Why did Belgium honour a genocidal mass murderer

Great Debates
41

Yup; For the first ten years or so, Leopold was able to use his almost total control of what was already an inaccessible region to prevent news of what he was doing from getting out. But from 1895 onwards the nature and scale of atrocities grew as profit-taking switched from ivory to rubber, which required a large workforce, and it became increasingly difficult to conceal what was going on.

Heart of Darkness was published in 1899; the Congo Free State was already notorious at the time, and Heart of Darkness made it more so. The British Government sent the consular official Roger Casement to the Congo to investigate, using his consular privileges to go to places and see things that would have been off-limits to others, and his damning report was published in 1904. Leopold held out against increasing condemnation until handing the colony over to the Belgian state in 1908.

In the context of the present thread, it should be pointed out that the Order of Leopold II was established in 1900 in the Congo Free State; it didn’t initially have anything to do with Belgium. It became a Belgian order in 1908, when the Congo F.S. passed into Belgian sovereignty. I don’t know, but I suspect that part of the understanding when Leopold ceded the Congo to Belgium was that there would be no public dumping of odium on Leopold, and particularly not by the Belgian government, so renaming or axing the order didn’t arise at the time.

42

Belgiums two most famous people are apparently Audrey Hepburn and Herge (creator of Tin Tin). Now Tin Tin has his own rather dark past in the Congo to be ashamed of (ahem: http://www.thehistoryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/extrait-tintin-au-congo-2.jpg)

The Order of Hepburn seems un-offensive to me, she was a UNICEF ambassador in her later years. Anyone object?

43

Oh, dear me, if you’re going to go in for this flummery there’s no rule that says your orders of merit have to be named after people, and naming one after a Hollywood star, however distinguished, on the basis that she was born in your country and lived there until she was eight seems calculated to attract a different kind of derision.

Belgium currently has an Order of the Crown and has previously had an Order of the African Star and a Royal Order of the Lion, though the latter two haven’t be awarded since 1960. (They were specifically to honour service given in the Congo.) So they’re well used to the idea of having orders not named after people.

Order of the Waffle? Order of Trappiste? Order of the Manneken Pis? Order of the Frituur? There must be lots of Belgian cultural icons which could be commemmorated in this way!

44

The fact that she was a UNICEF ambassador and a member of the Dutch Resistance during WWII also has something to do with it, I would imagine.

45

There is an annual carnival in Sighișoara, Romania every year to honor the memory of Vlad the Impaler, so why the fuss about Leopold II?

46

Oh, I’m sure she was a worthy person. But her connection with Belgium is pretty tenuous; she was born there because her parents - neither of whom were Belgian - happened to be there at the time. It’s not a coincidence that she was a member of the Dutch Resistance rather than the Belgian.

Plus, of course, she’s not primarily famous for being Belgian or for having worked in the anti-Nazi resistance in any country; she’s famous for having appeared in Roman Holiday and Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Besides, if you can justify naming an order of merit after somebody by appealing to less notable aspects of their life, then you could justify naming an order of merit after Leopold by pointing to the legacy of public buildings and parks which he built up, and then bequeathed to the public. The objection to Leopold II is that what his is principally known for is something that wouldn’t justify naming an order of merit after him; a weaker version of the same objection can be made to Hepburn.

I’m holding out for “Royal Order of the Waffle”.

47

Picking national symbols seems like it would be a bit of a minefield in Belgium. Old Leopold ran a brutal slave colony for personal profit but he’s not going to cause any internal strife, is he? I mean, what if, after the Order of the Waffle is established, a survey is done and it turns out that waffles come disproportionately from Flanders?

48

But, but… Trappists is already an order.

49

So it can be the Order of the Order of the Trappists. A meta-order!

50

Just as long as its not “The Royal Order of the Blue Waffle” :wink: DO NOT GOOGLE, you have been warned.

51

Vlad the Impaler was not a mass murderer. He defied the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire at a time when this empire was the greatest power in the world (15th century). Ottoman rulers were notorious for their cruelty (although it is also recognized that their cruelty was paralleled by that of his Western counterparts).

Vlad the Impaler was constantly at war with the Ottoman Empire, which was actively conquering the Balkans at that time. In times of battle, he fought on the front line together with his troops. And he respected his subjects. He did use murder and terror in ruling the tiny kingdom he had managed to inherit. But the only people he terrorized were the Ottomans and the noblemen that plotted against him.

Vlad the Impaler’s father was Vlad II, who had been killed by local noblemen. Vlad the Impaler was Vlad III. Vlad III’s brother, Mircea II, who ruled before him, was also killed by local noblemen. One of the noblemen who participated in these killings was Vladislav II, who occupied the throne until Vlad III killed him in hand-to-hand combat.

It is naive to mistake Vlad the Impaler for the fictitious character that the public seems to cherish. Really, to regard Vlad III’s rule as a benchmark cruelty is to ignore not only his actual reign but also the context of the Medieval Era in which he ruled: “The final authority in this era was force, and the general atmosphere of the time was one of violence. Defiant vassals frequently made war upon their lords. But warfare was also considered the normal occupation of the nobility, for success offered glory and rich rewards.” (http://history-world.org/Mid%20political_organization.htm)

As for his actual reign, here is what wikipedia has to say in the introductory paragraph of the article on Vlad III (the Impaler):

[ul]
[li]He was a three-time Voivode of Wallachia, ruling mainly from 1456 to 1462, the period of the incipient Ottoman conquest of the Balkans.[/li]
[li] His father, Vlad II Dracul, was a member of the Order of the Dragon, which was founded to protect Christianity in Eastern Europe. [/li]
[li]Vlad III is revered as a folk hero in Romania and Bulgaria for his protection of the Romanians and Bulgarians both north and south of the Danube.[/li]
[li]Following his raids on the Ottomans, a significant number of Bulgarian common folk and remaining boyars resettled north of the Danube to Wallachia and recognized his leadership.[/li][/ul]

Vlad III (the Impaler) lived about 500 years before Leopold II. He may have been a ruthless Medieval ruler, but he was not an assassin.

What Leopold II did to the Congolese is similar with what the Turkish did to the Armenians, and both genocides occurred in the early 20th century. Leopold was familiar with the notions of Rights of Man, promoted by the French and American Revolutions. The fact that he chose to ignore them and to kill millions of people for his own financial benefit makes him a despicable leader. An assassin.