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Congo Quotes

“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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“Jules Marchal, Adam Hochschild, Lucas Catherine and Daniel Vangroenweghe deliberately did not publish reliable figures and did not read the 1905 investigation report, set by Leopold II. They are spreaders of fake news.”

CongoLeopold IiCongo Free StateAdam HochschildLeopold S Ghost
Book:The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba
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“Il y a un très grave problème qui se pose au Congo. Il ne s’agit pas seulement de la violence dans l’Est, du viol des femmes. Il y a en cause, pour le moment, l’avenir même du Congo, parce que les Congolais ne lisent pas les livres. Et un peuple qui ne lit pas les livres n’a pas d’histoire, il n’a pas de mémoire collective. C’est un peuple qui est voué à la disparition. Donc, c’est cela ma grande préoccupation…”

CongoMarcel YabiliCongolaise
Author:Marcel Yabili
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“L'Américain Adam Hochschild, sans aucune connaissance solide de l'Afrique, a propagé le livre d'horreur Le fantôme du roi Léopold, 1998, à partir du carnet de voyage en anglais de Stanley, et Ben Affleck pousse encore plus loin le mensonge, basé sur les affabulations de Hochschild, dans un film qui sortira bientôt.”

CongoLeopold IiAdam HochschildCongo Belge
Book:Le roi génial et bâtisseur de Lumumba: un exercice de critique historique sur le plus grand fake news
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“White American, Adam Hochschild, with no solid Africa knowledge, purveyed the horror book King Leopold's ghost, 1998, from Stanley's English-language travelogue, and Ben Affleck further presses the lie, based on Hochschild's fabrications, in a film soon to be released.”

CongoLeopold IiCongo Free StateBelgian CongoAdam HochschildBen Affleck
Book:The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba
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“Stanley raamde met wat hij zag langs de Congostroom en zijrivieren het bewonersaantal van het bekken op 40 miljoen, een cijfer dat hij in de Franse vertaling halveerde, en die gefantaseerde bevolkingsberg is medio de twintigste eeuw, door ernstig demografisch onderzoek, geslonken tot 10 à 15 miljoen.”

CongoLeopold IiHenry Morton Stanley
Book:The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba
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“Nergens zijn er aan de Evenaar onder Leopold II, of zijn Belgische opvolgers na 1908, volkerenslachtingen geweest à la de zieke heersers Hitler, Stalin of Pol Pot. Wel hebben Lucas Catherine, Jules Marchal en Daniel Groenweghe het bestrijden van het imperialisme — of het wegschrijven van hun ontgoochelingen in Afrika — gezien als de overtreffende trap van het antikapitalisme. En auteurs als Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle en Hugo Claus hebben met een bloeiende verbeelding en de insteek van Don Quichote, een potpourri gemaakt van Congo Vrijstaat en zijn stichter.”

CongoLeopold IiAfrika
Book:Mijn ‘waarheid’ over Leopold II: Nepnieuws ontkracht
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“Le swahili n’est pas une langue de vauriens. Par contre, il fait partie des dix grandes langues au monde. Et quand on considère les autres langues comme le Français ou l’Anglais, il y a des auteurs qui publient des ouvrages dans ces langues, des dictionnaires mis à jour, il existe même des académies. Maintenant, les Congolais doivent apprendre à parler et à écrire correctement le swahili en respectant les règles”

CongoSwahiliAfriqueRdcCongo RdcAfrique Central
Author:Marcel Yabili
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“Il y a quand même des objets du patrimoine qui parlent de l’histoire, qui parlent du passé. Et le passé permet de voir l’évolution du pays. Il donne aussi une perspective de l’avenir. Quand on a un monument aux morts, on doit prendre conscience que ce pays a connu des guerres. On a en ce monument des problèmes avec le Rwanda. Mais vous savez qu’avec ce monument, on allait se rappeler les victoires du Congo sur le Rwanda. Le Congo avait gagné la guerre, occupé le Rwanda, le Burundi et même Tabora qui était la capitale des Allemands”

CongoRwandaAllemandsForce PubliqueTabora
Author:Marcel Yabili
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“In the 19th century, many European countries sought colonies. Leopold II long cherished the ambition to give a colony to Belgium. He came into contact with British explorer Stanley, who found no interest in Central Africa in London. Later, the British would regret it. They discredited the Congo Free State to get their hands on Katanga and its mining resources. In 1908 London tried to sabotage Belgium’s takeover of the Congo Free State by formulating conditions. But other countries did not follow that line. In 1911, the British signed a secret agreement with Germany on a reallocation of Africa; the Germans would not follow through. In 1937 British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain offered Hitler ‘half of the Belgian Congo’ in exchange for peace in Europe; but the Fuhrer refused.”

