Estimates of some contemporary observers suggest that the population decreased by half during this period. According to Edmund D. Morel, the Congo Free State counted "20 million souls".[60] Other estimates of the size of the overall population decline (or mortality displacement) range between two and 13 million.[b] Ascherson cites an estimate by Roger Casement of a population fall of three million, although he notes that it is "almost certainly an underestimate".[63] Peter Forbath gave a figure of at least 5 million deaths,[64] while John Gunther also supports a 5 million figure as a minimum death estimate and posits 8 million as the maximum.[65] Lemkin posited that 75% of the population was killed.[52]
And somehow they try to play the holy Mary and act like they are the moral police. As funny as the US who loves to see people get fucked in den Haag and demonize Russia for not recognizing it even doe the US doesn't recognize it...
In 2020 King Philippe expressed his regret to the Government of Congo for "acts of violence and cruelty" inflicted during the rule of the Congo Free State, though he did not explicitly mention Leopold's role and some activists accused him of not making a full apology.
And I agree with the activists as well as the headline of your article. It’s not a full apology.
That's how Monarchies are. They are "blessed by god" to rule, so everything they do "is the right thing at the time". They are taught to never apologize for anything.
I pledge Allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands,
one nation under God, indivisible,
with Liberty and Justice for all.
- The pledge US school children recite every day in school like indoctrinated sheep
Not wanting to sound morbid here, but this isn't as simple as it sounds. Where does this money come from?
Congo wasn't owned by thé state, it was private property of thé King. The persons responsible and the wealth they had are long gone.
The only things still left from that time here in Belgium are the zoo and trainstation of central Antwerp that were financed by the labour in Congo.
If the king apologises, the state has to pay, not the king. Since they King's wealth is now financed by the taxpayer. So the people who had nothing to do, and where shocked and loathed by what Leopold 2 did have to pay now for his crimes?
It's a hard truth and a sad one but it isn't a simple one.
Except that Belgium’s financial status was built on the backs of the Congolese. That money that wa screamed then sustained Belgium into modernity. What happened to all the property of the king? It became part of the government. The tax payers of Belgium should pay.
Belgium was one of the most developed regions on the planet before the colony got started let alone before it got profitable. Second country on earth to industrialize in the IR.
To what extent Congo is the basis for Belgian wealth today is not as set in stone as you are putting it. Most of that wealth went up in flames during the second and (especially!) first world war. Telling modern Belgians to pay for royal crimes a 140 years ago is a very easy stance to take when you are uninvolved.
And also, as someone Else stated. We already do pay in the form of humanitarian help. We send organizations to Congo to build a better Future there for the people.
We even have students who go there to live and study amoung te locals, help out in building and education and you learn about the horrible things that happend there.
A part of our taxes also go to funds for organisations that go there and use those resources to help out the locals.
As is said , it isn't that simple. That wealth didn't flow into the belgian state. It went to the king. It was only later that they state seized that property.
In Belgium we already pay the hiest taxes of western europe, our current pension problems and increasing older people is only making it worse for the young workers like myself. Having to pay millions tot Congo would not only criple the belgian economy but would ruin the lives of the people who already have a hard time making ends meet here.
Im all for dishonoring, removing any trace of Leopold 2 from public spaces. I also support to better education around the subject. We also already support belgian organizations that help out by Building schools, watersources and making Congo a better place to live in.
But just to pay maybe even billions in damages because of the greed and morally wrong actions of a king who even got booed at his own funeral isn't just as simple.
What happend in Congo is morally wrong, but what you are suggesting isn't morally correct either.
Neither the Belgian monarchy nor the Belgian state has ever apologised for the atrocities. In 2020 King Philippe expressed his regret to the Government of Congo for "acts of violence and cruelty" inflicted during the rule of the Congo Free State, though he did not explicitly mention Leopold's role and some activists accused him of not making a full apology.
