Belgium needs to explain why Leopold's statue is still standing when Hitler didn't have any

 

The statue of Leopold II, in honor of killing over 10 million Africans in Congo

"Why should a statue be built for King Leopold II after he slaughtered ten million Africans in the Congo if there isn't one for Adolf Hitler, who killed six million Jews?" Joel Savage is curious. Particularly about King Leopold II of Belgium, the subject draws attention to a notable discrepancy in how past leaders and governments accountable for mass atrocities are honoring and celebrating their crimes in contemporary times.

 

Following World War II, the German government renamed streets and squares that bore Adolf Hitler's name as part of the denazification process. The goal of this endeavor was to demolish the Nazi regime's propaganda and emblems, which had methodically captured public areas in honor of Hitler and other Nazi leaders as soon as they came to power in 1933. People are deeply troubled by Hitler's murder of more than six million Jews.

 

Other reasons for renaming were to disassociate the nation from the philosophy and horrors of the Nazi era, as well as to eliminate the personality cult that surrounded Hitler. More significantly, the changes were implemented by the German government because it regarded humanity. Therefore, Belgium needs to explain to the world why there is a statue for someone who killed ten million Africans. This illustrates the country’s complicated colonial heritage.

 

On the other hand, from 1885 until 1908, King Leopold II of Belgium ruled the Congo Free State as a personal colony. He was responsible for a brutal regime that exploited the area for rubber and ivory through severe violence and forced labor. Malnutrition, disease, forced labor, and mutilation, including the widespread amputation of hands as a punishment for failing to reach rubber quotas, are estimated to have killed between 10 and 20 million Africans.

 

Leopold II was never held accountable for his crimes, in spite of this. When international outrage grew, he was forced to relinquish control of the Congo to the Belgian government in 1908, but he remained a respected monarch in Belgium until he died in 1909.  The US and Western Europe denounced the atrocities of Hitler but not Leopold II, because the victims were Black Africans, but Hitler targeted white Europeans.

 

More importantly, Western historical narratives have often downplayed or ignored slavery, apartheid, and colonial crimes due to deep-seated racism. The Nuremberg Trials ensured that Nazi crimes were publicly confronted, whereas colonial atrocities were largely suppressed or minimized by European powers. Despite the public awareness of Leopold II and protests calling for the removal of statues and the renaming of public spaces, the Belgian government and the royal family have refused to act.

 

Throughout Belgium, there are memorials commemorating the violent history of the insane monarch and streets bearing his name. Remarkably, the Belgian government is not threatened by these street names and pictures of sculptures. However, because I am an African writer residing in Belgium, the Belgian government considers my pieces to be dangerous. As a result, they have been working with Google to continuously undermine my site, "Juskosave's Ghana," for years.

 

For instance, the majority of my writings criticizing the Belgian government and the royal family for encouraging criminal activity have been taken from search engines, and several of my article URLs have been changed to 404 errors. My blog used to receive up to 10,000 daily readers because of its excellent content. Today, 100 reads have been registered as a result of the blog's visibility being reduced and users' access being denied.

 

This callous act against humanity committed by the Belgian government compelled me to visit the Stuivenberg Hospital to look into the peculiar circumstances surrounding the deaths of Africans receiving treatment there. After my investigations, I discovered that despite the hospital's improvements, foreigners were still afraid to visit. The hospital has been closed down permanently since 2023.

 

Reference: My Name Is Joel Savage: Why I Am The Most Hated Journalist In Belgium.

https://www.modernghana.com/news/846760/my-name-is-joel-savage-why-i-am-the-most-hated-journalist-i.html

I would not have understood that American and European media are paid to disseminate misleading information about man-made diseases against the African continent if I hadn't been in Europe. In 2008, activist Théophile de Giraud painted a statue of Leopold II in Brussels crimson, arguing that Belgium needs to exhibit self-criticism similar to what Russia and Germany did with Hitler and Stalin.

 

Since its reopening in 2018, the Royal Museum of Africa in Tervuren has amassed over 180,000 objects from the Congo, many of which were taken during Leopold's reign. Despite Leopold II's involvement in the deaths of an estimated 10 to 20 million Africans, the existence of sculptures honoring him reflects a historical heritage that has often praised colonial leaders while concealing the full extent of their atrocities.

 

As I have repeatedly stated, the African continent will not beg the Belgian government to demolish Leopold's crime-supporting statues or to show respect for Africans. Those statues will be taken down either before or after I pass away, once Belgium's economy starts to decline and its relationship with the Black Continent has waned. We saw it happen today in France, after its former colonies, including Burkina Faso, cut ties with its former colonial master.

