Congolese people literally worship leopold

HE is. He knew all about it in it;s entirety and had a huge hand in how the colony worked. Even if he never knew he still owned the damn hellhole and negligence is never an excuse.

When Anglos are bored they slander other Europeans just to see if it sticks. It often does.

Ironically enough, the indigenous tribesmen did most of the barbaric shit that happened under Leopold.

*huffs /int/*
>DUDE

This. And they changed their mind on Congo after it turned out profitable.

KANZ LEOPOLD

Because it was his own private property

...

So painful and messy but also quick and efficient. Tearing the bandaid off and all that.

>Leo to local strongmen: make it work
>OK YU DE BASS, WE DO MAKE IT WORK MASSA!
>chop chop

Honestly I don't think it would have been much different had any other colonial power (Euros, Turks, Japs, Arabs. etc.) been in charge.

>says the neo-colonial ManagerDrone™ from a regime that still deifies Mao, the largest-scale mass murderer ever on this tiny dirtball.

Based Chang bringing the bantz

This isn't accurate. Asian colonialism and African colonialism isn't rooted in the same history or struggle.

I loved the part when some equipment failed and the Africans explained it was because it was made in china.

It wasn't. The difference is that one single man owned it and was given ownership under the condition that he A. Not run it for profit. And B. Preform humanitarian missions in the colony to develop and christianize them and abolish slavery.

Literally none of those happened. It only got monumentally worse. When Leo was called out on being a lying shit and not cutting profits with any of the people who got him the colony he got fucked.

Its cool though because Belgium doesn't really acknowledge it and the Congo was given a watered down history that virtually deifies Leopold for being a shit.

>had a huge hand in how the colony worked.
>hand
haha very funny

rather forever scarring them and preventing from developing in any healthy way

So you'd say they actually went with a hands-off approach?

True. But on the other hand, the congolese behave like they repel common sense.

There is also the fact that China and Subsaharan Africa weren't at the same stage of development when they were colonized.

>they think they can fly.

No, congolese people killed millions of congolese people. Leopold hardly had anything to do with it.

All Leopold wanted from the locals was a helping hand.

Le based chink insect man

That is the shittiest logic I have seen lol.

He wasn't even aware it was happening until some english journalist went there and wrote about congolese chopping eachother up over some gum.

The truck would still get the same damage because shitty uneven roads (many of them dirt roads) do that to all transportation.

The European admins, companies and military force in Congo made the laws with complete awareness if what it was going to do and encouraged it. Ever heard of perverse incentives.

>yfw you've terrified an entire country so much that 5 generations later they still praise you as a God amongst men

He was still trying to kill the story when it was revealed.

>Propaganda made by Western Jews paints him Leopald and Belgian rule as evil
>Actually Congolese like Leopold and view Belgian rule in a positive or at least nuanced light
Really makes you think.

China didn't have railroads when the African colonies had railroads. That was the Yang guy's point. Africa had railroads when China didn't have a single one. African countries destroyed the railroad system and didn't keep up the development.

of course he would. why would he let a scandal be known to the public?

underrated.

Is that why he burned his archives before handing over administration to the Belgian state?

We may not know exactly how much he knew, but it's safe to assume it was pretty bad; innocent people don't do that.

If he didnt know about the scandal why was he trying to cover it up

what scarred them was the chaos after decolonization

There were someone who earned money from this who had more time spent on this, who didn't let Leopold know, in fear of him closing down congo, losing profits. I don't know to be honest, I give up.

Africa had massive wars and corruption. The fact that those railroads were limited in their utility and that they couldn't build more due to lack of funds. Also unskilled labour and lack of expertise hurt a ton and low population tax base. Those colonial trains are built and used to fufill a COLONIES needs, not a nation which is radically different.

Mao invested in railroads during his rule form 1949-70's and before then Manchuria had railroads pre-PRC.

India had much more expertise in railroad construction and engineering due to the way it was governed and the princely states being more ind pendant and a much better education system during colonial rule then the one typically done in Africa.

>one congolese man says leopold brought civilization
>everyone in the congo loves leopold

I actually worked for a DRC based non-profit. The Congolese don't worship Leopold. When people say shit like when pissed of Israelis say "fuck, even Hitler was better than these assholes."

Plus, old people are alive who would have heard stories of the better Belgian rule after. No one is alive from the Free State days so it's easier to joke and make hyperbole about because it happened over a century ago.

Shit, some Ukrainians love Russia or are still commie. But the general recognition is that Leo helped make DRC a nation that is total shit EVEN compared to most of Africa.

Plus, the Free State is up there with the Holocaust for sheer number of people killed and pure sickening brutality.

Not Congo but just wanted to post this

Anyone notice anything weird about this face. Take a moment and look at it.

