the launch site just like the booster.
During the last demo, SpaceX captured the booster at the launch pad, but the spacecraft blew up several minutes later over the Atlantic. No injuries or major damage were reported.
According to an investigation that remains ongoing, leaking fuel triggered a series of fires that shut down the spacecraft’s engines. The on-board self-destruct system kicked in as planned.
SpaceX said it made several improvements to the spacecraft following the accident, and the Federal Aviation Administration recently cleared Starship once more for launch.
Starships soar out of the southernmost tip of Texas near the Mexican border. SpaceX is building another Starship complex at Cape Canaveral, home to the company’s smaller Falcon rockets that ferry astronauts and satellites to orbit.
Trump casts doubt on NATO solidarity, despite it aiding the US after Sept. 11
- Trump also suggested that the US might abandon its commitments to the alliance if member countries don’t meet defense spending targets
- Last year, NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said a record 23 of NATO’s 32 member nations had hit the military alliance’s defense spending target
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Thursday expressed uncertainty that NATO would come to the US’s defense if the country were attacked, though the alliance did just that after Sept. 11 — the only time in its history that the defense guarantee has been invoked.
Trump also suggested that the US might abandon its commitments to the alliance if member countries don’t meet defense spending targets, a day after his pick for NATO ambassador assured senators that the administration’s commitment to the military alliance was “ironclad.”
Trump’s comments denigrating NATO, which was formed to counter Soviet aggression during the Cold War, are largely in line with his yearslong criticism of the alliance, which he has accused of not paying its fair share toward the cost of defense. But they come at a time of heightened concern in the Western world over Trump’s cozy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has long seen NATO as a threat, and as the US president seeks to pressure Ukraine into agreeing to a peace deal with the country that invaded it three years ago.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent the alliance into upheaval last month when he said in a speech that the US would not participate in any peacekeeping force in Ukraine, which is not a NATO member, and would not defend any country that participated in it if attacked by Russia.
Trump said Thursday in the Oval Office that other countries would not come to the defense of the US — though they have done exactly that, in the only instance that the Article 5 defense guarantee was invoked.
“You know the biggest problem I have with NATO? I really, I mean, I know the guys very well. They’re friends of mine. But if the United States was in trouble, and we called them, we said, ‘We got a problem, France. We got a problem, couple of others I won’t mention. Do you think they’re going to come and protect us?’ They’re supposed to. I’m not so sure.”
Article 5 was invoked after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, leading to NATO’s largest operation in Afghanistan. France’s military participated in the operation.
“We are loyal and faithful allies,” French President Emmanuel Macron responded Thursday, expressing “respect and friendship” toward US leaders.
“I think we’re entitled to expect the same,” he said.
Macron invoked “centuries-old history,” namechecking the Marquis de Lafayette, a 19-year-old French nobleman, who was a major-general in the American Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, and Gen. John Pershing, commander of the American army in France during World War I. Macron added that a few days ago, he met American World War II veterans who landed on Omaha Beach as part of the D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France.
France and the US “have always been there for each other,” Macron said.
When asked Thursday if it he was making it US policy that the US would not defend NATO countries that don’t meet military spending targets, Trump said, “well, I think it’s common sense, right? If they don’t pay, I’m not going to defend them. No, I’m not going to defend them.”
Trump has suggested since his 2016 presidential campaign that the US under his leadership might not comply with the alliance’s mutual defense guarantees and would only defend countries that met targets to commit 2 percent of their gross domestic products on military spending.
The US is the most powerful nation of the seven-decade alliance, has the largest economy among members and spends more on defense than any other member.
The US was one of 12 nations that formed NATO following World War II to counter the threat posed by the Soviet Union to Western European during the Cold War. Its membership has since grown to 32 countries, and its bedrock mutual defense guarantee, known as Article 5, states that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all.
Trump on Thursday also seemed to suggest the US commitment to NATO might be leveraged in his trade war as he seeks to target what he says are unfair trade policies with other nations, including the European Union.
“I view NATO as potentially good, but you’ve got to get, you’ve got to get some good thinking in NATO. It’s very unfair, what’s been happening,” Trump said. “Until I came along, we were paying close to 100 percent of NATO. So think of it, we’re paying 100 percent of their military, and they’re screwing us on trade.”
