When You Kill Ten Million Africans You Aren’t Called ‘Hitler’
What some European countries did to other nations that they felt were beneath them or how they used and exploited them is in today’s terms unbelievable and a gross infringements of human rights. Some of European history of their colonization and exploitation of other nations should not be forgotten. Hong Kong, Australia, South Africa, India and so on by the British. Congo in Africa by Belgium. The Philippines and South America by the Spanish. The Dutch in Indonesia. The French in Vietnam, Morocco, Polynesia and so on and so on. Europeans in destroying and committing genocide against the native people of the Americas. The Germans to the Jews and killing 6 million of them! The list continues. Not only do they steal the wealth and natural resources away but they convert the religions of these countries by force, re-education, laws and insist on the superiority of their European religions, culture and race. They change the names of the people saying it’s hard to pronounce but it’s more indoctrination, to force them to be more ‘European’ but never accept them as equals, as total imperialists creating situations by force where the local people of these lands are degraded, tortured, forced into labor and or killed. It is genocide, to say the least.
This is a terrible legacy where white supremacist attitudes prevailed and did so much damage, where many Europeans were prejudiced against other cultures, religions and people. Today many Europeans are different, thank goodness, and live a more ‘enlightened’ view, but the legacy of their forefathers’ damage still lives on in many countries. People like to quote China’s human rights abuses but look at your own history in the not-so-distant past. Every country’s citizens, especially countries with a history of colonialism, should self-examine very carefully as well as see what’s happening everywhere and China. If you don’t like what’s happening in China, then demand your governments to stop all economic ties, business and profits immediately. Don’t make money from China and then criticize China and until that happens, self-examine. China definitely needs to improve but so do many other countries. Your governments and private sectors are making plenty of money from China and the economic benefits filter down to the citizens. Even today in the U.S., a supposed powerful human rights advocate, there is so much racial tension as you can see in the recent Ferguson events. So many countries, past and present, are guilty of this. We need to think how much damage and pain has been created. Yes it’s still happening in some parts of the world. This story shared here for educational purposes expresses the point very well. It is abominable what Belgium did in Congo. It is unacceptable in today’s terms when we recall all the looting, and the wealth and dignity that was plundered by some European countries that was never returned from the countries they stole from.
As Winston Churchill famously said, “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.” What a interesting viewpoint from a white imperialist colonizer of India and a so-called ‘respected’ world statesman.
I am very sad to read this about King Leopold II of Belgium but growing up in a very racist environment in the US, I understand somewhat. I have not suffered as much as the beautiful people of Congo, but I understand when who and what you are is degraded. What religion you are is insulted and you are segregated because of it. My particular form of Tibetan Buddhism includes the enlightened protector Dorje Shugden. Because the Tibetan leaders for political gains banned this worship, I am segregated. What culture you come from is not understood but made fun of. Where the color of your skin and facial features are taunted by the majority or prevailing powers.
Tsem Rinpoche
When You Kill Ten Million Africans You Aren’t Called ‘Hitler’
By Liam O’Ceallaigh / walkingbutterfly.com
Take a look at this picture. Do you know who it is?
Most people haven’t heard of him.
But you should have. When you see his face or hear his name you should get as sick in your stomach as when you read about Mussolini or Hitler or see one of their pictures. You see, he killed over 10 million people in the Congo.
His name is King Leopold II of Belgium.
He “owned” the Congo during his reign as the constitutional monarch of Belgium. After several failed colonial attempts in Asia and Africa, he settled on the Congo. He “bought” it and enslaved its people, turning the entire country into his own personal slave plantation. He disguised his business transactions as “philanthropic” and “scientific” efforts under the banner of the International African Society. He used their enslaved labor to extract Congolese resources and services. His reign was enforced through work camps, body mutilations, executions, torture, and his private army.