 

I will remind Belgium of one of the quotes of the president they murdered, Patrice Lumumba: “The day will come when history will speak. But it will not be the history that will be taught in Brussels, Paris, Washington, or the United Nations. It will be the history that is taught in countries that have won freedom from colonialism and its puppet regimes. Africa will write its own history, and in both north and south it will be a history of glory and dignity.”

THE SYSTEMATIC ABUSE OF POWER IN COLONIAL AFRICA

Humans used as transport was another abuse of power in the colonial era, in Africa

During the colonial era in Africa, the masters often received the respect accorded by Black people out of fear. Based on this misconception that Black people fear them, they abused their power horrifically and inhumanly without regret or remorse.

However, the myth that a Black man fears a white man is total nonsense. Europeans scrambled over Africa with sheer brutality and aggression, subduing Africans; therefore, they were too vulnerable and powerless to react. 

The same abuse and oppression of Black people exist today in many European countries and the United States of America. If not for the Black Lives Matter demonstration after George Floyd's death, there would still be statues commemorating key figures who committed horrible crimes against humanity during slavery and the colonial era.

The fathers of independence, such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Patrice Lumumba of Congo, had no fear of the British and Belgian governments. 

They gained independence for their countries, but because Britain and Belgium actually feared them, Nkrumah was removed from power in a coup masterminded by the CIA, and Patrice Lumumba was assassinated in a plot conceived by the Belgian government. 

In apartheid South Africa, Steve Biko, Nelson Mandela, and his colleagues had no fear of the minority apartheid leaders. Despite the force of brutality they unleashed, maiming and opening fire on protesting, defenseless South Africans, they murdered Steve Biko and put other ANC key members, including Nelson Mandela, behind bars for twenty-seven years because they feared them. 

When it comes to crime, there are many white criminals out there, as well as Black criminals, but the Black man is always given a second look because of the color of his skin. Just being Black makes you a suspect. In the United States of America, Black drivers are more often stopped and harassed than white motorists.

In Belgium, being Africans among white workers, all eyes were on us as suspects when sandwiches had been missing every time from the dining hall. The atmosphere becomes tense when, on the fifth day of the week, one of the workers finds his food stolen again.

This time, the management decides to do something about it. They secretly started their investigations, creating an undetected hideout, aiming to catch the person responsible for this theft red-handed.

 

The following week, about a quarter to noonday, a mysterious man emerged into the quiet dining hall, looking for a meal to steal. After tasting some meals, he found a delicious one, and he took it. As he tried to walk out, he was intercepted.

 

Colonial power in Africa took all that they wanted and destroyed the souls of Africans

Shockingly, out of hundreds of workers at the company, the mysterious thief appeared to be one of our colleagues from Portugal. The sandwich thief was Portuguese, not African.

The need to respect all races

 

It is absolutely wrong to take the respect someone gives as a fear to treat him very badly. Many enjoy being racist; some people like to discriminate against Black people, calling them degrading names, but the question is, what do racists get from hate? Nothing is more significant than violence and the destruction of property.

Who lives forever, and what makes you think your color is better than someone else's when there is a big difference between the color white and real black? If white people's color is white like white paper, I think everyone who sees them will run to hide somewhere in fear.

Respect doesn’t mean fear; therefore, those who have that sick mentality should begin to dismantle it from their brains because racial problems have caused too much death and violence, and without respect for other races, there will never be peace on earth.

WHY BELGIUM REFUSES TO GIVE GHANA ITS EMBASSY

Kwame Nkrumah, the father and architect of Ghana’s political independence

Kwame Nkrumah, the father and architect of Ghana’s political independence, was a man far ahead of his time. After studies from the United States of America, Nkrumah’s involvement in politics and determination to free Ghana and other African countries from the hands of colonial masters was a bitter issue that the West and America weren’t prepared to handle.

“We have won the battle and again rededicate ourselves; our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa,” Nkrumah said. 

The fact that other African countries were under colonial bondage made him unhappy after Ghana’s independence. He was a man with vision and full of determination. He started working on the liberation of other African countries.

A year after Ghana’s independence, Kwame Nkrumah helped his friend Ahmed Sekou Touré of the Republic of Guinea to break free from France on October 2, 1958. 

The French government was very angry to the extent that they took everything, including the furniture at the statehouse, from Guinea to France. 

Then, in 1960, other African countries gained their independence, including Patrice Lumumba of the Republic of Congo (which, before Belgium, had taken as their personal property) on August 15, 1960.

