"I will dance if it comes down. Officials in Dendermonde, a Flemish city 20 miles north of Brussels, said they were changing a similarly named street to simply Leopold Laan to avoid further “shame” for residents. For over a century, Belgium turned the Congo into a slave state governed by Leopold II. King Leopold II (1835-1909) of Belgium created the Congo Free State in 1885 as part of a professed desire to bring civilization and modernity to Africans. Last week thousands in the country of 11 million joined solidarity protests about the killing of .css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link{color:#3F3F42;}.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited{color:#696969;}.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited{font-weight:bolder;border-bottom:1px solid #BABABA;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link:hover,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited:hover,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link:focus,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited:focus{border-bottom-color:currentcolor;border-bottom-width:2px;color:#B80000;}@supports (text-underline-offset:0.25em){.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited{border-bottom:none;-webkit-text-decoration:underline #BABABA;text-decoration:underline #BABABA;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-skip-ink:none;text-decoration-skip-ink:none;text-underline-offset:0.25em;}.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link:hover,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited:hover,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link:focus,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited:focus{-webkit-text-decoration-color:currentcolor;text-decoration-color:currentcolor;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:2px;text-decoration-thickness:2px;color:#B80000;}}US black man George Floyd in police custody. Leopold's British biographer, Barbara Emerson, agrees: 'I think it is a very shoddy piece of work. .css-1xgx53b-Link{font-family:ReithSans,Helvetica,Arial,freesans,sans-serif;font-weight:700;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;color:#FFFFFF;}.css-1xgx53b-Link:hover,.css-1xgx53b-Link:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}Read about our approach to external linking. 1. The difference is not the size of the horror, but the skin colour of the victims. In a TV debate this week, a former president of the Free University of Brussels, Hervé Hasquin, argued there were "positive aspects" to colonisation, listing the health system, infrastructure, and primary education he said Belgium brought to Central Africa. Leopold II, Holy Roman emperor from 1790 to 1792, one of the most capable of the 18th-century reformist rulers known as the “enlightened despots.” The third son of the Habsburg Maria Theresa and the emperor Francis I, Leopold succeeded his father as … And in 2018, Brussels named a public square in honour of Patrice Lumumba, a hero of African independence movements and the first prime minister of Congo, since renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo. © 2020 BBC. Around 20,000 children born to Belgian settlers and local women were forcibly taken to Belgium to be fostered. "Civilisation" was at the core of Leopold II's pitch to European leaders in 1885 when they sliced up and allocated territories in what became known as the Scramble for Africa. Trump pardons former advisers Stone and Manafort, More than 2% of Londoners thought to have Covid. Belgium's education minister announced this week that secondary schools would teach colonial history from next year. I never imagined this happening in my lifetime," Ms Kayembe adds. BBC Culture: The TV shows that helped us through 2020. "Civilisation" was at the core of Leopold II's pitch to European leaders in 1885 when they sliced up and allocated territories in what became known as the Scramble for Africa. According to … The remnants of these events still haunt the congo to this day. Statues have been daubed with red paint in Ghent and Ostend and pulled down in Brussels. Earlier this year a UN working group concluded in its preliminary report that, nearly six decades after the newly named DRC gained independence from Belgium, many of the country’s institutions remained racist and the state needed to apologise for the sins of its past as a step towards reform. Appealed to the countries that had signed the Berlin Act to create a commission to investigate this 3. Belgian exploration and administration took place from the 1870s until the 1920s. A petition calling on the city for its removal has reached 74,000 signatures. He led the first European efforts to develop the Congo River basin. … “Not a priority? Avant d'accéder au trône de Belgique, Léopold II qui était alors Duc de Brabant, s'intéressait déjà à l'idée de colonisation. King Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) ruled for over 40 years. Tip used his position to ramp up his slave trading and ivory hunting, and the generally anti-slavery