On Wednesday, Trump’s choice for NATO ambassador, Matt Whitaker, said at his confirmation hearing that in regards to the US commitment to the NATO alliance and specifically Article 5, “It will be ironclad.”
Last year, NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said a record 23 of NATO’s 32 member nations had hit the military alliance’s defense spending target.
Trump has taken credit for countries meeting those targets because of his threats, and Stoltenberg himself has said Trump was responsible for getting other nations to increase their spending.
Hegseth dismisses as “garbage” critique of US stance on Russia
WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday dismissed as “garbage” accusations that Washington had taken a pro-Russia stance, saying President Donald Trump was pursuing a peaceful end to Russia’s three-year-old invasion of Ukraine.
Trump has piled pressure on Ukraine, pausing all US military and intelligence assistance to Kyiv, as his administration pushes for a negotiated solution to the biggest conflict in Europe since World War Two.
Trump and his advisers, including Hegseth, have also declined to brand Russia as the aggressor.
“The press is interested in narratives. Our president is interested in peace. So we will get characterized one way or another: ‘Oh, your stance is pro-Russia or pro-’ ... it’s all garbage,” Hegseth told reporters.
“The President got elected to bring peace in this conflict, and he is working with both sides in a way that only President Trump can ... to bring them to the table to end the killing.”
Hegseth spoke alongside British Defense Secretary John Healey, who aimed to discuss a peace plan for Ukraine during a meeting at the Pentagon on Thursday.
“It’s the detail of those discussions which are rightly behind the scenes that the defense secretary and I will now pursue this afternoon,” Healey said.
Over the weekend, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov praised Trump’s “common sense” aim to end the war, while accusing European powers which have rallied around Kyiv of seeking to prolong the conflict.
Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had acrimonious talks at the White House on February 28 but since then the two sides have resumed work on a revenue-sharing minerals deal.
At his speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, Trump said he had received a letter from Zelensky in which the Ukrainian leader said he was “ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible.”
Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said on Thursday he is in discussions with Ukraine for a peace agreement framework to end hostilities with Russia and that a meeting is planned next week with the Ukrainians in Saudi Arabia.
“We’re now in discussions to coordinate a meeting with the Ukrainians,” Witkoff told reporters at the White House. He said it would likely be in Riyadh or Jeddah.
EU leaders commit to working together after Trump signals that Europe must defend itself
- “Europe faces a clear and present danger, and therefore Europe has to be able to protect itself, to defend itself,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen
- Pledge underscores sea change in geopolitics spurred on by Trump, who has undermined 80 years of cooperation
BRUSSELS: European Union leaders on Thursday committed to working together to bolster the continent’s defenses and to free up hundreds of billions of euros for security after US President Donald Trump’s repeated warnings that he would cut them adrift to face the threat of Russia alone.
With the growing conviction that they will now have to fend for themselves, countries that have faltered on defense spending for decades held emergency talks in Brussels to explore new ways to beef up their security and ensure future protection for Ukraine.
“Today history is being written,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters after the summit ended.
She said the 27 EU leaders are “determined to ensure Europe’s security and to act with the scale, the speed and the resolve that this situation demands. We are determined to invest more, to invest better and to invest faster together.”
The pledge underscored a sea change in geopolitics spurred on by Trump, who has undermined 80 years of cooperation based on the understanding that the US would help protect European nations following World War II.
The leaders signed off on a move to loosen budget restrictions so that willing EU countries can increase their military spending. They also urged the European Commission to seek new ways “to facilitate significant defense spending” in all member states, a statement said.
The EU’s executive branch estimates that around 650 billion euros ($702 billion) could be freed up that way.
The leaders also took note of a commission offer of loans worth 150 billion euros ($162 billion) to buy new military equipment and invited EU headquarters staff “to examine this proposal as a matter of urgency.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a staunch supporter of Trump and considered to be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in Europe, refused to endorse part of the summit statement in favor of Ukraine.
But the 26 other EU leaders approved the bloc’s stance that there can be no negotiations on Ukraine without Ukraine and that the Europeans must be involved in any talks involving their security. The Europeans have so far been sidelined in the US-led negotiations with Russia.
