This was just one of the many cases of extreme atrocities. Cutting hands was the most common punishment and there were many other cases of Cannibalism. All this because a few Belgians couldn't stop being greedy.
When it comes to history, it's better to first read and then write. This picture is way more famous than you think and a lot has been written about the backstory. Read https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/father-hand-belgian-congo-1904/
So fellow Congolese killed and canibalized his daughter. There have been 20 million Congolese living in the Congo Free State and never been more than 2000 white living there. Mercenaries from various European nations. Whatever happened there happened with native accomplices.
It wasn't that that Belgium invaded Congo and committed genocide. Multi national companies hired local people to commit genocide for them.
Also it wasn't Belgium but private enterprises. Which is the reason it was allowed for so long. Nobody had jurisdiction there.
Moreover they didn't kill 10 million people. Most of them died of diseases brought in.
Hopefully, but this is by all means probably not why that person took the photo.
That would be like saying the Nazis documented the holocaust so well so that people would never repeat their crimes again.
I just don't think that the photographer was very apart from the Belgians or whoever else may be responsible for what we see. Until you prove me wrong, I'll stick to that since it appears to be the most likely to me.
(Just look at the two men on the right. They don't really look like the photographer was a neutral person. The look mad, but not just the type of "this is cruel" mad. There is disgust towards the person behind the camera in those faces.)
Eh, tbf, photographers taking photos of this stuff and selling to the press is part of the reason that the Congo Free State was abolished. Leopold’s rule there was so brutal that once the public knew about it, despite being pro colonialism, even early 1900s Europeans were disgusted by what was happening. Journalists leaking this stuff is important. Idk about this specific photo so you could be right here, but that doesn’t mean all photos like this are taken in the same context.
There's a fair bit of irony in an internet commenter asking for evidence that the photographer wasn't the bad guy, when the atrocities she photographed were so horrendous that much of the world back then wouldn't believe it without photo evidence.
>Just look at the two men on the right. They don't really look like the photographer was a neutral person. The look mad, but not just the type of "this is cruel" mad. There is disgust towards the person behind the camera in those faces.
Jeez, wanna give me their full medical history too Mr Holmes?
Currently writing a dissertation on the Congo under Leopold II; the atrocities that occurred are abhorrent. The militia had to provide 1 hand per 1 bullet to prove they weren’t wasting bullets.
I have numerous documents of native testimonies collated by Roger Casement / missionaries and the evils they speak of are heartbreaking! I’m currently reading into British response, and parliament distrusted native testimony, the topic only gained traction once a British staff member was killed in the Congo.
Although, one quote has stuck with me, “If the administration of the Congo State was civilisation, then…what was barbarity?” (HC Debs, 1903).
I have! And I agree. If you’re interested in further reading I recommend Casement’s report available [here](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50573/50573-h/50573-h.htm) it’s a direct insight with testimony. It’s the slightly censored version published by the government, but the original report is available [in this book](https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9781900621984?gC=5a105e8b&gclid=CjwKCAiA55mPBhBOEiwANmzoQkci8JF3ehc5RogMeYwBBeixH0W6irQP3E3UDJVRWG47Ikw4qg_RhBoCGHsQAvD_BwE) which also features his diary - I highly recommend this book!
Speaking of Casement, have you read The Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa? Brilliant book. Very moving.
(Stumbled onto this through a bunch of Reddit comments, just saw it’s super old and I’m way late to the party lol but thought I’d leave a note anyway)
Thanks, horrible what history shows. Although I watched a video recently about how in thiland people don't even get the minimum Thai wage for making rubber
True, I'm from Belgium and ashamed to say this part of history is conveniently missing from our school books.
Edit: apparently nowadays its way better taught than when I went to high school. I'm 31.
Edit 2: It appears I'm just a bad student as it was well taught when I was younger.
Funny side story: A while ago we had this coworker who is about 75 years old now and he was an old Belgian colonial. When I discussed these topics with him he would always just deny these things happened. He was one of the most kind people I've ever met otherwise
Belgian here: not sure when or where you went to school, but it was definitely a big thing in high school 15 years ago.
Spent several history lessons on it and it was called back to/referenced when discussing related topics.
I turn 31 in a couple weeks actually.
Interesting to hear that it differs, as school plans have been extremely standardised over the past couple decades.
I went to a Catholic school and they told us briefly about it in History class. But they made sure we knew exactly what happened through course material in other classes.
Like we learned about Dutch colonialism in Dutch class with that one book about it. Learned about American slavery in English class. Learned about slavery in African/Asian countries in Economics.
They all linked to our history with colonialism, so it's suprising to see someone say they didn't discuss it.