European public brought pressure on Leopold II to break it off. Of the Europeans who scrambled for control of Africa at the end of the 19th century, Belgium's King Leopold II left arguably the largest and most horrid legacy of all. Those resistant to change are likely to come under more pressure when a Hollywood film, based on a best-selling book 20 years ago that highlighted Leopold’s bloody rule of the Congo Free State, is released. How was King Leopold II viewed by … Panels giving information about Leopold II have also been attached to most of his statues in recent years. Congolese amputees, pictured about 1900. “If other cities start with it, it could trigger a chain reaction, but there are no plans yet,” he told the Het Nieuwsblad newspaper. Henry Morton Stanley retrouve David Livingstone, après 236 jours de recherche, dans ce qui s’avère une partie du monde en soi, immense, aux inextricables zones de forêts, de marais et de savane, arrosées par un fleuve Congo labyrinthique. Les régions du cœur … He called it Congo Free State. Video, Santa explains what a Covid Christmas looks like, The poet, the queen and 120-year-old chocolate. Leopold II built commissioned a lot of buildings and urban projects. "Everyone is waking up from a sleep, it's a reckoning with the past," explains Debora Kayembe, a Congolese human rights lawyer who has lived in Belgium. Leopold II ruled Congo Free State as a personal fiefdom. They belonged to his five-year-old daughter, who was later killed when her village did not produce sufficient rubber. We will support companies and residents who may be affected by the new street names in the future.”, A century after millions died in Congo, attitudes (and street names) are changing. there were "positive aspects" to colonisation, Democratic Republic of Congo country profile, called on Belgium to apologise for atrocities, apologise for the kidnapping of thousands of mixed-race children. Archive pictures from Congo Free State document its violence and brutality. "Leopold II certainly does not deserve a statue in the public domain," agrees Bambi Ceuppens, scientific commissioner at the Africa Museum. 1693. Leopold’s private police force, the Force Publique, terrorized and exploited Congo, largely in secrecy. says Ms Kayembe. VideoSanta explains what a Covid Christmas looks like, playThe poet, the queen and 120-year-old chocolate. This was like stumbling across a gold mine. Entre 1874 et 1876, le bush, au centre du continent africain, est encore pour les Européens une terre mystérieuse dans laquelle seuls des aventuriers se rendent. It quickly became a brutal, exploitative regime that relied on forced labour to cultivate and trade rubber, ivory and minerals. There are at least 13 statues to Leopold II in Belgium, according to one crowd-sourced map, and numerous parks, squares and street names. He was born under the original name of Louis Philippe Marie Victor in Brussels. Secondly, King Leopold II’s actions in the Congo led unified condemnation across oceans from a broad range of socioeconomic statues. Yet debate over his legacy has remained muted in Belgium, where hundreds of roads are named after the king along with memorials dedicated to his memory and glory. Inauguration of a square in Brussels, dedicated to the memory of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, after independence from Belgium. Leopold II truly was paying for all of the startup expenses to colonize The Congo out of his own pocket. UK and EU negotiating teams talked through the night to finalise a post-Brexit trade deal. King Leopold convinced explorers, politicians, and newspapers alike that he intended to help Africans, though, in reality, he was driven to find some imperial territory for himself. This makeover of Leopold's image produced an amnesia that persisted for decades. By 1908, Leopold II's rule was deemed so cruel that European leaders, themselves violently exploiting Africa, condemned it and the Belgian parliament forced him to relinquish control of his fiefdom. Charles Michel, prime minister at the time, declined. From 1885 to 1908, a period known as Congo Free State, acts of violence and cruelty were committed, something Leopold pleaded forgiveness for. "It's a good thing that everyone is waking up, looking around and thinking 'is this right?'" Colonisation du Congo. Leopold did not start genocide. Activists say an important step towards acknowledging the past was made last year when Brussels named a square in honour of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the DRC, who was assassinated in 1961 with the connivance of the Belgian government. He appointed governor generals to manage the various territories of the country. For decades, colonial history has been barely taught in Belgium. Alderman Axel Ronse said: “Leopold II was a mass murderer and Cyriel Verschaeve a collaborator. For 20 years, he “owned” the Free State of Congo in central Africa, a 3,000-square-mile section of resource-rich interior jungle and savannah. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Amputation was frequently used as punishment in the Congo Free State, controlled by Leopold II. "When I walk in a city that in every corner glorifies racism and colonialism, it tells me that me and my history are not valid," she explains from the capital. In 2018, the United Nations called on the Belgian government to apologize for the crimes committed during its colonization and to … Standing close by, one visitor said, "I didn't know anything about Leopold II until I heard about the statues defaced down town". 1 Early European exploration 2 Stanley's exploration 3 Prelude to conquest 4 See also The Congo River was the last part of the African continent to yield to European explorers. Nevertheless, Leopold II eventually appointed Tip as a provincial governor in exchange for his noninterference in the king’s colonization of the western regions. In Kinshasa, the capital of DR Congo, Leopold II's statues were moved to the National Museum. But rumours of abuse began to circulate and missionaries and British journalist Edmund Dene Morel exposed the regime. Between 1885 and 1908, the Belgian King Leopold II personally ruled the Congo Free State, which was also known as the Independent State of the Congo. In 2019, the cities of Kortrijk and Dendermonde renamed their Leopold II streets, with Kortrijk council describing the king as a "mass murderer". Leopold II, king of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909. The negative effects of the congo were mainly experienced by the Congolese. The colonization of Belgium was only for Belgium’s and King Leopold’s interest and the people of Congo were treated as material objects and dehumanized. Lastly, the opposition forces against King Leopold II’s colonization of Congo helped pave the way for future justice on the continent as well as internationally. Killings, famine and disease combined to cause the deaths of perhaps 10 million people, though historians dispute the true number. It was first led by Sir Henry Morton Stanley, who explored under the sponsorship of King Leopold II of Belgium. King Leopold II and the CongoThe European colonization of Africa was one of the greatest and swiftest conquests in human history. Leopold financed development projects with money loaned to him from the Belgian government. But taking the monument away does not solve the problem of racism, she believes, while creating one museum devoted to the statues would not be useful either. Statue of King Leopold II This statue was placed in the Democratic Republic of Congo to remind Congolese the horrors of the Belgian colonization. When Leopold II died in 1909, he was buried to the sound of Belgians booing. RDC : Du Roi Léopold II à Joseph Kabila — Une Histoire de Pillage, Destination Inconnue — L’impunité Continue ... De la traite des esclaves à la brutale colonisation belge, en passant par la manipulation de la guerre froide et les guerres qui ont suivi, ceux qui ont le plus souffert sont les citoyens congolais. Most of them were paid with brutal exploitation of Congo Capital of Belgium, Brussels, is the seat of European Union Video, The poet, the queen and 120-year-old chocolate, Did that octopus just punch a fish? In DR Congo itself, no-one has really noticed the Belgian protests, says Jules Mulamba, a lawyer in the south-eastern city of Lubambashi. In return European leaders, gathered at the Berlin Conference, granted him 2m sq km (770,000 sq miles) to forge a personal colony where he was free to do as he liked. She does not believe it will not be quick or easy. You have to change the street names and add an explanation to it, so that we don’t hide away the past.”, In Kortrijk, the council said it was also renaming a street marking the life of Cyriel Verschaeve, a Flemish nationalist priest, and collaborator during the Nazi occupation of Belgium. Joëlle Sambi Nzeba, a Belgian-Congolese poet and spokesperson for the Belgian Network for Black Lives, says the statues tell her she is "less than a regular Belgian". Nobody would dare say that about a Stalinstraat or a Hitlerstraat. The museum is largely protected by heritage law but, in the streets outside, monuments to a monarch who seized a huge swathe of Central Africa in 1885 have no such security. Now, under pressure from a growing movement that believes Belgium needs to confront its past, attitudes in the corridors of power are starting to change. In 1870 roughly 80 percent of Africa south of the Sahara Desert was governed by indigenous kings, chiefs, and other rulers. On Monday the University of Mons removed a bust of the late king, following the circulation of a student-led petition saying it represented the "rape, mutilation and genocide of millions of Congolese". Leopold II's rule in what is now Democratic Republic of Congo was so bloody it was eventually condemned by other European colonialists in 1908 - but it has taken far longer to come under scrutiny at home. The mayor of Bruges, Dirk de Fauw, said he was assessing the situation. The ironic part of this story is that Leopold II committed these atrocities by not even setting foot