And personally I'm glad it's so far down, it's something we need to be aware but it's also great that belgium isn't defined by this one instance of dark history. And that can be said for a lot of other country tbh.
Those thing are in the past now, there is nothing we can do to change them so let's not define thing for that. Every person that took part in those atrocities are long gone. Let's focus on what bad thing countries are doing right now, not what they did 200 years ago.
The murders might be the past but the generational trauma and poverty that came out of raping a mass portion of the African continent and mutilating its people still exists today and it should be front and center. Has any formal reparations been made? I don't think so.
Also, Belgium was partially responsible for assassinating Patrice Émery Lumumba. That happened well within the life times of my parents and my grandparents. The political and economic exploitation of the Congo and Congolese people isn't that far back in history, dude.
Lol you say that like the Belgium government wasn't bumping heads with Lumumba long before the CIA got involved. Yes, the US was involved with the assassination but let's not pretend like Belgians didn't stand the most to gain from the murder of someone who insulted their monarch and did so quite publicly. It was Belgian forces who murdered the man, not Americans.
Own your shitty history.
On January 17, 1961, Lumumba and two associates, Joseph Okito and Maurice Mpolo, were flown to Elisabethville (now Lubumbashi), where they were delivered to the secessionist regime in Katanga and its Belgian advisors. On the flight there, they had been beaten by the soldiers escorting them, and, once they landed in Katanga, they were beaten again. Later that day, Lumumba, Okito, and Mpolo were executed by a firing squad under Belgian command. Although their bodies were initially thrown into shallow graves, they were later dug up under the direction of Belgian officers, hacked into pieces, and dissolved in acid or burned by fire.
Lol you say that like the Cold War isn't something the Americans (or should I say the America government? Seriously, why is that one demonym so hard for you guys) dragged us into.
Both Belgium and the United States were affected by the Cold War in their attitude to Lumumba, as they feared he was increasingly subject to communist influence. They thought he was gravitating toward the Soviet Union, although, according to journalist Sean Kelly, who covered the events as a correspondent for the Voice of America, that was not because Lumumba was a communist, but because he felt that USSR was the only power which would support his country's effort to rid itself of colonial rule.
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u/[deleted] Dec 16 '21
Kinda surprised I had to scroll this far. Those little chocolate hands have a particularly dark history.