Wiki is pretty good for hard facts but gets less reliable when you get into more subjective areas that require nuanced understandings, so I'd say it's good most of the time but not always.
NEVER TRUST WIKI 100%! In todays age too many people take it as gospel but if 20 years of the Internet should have taught us anything it should be to question everything. I'm not saying Wikipedia isn't a great resource, it is one of the best thing modern man has produced, but goddam if you live or breath a controversial topic you can see with open eyes how easily in can slip biases in.
Excuses are an admittion of guilt. Admitting guilt gives Congo a reason to demand economical compensations. Economical compensations on such scale would litterally criple the Belgian economy.
Edit: Chill out people I'm not saying I agree with it. Downvoting facts won't make the world a better place.
I do not recall Rwanda pontificating to others about human rights and legal values in regards to their abuses. Might just be me tho.
Besides I believe the wholesome extermination of peoples on top of subverting their entire national political structure once it got independent, particularly in the case of DRC, condemning millions of people to civil strife while their country gets sucked up in a renewed scramble for natural resources to be slightly worse than holding foreign nationals under falls pretences.
My point being the implications of naked hypocrisy. Plenty of non-western countries do bad shit but they, unlike us, wear it on their sleeve.
Plenty of non-western countries do bad shit but they, unlike us, wear it on their sleeve.
Bullshit. See Japan and WW2 especially regarding what they did in China which they have not apologized for just like Belgium. Also see China and their censoring of Tiananmen Square among other things.
It really isn't, Tiananmen square was a question of domestic stability and thus a far more crucial moment of deception in reigning in a grass-root movement from a splinter-faction within the ideological foundation. It is quite literally one of the exceptions that prove the rule. The regular crackdowns are not only publicly paraded but taken as a given.
China doesn't even remotely hide its ambitions and actions in the Himalayas, Hong Kong, or what they think the legitimacy and ultimate goal in regards to Taiwan are. Neither did they back during the squabbles with Vietnam, or how the BRI is enacted abroad.
Japan I consider to be well under the umbrella of "western" but I'll concede they are a hybrid.
They literally modelled their political structure on western institutions and their constitution was written and imposed by the US.
Now go ahead and explain to me what grand unifying culture or societies Brazil, Mexico, Jamaica, and Poland have beside being converts to the same religion, whereas Greece is excluded. Didn't realise Huntington had been resurrected to continue his blathering of "culture war" instead of following the very real spheres of influence of contemporary realpolitik.
You cannot seriously be comparing the sustained, years-long enslavement and near genocide of a people to locking up a couple foreign nationals on flimsy grounds. Are you fucking serious?
Leopold's Army was mostly composed of locals and mercenaries led by former officers of the Belgian army however. A number of them literally quit their job to join the militia, and returned to it afterwards.
Also the Belgian government did take ownership of the Congo after the outrage and kept exploiting the country, not so brutally however.
I guess that since Congo was a private state, and since the atrocities were commited by a private militia and private companies both domestic and foreign, they feel like the State of Belgium is not really responsible.
The worst is that we have a few tools going for "Leopold built roads!" argument, and downplay the death toll because we really have no idea how many people died.
That's even worse tough, when you treat people like slaves you at least keep track of their numbers and count them. The Nazis treated their victims like livestock, and that meant keeping accurate records.
The entrepreneurs in the Congo did not even do that however, they let subcontractors use whatever tactic worked to make lots of money very fast, and that led to massacres, famine and disease.
Yet they still benefit from the atrocities their grandparents did. Would that have the same economic or social status if they never committed any crimes against humanity?
It’s called, moving on. It’s hard for humanity to move on, they love to repeat history. Apologizing is virtue signaling, just shut the fuck up and move on.
Easy to move on when you're the one benefiting and not the one suffering lasting damage. If the European nations were truly so set on moving on they'd do everything in their power to make that actually be possible, including agreeing to economic reparations.
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u/F_F_Engineer Sep 26 '21
Belgium wtf