In this talk, Luc Renders (UHasselt) reviews the attitude of the Belgian literature of the colonial period written in Dutch, towards the policy of civilization and conversion actively pursued in the Congo by Belgian missionaries and colonizers. While most of the Dutch-language texts from this period were favorable to this policy, arguing that Belgium had a "moral duty" to civilize a Congo that was considered "primitive," some authors, on the other hand, took a critical view of colonization, sometimes going so far as to explicitly oppose it. Through these divergent positions, Luc Renders offers an overview of the fluctuating historical relations between Belgium and Central Africa.

_{Crédit photographique: Renders, Luc. Koloniseren om te beschaven : Het Nederlandstalige Congoproza van 1596 tot 1960. Hasselt: Gramadoelas, 2019.}