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Quote by Johan Op de Beeck

“Eigenlijk had Leopold II op jonge leeftijd al zijn zinnen op China gezet, meer dan op Congo. In 1859, 1864 en 1872 ondernam hij al pogingen. Toen de verlichte mandarijn Li Hongzhang in 1896 naar Europa kwam om Duitsland en Engeland te bezoeken, liet Leopold II een van zijn mannen als een soort James Bond infiltreren in diens missie om hem te overtuigen naar België te komen. De mandarijn werd groots gefêteerd in Brussel. Dat eindigde in de aanleg van 1.321 kilometer spoorweg in China met Belgische inbreng én handelsrelaties.”

Quote by Johan Op de Beeck

Book:Leopold II: Het hele verhaal
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Leopold II: Het hele verhaal

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Johan Op de Beeck

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“In a pattern of misrepresentation that is repeated on other issues, Hochschild at first mentions this inconvenient fact and then proceeds to say the opposite for the entirety of the book. The fiefdom “was shared in no way with the Belgian government,” which “had no legal authority over [Léopold] as ruler of the Congo,” he alerts readers. Yet not only the subtitle of the book but laced throughout are constant smears against European colonialism.”

Leopold IiCongo Free StateAdam HochschildLeopold S GhostKing Leopold S Ghost
Book:King Hochschild’s Hoax: An absurdly deceptive book on Congolese rubber production is better described as historical fiction.
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“The freelance EIC had at its peak just 1,500 administrative officers and about 19,000 police and soldiers for an area one third the size of the continental United States. As such, it exerted virtually no control over most areas, which were in the hands either of Arab slave-traders and African warlords, or of native soldiers nominally in the employ of Belgian concession companies without a white man for a hundred miles. Hochschild’s description of the EIC as “totalitarian” is bizarre, as is his claim that Léopold exerted a “framework of control…across his enormous realm.” If only this were true.”

ColonialismLeopold IiCongo Free StateAdam HochschildIndependant Congo State
Book:King Hochschild’s Hoax: An absurdly deceptive book on Congolese rubber production is better described as historical fiction.
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“By 1891, six years into the attempt to build the EIC, the whole project was on the verge of bankruptcy. It would have been easy for Léopold to raise revenues by sanctioning imports of liquor that could be taxed or by levying fees on the number of huts in each village, both of which would have caused harm to the native population. A truly “greedy” king, as Hochschild repeatedly calls him, had many fiscal options that Léopold did not exercise.”

Leopold IiCongo Free StateAdam HochschildLeopold S GhostRed RubberConho
Book:King Hochschild’s Hoax: An absurdly deceptive book on Congolese rubber production is better described as historical fiction.
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“The report quotes an earlier report on the Belgian Congo of 1919 which claimed that the population “has been reduced one-half.” It quotes this claim in order to state that it is almost certainly false. That is because population estimates for the Belgian Congo varied widely and remained pure guesswork. They were of “little value in drawing any precise conclusions.” The only firm conclusion it reached was that population was not increasing. The causes were multiple, including sleeping sickness, inter-tribal warfare, poor nutrition, female trafficking, polygamy, and the working conditions for men in European industrial and commercial enterprises.”

GenocideColonialismLeopold IiBelgian Colonialism
Book:The Case for Colonialism: A Response to My Critics
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