• Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    65
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 days ago

    As much as other European colonialists have fucked up Africa over the years, I don’t think any one person can have more blame for that than Leopold II of Belgium. Just ran the place like his own personal genocidal fiefdom.

      • HikingVet@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        26
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        2 days ago

        Behind the Bastards did a multiple episodes on him. Yeah, fuck that guy.

      • thefartographer@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        2 days ago

        I know about him! He’s the hot dude who married Kate after making all the Otis elevators stop. And then he jumped through timelines with burn-victim Van Wilder.

    • SeaJ@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      2 days ago

      It literally was his own personal fiefdom because he directly owned it. It wasn’t until all the bad press came out that the Belgian government forced him to hand it over to Belgium proper. The Belgian government then proceeded to do a light form of Leopold’s system: forced labor via imprisonment but without the incentive to chop off limbs.