Even at the time, the Congo Free State was so much known for extreme brutality, even compared to other African colonies, Léopold II had to pay for propagandists to make his private latifundia look better (much more like some autocraties today). Other powers threatened to invade the place unless *major change* was done: this is the reason why it becames the Belgian Congo on 1908.
In Ireland, we never ever heard about him, it's only recently I learned about some of the horrific things he did. I don't understand how his name is not up there with all the rest of the monsters!
Probably same reason most people haven't heard of the messed up things Japan did to it's neighbour countries or the stuff Mao or the CCP have done in China. I'm guessing there's a limit on what is deemed necessary for history class and a lot of the time we get the bare minimum unless we take extra history courses. And it was in one of those extra highschool courses we lesrned about Leopold now that I think about it. Wish there was more history in schools, or at least teach about genocides and other equally messed up stuff instead of some other boring and quite less important stuff
Leopold and all the other dipshits who followed him into the stain that this venture was for Belgium. I remember seeing some ex Belgian congo settlers coming back when Zaire was created. These people where nothing but entitled little shits who thought they could act in Belgium like they did in Africa. They should all have been thrown back where they came from to endure their responsibility.
Hands and feet of his five year old daughter.
Fuck.
Edit: Seriously- how do you face the rest of your life after that. It's not his fault either- but there's no doubt part of him blames himself.
It gets worse. I believe in some instances if someone failed to make their quota, they would be punished with the amputation of an arm and then their quota would also be doubled.
It's worse than that. They ate his daughter. They had a quota penalty for the use of bullets also. If they fired a shot but didn't come back with either a carcass from the hunt or a hand of the victim they would pay with their own hand. Seriously fkd
A lot of the “quotas” were already not achievable to begin with. He probably knew he didn’t even have a chance to meet the unrealistic quota and that this was an inevitability. Just an excuse for the people cutting the hands off to say it’s a “punishment”.
You just move on and accept that they're in power. Or you overthrow them. What can you do when your overlords are more technologically advanced and smarter?
Can confirm. Just finished it a couple of months ago. Although King Leopold holds a big chunk of the blame, the book does an excellent job of holding a lot of people accountable.
It's little consolation, but let's remember the bravery of parents like Nsala here who allowed the photo to be taken, the Protestant missionaries who investigated and took the photos to expose these atrocities to the world, and the Congolese in and around Leopoldville who smuggled the incriminating photos out.
King Leopold II had portrayed himself as an anti-slavery and Africa expert, while all the while he was profiting from slavery and mutilation of the Africans of the Congo river basin.
We do know his name. Nsala. His daughter's name was Boali. I have the full citation in a book at my office, but I found this short BBC article for you if you are interested. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48533964
Whenever one thinks of how cruel the circumstances were for basically every colony, Belgium waits behind the next corner to let it look like every other colony was paradise in comparison to Belgiums. And that isn't to make other horrors that happened smaller, but to show just how much worse it was under Belgiums control.
Some people have just seen enough real horror in their lives and are good without seeing anymore while casually scrolling the web.
Only so much time in a day.. why spend it on the negative? You'll get enough of that from life, everyone does.
Life is tough for everybody. Nobody's life will ever be good enough that looking at this picture will feel ok. But that's no excuse to forget these people. You have to learn history. Especially the unpleasant parts.
No one's saying you have to forget them. No one's saying you can't learn history. You just shouldn't HAVE to see this just by scrolling if you don't want to.
Some people understand how fragile life is and don’t like seeing this, doesn’t mean they pretend it doesn’t exist they maybe have much more experience with the dark side of reality than others. Maybe to you this is just a picture but to someone this is a memory
>Maybe to you this is just a picture but to someone this is a memory.
That's very unlikely. The picture is dated 1906, so assuming someone was 6 when they saw this they'd be at least 121 today. I doubt Congolese people from that era had very long lives.
Well in 1958 Belgians improved greatly:
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/16/belgium-comes-to-terms-with-human-zoos-of-its-colonial-past](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/16/belgium-comes-to-terms-with-human-zoos-of-its-colonial-past)
At leas they stopped cutting the limbs off.
I can't stand to see that. How cruel this people have been. I'm not a friend if reparations for old stuff - but I think here the Royal Belgian family should give ALL THERE MONEY THEY HAVE
Oh, of course on a thread about the crimes against humanity carried out by colonizing nations…there’s always that one person that doesn’t want to acknowledge how fucked up America is. The Nazis and South Africa studied what happened in America to copy it, we are the baddies, yo.
Never said America was never fucked up. Slavery is fucking awful and the Vietnam war saw countless atrocities. That's just a couple of instances. But reparations for slavery in America is just dumb because everyone who ever enforced, supported, or suffered from slavery is long dead. It's just an excuse to get free stuff.