This was something Belgium wasn’t prepared to accept because of the fear of losing whatever they were siphoning from Congo to Belgium. 

Before independence, Belgium's King Leopold’s terror of terror and greed saw many Congolese children and adults' limbs and hands amputated, the punishment for rebelling against his administration, and also for not satisfying his demands. 

Through a plot engineered by Belgium, Lumumba was killed, chopped, and his body burned in 1962. A brutal death, Nkrumah and world leaders spoke against.

The mouth that said, “Here comes the Saviour, Hosanna! Hosanna! It was the same mouth that said, “Crucify him.” Ghanaians and the opposition accused Nkrumah of being a dictator, forming a one-party state. 

On February 24, 1966, with the aid of the CIA, Nkrumah was overthrown by the army. Declassified National Security Council and Central Agency documents provided ample evidence that the United States government was involved in the 1966 coup that toppled the Ghanaian leader. 

Shortly after the arrest of Patrice Lumumba, after Belgium lost Congo in 1960, he was assassinated, and later his body was exhumed and dissolved in sulfuric acid.

Before his overthrow, it was also a difficult period for prominent black leaders in America, including Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

Kwame Nkrumah spent his last days in exile in Conakry, Guinea. He died in Bucharest, Romania. As a punishment to the Ghanaian government for Nkrumah’s interference in Belgian politics, the Belgian government has denied Ghana its embassy ever since. 

A country like Ghana deserves an embassy, not a Belgian consulate. It’s a shame Ghana has to go under such punishment for political reasons, without taking into consideration the atrocities the West committed against Africa.

WHY EUROPE AND AMERICA WANT AFRICA AFTER COLONIZATION?

Sir Richard Branson, the English business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and the founder of Virgin Group of companies, is the right person to tell the world why he has invested so much in Africa. One of the sincere businessmen proud of Africa.

Europe and America can’t praise Africa because they are like the ungrateful slave master who never appreciates whatever his slave does for him, yet they know that without the slave they are bound to face many obstacles without a solution.

America and Europe had depended heavily on Africa’s raw materials, mineral resources and treasures, before independent, swept through Africa, leaving many European countries miserable because they weren’t ready yet to let Africa go.

It was the most painful period for Western Europe when countries like Ghana, Congo, Guinea, etc, had independence. To this day, they feel that pain thus, there is a reason to target the continent of Africa to make the inhabitants miserable.

Just seven months after taking office on the direct orders of the US, Belgium, and Britain, the newly elected prime minister of Congo,  Patrice Lumumba was brutally murdered and since Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana helped Lumumba, he was deposed in a coup masterminded by the CIA.

France was mad to the extent that they took away everything they had including the furniture from the State House in Guinea to France, leaving the newly elected Guinean leader Ahmed Sekou Touré completely handicap. 

In history, America and Europe will not say that Africa’s rich mineral resources  played a significant role in our economy and development, instead, the media will write “Africa is a continent of poverty, illiteracy, and crime.” Thank you.

However, whatever transpired in Africa, after Belgium, Britain, and France lost their colonies is what we are witnessing today as medical crimes in Africa. 

Questions to answer: Why Aids killing Africans in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Uganda, etc? Because both the Netherlands and the British were in South Africa and the British were in Zimbabwe, Uganda, etc.

The Pasteur Institute of France also inflicted deadly diseases including Aids and Ebola on Africans. To Western Europe and America, Africa deserves it because they have lost their colonies in the continent of Africa. Even though America had no colony in Africa, interfering in African politics was their priority, just like today.

Despite all that was stolen from Africa, because of greed they weren’t satisfied. They couldn’t sleep peacefully, always finding a way to get Africa back. Something which never happened again. 

When it comes to crime, the assassination of African leaders and the truth over Aids, Ebola and Lassa fever medical crimes in Africa, European and American journalists suffer the dumb syndrome, which affects both hands and pen to write.

There is no doubt that Europe and America are still interested in Africa. The two continents are completely exhausted with depreciating economies. 

Many have lost their jobs and life becoming difficult every day. Thus; getting hold of some of Africa’s vast mineral resources could revamp the economies and create more employment in Europe and America. 

Fortunately, Africa’s vast mineral resources are always there, because they can’t make good use of their own abundant resources than corruption.

But not this time. Europe and America will not get even one percent of Africa’s treasures because they have abused their trusts. Even the uneducated Africans in the remotest part of Africa are now aware that Aids and Ebola were bio-weapons against Africa, despite some claiming that they are cursed by God.  

If their intentions were to depopulate the continent to steal our resources, it’s not going to happen, because they can’t kill all of us.