How reliable are those numbers? Can we trust them? Considering Kongo being a colossal, wild piece of land inhabited by illiterates, where roads lead to nowhere, there's no electricity, no message system, barely a handful know french, and where europeans die by diseases within months of arriving I find this hard to believe.

>barely a handful know french

> Therefore, the variety of French used in the DRC has many similarities with Belgian French. French has been maintained as the official language since the time of independence because it is widely spoken around the educated groups in the country, it belongs to none of the indigenous ethnic groups and eases communication between them as well as with the rest of the Francophonie, which includes many African countries. According to a 2014 OIF report, 33 million Congolese people (47% of the population) can read and write in French.In the capital city Kinshasa, 67% of the population can read and write French, and 68.5% can speak and understand it. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is currently the most populous French-speaking country outside France.

>thread about Belgian Congo
>b-but da ebul Germans
Nice try, Leopold

>where europeans die by diseases within months of arriving

Not really. That phase of colonization they had the medicine to cope with that.

That is today. I meant the state of congo in the Leopold years, I should have written in past tense. Kongo was like the moon, how could anyone get such hard data from there, it just seems unlikely.

>Is that why he burned his archives before handing over administration to the Belgian state?

That anecdote has never been verified btw.

A little known fact: a large part of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is set in French Congo.

Also, the atrocities committed in the Congo Free State were localized to one or two concessions, mainly the Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company. It was a completely undesired effect, but at the same many parts of the country were run like a mafia.

It's a bit a shame that the Congo Free State became this symbol of a uniquely horrible colony. Plenty of atrocities happened in other colonies and they were desired.

And the mutilations happened in one part of a huge country, so it makes total sense that other Congolese thought Leopold was a pretty good Lord. Who knows, maybe his great great great grandfather was saved from slavery or something. Who knows. The common view on the Congo Free State in the Anglophone world is a caricature.

Fuck off with that whataboutism.

>Who knows, maybe his great great great grandfather was saved from slavery

You know that companies basically enslaved people as well (on top of the cultish way the Force Publicize was formed)?

Absolutely not. The estimates on the population decline in the Congo Free State have a margin of error of millions. There is simply put no data but historians like to think they can conjure up whatever they want.

Suppose it was two million, good luck determining who died of Tsetse and who died of manslaughter.

Personally I think every historian that used the word genocide to describe the events in the Congo Free State is a joke.

there's no logical argument being made faggot he's just stating a claim. you're response on the other hand is shitty logic

They have police records, religious records, oral traditions, genealogies, personal diaries.

Also the Belgian commission the Congo came up with their own figures. honestly it can widely vary but imo it's safe to say that the polices at the time probably killed 50%+ of whatever population their may be.

>You know that companies basically enslaved people as well (on top of the cultish way the Force Publicize was formed)?

Yes. When an elite that puts the children of its own countrymen in mines finds a place where there is no one watching them or no one complaining I don't expect anything less.

Because the policies at the time were made by the Free State admins and Leopold 2. Also his train of thought is basically saying that "oh Japan did no atrocities during ww2, it was only the Army that did that and the army is completely separate to that of the empires control".

Those people in power knew exactly what was going on.

We have scraps. Western historians in the fifties studying the Stalinist purges possessed an abundance of sources compared to what we have about the Congo. And they missed the ball park completely so I'm not going to put much faith into any number.

Also most Force Publiqe weren't Congolese and on top of that there was no "Congolese" identity at the time so they often just recruited people from distant areas and stationed them in others..

>Those people in power knew exactly what was going on.

It's a bit like a mafia. The boss says 'take care of it', he knows what might happen. To say, the boss is innocent, he just wanted rubber, is a naive.

The boss in this story probably wasn't Leopold though. There is some correspondence indicating that from the moment he heard about it he tried to put an end to it.

>police records
They don't have those in the congo today

>religious records

Yup, the local shaman kept track of everything

>oral traditions

"den de white devil came and killed millions and took our spaceships"

>genealogies

Riiiiiight

>personal diaries

Illiterates are known for their diaries!

They paid mercenaries to do it.

>ITT

Colonialism is for Jews

What isn't for Jews nowadays?

an honest days work

That's pretty metal.

He could say the same for most of China as well and their crumbling infrastructure,shitty government, pollution and overpopulation and utter destruction of any past culture with their genius cultural revolution

And their government is only going to make it worse with stupid shit like sesame credit, MOAR POLLUTION and finding more ways to oppress the people

They done fucked it up with their Maoist shenanigans

I like to think that after The Congo gained their independence, because much of the population was largely uneducated, that was the reason for their downfall as they lacked the skills and knowledge to maintain a stable government and infrastructure

Compare that to India, where many Indians were educated and trained by the British(some of whom went to the most prestigious British Universities that even most white British could only dream of attending), and thus were able to better maintain their shit

>A little known fact:
Um, no, that's pretty standard background info on the novel. I already knew before reading it (in grade 10, for English class) that it was set in central Africa.