Most of us – I don’t yet know an approximate percentage but I fear its extremely high – aren’t taught about him in school. We don’t hear about him in the media. He’s not part of the widely repeated narrative of oppression (which includes things like the Holocaust during World War II). He’s part of a long history of colonialism, imperialism, slavery and genocide in Africa that would clash with the social construction of the white supremacist narrative in our schools. It doesn’t fit neatly into a capitalist curriculum. Making overtly racist remarks is (sometimes) frowned upon in polite society, but it’s quite fine not to talk about genocides in Africa perpetrated by European capitalist monarchs.
Mark Twain wrote a satire about Leopold called “King Leopold’s soliloquy; a defense of his Congo rule“, where he mocked the King’s defense of his reign of terror, largely through Leopold’s own words. It’s 49 pages long. Mark Twain is a popular author for American public schools. But like most political authors, we will often read some of their least political writings or read them without learning why the author wrote them (Orwell’s Animal Farm for example serves to re-inforce American anti-Socialist propaganda, but Orwell was an anti-capitalist revolutionary of a different kind – this is never pointed out). We can read about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, but King Leopold’s Soliloquy isn’t on the reading list. This isn’t by accident. Reading lists are created by boards of education in order to prepare students to follow orders and endure boredom well. From the point of view of the Education Department, Africans have no history.
When we learn about Africa, we learn about a caricaturized Egypt, about the HIV epidemic (but never its causes), about the surface level effects of the slave trade, and maybe about South African Apartheid (which of course now is long, long over). We also see lots of pictures of starving children on Christian Ministry commercials, we see safaris on animal shows, and we see pictures of deserts in films and movies. But we don’t learn about the Great African War or Leopold’s Reign of Terror during the Congolese Genocide. Nor do we learn about what the United States has done in Iraq and Afghanistan, potentially killing in upwards of 5-7 million people from bombs, sanctions, disease and starvation. Body counts are important. And we don’t count Afghans, Iraqis, or Congolese.
There’s a Wikipedia page called “Genocides in History”. The Congolese Genocide isn’t included. The Congo is mentioned though. What’s now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo is listed in reference to the Second Congo War (also called Africa’s World War and the Great War of Africa), where both sides of the multinational conflict hunted down Bambenga and ate them. Cannibalism and slavery are horrendous evils which must be entered into history and talked about for sure, but I couldn’t help thinking whose interests were served when the only mention of the Congo on the page was in reference to multi-national incidents where a tiny minority of people were eating each other (completely devoid of the conditions which created the conflict no less). Stories which support the white supremacist narrative about the subhumanness of people in Africa are allowed to be entered into the records of history. The white guy who turned the Congo into his own personal part-plantation, part-concentration camp, part-Christian ministry and killed 10 to 15 million Conglese people in the process doesn’t make the cut.
You see, when you kill ten million Africans, you aren’t called ‘Hitler’. That is, your name doesn’t come to symbolize the living incarnation of evil. Your name and your picture don’t produce fear, hatred, and sorrow. Your victims aren’t talked about and your name isn’t remembered.
Leopold was just one part of thousands of things that helped construct white supremacy as both an ideological narrative and material reality. Of course I don’t want to pretend that in the Congo he was the source of all evil. He had generals, and foot soldiers, and managers who did his bidding and enforced his laws. It was a system. But that doesn’t negate the need to talk about the individuals who are symbolic of the system. But we don’t even get that. And since it isn’t talked about, what capitalism did to Africa, all the privileges that rich white people gained from the Congolese genocide are hidden. The victims of imperialism are made, like they usually are, invisible.
Source: http://www.filmsforaction.org/news/when_you_kill_ten_million_africans_you_arent_called_hitler/
This is strictly for educational purposes only.
Comedian Trevor Noah mocking colonisation
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https://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/TrevorNoah.mp4
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“Most of us – I don’t yet know an approximate percentage but I fear its extremely high – aren’t taught about him in school. We don’t hear about him in the media. He’s not part of the widely repeated narrative of oppression (which includes things like the Holocaust during World War II). He’s part of a long history of colonialism, imperialism, slavery and genocide in Africa that would clash with the social construction of the white supremacist narrative in our schools. It doesn’t fit neatly into a capitalist curriculum. Making overtly racist remarks is (sometimes) frowned upon in polite society, but it’s quite fine not to talk about genocides in Africa perpetrated by European capitalist monarchs.”
