On this day in 1884, the "Berlin Conference" began when delegations from nearly every Western European country and the U.S. met in Germany to develop a set of protocols for the seizure and control of African resources.
The conference, which had no African representatives, was the first international conference ever on the subject of Africa, and dealt almost soley with the matter of its exploitation.
At the time, approximately 80% of African land and resources were under domestic control; the influence of Europeans was most strongly exerted on the coast. Following it, colonial powers began seizing resources further inland.
As a result of the conference, which continued into 1885, a "General Act" was signed and ratified by all but one of the 14 nations at the table, the U.S. being the sole exception. The Act's main features were the establishment of a regime of free trade stretching across the middle of Africa, the development of which became the rationale for the recognition of the short-lived "Congo Free State", the abolition of the overland slave trade, and the principle of "effective occupation".
The Conference's rapacious intentions for Africa were noted by outsiders: socialist journalist Daniel De Leon described the conference as "an event unique in the history of political science...Diplomatic in form, it was economic in fact."
Before the Conference ended, the Lagos Observer declared that "the world had, perhaps, never witnessed a robbery on so large a scale." Theodore Holly, the first black Protestant Episcopal Bishop in the U.S., condemned the delegates as having "come together to enact into law, national rapine, robbery and murder".
Berlin 1884: Remembering the conference that divided Africa
Megathreads and spaces to hang out:
- ❤️ Come listen to music and Watch movies with your fellow Hexbears nerd, in Cy.tube
- 💖 Come talk in the New Weekly Queer thread
- 💛 Read and talk about a current topics in the News Megathread
- 💚 Come and talk in the Daily Bloomer Thread
- ⭐️ September Movie Nominations ⭐️
reminders:
- 💚 You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
- 💙 Hexbear’s algorithm prioritizes comments over upbears
- 💜 Sorting by new you nerd
- 🌈 If you ever want to make your own megathread, you can reserve a spot here nerd
- 🐶 Join the unofficial Hexbear-adjacent Mastodon instance toots.matapacos.dog
Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):
Aid:
Theory:
Shitty venting
spoiler
I wonder if I should take a break, this conflict has me burned out unlike anything else. Watching fucking ghouls you thought were friends and family nod along to a fucking genocide, seeing the live gaslighting by the western press, and the horrible shit being done to the Palestinians by the settler zionists...
Im too angry to function sometimes, I got so angry yesterday I spent it sobbing and calming myself with friends and that weird fucker db0. Ukraine was fucking nuts, but this is so fucking... GAH
Victory for Palestine is inevitable, and Palestine has struck the largest blow to fascism in decades, but seeing the videos of their people slaughtered in the dozens by uncaring fascist monsters is unbearable. Every fucking day I feel more and more fucking useless. I try to make up for it by working with the people around me, agitating, protesting, and uh... things of a very very very legal nature but then I check online and Israel is justifying reducing another hostpital full of so many people to ash and soulless settler scum eating it up like candy its fucking EVIL!
Fuck it all, its so fucking paralyzing. I hope that when the time comes for the USA, there is little mercy, they deserve nothing. They lie with every breath, the most ridiculous lies, and they swallow it without a thought. I can't explain it except willful ignorance and actively siding with the regime while knowing its all lies. Both deserve punishment.
One reason I will stay a Marxist Leninist is to make every worst nightmare of the US come true. They deserve to see a hammer and sickle defile their settler state, they deserve to see the global south wave the flag of Lenin and Stalin, they deserve to fall in the most humiliating and total way. They feared the Soviet Union with every bone in their body, so I stand with the Soviet Union, dead or not.
Communists are too nice, they give these settler snakes a second chance they do not deserve. I do not joke when I say that any of their resistance should be met with the harshest repression. They don't deserve communism, they deserve the nightmare. But we're too good, its not right to do that. The villians will get away in some form, and they will kill us.
I don't know if I should leave or not, im so tired, but I have little like this place. The only place I am a Her, where I am Me, where people know who I am and don't think it of me as a disgusting thing.
Im being far too dramatic, and I haven't eaten in like the last day and a half. I just need to find some food and I'll be fine.
hey catradora I hope you feel better, and please do eat some food!
After the revolution the libs in reeducation camps will go through all their fiends and families social media and flag every reactionary, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and liberal post and write an essay on why the post was bad. Then they will read their essays at the people who mal-posted.
We will make them bully each other.
deleted by creator
If the reason you haven't eaten is financial, make a post on mutual aid, I'll be sure to help out
In any case, take care of yourself and take some breaks from thinking about serious stuff so much.
You deserve to relax
Find some food and read some Unjust Depths