in the Congo. He ran the country – now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo – as a personal fiefdom, looting ivory and rubber and murdering millions before the international community stepped in to demand he bequeath the country to the Belgian state. Like statues of racist historical figures vandalised or removed in Britain and the US, Leopold II's days on Belgian streets could now be numbered. But in the chaos of the early 20th Century when World War One threatened to destroy Belgium, Leopold II's nephew King Albert I erected statues to remember the successes of years gone by. King Leopold the II’s colonisation of the Congo resulted in labour forced upon the natives, blackmail, abuse and eradication of tradition. Elsewhere, a working group in Ghent is considering the city’s role in Belgium’s colonial past and whether it remains appropriate to have a Leopold II Laan. By 1910 nearly this entire huge expanse had become European colonies or land, like South Africa, controlled by white settlers. They were beaten and tortured in order to quickly extract as much rubber from the region as possible. The current protests are not the first time Belgium's ugly history in Congo has been contested in the streets. playDid that octopus just punch a fish? In 2010, former Belgian foreign minister Louis Michel and the father of future prime minister Charles Michel, called Leopold "a hero with ambitions for a small country like Belgium". VideoThe poet, the queen and 120-year-old chocolate, Five families; five very unusual Christmases, Catwalk icon Stella Tennant's career in pictures. In one, a man sits on a low platform looking at a dismembered small foot and small hand. Last week a statue of Leopold II in the city of Antwerp was set on fire, before authorities took it down. .css-14iz86j-BoldText{font-weight:bold;}Inside the palatial walls of Belgium's Africa Museum stand statues of Leopold II - each one a monument to the king whose rule killed as many as 10 million Africans. He promised a humanitarian and philanthropic mission that would improve the lives of Africans. While some municipalities are holding out, the reappraisal offers further evidence of a sea change in how the colonial history is viewed. The king’s stated goal was to bring civilization to the people of the Congo, an enormous region in Central Africa. Un article de Wikipédia, l'encyclopédie libre. Many classrooms still have Hergé's famous cartoon book Tintin in the Congo, with its depictions of black people now commonly accepted as extremely racist. He attributes colonial crimes to the king himself, rather than the Belgian people or state. In the last years of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, King Leopold II of Belgium ruled the Congo Free State with a tyranny that was peculiarly brutal even by the cruel and deeply racist standards of European colonialism in Africa. 4. For activists the holy grail is the giant statue of Leopold II on horseback at the gates of the Royal Palace in Brussels. For almost 30 years, rather than being a regular colony of a European government the way South Africa or the Spanish Sahara were, Congo was administered as the private property of this one man for his personal enrichment. The council of Kortrijk, in west Flanders, has said it is renaming its Leopold II Laan [avenue] on the grounds the monarch was a “mass murderer”. As part of a belated reckoning with its colonial history, museums are showcasing sins that were previously overlooked, the tone of history books in school is shifting and, in a development unthinkable until recently, cities have started to remove street signs commemorating Leopold II and openly denounce his legacy. The then prime minister Charles Michel said the government would respond when the UN filed its final report, although he expressed some surprise at the findings. Estimates suggest more than 50% died there. Last year a UN working group called on Belgium to apologise for atrocities committed during the colonial era. Read about our approach to external linking. At the time, there was a huge demand for natural rubber in order to make tires, but there was a very small supply. Although he played a significant role in the development of the modern Belgian state, he was also responsible for widespread atrocities committed under his rule against his colonial subjects. He did however apologise for the kidnapping of thousands of mixed-race children, known as métis, from Burundi, DR Congo and Rwanda in the 1940s and 1950s. Recommended US take the lead in pressuring Leopold to change the nature of Congo. In the last years of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, King Leopold II of Belgium ruled the Congo Free State with a tyranny that was … .css-orcmk8-HeadlineContainer{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}California man 'kills fellow Covid patient with oxygen tank'.css-1dedj2h-Rank{-webkit-align-self:center;-ms-flex-item-align:center;align-self:center;color:#B80000;margin-left:3.125rem;}1, Chrissy Teigen 'sad she will never be pregnant again'2, Deepfake