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Jennifer Elisabeth

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“Papers from Count Jules Greindl, who was the main collaborator of Leopold II in this curious affair, the author has drawn a very precise account, supplemented by documents. To take advantage of the financial ruin of Spain to make the Philippines a kingdom of its own, distinct from Belgium and then to form a company which would exploit the islands in the name of Spain, such were the successive ideas of Leopold. They failed both for lack of capital and for the reaction of Spanish pride. But they show, in Leopold II, the progress of the colonial idea with all the aspects that will then be found in the Congolese affair. When Henry Morton Stanley discovered the Congo, Leopold was ready.”

CongoLeopold IiCongo Free StateHenry Morton StanleyBelgian ColonialismBelgian Colonial EmpireBelgian EmpireJules Greindl
Book:A la recherche d'un Etat Independent: Léopold II et les Philippines
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“Leopold II has always been a bit of an obsession for me. In 1955 I was appointed to the order named after him, I didn't quite know what to do with it, I defiantly walked around with the ribbon in the hope that some colonel would say: "Vlerk, what are you doing with that?" It never happened unfortunately. I've read 42 books about him, documented thoroughly about the interest rate in 1882, and you can't help but feel admiration for that man. He has been the last great king, a kind of dinosaur. When he said or wrote 'we', you don't know whether he's talking about himself, his family, his country or his dynasty.”

CongoLeopold IiCongo Free StateBelgian ColonialismBelgian Colonial Empire
Author:Hugo Claus
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“Millions of dead' appears nowhere in the rich oral tradition of my ancestors, nor in Lumumba's speeches. Nor does it appear with Mobutu, who was born and raised in the Equator province, where the ABIR and the Anversoise exploited rubber.”

CongoRubberLeopold IiCongo Free StateBelgian CongoLumumbaMobutu Sese SekoAnversoiseAbirPatrive Lumumba
Book:The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba
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“The much-criticised rubber regime of Leopold II had only a brief heyday and disappeared from the tables of Congolese resources shortly after 1900 in favour of palm oil and palm nuts. The production tables also show that the population increased from 1890 onwards and was not exterminated. In 1888, And revenue from the 'red' rubber largely went to the Free State for public expenditure, including road construction and the army. These budgets, too, are never cited by the narrators, ever. Ditto for the rubber tables, which show that far more rubber arrived in Antwerp from French Congo and Angola than from the Free State in the early period. Rubber from Congo Free State accounted for barely 10 per cent of world production. The big supplier was the Amazon with 70%.”

CongoRubberLeopold IiCongo Free StateBelgian CongoRed Rubber
Book:The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba
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“Demographer Jean-Paul Sanderson, estimated the decline of the Congolese population during the reign of Leopold II and after, between 1885 and 1920 at several hundred thousand, and there were several reasons for this: diseases, malnutrition (including because men worked in the rubber harvest rather than farming), fewer births. Professor Anatole Romaniuk of the University of Alberta in Canada wrote a study on this, showing that almost half of the women in Congo in the second half of the 19th century suffered from Afro-Arab slavery and did not give birth to a single living child because of 'une stérilité massive pathologique d'origine vénérienne', i.e. because of massive infertility due to venereal disease. This factor trumped all other causes.”

SlaveryGenocideCongoLeopold IiFake NewsCongo Free StateArab SlaveryRuvver
Book:The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba
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