The seventieth anniversary of VJ day approaches, somewhat less heralded than I would have expected, but it has led to a variety of public events and the like. One of these was by Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, who gave a speech that surprised me and I suspect many who follow Japanese politics for the degree of contrition it showed--Abe was the PM who publicly questioned that comfort women were subject to coercion in his first term. But he didn't actually specifically say "I'm sorry" and this has ignited a mini-controversy--One camp says this shows Japan has never really reckoned with its past, the other points out that Japan actually has issued quite a few apologies. This isn't helped by the recent resurgence of the nationalist right wing in Japan.

For me, though, this has all been affected by the fact that I recently finished King Leopold's Ghost. Or to put this in other words, this is what Belgium's Royal Museum of Central Africa has to say for its "history" section:

Leopold II and the colony’s origin

The Museum’s history begins with King Leopold II. He was convinced that his small country, which industrialized rapidly between 1865 and 1880, required a colony to support its industrial expansion.

Leopold II employed Henry Morton Stanley, who had found Livingstone in 1872 and sailed the entire course of the Congo River in 1874-1877. The UK showed no interest in Stanley, but Leopold II recruited him to further explore Central Africa on his behalf. Stanley’s service to the king helped lead to the recognition of the Congo Free State at the 1884-1885 Berlin Conference

A Colonial Palace showcase

To promote Belgium’s work of ‘development and civilization’ in Congo, and the latter’s economic potential, Leopold II hoped to build some form of museum or ‘showcase’.

The original plan consisted of adding a colonial wing to the Natural History Museum and to the 50th Anniversary Park, both in Brussels. When these plans were not carried out quickly enough, the king opted for an exhibition at his royal estate in Tervuren, an area he had known very well as a young prince and Duke of Brabant.

And when it talks about the transfer of the Congo Free State to Belgium, this is what it says:

When King Leopold II died in 1909, Congo Free State became Belgian Congo and the Belgian government suspended all construction in Tervuren. The Museum of Belgian Congo was officially inaugurated by King Albert I despite the lack in some rooms of Girault’s planned murals.

The politics of memory does seem to come with a very large double standard.