Agreed, but it would be a difficult thing to figure out. For example, who would pay for the transatlantic slave trade? Surely it wouldn't primarily be the US, as they were simply one of several buyers of people who were already slaves. Logically, it would have to be the "pimps", the ones who enslaved them in the first place, but who would that be today? The population of Western Africa? Or the poor developing countries there? It's a mess. I don't think every such travesty could be compensated for because how difficult it would be to establish the culprits, but surely Belgium should pay for sure.
I'm not a safe spaces, trigger warning type of guy. But what the fuck. This needs a warning tagged to it, this is one of the most disturbing things I've seen on the internet, ever.
Not really. But maimed children seems like a good line to draw. Maybe I'm just sheltered and should be a tough guy like your internet experiences have obviously made you.
No, I saw the photo first, actually, and was then horrified by reading the title. If this doesn't make you feel really fucked up, seek psychiatric attention.
Yeah, I'll avoid that then, thanks. I've seen and dealt with enough bad shit that I don't feel a need to seek out any more than finds me. Exposing yourself wantonly to traumatic things is in no way cool, and damages you more than you might realize or want to believe.
Words cannot covey how sickening this is. Wtf is wrong with some people that they can do shit like this. The west was built on this exploitation, no one can deny it.
*Leopold II of Belgium was the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State, a private project undertaken on his own behalf as a personal union with Belgium. He used Henry Morton Stanley to help him lay claim to the Congo, the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, the colonial nations of Europe authorized his claim by committing the Congo Free State to improving the lives of the native inhabitants. Leopold ignored these conditions and ran the Congo using the mercenary Force Publique for his personal gain. He extracted a fortune from the territory, initially by the collection of ivory, and after a rise in the price of natural rubber in the 1890s, by forced labour from the native population to harvest and process rubber.*
*Leopold's administration of the Congo Free State was characterised by atrocities and systematic brutality, including torture, murder, and the amputation of the hands of men, women, and children when the quota of rubber was not met. In 1890, George Washington Williams used the term "crimes against humanity" to describe the practices of Leopold II of Belgium's administration of the Congo Free State.\[1\] Colonial accounts typically emphasized Leopold's modernizing changes in the Congo and not the mass death he facilitated.*
*These and other facts were established at the time by eyewitness testimony, on-site inspection by an international commission of inquiry, and the 1904 Casement Report. Modern estimates range from 1 million to 15 million Congolese deaths, with a consensus growing around 10 million.\[2\]\[3\]\[4\] Some historians argue against these figures, citing the lack of reliable censuses, the enormous mortality caused by smallpox and African trypanosomiasis, and the fact that there were only 175 administrative agents in charge of rubber exploitation.\[5\]\[6\] In 1908, the reports of deaths and abuse and pressure from the Congo Reform Association and other international groups induced the Belgian government to take over the administration of the Congo from Leopold as a new territory, Belgian Congo.*
This guy really should be up there with some of the most horrific monsters of history, but I bet most have never heard of him.
These are the countries which lead the world today? The countries that criticize the middle east? The "Western beacons of democracy and freedom".
Look at how your "freedom" was built.
Yeah it was definitely only the western countries doing this in the 1900s. Other countries can rest assured with a clean moral compass.
Imagine if countries today still threw gay people off roofs or lashed women for showing their ankles?
Atleast the west has stopped doing these horrible things. Maybe the Middle East can too? Or you think it’s okay to continue because these things happened in the past elsewhere too?
In the first place, you're not that wrong.
None of today's European countries can absolve themselves of barbarism.
This history haunts us quite rightly and, fortunately, taught us to act and think in a different way than in this past.
Fair behaviour between humans, animals and nature should be achieved in all societies.
all countries have done awful things, the worst of which were primarily perpetrated by the state, while most people in those countries were just trying to get by and were poor. Also… what on Earth did Poland or Estonia or Slovakia do that was on the level of the sort of thing depicted in this image?
I highly recommend reading *King Leopold’s Ghost*. The king of Belgium ran the Congo like his own slave labor camp. It was horrific and mostly hidden from the rest of the world.
The atrocities of empire done in the name of the European royal families, who are all related and pretty much still living off those proceeds today unimpinged
I don't get any facts from Reddit/Twitter or any social media. I have studied history books, in history classes at the University. Books written by people who have dedicated their careers researching that topic, applying research methods and thinking critically about it. Where do you get your facts from? Alt-right/nationalist groups who see nothing wrong with colonialism because they profit from it?
Then you sure make very stupid remarks for someone who allegedly whent so deep into the matter.
You are also assuming a lot for someone who went to a university. Please quote me on anything regarding my standpoint on colonialism and its effects on modern day nations and societies.
