History doesn’t exist in a vacuum I’m afraid. If an entity, whether it’s a person or a nation, commits atrocities and then simply stops doing so, can we call that justice?
Leopold, turned the Congo Free State into his personal, horrific rubber-and-ivory fiefdom from 1885 to 1908, used the profits to bankroll massive architectural and infrastructure projects in Brussels, Antwerp, and Ostend (e.g., the Cinquantenaire park, the Royal Palace of Laeken, and the Antwerp Central Station).
The profits were deeply integrated into Belgium’s financial and industrial sectors (steel, banking, and manufacturing), giving the country a massive economic head start in European and global markets during the 20th century.
Antwerp is the diamond capital of the world, handling roughly 84% of the world’s rough diamonds. Critics point out that a massive portion of the DRC’s vast diamond wealth historically and currently flows straight to Antwerp, meaning Belgium still captures the high-value “refining and trading” end of the supply chain, while the DRC is left with the environmental and human cost of raw extraction.
Major Belgian conglomerates, or companies born out of the colonial structure (like Umicore, formerly Union Minière du Haut-Katanga), transitioned from colonial owners to powerful multinational players. They still hold significant strategic advantages and interests in extracting critical minerals like cobalt and copper from Central Africa.
When the DRC gained independence in 1960, its first democratically elected Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, wanted to nationalize the country’s resources so the Congolese people could finally benefit from them. Fearing the loss of mineral access, Belgian officials (with the help of the CIA) were deeply complicit in Lumumba’s overthrow and assassination, replacing him with Mobutu Sese Seko—a brutal dictator who let Western corporations keep extracting wealth while plunging his own country into poverty.
Colonialism may have come to an end but Belgium is still a neocolonialist nation.
Colonialism only took on modern forms. It’s always been might makes right.
Now with some countries slowly rising from its shadows, a lot of people in the west are pissing their pants that the tables might turn. Even if we’re a very long stretch away from that, and climate change is ironically affecting us less than the so-called global south.
It may not be as long a stretch as it seems.
Climate change is in many ways an extension of neocolonialism ie. localizing benefits while externalizing harms. Western countries, despite making up 20% of the global population, are responsible for 50% of global cumulative emissions.
Back during the Earth Summit in 1992:
“In view of the different contributions to global environmental degradation, States have common but differentiated responsibilities. The developed countries acknowledge the responsibility that they bear in the international pursuit of sustainable development in view of the pressures their societies place on the global environment and of the technologies and financial resources they command.”
Based on this, the Rio declararion explicitly stated that developed countries must take the lead in combating climate change and its adverse effects.
As we all know, these responsibilities were ultimately betrayed
The world has a way of rebalancing itself. We may not see a complete rebalancing in our lifetimes but the process has already begun.
Colonialism has generally never played nice for the conquered, however, some, like the Romans, and to a certain extent the Moors, Ottomans, Spanish, and others were somewhat integrating, excesses and plunder non withstanding, and contributed to the conquered. Belgian Congo was pure evil.
I have Belgian blood, BTW.
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Fair enough. I was about to be snarky about blaming the football team for it, so thanks for heading that fruitless discussion off at the pass 😁