# Post Colonial Nosedive **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 24, 2021, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-colonial-nosedive/947200 "2021-07-24T15:54:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![PozhanPop](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pozhanpop/32/8022_2.png) [@PozhanPop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PozhanPop)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2021, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-colonial-nosedive/947200/21 "2021-07-27T05:22:21Z")
Sorry 🙂 That was not meant to be a cite at all. Just wondering why USSR would name a University after PL and teach about him. I had no idea such a university existed before my cousin got a scholarship to go there. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2021, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-colonial-nosedive/947200/22 "2021-07-27T07:13:37Z")
According to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoples'_Friendship_University_of_Russia): > The Soviet government founded the university on 5 February 1960. Its stated objective during the height of the Cold War was to help developing nations. Many students from developed countries also attended the university. On 22 February 1961, the university was named Patrice Lumumba University after the Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba, who had been killed in a coup that January. So the university was created specifically for students from developing nations, and other foreigners. The name was given very shortly after Lumumba was killed, when events in the Congo were in the news and in people’s minds. The fact is that Lumumba _did_ ask for Soviet help, and the Soviets _did_ give that help. The Soviets didn’t care what his ideology was, they saw it as an opportunity to get a foothold in the region. That was when the West got serious, installed their own tinpot dictator, and had Lumumba killed. So just as it suited the US and its allies to call him a communist, so it also suited the USSR to call him a communist and a martyr fighting western imperialism. The poor guy simply got caught in the middle of an intense Cold War power struggle, complicated by an attempt by powerful corporations to exploit the natural resources of the country – when all he wanted was a decent, peaceful, independent, neutral country based on ‘African values’. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2021, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-colonial-nosedive/947200/23 "2021-07-27T07:24:23Z")
> [@PozhanPop](#): > > Yeah. > Do you think if Lumumba had lived to take the reins, Congo would have at least ended up like Barbados or best case scenario like Mauritius or Botswana which are two of the prosperous and peaceful nations in Africa ? Mauritius is a tiny tourist island, it’s a poor comparison. Botswana is better, and yes, possibly the DRC could have ended up like that if they’d leveraged their mineral wealth the way Botswana has. Of course, living in Botswana is still no picnic for [some](https://minorityrights.org/minorities/basarwa/) groups… ---
**Author:** ![PozhanPop](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pozhanpop/32/8022_2.png) [@PozhanPop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PozhanPop)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2021, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-colonial-nosedive/947200/24 "2021-07-28T21:25:22Z")
The Cold War. Everything ultimately points to it. Even though there was no actual war, it really flipped the world around. Thank you so much for the info on Lumumba. I should read his book ‘Congo My Country’ one more time. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2021, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-colonial-nosedive/947200/25 "2021-08-02T22:02:01Z")
Belgium was one of the very worst examples of colonial exploitation. Other nations thought it gave colonialism a bad name. Belgium came rather late to carving out a colonial empire. They exploited the population so cruelly that it became a international scandal when news leaked out about their methods of harvesting wild rubber. The story is told in the book King Leopolds Ghost. > **[King Leopold's Ghost](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Leopold%27s_Ghost)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa (1998) is a best-selling popular history book by Adam Hochschild that explores the exploitation of the Congo Free State by King Leopold II of Belgium between 1885 and 1908, as well as the large-scale atrocities committed during that period. The book, also a general biography of the private life of Leopold, succeeded in increasing public awareness of these crimes in recen... It inspired Joseph Conrad to write ‘Heart of Darkness’ > **[Heart of Darkness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Darkness)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > > Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad in which the sailor Charles Marlow tells his listeners the story of his assignment as steamer captain for a Belgian company in the African interior. The novel is widely regarded as a critique of European colonial rule in Africa, whilst also examining the themes of power dynamics and morality. Although Conrad does not name the river on which most of the narrative take... Decolonisation was also done very badly. The Belgian Congo had Gold, Diamonds, Copper and Uranium - huge mineral wealth and many countries sought to get a share of it by backing one faction or another during the Cold War. There are still intrigues regarding secret Uranium mines and countries anxious to obtain a supply. Congo is quite and extreme example of how bad colonisation and decolonisation could be during a particular period. There have been colonial empires since antiquity. Every country has its own story. Why some countries that were colonies went on to create colonies themselves…it gets complicated. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-colonial-nosedive/947200/26 "2021-08-03T10:08:19Z")
The biggest immediate problem in 1961-2 wasn’t the Cold War (though that influenced everything) but rather Belgian corporate interests wanting to keep their sweet deal and sponsoring the secession to get it. Katanga had a lot of foreign mercenaries and they didn’t come cheap. The UN intervention was not a Russia vs the West issue. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-colonial-nosedive/947200.md?page=1)