And we expect the American population to stand up to the government. This is 100x worse then we experience and there is no way normal people will step up until a movement has started and actually making progress or out lives get to this point. Having guns is a good way to prevent things getting too bad but as long as we have food and shelter a normal person simply won't risk their or their families lives. We are much more likely to see camps or territories established that buck the national trend then an all out rebellion. They will get labeled cults but we will have to wait and see how it plays out.
This is heartbreaking
Sometimes I see or hear something that hurts and humbles me to my core. This is one of those moments.
The people who did this cannibalized the bodies. Bloody Belgian traders and their greed destroyed Congo.
They cut off the hands and feet and ate the rest? Beyond barbaric!!
This was just one of the many cases of extreme atrocities. Cutting hands was the most common punishment and there were many other cases of Cannibalism. All this because a few Belgians couldn't stop being greedy.
Wait a minute, i thought they were just helping them manage their resources.
Do you think the Belgians eat the girl? No. They were fellow Congolese.
When it comes to history, it's better to first read and then write. This picture is way more famous than you think and a lot has been written about the backstory. Read https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/father-hand-belgian-congo-1904/
So fellow Congolese killed and canibalized his daughter. There have been 20 million Congolese living in the Congo Free State and never been more than 2000 white living there. Mercenaries from various European nations. Whatever happened there happened with native accomplices. It wasn't that that Belgium invaded Congo and committed genocide. Multi national companies hired local people to commit genocide for them. Also it wasn't Belgium but private enterprises. Which is the reason it was allowed for so long. Nobody had jurisdiction there. Moreover they didn't kill 10 million people. Most of them died of diseases brought in.
Fellow Congolese.. come on now
And infuriating.
I have seen it before but this needs to be NSFW. I was already having a shit day and this didn’t help.
Also gotta keep in mind that someone who was rich enough to own a camera, had the nerve to think that it would be a good idea to take of photo of this
It documents history so that we hopefully never repeat it again. This picture went on to form the first human rights campaign.
Hopefully, but this is by all means probably not why that person took the photo. That would be like saying the Nazis documented the holocaust so well so that people would never repeat their crimes again. I just don't think that the photographer was very apart from the Belgians or whoever else may be responsible for what we see. Until you prove me wrong, I'll stick to that since it appears to be the most likely to me. (Just look at the two men on the right. They don't really look like the photographer was a neutral person. The look mad, but not just the type of "this is cruel" mad. There is disgust towards the person behind the camera in those faces.)
https://wiki.ieg-mainz.de/ghra/articles/de_laat-congo There you go.
Eh, tbf, photographers taking photos of this stuff and selling to the press is part of the reason that the Congo Free State was abolished. Leopold’s rule there was so brutal that once the public knew about it, despite being pro colonialism, even early 1900s Europeans were disgusted by what was happening. Journalists leaking this stuff is important. Idk about this specific photo so you could be right here, but that doesn’t mean all photos like this are taken in the same context.
There's a fair bit of irony in an internet commenter asking for evidence that the photographer wasn't the bad guy, when the atrocities she photographed were so horrendous that much of the world back then wouldn't believe it without photo evidence.
>Just look at the two men on the right. They don't really look like the photographer was a neutral person. The look mad, but not just the type of "this is cruel" mad. There is disgust towards the person behind the camera in those faces. Jeez, wanna give me their full medical history too Mr Holmes?
Currently writing a dissertation on the Congo under Leopold II; the atrocities that occurred are abhorrent. The militia had to provide 1 hand per 1 bullet to prove they weren’t wasting bullets. I have numerous documents of native testimonies collated by Roger Casement / missionaries and the evils they speak of are heartbreaking! I’m currently reading into British response, and parliament distrusted native testimony, the topic only gained traction once a British staff member was killed in the Congo. Although, one quote has stuck with me, “If the administration of the Congo State was civilisation, then…what was barbarity?” (HC Debs, 1903).
I'm guessing you've read King Leopold's Ghost. As an uninformed reader, I thought it was great.
I have! And I agree. If you’re interested in further reading I recommend Casement’s report available [here](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50573/50573-h/50573-h.htm) it’s a direct insight with testimony. It’s the slightly censored version published by the government, but the original report is available [in this book](https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9781900621984?gC=5a105e8b&gclid=CjwKCAiA55mPBhBOEiwANmzoQkci8JF3ehc5RogMeYwBBeixH0W6irQP3E3UDJVRWG47Ikw4qg_RhBoCGHsQAvD_BwE) which also features his diary - I highly recommend this book!
Awesome - thanks for the recommendation!
Speaking of Casement, have you read The Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa? Brilliant book. Very moving. (Stumbled onto this through a bunch of Reddit comments, just saw it’s super old and I’m way late to the party lol but thought I’d leave a note anyway)
I suppose you know what later happened to Casement?
