"Nostalgies post-coloniales" is first and foremost a collection of stories and reflections from Belgian expatriates who have lived through the history of Zaire from independence to the present day.  Through their testimonies, we meet personalities as diverse as the Belgian Ambassador in Kin, the prosecutor of the Order of Scheutist Missionaries in Zaire, a university professor and advisor to President Mobutu, a businessman nicknamed "the embassador of the Flemish" and close to the President, a judge who paints African women, a radical anti-racist museum curator, and a Zairean railway company executive, novelist and essayist.  We are given a glimpse of the multifaceted, sometimes nostalgic, sometimes critical vision of Zaire over the last thirty years, through the eyes of Europeans and Zairian intellectuals alike.

 

More than just a report, this document is a forward-looking reflection on racism, apartheid, decolonization, recolonization, the democratic struggle and, quite simply, the future of this country.