The above paragraph caught my attention the most. I’m shocked that this is my first time to hear about this person, who killed over 10 million people in the Congo. What this guy did was far more than Hitler, but the history rarely talk about him.
It’s scary to see how media and the school have impact on us. The head can always decide what to spread out based on the highest good of their social construction. Do we have enough wisdom and sources to know the truth? We should always question ourselves, also be mindful when we perceive any information.
I feel sad whenever read about the history of slavery in Africa. Today, they are till struggle with extreme poverty. I wish more love and joys around the world are sending to them.
In the pursuit of greed, wealth and perhaps even wanting to fuel our egos, people have conquered many lands, people. This article is eye opening to say the least, people have said many times before history is always written by the victors. How we project our civilization is highly dependent on what we want to highlight.
As other nations are trying to develop their countries, there are many ‘developed’ countries who like to impose their ‘current’ values on the developing nations.
Hardly seems fair at all. The values of any country can change with time and situation, so what one country is criticizing, could be what they had done previously.
Racism is something that the world has to get rid of permanently.
Even though people say that America is a ‘unracist’ country, but i doubt that. Recently the american police have been shooting blacks claiming that the [Black] threatened them or was armed thus forcing them to open fire in defense. But actually in most of the footages of the blacks getting shot, they aren’t even holding anything dangerous. That proves that racism hasn’t truly been solved.
In the coming years i hope to see racism fully abolished. Why? because everyone is equal.
Yet everyone is trying to get to the USA. Why do they go there if they are treated so badly.?People do not go emigrate to the other nations which are where many of the authors of such articles are from.
It does beg an reasonable answer.
Unfortunately there is NO fact to this “article” whatsoever. If one reads the complete census of central and southern African from the late 19th century, one will very quickly realise that there were not even 10 million people in the Congo for him to “murder”. Please check FACTS before posting incredibly irresponsible material like this.
PS. I am neither a Leopold sympathiser, nor Belgian, for all I know this may have a terrible person, who committed the most horrific atrocities. The FACT remains, he did not kill 10 Million congolese.
To David Paulson,
1. You have NO proof this is not correct. So don’t go accusing people here of “incredibly irresponsible material”.
2. Where is the census? Who did the census? How do you know about 19th century census accuracy?
3. Whether he killed 10,000 or 10,000 million the fact is Leopold did colonize, rape, plunder, abuse and extort from Congo. This is the FACT. He had no right to do this. You do further google and find out.
White supremacist settlers from Europe settled all over the African continent and committed so much murder and atrocities and Congo was one of them. This is the FACT and the point of this article.
Gaetan
apparently this guy was a hateful person, even to his own family….
http://crossoflaeken.blogspot.pt/2009/07/marie-henriette-of-austria-queen-of.html
Yes, many of us are ashamed of this part of our history in Belgium.
May events in history are censored due to political reasons. Colonialism by the Europeans created tremendous sufferings for people of the colonized countries. These were legalized exploitation of the weaker countries which in today’s terms is deemed horrid and inhumane.
Any decent human will know that discrimination and exploitation of others are not acceptable on all levels. One of the famous incidents known as the Massacre of Nanjing was downplayed by the Japanese in their history books. This caused the Chinese to be furious and wanted the Japanese to teach the truth of what really happened in Nanjing.
I feel that we must all learn from our mistakes by our fore fathers and not repeat. Otherwise, no matter how technologically advanced we are, we will self destruct one of these days if we keep harboring on the negativities over and over again.