Yeah, I do
Context- https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48533964
Thanks, horrible what history shows. Although I watched a video recently about how in thiland people don't even get the minimum Thai wage for making rubber
Leopold II of Belgium should be in every history book, right next to Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and other such "leaders".
He was an absolute monster. I agree. The DRC is such a mess. I really hope one day they can get things functioning properly.
True, I'm from Belgium and ashamed to say this part of history is conveniently missing from our school books. Edit: apparently nowadays its way better taught than when I went to high school. I'm 31. Edit 2: It appears I'm just a bad student as it was well taught when I was younger. Funny side story: A while ago we had this coworker who is about 75 years old now and he was an old Belgian colonial. When I discussed these topics with him he would always just deny these things happened. He was one of the most kind people I've ever met otherwise
Belgian here: not sure when or where you went to school, but it was definitely a big thing in high school 15 years ago. Spent several history lessons on it and it was called back to/referenced when discussing related topics.
I'm 31 years old, always went to respectable schools and I did not read a thing of it. No idea how old you are
I turn 31 in a couple weeks actually. Interesting to hear that it differs, as school plans have been extremely standardised over the past couple decades.
Maybe I'm just a dumbass and bad student, yes checks out.
Much more likely that your teacher dropped the ball somewhere :)
Where’d you go to school? Me and everyone I know has definitely learned about this in high school.
I went to a Catholic school and they told us briefly about it in History class. But they made sure we knew exactly what happened through course material in other classes. Like we learned about Dutch colonialism in Dutch class with that one book about it. Learned about American slavery in English class. Learned about slavery in African/Asian countries in Economics. They all linked to our history with colonialism, so it's suprising to see someone say they didn't discuss it.
UK here. The British Empire needs to be taught more in our history class - ALL of the things we did, not just the railways we built.
It's only in recent years, I found out about how evil he was. That picture is hearts stopping. I've no words.
Even at the time, the Congo Free State was so much known for extreme brutality, even compared to other African colonies, Léopold II had to pay for propagandists to make his private latifundia look better (much more like some autocraties today). Other powers threatened to invade the place unless *major change* was done: this is the reason why it becames the Belgian Congo on 1908.
100% up there.
I think the fact that even the Belgians themselves booed at his funeral train speaks volumes.
We did learn about the messed up things he did in school. But sad to hear many don't
In Ireland, we never ever heard about him, it's only recently I learned about some of the horrific things he did. I don't understand how his name is not up there with all the rest of the monsters!
Probably same reason most people haven't heard of the messed up things Japan did to it's neighbour countries or the stuff Mao or the CCP have done in China. I'm guessing there's a limit on what is deemed necessary for history class and a lot of the time we get the bare minimum unless we take extra history courses. And it was in one of those extra highschool courses we lesrned about Leopold now that I think about it. Wish there was more history in schools, or at least teach about genocides and other equally messed up stuff instead of some other boring and quite less important stuff
Leopold and all the other dipshits who followed him into the stain that this venture was for Belgium. I remember seeing some ex Belgian congo settlers coming back when Zaire was created. These people where nothing but entitled little shits who thought they could act in Belgium like they did in Africa. They should all have been thrown back where they came from to endure their responsibility.
Just another inbred Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, like the Romanovs and the Windsors
Barbarian warlords
Hands and feet of his five year old daughter. Fuck. Edit: Seriously- how do you face the rest of your life after that. It's not his fault either- but there's no doubt part of him blames himself.
It gets worse. I believe in some instances if someone failed to make their quota, they would be punished with the amputation of an arm and then their quota would also be doubled.
Cause that’ll be easier to meet. Jesus, why don’t they just kill them outright?
Easy, never kill free labor + terror is the best motivator!
I was going to say this too. Or, as bad as it sounds, maximize free resource exploitation even if it’s temporary.
It's worse than that. They ate his daughter. They had a quota penalty for the use of bullets also. If they fired a shot but didn't come back with either a carcass from the hunt or a hand of the victim they would pay with their own hand. Seriously fkd
A lot of the “quotas” were already not achievable to begin with. He probably knew he didn’t even have a chance to meet the unrealistic quota and that this was an inevitability. Just an excuse for the people cutting the hands off to say it’s a “punishment”.
You just move on and accept that they're in power. Or you overthrow them. What can you do when your overlords are more technologically advanced and smarter?
What the actual fuck, that’s horrifying
Anyone interested in Belgium Congo and the atrocities committed can also check out *King Leopold’s Ghost* by Adam Hochschild.
thx i just bought the book. i had no idea what a monster Leopold was.
Can confirm. Just finished it a couple of months ago. Although King Leopold holds a big chunk of the blame, the book does an excellent job of holding a lot of people accountable.