>you're response is shitty
>you're response
>you're

They don't have overpopaultion though and

>utter destruction of any past culture with their genius cultural revolution

is a massive exaggeration since they still have plenty of it both material and socially among Chinese people. You want utter culture destruction at every sense of the word see North American natives to see the result of said destruction: that's real cultural destruction. They couldn't even do many indigenous religious rituals until the 1978 in America and in Canada the potlatch was banned until 1951.

>There is some correspondence indicating that from the moment he heard about it he tried to put an end to it.

Clearly it was a token gesture lol. The Free state was a thing for 23 fucking years. The guy had more then enough time to know shit was going on and when people were exposing the free state to the world he was very pissed at them for exposing him and set up a PR campaign to slander the people exposing the Free States horrors.

It''s far more complicated than that (as is the case for much of Africa).

The Congo's problem was that the Belgians made every effort to prevent the Congolese from being involved in administration until they made the surprise decision to rapidly decolonize. An absurdly small number of Congolese were college educated in the period leading up to colonization (I think the number was less than 10, but don't quote me on that), and pretty much every major position in administration and the military down to the lowest commissioned officer was Belgian rather than Congolese. So the Congolese went into the postcolonial period with really nobody experienced in anything required to run a country, as all the Belgians fled. Mobutu, for example, was a fairly low-ranking officer who ended up becoming the head of the Congolese military.

That's not to say the Congolese didn't make a good attempt to salvage the clusterfuck. Part of what sparked the Congo Crisis was Lumumba's attempts to deal with probably the biggest issue that would hurt many other former colonies - former colonial corporate interests. Lumumba tried to nationalize several industries to get these foreign companies out, and he was killed for it. Western powers refused to support Lumumba's attempts to get real independence (if foreign corporations control your entire economy, you're still effectively a colony), and when he turned to the Soviets, the West sprung on it and started to sponsor rebel movements that were supportive of their neocolonial corporate interests.

>cont

What really made the Congo the Heart-of-Darkness clusterfuck it is today is Mobutu. Mobutu ended up on top at the end of the Congo Crisis and managed to get himself a nice comfortable position by leveraging Western support in exchange for not being communist. However, his priorities were never to make Congo/Zaire great - like many dictators, his only interest was preserving his position and enriching himself and those he favored. He purposely hamstrung his military and government to prevent a coup, and he embarked on hilariously corrupt projects like turning his hometown halfway up the Congo river into what became known as the "Versailles of the Jungle," complete with three palaces, a hydroelectric dam, and an airport capable of accommodating a Concorde for the times when his wife wanted to go shopping in Europe for a weekend.

Over the years, all functions of the state fell apart. Once the Cold War ended, the US no longer had a reason to prop up an anticommunist dictator, and Mobutu's position declined even further. By the time the Rwandans came along to oust him in '96, the Zaire government and military wasn't really even functioning - their tanks literally couldn't move because corrupt commanders had sold off all fuel and spares, and their air force had literally been sold away over the years by local commanders. And unfortunately this kind of corruption ended up getting institutionalized down to the very lowest levels of local government.

After they are dead, what difference does it make what happens to their head?

It still has it's flesh? Weird thing in the hair? idk, what?

Colonialism is an honest days work.

Germans fucking loved science. What?

that's just how niggers look, mate.

>that was the reason for their downfall as they lacked the skills and knowledge to maintain a stable government and infrastructure

no national identity, previous governments setting people up against each other.
Business interests and Belgians wanting to still swing their dick in the newly independent state. Environmental obstacles, no development, outside of cities with Belgian populations, no development and infrastructre a sustained level, mass favelasation being a problem.

Also Belgium built a reactor in Congo :^) but locals try everything they can to keep it in good shape as much as they can.

It's a Bushman's head.

It's a woman's head, fwiw.

his point is that it was in the French Congo, not the Belgian Congo.

Congo had been plagued by war like no other African country. How no one in this thread mentioned this makes me ask: Do You Even Read?

What has that to do with the topic?

Because the characteristics of war in the Congo are a big reason why they are underdeveloped even when comparing to other African countries. It has consequences for all things socioeconomic nowadays, and contemporary development was being discussed before.

Also losing bestbro Lumumba.

Though I'm probably just losing my time here, the fact that there are people TODAY that think colonialism was good there is enough.

...

>having le wrong thoughts in le current year
consider suicide.

no. leopold just gave them guns.
they killed each other.

The Eternal Kraut strikes again
peaceful Belgians would never do such a thing

this.
blaming Leopold for the atrocities the Congolese did to each other (the same kinds they were committing beforehand, btw), just because he had nominal control for a the time, is retarded.

>you should have learned how things work
>experience should have been passed on

Yes, because colonial powers are totally open and willing to pass on the secrets of their success to their subjects, right?