BritishLondonCongoLeopold IiCongo Free StateBelgian CongoAdolf Hitler
Book:Léopold II Le plus grand chef d'Etat de l'histoire du Congo (Études africaines)
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“Leopold II laid the foundation for a common culture through education, a multi-ethnic ‘Force Publique’ that spoke Lingala, a meticulous administration and laws based on ‘zero tolerance’. He signed the state and is thus the father of Congo.”

CongoLeopold IiCongo Free StateBelgian CongoBelgian Empire
Book:Léopold II Le plus grand chef d'Etat de l'histoire du Congo (Études africaines)
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“Leopold II paved the way for a Congo that could be independent from other countries, but that is currently very disappointing, in 1960 — the year of independence — Congo is an emerging and prosperous country. The Congolese at that time have the highest standard of living in all of Africa.”

CongoLeopold IiCongo Free StateBelgian Congo
Book:Léopold II Le plus grand chef d'Etat de l'histoire du Congo (Études africaines)
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“a comeback is possible for the Congolese. but for that, the country needs an extraordinary leader, someone of the caliber of Leopold II, someone who organizes the state, a genius in state administration, a know-it-all manager.”

CongoLeopold IiCongo Free StateBelgian CongoDrcModern Drc
Book:Léopold II Le plus grand chef d'Etat de l'histoire du Congo (Études africaines)
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“My dear countrymen! In joy and in sorrow I will always be with you. It is together with you that I fought to free my country from foreign rule. Together with you I am fighting to strengthen our national independence. Together with you, I will fight to preserve the integrity and national unity of the Republic of the Congo.”

CongoBelgian CongoPatrice Lumumba
Book:Lumumba Speaks: The Speeches and Writings of Patrice Lumumba, 1958-1961
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“I know that an overwhelming majority of the Belgian people are against the oppression of Africans. They disapprove of a colonial status for the Congo under which 14 million Congolese are exposed to the diktat of a tiny economic oligarchy. If the Belgian people were to have their say, the Congo would never have experienced the misfortunes which are affecting it now.”

CongoBelgian CongoPatrice Lumumba
Book:Lumumba Speaks: The Speeches and Writings of Patrice Lumumba, 1958-1961
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“Our dearest wish perhaps, some may find it utopian is to found in the Congo a Nation in which differences of race and religion will melt away, a homogeneous society composed of Belgians and Congolese who with a single impulse will link their hearts to the destinies of the country.”

CongoBelgian CongoPatrice Lumumba
Book:Lumumba Speaks: The Speeches and Writings of Patrice Lumumba, 1958-1961
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“As someone celebrated as an anti-colonial hero in the contemporary academy, it is often forgotten that Patrice Lumumba was an active “collaborator” in Belgian colonial rule by any measure: a postal clerk, the head of a local trade federation, and an insider in colonial society as head of Stanleyville’s Association des Évolués.”

ColonialismCongoBelgian CongoBruce GilleyPatrice Lumumba
Book:The Case for Colonialism: A Response to My Critics
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“Zijn onderneming herleiden tot tomeloze zelfverrijking doet geen recht aan de nationale en sociale motieven van zijn imperialisme. België was nog jong en labiel, met Nederlands-Limburg en Luxemburg had het grote delen van zijn territorium verloren, katholieken en liberalen lustten elkander inmiddels rauw, het proletariaat begon zich te roeren : een explosieve cocktail. Het land leek wel “ een stoomketel zonder ventiel ”, vond Leopold. Congo werd dat ventiel.”

CongoLeopold Ii
Book:Congo: een geschiedenis
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“At the time, 43 countries out of 60 represented were always ready to vote any anti-colonialist resolution. Belgium did not accept this interference in its internal cuisine and bit off: Belgian Congo forms one and the same state with the motherland, which has one and the same nationality. The Congolese people live within the national borders of the Belgian state (Ryckmans in April 1953). No other country has the right to intervene in the way a sovereign state governs itself. To strengthen its argument, Belgium decided to stop transmitting information about its colony and to stop participating in the meetings of the Special Committee - and for that we do not need the approval of the General Assembly "!”

United NationsCongoBelgian CongoPierre Ryckmans
Book:Congo belge: La colonie assassinée
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“The virus of independence-seeking is also spreading in Africa. The Cold War is raging in full force and both power blocs are trying to increase their influence by harnessing the black intelligentsia in the colonies to their respective chariots. Through foreign embassies, the most able students are tracked down and ideologically groomed to play a political role. The colonies must become independent in favour of the neo-colonial policies of Washington and Moscow!”

United StatesCold WarSoviet UnionCongoMoscowBelgian CongoWashington
Book:Congo belge: La colonie assassinée
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