Mao’s Great Leap Forward ‘killed 45 million in four years’
LINK :
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/maos-great-leap-forward-killed-45-million-in-four-years-2081630.html
Chronology of Mass Killings during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)
LINK :
http://www.massviolence.org/chronology-of-mass-killings-during-the-chinese-cultural
Destruction of Serthar Institute : A special report
LINK :
http://archive.is/26qR6
The Biggest Holocaust In World History
LINK :
http://hinduwebsite.com/history/holocaust.asp
This is typical of Western world’s hypocrisy. It is always ok for them to enslave and colonize other nations who at that time were economically lesser than them with all sorts of justifications which they shamelessly call “improving the socio-economy of the colonies”, in fact they are just robbers, tyrants and rapists in disguise. Not only did the west raped those nations of their natural resources and people, the west also fundamentally changed the culture and religion of those nations, like a large part of south America, Africa, Asia…Not to forget also that in order to loot China of her resources, the British sold opium to the Chinese to intoxicate them so that the British could easily control over the Chinese and get what they wanted – Hong Kong for the British and Macau for the Portugese to name a few. Therefore when people cringed over Hitler’s atrocities, they should react then same too towards what the other Western colonists did to other parts of the world, like Leopold as mentioned in this article.
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you for the article. Like what the article mentioned, I am ashamed to admit I do not recognise the portrait of King Leopold II. I do not even know, or hear of the appalling genocide in Congo.
It is indeed true to cite white supremacy. Such hideous acts yet hidden from most of us. Just because the Africans were a minority then, they were made into slaves? Is that how “Blacks” were treated as slaves in the past, was that how it all started? Because of those acts, racism was born.
Thank you, Rinpoche, for raising this for us to be aware, of how the “Strong” suppressed the “Weak”.
Thank you for sharing this post Rinpoche. It was very enlightening post. I am ashamed to say that like millions of others, I had no idea about the genocide in Congo.
I think what caught my attention the most is the following paragraph:
—–
When we learn about Africa, we learn about a caricaturized Egypt, about the HIV epidemic (but never its causes), about the surface level effects of the slave trade, and maybe about South African Apartheid (which of course now is long, long over). We also see lots of pictures of starving children on Christian Ministry commercials, we see safaris on animal shows, and we see pictures of deserts in films and movies. But we don’t learn about the Great African War or Leopold’s Reign of Terror during the Congolese Genocide. Nor do we learn about what the United States has done in Iraq and Afghanistan, potentially killing in upwards of 5-7 million people from bombs, sanctions, disease and starvation. Body counts are important. And we don’t count Afghans, Iraqis, or Congolese.
—–
We live a history that’s told from the perspective of the victors of war – white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant and male. This culture pervades the whole world, to the point where even the countries we live in is dictated by the victors of war (for example after WW1, the Allies drew up the boundaries of countries in the Middle East, which has led to much more conflict today).
So what struck me about the above paragraph is that even though people (in all their good intentions) try to raise awareness of the suffering in places like Africa, still what is promoted is stained with that WASP perspective.
It’s scary how much of what we know is dictated by others and we accept it unquestioningly. Since our perspective is based on the biased information we receive from others, can we really trust our judgement? And that’s for mundane, worldly situations. We can apply the same thought to our spiritual practice. With that in mind, we should be careful when we judge teachers, teachings and spiritual decisions. Our perspective is obviously deluded and not a true, clear view of any phenomena. (On the flip side, it also indicates that if our perspective is affected by input, it is therefore malleable and we can control what we feed and nurture it with)
A disgusting history of Reign of Terror where the supremacy inference led to the killing of millions of Congolese in the 2nd part of the 19th century was unheard of in the 20th century. The lack of economy values of the Congo as a nation (thanks to the exploitation of Leopold II) basically render obliteration this unjust episode of her history.
It is also appalling to note that most of world history are written devoid of the causes or the conditions that created it. History, is written in the interest of maybe a minority free to propagate their agenda. Hence, we must develop the intellectual to read with a pinch of salt, analyse 2 sides of a coin and make reference to the not-so-mainstream records. Just like the Dorje Shugden conflict that is causing pain and suffering to almost the entire populace of the exiled Tibetan community. You will never find the truth if you read on the so-called official report.
Something to ponder on.
Thank You very much, Rinpoche, for sharing this interesting article with us.
Humbly, bowing down,
Stella Cheang