Please do your part today.Belgo-Congolese activist and founder of Café Congo in Brussels.a member of the Belgian royal family and great-grandniece of Leopold II.This is a rush transcript. We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work. delivered to your inbox every day? That seems to be obvious. It’s a difficult conversation for many, especially when we talk about reparation, but it is absolutely necessary if we want to have a just, fair society. And I really hope that this will expose the past honestly, get rid of a narrative that was built over the years with a certain nostalgia by some of Belgium ex-colonizers saying, “But there were good things in the colony.” No, there were not. BlackPast.org is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization. Ironically, Moïse Tshombe, who had led the secessionist Katanga province, was made prime minister with the mandate to defeat these rebels and end other regional revolts. And we would like to work not on the material and memorial reparation, because it has still an impact today on us, on the new generation, on the Afro-descendant generation. A Leopold statue was also removed in Antwerp.This reckoning led King Philippe of Belgium to issue an unprecedented statement expressing regret for Belgium’s colonial rule in a letter to For more, we’re joined by a descendant of King Leopold II who’s joining the protesters in demanding a reckoning about his brutal legacy. Statues of Leopold II can be seen in cities across Belgium. Nonetheless, for the first time since independence, all of the country was ruled by one government. Meanwhile, Belgian authorities in the city of Ghent removed a separate statue of Leopold on Congo’s Independence Day, June 30th. When Belgium intervened militarily, more soldiers rebelled. So, all that, for me, makes so much sense.And I think we have to talk about that. Obviously, we have to go much further.And the Parliament has voted for a commission of truth and reconciliation. But, you know, if you keep on the reflection, it goes further. Black Lives Matter protests in the U.S. have sparked a reckoning about racism and colonialism across the world, including in Belgium, where a growing movement is demanding the country address systemic racism and make amends for its violent colonial legacy.
The Belgian Vigneron looks like a M3 Grease Gun mated with a German MP40 while a Tommy gun watched. His troops were ordered to collect the hands of victims and to shoot those who resisted slave labor. King Philippe issued an unprecedented statement “expressing regret” for Belgium’s brutal colonial rule in Congo under Leopold II, who ran the country as his personal fiefdom and under whose command millions of Congolese were enslaved and killed. It was established by the Belgian parliament to replace the previous, privately owned Congo Free State, after international outrage over abuses there brought pressure for supervision and accountability. We do not accept funding from advertising, underwriting or government agencies. I’m aware that there are petitions that are starting to be organized for other European countries to recognize, acknowledge their past.And I think that this commission that Parliament will allow, that implements from September, the truth, reconciliation — and, I would add, reparation — it means material and memorial — will really create like a collective therapy for all the Belgians, including the post-colonial bodies like Congolese, Burundis and Rwandis.
And I can confirm that I’m the fruit of this shared history between Belgium and Congo, but it is a denial history. That’s why, coming from — starting from King Leopold II, who was the second king of Belgium, but also a builder and also the head of the Free State of Congo, he had duties and responsibilities, and that continuity, that colonial continuity, you know, after we had the Belgian Congo, and then we arrive today with the systematic discrimination. Please do your part today. No, Belgium won’t escape that kind of a therapy and work, you know, on its colonial past. Do you find this information helpful?
The Simbas were defeated in November 1964.One year later, Mobutu seized power from President Kasavubu after having persuaded Western leaders that he was the most effective leader in the fight against communism. And I can see so much the link between racism, even in the climate crisis now, even in the way the Indigenous people are displaced by all the multinationals, the same way the colonizer moved and killed the Indigenous people before.