In other developments, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said talks between Ukraine and the US on ending the war will take place in Saudi Arabia next week. In his nightly address, Zelensky said he would travel to Saudi Arabia on Monday to meet the country’s crown prince, and his team would stay on to hold talks with US officials.
In recent weeks, Trump has overturned old certainties about the reliability of the US as a security partner as he embraces Russia, withdraws American support for Ukraine and upends the tradition of cooperation with Europe that has been the bedrock of Western security for generations.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said that three years of war in Ukraine and a shift in attitudes in Washington “pose entirely new challenges for us, and Europe must take up this challenge ... and it must win.”
“We will arm ourselves faster, smarter and more efficiently than Russia,” Tusk said.
Spending plans win early support
Zelensky welcomed the plan to loosen budget rules and expressed hopes that some of the new spending could be used to strengthen Ukraine’s own defense industry, which can produce weapons more cheaply than elsewhere in Europe and closer to the battlefields where they are needed.
“We are very thankful that we are not alone, and these are not just words. We feel it. It’s very important,” Zelensky said, looking far more relaxed among Europe’s leaders in Brussels than almost a week ago when he received a verbal lashing from Trump in Washington.
Friedrich Merz, the likely next chancellor of Germany, and summit chairman Antonio Costa discussed ways to fortify Europe’s defenses on a short deadline. Merz pushed plans this week to loosen his nation’s rules on running up debt to allow for higher defense spending.
Others too appeared ready to do more.
“Spend, spend, spend on defense and deterrence. That’s the most important message,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told reporters.
The call is a sharp departure from decades of decline in military spending in Europe, where defense often ranked low in many budgetary considerations after the Cold War.
In an address to his country Wednesday evening, French President Emmanuel Macron said the bloc would “take decisive steps.”
“Member states will be able to increase their military spending,” he said, noting that “massive joint funding will be provided to buy and produce some of the most innovative munitions, tanks, weapons and equipment in Europe.”
Macron conferred with his EU counterparts about the possibility of using France’s nuclear deterrent to protect the continent from Russian threats.
Helping EU countries find more money
The short-term benefits of the budget plan offered by von der Leyen were not obvious. Most of the increased defense spending would have to come from national budgets at a time when many countries are already overburdened with debt.
Part of the proposal includes measures to ensure struggling member states will not be punished for going too deep into the red if additional spending is earmarked for defense.
“Europe faces a clear and present danger, and therefore Europe has to be able to protect itself, to defend itself,” she said.
France is struggling to reduce an excessive annual budget deficit of 5 percent of GDP, after running up its total debt burden to 112 percent of GDP with spending on relief for businesses and consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic and the energy crisis that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Five other countries using the euro currency have debt levels over 100 percent of GDP: Belgium, Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal.
Europe’s largest economy, Germany, has more room to borrow, with a debt level of 62 percent of GDP.
Pressing security needs in Ukraine
Part of any security plan would be to help Ukraine defend itself from Russian attacks such as the one that hit Zelensky’s hometown overnight.
A Russian missile killed four people staying at a hotel in Kryvyi Rih, in central Ukraine, shortly after volunteers from a humanitarian organization moved in. The volunteers included Ukrainian, American and British nationals, but it wasn’t clear whether those people were among the 31 who were wounded.
Early this week, Trump ordered a pause in US military supplies being sent to Ukraine as he sought to press Zelensky to engage in negotiations to end the war with Russia. The move brought fresh urgency to Thursday’s summit.
But the meeting in Brussels did not address Ukraine’s most pressing needs. It was not aimed at drumming up more arms and ammunition to fill any supply vacuum created by the US freeze. Nor will all nations agree to unblock the estimated 183 billion euros ($196 billion) in frozen Russian assets held in a Belgian clearing house, a pot of ready cash that could be seized.
Macron tells Trump France is ‘loyal and steadfast ally’ in NATO
BRUSSELS: French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said France was a “loyal and steadfast ally” in NATO after US leader Donald Trump questioned whether alliance members would come to the United States’ defense.
“We have always been there for each other,” Macron told reporters in Brussels after a meeting of EU leaders to discuss European defense. He said France had shown “respect and friendship” to the United States, and “we are entitled to ask for the same thing.”