queen to deliver Channel 4 Christmas message3, Trump pardons Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Charles Kushner4, Brexit: Boris Johnson set to unveil trade deal with EU5, Stella Tennant: Stella McCartney, Naomi Campbell and more pay tribute6, Airline fires pilot blamed for Taiwan's first Covid case in months7, Sharp rises in infection levels in England, says ONS8, Trump vetoes 'unconstitutional' defence bill9. .css-q4by3k-IconContainer{display:none;height:1em;width:1em;vertical-align:-0.125em;margin-right:0.25em;}playSanta explains what a Covid Christmas looks like. Leopold’s rule lead to the genocide of the Congolese, and restriction of the Congo’s development. Leopold II and the Colonization of Africa: Leopold II of Belgium lived from 1835 to 1909 and reigned as King of Belgium from 1865 until his death. Belgium took over the colony in 1908 and it was not until 1960 that the Republic of the Congo was established, after a fight for independence. In the 23 years (1885-1908) Leopold II ruled the Congo he massacred 10 million Africans by cutting off their hands and genitals, flogging them to death, starving them into forced labour, holding children ransom and burning villages. La colonisation du Congo s'opéra durant la période comprise entre la première exploration du Congo-Kinshasa par Henry Morton Stanley (1867) jusqu'à l'annexion du pays par la prise de possession par le roi Léopold II de Belgique (1885). Warning: This piece contains graphic pictures. This empire was known as the Congo Free State and Leopold II stood as its undisputed slave master. He managed the throne after the death of his father, Leopold I. En 1879, après son grand voyage d’exploration de l’Afrique centrale, l’explorateur britannique Henry Morton Stanley entre au service de Léopold II, roi des Belges [].Quelques années plus tard, la Conférence de Berlin, de novembre 1884 à février 1885, jette les bases d’un « partage » de l’Afrique entre les puissances européennes []. Il rêvait de voir la Belgique, pays de dimension modeste, certes, mais disposant de capacités techniques et économiques, s'intéresser à des territoires outre-mer qui pourraient contribuer à valoriser ses capacités commerciales, lui assurer l'accès à des matières premières et à des produits de la terre dont elle ne disposait pas, ou encore servir d'exutoire pour ceux -nombreux à l'époque- qui vivaie… Colonization of the Congo. For many years Leopold II was widely known as a leader who defended Belgium's neutrality in the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian war and commissioned public works fit for a modern nation. King Leopold 2 of . It had taken 10 years of campaigning by the Congolese diaspora and others for the city authority to give its approval. A renewed global focus on racism is highlighting a violent colonial history that generated riches for Belgians but death and misery for Congolese. EU-UK on verge of Brexit trade deal announcement, Santa explains what a Covid Christmas looks like. .css-po6dm6-ItalicText{font-style:italic;}Additional reporting by Eve Webster in Brussels, .css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link{color:inherit;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited{color:#696969;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link:hover,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited:hover,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link:focus,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited:focus{color:#B80000;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link::after,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited::after{content:'';position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0;z-index:2;}EU-UK on verge of Brexit trade deal announcement. ... adopta ce principe de ‘colonisation moderne’, hâtivement mis en vigueur au Congo. Leopold’s men eventually discovered that the rainforest had a plentiful supply of rubber trees. In the period from 1885 to 1908, many well-documented atrocities were perpetrated in the Congo Free State (today the Democratic Republic of the Congo) which, at the time, was a colony under the personal rule of King Leopold II of the Belgians.These atrocities were particularly associated with the labour policies used to collect natural rubber for export. Last modified on Sat 23 Nov 2019 18.40 GMT. King Leopold II of Belgium (1835-1909) was the reigning king of Belgium from 1865 until his death in 1909. King Leopold II left arguably the largest and most horrid legacy . She was not unique - chopping off the limbs of enslaved Congolese was a routine form of retribution when Leopold II's quotas were not met. After all, destroying the iconography of Adolf Hitler did not mean the history of Nazi Germany was forgotten, she points out. Jeroen Robbe, of the anti-racism group the Labo vzw said too many municipal leaders were still failing to show moral leadership: “The fact they are taking this so lightly indicates a blind spot that we have in our own history.
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