Africa Is a Country

Bwana Kitoko

Bwana Kitoko

By
Tom Devriendt

If you’re passing through Brussels the next months and you haven’t seen Belgian painter Luc Tuymans’s series Mwana Kitoko: Beautiful White Man yet, go visit his retrospective (Friday 02.18 > Sunday 05.08) at BOZAR. The original 2000 exhibition’s title ‘Mwana Kitoko’ refers to “the rather derogatory nickname Mwana Kitoko, i.e. beautiful boy, which was given to Belgian’s young King Baudouin by the Congolese, and which was promptly changed by the Congolese authorities to the more respectful and authoritative Bwana Kitoko, i.e. beautiful, noble man.”

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Further Reading

Kwame Nkrumah today

New documents looking at British and American involvement in overthrowing Kwame Nkrumah give us pause to reflect on his legacy, and its resonances today.

Goodbye, Piassa

The demolition of an historic district in Addis Ababa shows a central contradiction of modernization: the desire to improve the country while devaluing its people and culture.