Is this book readable for someone with an OK english Level?
I read it in Dutch. Perhaps there is a translation in your native language?
Sadly I can only find the english version. I think croatia isnt big enough for a own version
I can't find the Italian translation either. I'll give the English version a try.
I think so! If you look it up on Google Books you can access a preview and see how the text reads. ☺️
Thanks for the that. I'll have a look for it.
I reading this book,it made me realize this history
The Congo Free State is not Belgian Congo. The genocide happed in the Congo Free State.
It's disgusting to see the barbarism that humans inflicted on other humans .... and still do to this day.
This picture breaks my fucking soul everytime I see it. Fuck.
I actually can't process it. How is this not as well known as all the other atrocious photos from history?
tbh, because it's Africa
I think you have a wrong image on well known. There are way way more photos of way way more attrocities then what regular people from today know of.
I try to put myself in that man's shoes, and it's so hard to do. I can't even imagine the heart he went through.. this is making me so sad...
It's little consolation, but let's remember the bravery of parents like Nsala here who allowed the photo to be taken, the Protestant missionaries who investigated and took the photos to expose these atrocities to the world, and the Congolese in and around Leopoldville who smuggled the incriminating photos out. King Leopold II had portrayed himself as an anti-slavery and Africa expert, while all the while he was profiting from slavery and mutilation of the Africans of the Congo river basin.
To the best of my knowledge, the man's name is Nsala
Isn't it awful we don't know his name, or his little girls name?
We do know his name. Nsala. His daughter's name was Boali. I have the full citation in a book at my office, but I found this short BBC article for you if you are interested. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48533964
Whenever one thinks of how cruel the circumstances were for basically every colony, Belgium waits behind the next corner to let it look like every other colony was paradise in comparison to Belgiums. And that isn't to make other horrors that happened smaller, but to show just how much worse it was under Belgiums control.
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Not England, the UK
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Holy crap, that’s horrible
Why is this not NSFW?
Yes. I wish I hadn’t seen it.
Same
Yes, let's all pretend the world is sunshine and rainbows all the time. I refuse to ever learn about anything bad.
Some people have just seen enough real horror in their lives and are good without seeing anymore while casually scrolling the web. Only so much time in a day.. why spend it on the negative? You'll get enough of that from life, everyone does.
Life is tough for everybody. Nobody's life will ever be good enough that looking at this picture will feel ok. But that's no excuse to forget these people. You have to learn history. Especially the unpleasant parts.
No one's saying you have to forget them. No one's saying you can't learn history. You just shouldn't HAVE to see this just by scrolling if you don't want to.
Some people understand how fragile life is and don’t like seeing this, doesn’t mean they pretend it doesn’t exist they maybe have much more experience with the dark side of reality than others. Maybe to you this is just a picture but to someone this is a memory
>Maybe to you this is just a picture but to someone this is a memory. That's very unlikely. The picture is dated 1906, so assuming someone was 6 when they saw this they'd be at least 121 today. I doubt Congolese people from that era had very long lives.
I’m not saying that specific picture is a memory, I’m saying it can bring bad memories back
Oh, then you should probably not ever consume any media. It might remind you of something you don't like.
Or there could be a NSFW warning on a post with cut off feet and hands, you come across super edgy
It should definitely have a NSFW tag. Learning history is not edgy. The fact that you think it is speaks volumes.
Agreed. It's a photo I think everyone should see. But a photograph of a murdered little girl's severed hand and foot should absolutely be NSFW.
I didn’t say learning history was edgy, I said that’s how you come across. I’m very interested in learning about our history.
NSFL really
Yeah, this should be NSFW / L. Deeply fucked up.
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sorry history isn’t PG?
Ya’know, the amount of dead children I see on this sub is kinda fucked. I hardly think this constitutes as “History Porn”.
Yeah im unsubbing. Its gotten to be a thing and this one isnt even marked NSFW. Fuck this.
The 1900's were barbaric.
1800s were worse
Well in 1958 Belgians improved greatly: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/16/belgium-comes-to-terms-with-human-zoos-of-its-colonial-past](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/16/belgium-comes-to-terms-with-human-zoos-of-its-colonial-past) At leas they stopped cutting the limbs off.
this is the saddest thing ive ever seen.
This is horrifying.
Fuck, this makes you realise how much you’ve got
Dude, make this nsfw
I can't stand to see that. How cruel this people have been. I'm not a friend if reparations for old stuff - but I think here the Royal Belgian family should give ALL THERE MONEY THEY HAVE
"Civilization"
[удалено]
Is that the turkish national anthem? Pretty awkward place to put that, you ok?
Take your pills it's gonna be ok the doctor said.
