108 minutes, sort of, in Brussels

BRUSSELS: For many casual travelers, Brussels is often dismissed as bland and unimportant.
Many opt for a brief stay, some skip it altogether and instead, head straight for the bright lights of London, Paris and Amsterdam.
For sure, the Belgian capital is not as interesting as its glitzier neighbors. Rather, it requires patience and repeated visits in order to truly appreciate just what Brussels – and Belgium – is all about: the center of European politics, the capital of a linguistically and culturally divided nation, the vast open space and beautiful parks, big wide boulevards, superb urban planning, a multicultural society in a less crowded place full of very friendly people.
And the best way to see all of that is on foot.
The famous but underwhelming Grand Place is always a good starting point, where you can marvel at the architecture (and wonder what the fuss is all about) before going uphill towards the Palais des Beaux-Arts in order to reach the tranquil Parc de Bruxelles, where government ministries, the vaguely-impressive royal palace (it’s much prettier than Buckingham Palace) and the heavily-fortified American embassy are situated.
Another five-minute walk eastwards will lead you to Porte de Namur: a world away from the seat of power as you join in the masses of shoppers and businessmen at the enthralling neighborhood of Matongé.
This is the most visual legacy of Belgium’s colonial past in Africa, as immigrants from the Belgian Congo, as well as former French colonies such as Cameroon and Senegal helped transform this historic-market area into a vibrant enclave of hair-salons, long-distance phone-call booths, ethnic vegetable markets, music stores, as well as the appropriately-named Mandela Restaurant, and perhaps even the occasional wedding train for the African bride. It’s as close to an authentic slice of Africa as it gets in the heart of Europe.
Continuing eastwards for about 10-15 minutes towards Parc Leopold, and we arrive at the EU Quarter, which houses all kinds of administrative buildings as well as hotels and duplex penthouses – all enough to make the long-suffering European taxpayer foam at the mouth.
Bruxelloises are forever divided over the regeneration of this part of the city, which until 1990s, was very much neglected and run-down. It is now a very pleasant neighborhood to stroll through but this also comes at a huge cost to the locals, who already have to fork out millions of Euros annually for the upkeep of the district – one which is mostly inhabited by foreign EU officials – and also get squeezed out by the ever-increasing property prices.
But this is all in the present. Just up the road from the stunning European Commission building at Schumann, is the beautiful Parc du Cinquantenaire, and Belgium’s very own Arc de Triomphe – a giant step back to the bad colonial days.
The arch was supposed to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Belgian independence and to coincide with the National Exhibition in 1880.
But it only opened in time for the 75th anniversary due to wrangles between King Leopold II and the government over its cost. The impressive arch now sits alongside a couple of uninteresting museums, and oddly, a mosque within the park.
Often, I find myself standing beneath the monument, generally in awe of its size, but equally outraged by the ambitions and wastefulness of the megalomaniac Leopold who plundered the Belgian Congo’s wealth and population to pay for such unnecessary extravagance.
And in order to learn more about little Belgium’s violent colonial (some argue genocidal) past, one must continue walking eastwards towards Montgomery metro station – named after the Field Marshal – to catch the number 44 tram for a scenic 20-minute ride towards the Flemish-speaking village of Tervuren, 15km away from the city center.
En route, you can admire countless Art Deco buildings (most notably the Stoclet Palace designed by Josef Hoffmann), beautiful embassies (the Chinese one is huge), yet more parks, lakes, and the upmarket suburb of Woluwe-Saint-Pierre. The tram then disappears into the once-mighty Bois de Soignes forest, before finally arriving at the serene setting of the palatial yet controversial African Museum.
Billed as an ethnographical and natural history museum, it is really just an excuse to show off what the Belgians stole in the Congo.
Fascinating and nauseating in equal measure, to foreigners visiting Brussels, the museum is worth a visit if only to gain an insight into an era which outsiders do not know much – unlike the British Empire – and a colonial legacy that the Belgians are notoriously sensitive about.
Critics say that the museum is a monument to everything that is wrong about colonialism and Belgium’s failure to apologize for its past.
The Belgians certainly seem unrepentant; just over ten years ago, they erected a small monument which depicts a warrior-like Leopold on horse-back, surrounded by African slaves, thus glorifying their past in Central Africa.
I’ll let you decide whether the museum is worth a visit or not. Personally, having toured the place both as a child and as an adult, I’d never want to do it again because, frankly, the wild geese in the surrounding parkland are much more pleasant to look at than dead leopard skins or stuffed elephants.
BM