In Congo, a new national museum renews quest to reclaim history

In a hilltop park high above Congo’s capital city, Batekele Mabanza Jose sits watch over his country’s history.

All around him, eras of the country’s past are shoved together like layers of metamorphic rock. On one side of the park, vines crawl over the bars of a cage that in the 1970s held one of former President Mobutu Sese Seko’s pet leopards. In another corner, an oversized bronze statue of the Belgian King Leopold II – Congo’s 19th century conqueror – gazes purposefully out over a cracked parking lot.

Nearby, a small complex of warehouses holds the nearly 50,000-item collection of Congo’s national museum, a sprawling mix of paintings, cultural artifacts, and audio recordings documenting the histories and cultures of Congo’s mosaic of ethnic groups.

“This place is the memory of our country,” says Mr. Jose, a curator and tour guide for the museum, as he waits for visitors on a recent Saturday morning.

But as a reservoir for a country’s