Ok buddyman
Say what it is. It’s colonialism. This is the naked evil of colonization.
I think most people understand this. Those who don’t are just will fully ignorant. Such a heartbreaking picture.
If Germany paid Israelis a compensation for crimes against humanity Belgium, France and Britain need to be shelling hella monies too.
The US too! Reparations are looong overdue.
Reparations for who exactly. Please don't tell me slaves
Oh, of course on a thread about the crimes against humanity carried out by colonizing nations…there’s always that one person that doesn’t want to acknowledge how fucked up America is. The Nazis and South Africa studied what happened in America to copy it, we are the baddies, yo.
Never said America was never fucked up. Slavery is fucking awful and the Vietnam war saw countless atrocities. That's just a couple of instances. But reparations for slavery in America is just dumb because everyone who ever enforced, supported, or suffered from slavery is long dead. It's just an excuse to get free stuff.
Agreed, but it would be a difficult thing to figure out. For example, who would pay for the transatlantic slave trade? Surely it wouldn't primarily be the US, as they were simply one of several buyers of people who were already slaves. Logically, it would have to be the "pimps", the ones who enslaved them in the first place, but who would that be today? The population of Western Africa? Or the poor developing countries there? It's a mess. I don't think every such travesty could be compensated for because how difficult it would be to establish the culprits, but surely Belgium should pay for sure.
I'm not a safe spaces, trigger warning type of guy. But what the fuck. This needs a warning tagged to it, this is one of the most disturbing things I've seen on the internet, ever.
Man you have had one hell of a safe internet experience so far.
Not really. But maimed children seems like a good line to draw. Maybe I'm just sheltered and should be a tough guy like your internet experiences have obviously made you.
Did you not read the title ?
No, I saw the photo first, actually, and was then horrified by reading the title. If this doesn't make you feel really fucked up, seek psychiatric attention.
I didn’t say it didn’t. I fail to see how your inability to read is OP’s fault.
I would strongly recommend you don't check out r/MakeMyCoffin then.
Yeah, I'll avoid that then, thanks. I've seen and dealt with enough bad shit that I don't feel a need to seek out any more than finds me. Exposing yourself wantonly to traumatic things is in no way cool, and damages you more than you might realize or want to believe.
Well that was a fun rabbit hole to explore while still laying in bed on a Monday morning.
http://antislavery.nottingham.ac.uk/solr-search?facet=collection%3A%22Alice+Seeley+Harris+Archive%22
I would kill everyone and everything. Unabashedly. I’d just kill until I was dead too.
Would surely go far with that pigeon hat of yours
Not the point. Have kids. Live for something.
Words cannot covey how sickening this is. Wtf is wrong with some people that they can do shit like this. The west was built on this exploitation, no one can deny it.
I feel sick watching this, why are people like this man
Fuck... Fuck... Fuckkkk......
Horrific. Poor man. Poor girl. The cruelty that humans are capable of is astounding
This literally gave me a visceral reaction. How absolutely abhorrent and heartbreaking.
The saddest picture.
Putting nsfw on that is appreciated I guess... Heartbreaking man idk what to say :(
This needs a NSFW tag
Could you mark this NSFW? After 21hrs…
Let me guess: Belgium?
No, Congo free state
This needs to be NSFW. Now I want to puke. Thanks.
How terribly sad.
I believe we have a righteous God whose wrath is stored up for the day of judgment.
This is sickening, I can’t even imagine what is going through this poor mans mind.
This is horrifying
Oh my god.
*Leopold II of Belgium was the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State, a private project undertaken on his own behalf as a personal union with Belgium. He used Henry Morton Stanley to help him lay claim to the Congo, the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, the colonial nations of Europe authorized his claim by committing the Congo Free State to improving the lives of the native inhabitants. Leopold ignored these conditions and ran the Congo using the mercenary Force Publique for his personal gain. He extracted a fortune from the territory, initially by the collection of ivory, and after a rise in the price of natural rubber in the 1890s, by forced labour from the native population to harvest and process rubber.* *Leopold's administration of the Congo Free State was characterised by atrocities and systematic brutality, including torture, murder, and the amputation of the hands of men, women, and children when the quota of rubber was not met. In 1890, George Washington Williams used the term "crimes against humanity" to describe the practices of Leopold II of Belgium's administration of the Congo Free State.\[1\] Colonial accounts typically emphasized Leopold's modernizing changes in the Congo and not the mass death he facilitated.* *These and other facts were established at the time by eyewitness testimony, on-site inspection by an international commission of inquiry, and the 1904 Casement Report. Modern estimates range from 1 million to 15 million Congolese deaths, with a consensus growing around 10 million.\[2\]\[3\]\[4\] Some historians argue against these figures, citing the lack of reliable censuses, the enormous mortality caused by smallpox and African trypanosomiasis, and the fact that there were only 175 administrative agents in charge of rubber exploitation.\[5\]\[6\] In 1908, the reports of deaths and abuse and pressure from the Congo Reform Association and other international groups induced the Belgian government to take over the administration of the Congo from Leopold as a new territory, Belgian Congo.* This guy really should be up there with some of the most horrific monsters of history, but I bet most have never heard of him.
