Why did he have to die Veeky Forums?

>A strong and stable Congo would hurt the west immensely
Kek what?

Why would the west care about a bunch of niggers in central africa.

Jesus you conspiracy theorists are ridiculous

>they fear da strong afrikan blakkk man!

>let us Belgians educate them for another decade or so

The Belgian government had directly run the Congo for 50 years prior to independence, and yet you act as though giving the Belgians another decade would have changed anything? Why didn't your government start building their social and educational infrastructure for the previous 50 years? Dipshit.

>You are so fun to argue with.

Not him but

> and yet you act as though giving the Belgians another decade would have changed anything?
Err, yes? 50 years is a long time. Post ww2 Congo was actually a really decent place for africans. You should open a history book once in a while.

>Why didn't your government start building their social and educational infrastructure for the previous 50 years?
They did to a certain extent. You have to remember that the peoples of the Congo were savage cannibals. You can't turn them into rocket scientists overnight.

Because we didn't intend for them to ever become independent at all, before the upheaval of the late 50s. For a long time the model for our colonization was Algeria: we settle the colony with whites, but also try to evolve the locals to become fully part of the Belgian empire, introducing them to self-evidently superior Belgian culture and customs (pic related: so called evolués).

For 50 years the colony had been built up to function as an integral part of the Belgian empire, and then overnight we have to suddenly prepare the natives for full independence? That's just not realistic.

Do you have more pictures of the Belgian Empire? These are pretty cool.

>strong and stable Congo would hurt the west immensely

>For 50 years the colony had been built up to function as an integral part of the Belgian empire,

The Belgian empire was designed for people with one or no hands?

Not him but Belgian empire =/= Congo free state, you fucking retard.

wut?

You're conflating two different countries.

But why did you have to kill him though. At the end of the day you saddled the Congo with a Kim-Jung dynasty-tier dictator who robbed the Congo blind.

Not him, but in Walt's theory of the Balance of Threat, superpowers must constantly assess threats of rising nations, not because they upset the outdated idea of the "Balance of Power" but the threat they pose to the interests of the greater power. This is tied in to Realist International Relations theory.

A strong and stable Congo with a perchance to nationalising industries (which were incredibly important to up and coming American and European industries) would have meant higher prices and thus a loss of resources during the Cold War. Secondly, a state such as the Congo could garner a much better deal from the Soviets over the US, thus causing a large portion of Sub-Saharan Africa to fall to the Soviet sphere of influence.

I know it sounds silly to think that some shithole African country could pose a threat to a great power such as the US, but ultimately it does. I mean, look at the destruction of Saddam's Iraq. It was destroyed for similar reasons; it upset the Balance of Threat.

>A strong and stable Congo would hurt the west immensely, it had to be done

Why? Its far easier to do business in strong and stable countries.

But it's not cheaper and states, being selfish and fearful actors look for cost benefits, not stability.

>
A strong and stable Congo with a perchance to nationalising industries (which were incredibly important to up and coming American and European industries) would have meant higher prices and thus a loss of resources during the Cold War.

Unless they were planning to destroy or solely use these resources for domestic use it wouldn't have, indeed a stable Congo would have made it possible and worthwhile to actually invest in long term projects.

>a state such as the Congo could garner a much better deal from the Soviets over the US, thus causing a large portion of Sub-Saharan Africa to fall to the Soviet sphere of influence.

Not true in the slightest, it wasnt superior soviet aid more so as the US not deeming the regimes there worth supporting at that level. Given their position and resources they may well have attracted proper US aid unlike places like Somalia and Angola. Not only that but they could have fallen in with the Non Aligned movement which would have also not harmed US interests.

>I know it sounds silly to think that some shithole African country could pose a threat to a great power such as the US, but ultimately it does.

It sounds silly because your arguments are do not follow and have more to do with shoehorning theories onto reality than actual praxis. The comparison between Iraq and the Congo experience have no connection outside of their leaders dying and instability.

You take some valid descriptions and then draw illogical conclusions from them as if there were actual links between your points.

>But it's not cheaper and states, being selfish and fearful actors look for cost benefits, not stability.

Increased and more efficient production allows for cheaper prices especially when you consider that the resources of the congo are not the easily lootable kind like diamonds. The bulk of the resources there are the kind that require pretty decent infrastructure to make use of which is something that doesnt happen in a war torn country.

> being selfish and fearful actors look for cost benefits, not stability.

Yes and stability is a hugely desirable factor here. Hence why the West engaged in the Marshall Plan, why they continue to plow billions into the UN and why they actually reigned in the World Bank rather than send in soldiers .

And yet the instability and exploitation of workers seems to work perfectly fine for those companies in the Silicone Valley right now exploiting Congolese resources. So your point is moot.

>And yet the instability and exploitation of workers seems to work perfectly fine for those companies in the Silicone Valley right now exploiting Congolese resources.

Something working doesnt =/= desirable. North Korea works in the sense that it hasnt collapsed but that would hardly be a good argument for the central planning being the best method of economic organisaiton.

Western companies have to pay a far higher premium on these products because it is much harder to acquire them. Take a look at the documentry empire of dust for an interesting example of this.

>So your point is moot.

Actually I provided 3 rather huge examples of the West acting in a way which according to your theory they shouldn't be and you just handwaved it on a point I debunked above.

Luckily we managed to save Congo from being ruled by a dictator destroying the country. Can you imagine how that would've turned out?

Cold calculating self interest. Belgian firms had a lot of money on the line, and it looked like Lumumba would turn that towards his people via collectivization (in b4 imperialist lies; the remnants of the Lumumba regime literally started a maoist rebellion - see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simba_Rebellion).

The solution for the Belgians was to back a secessionist movement in Katanga, the main mining province before the widespread use of coltan, where we would continue to exert influence in that new state. It was these secessionists that captured and killed Lumumba.

But everything turned into a shitstorm of unimaginable proportions, which is how we got Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga.

I agree he would have been better for the Congolese, probably; Mobutu started out as a drunken corrupt stooge and never really did improve. But the US and Belgium were looking out for the interests of their firms and elites.
are, I think, not cynical enough. Congo was raped not because of geopolitical, but private economic interests in the US and Belgium.

Great (translated Belgian Dutch) book for reference: amazon.com/Congo-History-David-Van-Reybrouck/dp/0062200127

any proof he was a nigger

Also a fun fact: one of Lumumba's comrades in arms is still alive and part of the political establishment in Congo
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Gizenga

What this shows you is just how young all these guys were; they were not experienced politicians or leaders of men.

So this is basically a clear-cut example of Western intervention(US and Belgium) totally fucking up a country, keep in mind millions have sufferd through a civil war and dictatorship, because all because of gered. To put it simpele of course. There's a lot more details regarding the Congo Crisis we haven't discussed, but this is pretty much the bottom-line of it.

True, what the US and Belgium did was probably damaging. But even if Lumumba were left in power, it would probably also have turned out bad. We have seen this throughout Africa: nothing really worked, outside of South Africa.

You can't compare the bad things that happened to some imagined utopia. Congo was necessarily a failed state, regardless of what we did.