These are some of the reasons we often hear of military coups in Africa because the civilians and the military get sick and tired watching corrupt African leaders in power collaborating with the corrupt European and American leaders. 

Africans have learned in a very hard way at the hands of Europe and America. That hard lessons are now our surviving tools.

The important question left for Europe and America to answer is: How will they cope with the calamities that Africans have gone through and survived should in case it happens to them?

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection
or reload the browserDisable in this text fieldEditEdit in GingerEdit in Ginger×

BELGIUM HAUNTED, A POEM BY JOEL SAVAGE

Patrice Lumumba, killed by Belgium after losing the country.

"It is Sunday morning, May 25, 2014, the day everyone has to go to the polls to vote for European and federal parliamentary institutions. This is a day I should have been happy, but I was so sad that I wrote this poem."

He was an evil king
His name was King Leopold II
He wore a sheep's clothing
And he deceived the world
As a humanitarian and kind person
He killed, tortured and maimed
Thousands of children, women, and fathers in Congo
He burned down villages and rendered children homeless.

This man was cruel than Idi Amin of Uganda
Yet the Belgians praised and rewarded him for his cruelty
They built statues and named streets after him
Without considering the crime he committed

Without taking into consideration the innocent blood he shed
Where is the justice in this world?
Belgium whatever goes around comes around
You shall surely get your reward.

Despite all these crimes against Africans
Belgium today despises Africans
They planned a system of government like Apartheid
Keeping our children to sit on the bench to watch them
Africans only eat and live without progress
How can your country progress when you act this way?
Belgium you will surely reap what you have sown.

Belgium don't forget that your country 
Was built on the blood, tears, torture, and suffering of Africans
In the name of greed, Ivory, and Rubber
The spirit of Lumumba, the one you killed, is calling for justice

The spirits of the innocent blood you shed, are calling for revenge
There isn't any escape route for you Belgium
Your crime has brought dishonour to your people and country
They don't know what shame is, that is the reason
They continue mistreating Africans

But you must remember Africa is a land of culture 
We believe in our cultural values
Belgium you will never progress and move forward
If your task is to cause suffering to others

If your task to alienate and isolate Africans  
Belgium, until you change your wicked ways
Your country would be under dark clouds
Of haunts, hallucinations, and fear.

You can't continue to bite the fingers which fed you
Belgium would have been nothing without Africa
Our children need better education and job 
I will die and go down happily in my grave

Even if you despise me Belgium
Because everyone would remember 
The name Joel Savage, the only man
Who faced Belgium squarely and spoke of its crime
While the world sits and watches, because justice is raped. 

Dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah, Haile Selassie and all those who sacrificed their lives to bring the black man to this destination.

LUMUMBA'S ASSASSINATION: Sons not satisfied with Belgium's apology

Patrice LUMUMBA


On January 17, 1961,  Patrice Lumumba, the first elected Prime Minister of Congo, was murdered. The circumstances leading to his death remained a mystery until forty years later, when the secret started unfolding. 


Fresh scrutiny and those around at the time have revealed that Belgium, the Congo's colonial masters, were behind his assassination.

After the election in June 1960, Lumumba's National Congolese Movement won and emerged as the first Prime Minister of Congo. After the independence celebration of June 30th, Belgium's hostility to Lumumba deepened. Lumumba denounced the harshness, brutalities, and indignities suffered by the Congolese under Belgian colonial rule.

A strong friend of Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Lumumba, made a similar statement to Nkrumah. "You must have strong and visible powers". Lumumba expelled all the Belgian diplomats and called on the United Nations to defend the newly independent state. 

The action affected Belgians to the extent that the king was very angry with Lumumba. The British Foreign Office requested the elimination of Lumumba. The statement read, "I see only two possible solutions to the problem. The first is a simple one: the removal of Lumumba from the scene and killing him.

Almost fifty years after his assassination, the sons of the Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba are seeking war crime charges against twelve Belgians for their involvement in their father's assassination. 

His youngest son, Guy Lumumba, told reporters, "We are targeting the assassins. In Belgium, there are twelve of them still alive, and we want them to answer for their pathetic acts before justice. The twelve Belgians were in the province of Katanga when Lumumba was killed.

As if the spirit of Lumumba were taking revenge, it was reported that one of the twin brothers involved in his killing had gone insane. Lumumba's family lawyer Christophe Marchand said the sons will file a charge against the yet to be named twelve of war crimes in a Brussels criminal court in October. 

Even though Belgium has since apologized to its former colony, no legal action has been taken afterward.