Two years later, Belgium would assassinate Patrice Lumumba, first president of the DR Congo.
In 1975, the Church Committee went on record with the finding that CIA chief Allen Dulles had ordered Lumumba's assassination as "an urgent and prime objective" [1]
Everything is the CIA lol
Edit:
The Committee later found that while the CIA had conspired to kill Lumumba, it was not directly involved in the murder.
jk everyone just wanted him dead
Edit 2:
Documents indicate that the Congolese leaders who killed Lumumba, including Mobutu Sese Seko and Joseph Kasa-Vubu, received money and weapons directly from the CIA
Okay, back to blaming the CIA for everything bad.
Of all the Western nations which get not enough shit for their imperialism, Belgium is among the worst.
Can we get an emote of a waffle on fire?
And they are still doing blackface parades every year and will tell you to your face that its not racist. Even though it only became popular in the late 19th century when Belgium was doing genocide in the Congo.
Zwarte Piet is "supposed to be" a Moor from spain lol, the Dutch are a fucking trip
"Us parading around in blackface is definitely not racist because the character is fictional!... yes he is based on an ethnic group, and yes that ethnic group are black... BUT IT'S NOT RACIST"
It's...strange how many of the crimes Germany perpetrated in Belgium during WW1 map onto crimes Belgium committed in the Congo. A lot of it was certainly a very effective PR campaign by the Entente to try and claim a moral high ground.
Thats completely unrelated though. If a mobster broke into my home, cut off my hand and enslaved my family, I would not consider it justice if he just happens to get severely beaten by another mobster down the line.
a severe case of Germany
I'd call it a very mild case of Germany, seeing how actually severe cases of Germany went. "The Rape of Belgium" was British wartime propaganda - there were war crimes and atrocities, but it doesn't come close to any of the truly bloody occupations of the 20th century. Even the relatively more restrained 21st century wars have higher casualty rates.
It does stand out compared to the 19th century in Europe, to be fair, but it's still unfair that <25k Belgian civilians dead = "Rape of Belgium" while, say, 250k-1m Filipino civilians dead = "Philippine-American War".
"Love Thy Neighbor" by Peter Maas is short and might be a good starting point.
Stop perpetuating the myth that Belgium exists. It's not a country. I don't care how many times I see that word slapped on waffles.
Belgium is just a piece of the Netherlands, Germany and France that refuse to acknowledge they're not a country.
Belgium does have a fucked up history.
It belonged to Spain back when Spain was a Great Power, and their rebellion against Spain was part of the reason Spain ceased being a Great Power. But then the British and Prussians gave it to the Austrians so neither the French nor Spanish (both ruled by the Bourbons) could have territory in the Low Countries, but the Austrians didn't even want it, so they surrendered it easily once the French revolutionaries went to war. The French were harsh rulers, but they did succeed in accelerating the Frenchification of Belgium. So when the Dutch got a hold of Belgium at the Congress of Vienna, they treated the Belgians as second-class citizens, even the Dutch(Flemish)-speaking and/or Protestant Belgians, which finally prompted the Belgians to fight a war for independence. In the liberal nationalist spirit of the times, they should have been absorbed by France, but the British again didn't allow it, which left it the least homogeneous of all Western European countries.
They also had a lot of coal so they were one of the earliest countries to industrialize, which is what made them matter on the world stage just long enough to participate in the rape of Africa before they were left, as In Bruges put it, famous for chocolate and kid-diddlers - and they only have the chocolate to get to the kids.
FYI in Belgium what you are saying is basically the entire ideology of the extreme-right.
Belgium has one of the highest rates of union membership in the world and also one of the few communist parties in the Global North that's actually growing and a relevant political actor: PVDA-PTB. The thing is: both the union membership and the communist party are stronger among the French-speaking minority than in the Dutch-speaking Flanders (the social-democrats and greens are also stronger in the French-speking community) On top of that: Flanders is the more wealthy region. For those reasons, the chamber of commerce and all the organisations of employers advocate for spliting the country, because they know it's much easier to destroy the Belgian welfare state (pensions, unemployment benefits, close to free education and healthcare, and so on) when the country is split because in Flanders the left isn't strong enough to defend it and in Wallonia the currently existing social services wouldn't be able to exist without Flemish subsidies. The left recognises this, and is in favor of the unity of the country (and the unity of the working class and it's struggle) and opposes the Flemish nantionalism that wants to separate the country for that reason.
There is no majority in Flanders (and there has never been one) that wants to split the country . The best polls for the nationalists ever are around 25%, but those are outliers, it's more like 10% of the population. The nationalist parties get more votes, however, because they're also the racist parties.
One last thing: advocating for uniting regions based on the language they speak is a sort of nationalism that the left should never fall for. If you'd be an favor of this in Belgium, why stop there? Unite Ireland and the UK! And throw in the US, Australia and so forth also in there!
I wasn't saying Belgium should Balkanize nor was I advocating for reuniting with those countries. The joke (because it was a joke) is that Belgium is made up of very distinct cultural differences by virtue of their history and looks messy and complicated. You're taking this all way too seriously.
And I know a lot of Belgians are comrades, I was in a long term relationship with a Flemish girl and have an ass-ton of Belgian friends. I went to college for a bit in West-Vlaanderen. It's just banter. They call me a greedy, loud, clog wearing foefke all the time. It's in good fun.
Okay, great. Non-taken.
I took it serious because the sentiment "Belgium isn't a country" comes up every time on this site when the country is named and it's infuriating to see left-wingers repeat what's essentially the talking points of our local chuds.
Reading King Leopold’s Ghost made me want to fucking flatten Belgium.
It’s a garbage fucking country that continued to be a garbage fucking country for way to long after him.
These cherrypicked comparisons are some facebook shit
Edit: I don't disagree with the point of the image, but the format is dumb as hell
DAE Communism countries? Like and share this image with 20 people!
I live in Belgium. Even now some dumbass reactionary fucks see their opposition to the removal of leopolds statues as a hill they want to die on. Meanwhile our workers party is being painted as the 'radical left' for wanting to increase the wages of Healthcare workers and both the N-VA and VB (both far right ) are convincing peeps to vote against their own interests while shifting blame on immigrants and reaping electoral victories across the board. But hey, I'm getting payed by the state to study so it's not all bad, I guess.
Small edit, just thought of it: in my entire school career (age 3 to 20, I had to redo two years because the devils lettuce was more important to me than homework) we had maybe half an hour of class about the Congo. Half an hour. In 17 years.
Have you heard of Comac (PVDA-PTB's student organisation)? I've been with them for about 1,5 years now and I'd highly recommend joining us if you haven't already :heart-sickle:
I'm 27, so I think I'm a bit too old to join a student organisation's. But of course I've heard of it. Would have joined if I was as radicalized when I was younger.
For the sake of praxis we should plan some sort of massive Belgian Beer heist.
I'm down, but it needs to be super stealthy because I don't want Jean or Armand or Karel to hate me.
Also stealing from them seems kinda silly since they sell the beer for like 1/100th it's secondary market value specifically to make it more accessible to workers
How about these polls which show the communist party (PVDA-PTB) doing great there? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2024_Belgian_federal_election#By_party
"The Most Gratuitous Use of the Word 'Belgium' in a Serious Screenplay."