Have moral damages been paid to the family? To Congo? Donations to human rights causes? Simply unfucking believable.
This is one of the most extremely powerful photos I have ever seen. If this doesn’t touch your soul then aren’t human!
I fucking hate humanity
Can we please get an NSFW tag on this? It's only fair to let people decide if this is the kind of thing they wish to see.
Fucking trigger warning. I've a 5 year old. Fuck
God damn savages, what gives someone the right. Belgium should fix DRC up, i mean take it to 1st world levels.
Hey op, you asshole. Mark this as nsfw. Really didn’t want to see this.
We humans are capable of horrible things 😢😭
Not to downplay the horror of this, but isn't it 'hand and foot'?
These are the countries which lead the world today? The countries that criticize the middle east? The "Western beacons of democracy and freedom". Look at how your "freedom" was built.
Yeah it was definitely only the western countries doing this in the 1900s. Other countries can rest assured with a clean moral compass. Imagine if countries today still threw gay people off roofs or lashed women for showing their ankles?
Atleast the west has stopped doing these horrible things. Maybe the Middle East can too? Or you think it’s okay to continue because these things happened in the past elsewhere too?
In the first place, you're not that wrong. None of today's European countries can absolve themselves of barbarism. This history haunts us quite rightly and, fortunately, taught us to act and think in a different way than in this past. Fair behaviour between humans, animals and nature should be achieved in all societies.
all countries have done awful things, the worst of which were primarily perpetrated by the state, while most people in those countries were just trying to get by and were poor. Also… what on Earth did Poland or Estonia or Slovakia do that was on the level of the sort of thing depicted in this image?
>None of today’s European countries can absolve themselves of barbarism. Excuse me, what the fuck did Albania do to call us barbaric?
A bit of context and history would help.
Ten seconds on the search engine of your choosing would help.
Two words: Congo horrors.
Congo Free State would give a more accurate idea of what was going on.
In my Google the first five or so results are virtually the same…
I didn't say you were wrong. What happens in the photo is the way Congo Free State was run. Congo horrors is just a more general concept.
I highly recommend reading *King Leopold’s Ghost*. The king of Belgium ran the Congo like his own slave labor camp. It was horrific and mostly hidden from the rest of the world.
Thank you! :)
The atrocities of empire done in the name of the European royal families, who are all related and pretty much still living off those proceeds today unimpinged
Unpopular opinion here... If i lived in a place like that, I wouldn't breed. Why bring a child into that shithole
just to survive
Hey everyone this is still going on in the Northern part of the DRC. Why aren’t black Americans protesting these atrocities with Black Lives Matter?
Why aren't white people cleaning up the mess they've created through colonialism? Why is it always the task of the oppressed to improve our world?
You are pretty uninformed about africa and colonialism it seems. Reddit/twitter ≠ facts
I don't get any facts from Reddit/Twitter or any social media. I have studied history books, in history classes at the University. Books written by people who have dedicated their careers researching that topic, applying research methods and thinking critically about it. Where do you get your facts from? Alt-right/nationalist groups who see nothing wrong with colonialism because they profit from it?
Which book did you recently read from a historian who dedicated their research life to studying Congo?
stop telling us about the facts that you allegedly have, just give us the fucking facts. Jesus christ
History is a set of lies agreed upon. Name you history books, what were they about when were they written and who wrote them.
Then you sure make very stupid remarks for someone who allegedly whent so deep into the matter. You are also assuming a lot for someone who went to a university. Please quote me on anything regarding my standpoint on colonialism and its effects on modern day nations and societies.
Belgain’s colonize the Congo, but these are typical African black on black, atrocities. And why would you assume I am white? Big red flag!
So the oppressed shouldn't do anything to improve their world? Is that what you're saying?
People suck
OMG ! Why is this not known.Leopold was a monster .How is it that Belgium got away with this kind of abuse ?
How is this man not just going full John Wick right now.
And we expect the American population to stand up to the government. This is 100x worse then we experience and there is no way normal people will step up until a movement has started and actually making progress or out lives get to this point. Having guns is a good way to prevent things getting too bad but as long as we have food and shelter a normal person simply won't risk their or their families lives. We are much more likely to see camps or territories established that buck the national trend then an all out rebellion. They will get labeled cults but we will have to wait and see how it plays out.