I think that it was financial greed that motivated King Leopold the II the most. He was once quoted saying that, “there is really nothing left for us kings except money!”(Hochschild, Adam) The whole reason for the genocide that came about was all a result of King Leopold trying to attain wealth. He felt that creating a new settlement would be his in to creating his own wealth. Also he was so stingy with munitions supplied to his private army he made his soldiers prove that they hit the person they were aiming for by cutting off their head. Otherwise they would be punished for wasting a bullet.
Well in comparison to halters genocide of the Jews, King Leopold’s persecution isn’t perceived as being nearly as sever. Now when I say this I don’t mean that King Leopold was any better than Hitler, because he wasn’t, but with regard to sheer volume of lives lost in WWII King Leopold looked like a child. In Hitler’s case from 1939-1945, just 6 years, over 60 million deaths were credited to WWII worldwide. Where as with King Leopold his persecutions lasted from 1885-1908 a span of 23
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I think that people rely on the United States too much to intervene and when they take no action the country is ridiculed for its decision. I also feel that US citizens are too involved in the rest of the world, I get the want and need to help other people that are less fortunate than you but the US’s method for intervention just ends up making people hate us more at times. It’s not our job to baby sit the rest of the world, but we should be teaching other countries that are in distress how to properly and sustain a modern and civil form of rules and government. what needs to happen is the United Nations would need to come together and intervene as a whole. It should never be up to one nation to decide the path of another nation, but for some reason citizens think that they need to do
Thousands killed in the Leopold outbreak. King Leopold should be condemned for his brutal actions, and for making the population more then half in population, like in Lukolela “The population in the villages of Lukolela in January 1891 must have been not less than 6,000 people, but when I counted the whole population in Lukolela at the end of December 1896. I found it to be only 719… but judge of my heartache when on counting them all again on Friday and Saturday last, to find only a population of 352 people.” (Document 5) In 1800-1900’s, King Leopold wanted to and planned to take control of the Congo people.
With the passing of decades, most Europeans mistakenly believed that King Leopold spent his considerable fortune funding public works in the Congo and stopping slavery in East Africa. He was the unintimidating King of Belgium; but it was all a sham. Underneath the veneer of generosity and graciousness laid a cunning and self-engrossed scoundrel, a duplicitous fraud to rival the evil charm of Iago or Richard III. Under the guise of an international charitable foundation, he personally owned the colony of the Congo, and he ran it as a brutal business investment. His “charity” resulted in the death of ten million people, approximately 50% of the population in the Congo.
The United States is a major world power and strongly influences other countries in many ways. The United States has been involved in foreign affairs since the birth of its existence. They have been involved in all sorts of things such as helping with financial support, to helping rebels take over the country to establish a new form of government. There have been periods of time where the United States has completely altered the way a country is today.
All these atrocities committed for one thing; profit. Money was the singular motivation for the Europeans, and with their blatant disregard for human life,
Nature underpins our economy giving us shelter, food, water, and clean air. Without all of those things, humans would likely be unable to survive. In The Lorax, nature is oppressed because of O’Hare and the Once-lers’ profits off of the destruction of Thneedville's air quality. For O’Hare the more the air quality decreases the more money he will make and the more trees the Once-ler cuts down to make thneeds the more his business thrives. Essentially nature is oppressed by the greed of two men.
King Leopold II was the ruler of Belgium from 1865 - 1909. On February 5, 1885, The Congo Free State was established. This was a state 76x larger than Belgium, also ruled by Leopold II. In the Congo Free State, 10 million Africans died from war, starvation, birth reduction, and diseases, and there was a great loss of land. King Leopold was fully responsible for all of the effects of the Congo Free State on its people and the region.
When faced with 19th-century European colonialism, Japan fared the best compared to India and the Congo. The reasons behind European colonization was Industry and social darwinism. Social darwinism is the belief that certain groups of people were genetically predisposed to specific jobs and tasks. Through the theory, Europeans came to believe that because of their predisposition they had the right to rule over others, which is also known as imperialism. Imperialism can be defined as “the takeover of a country or territory by a stronger nation to dominate the political, economic, and social life of the people of that nation.”
According to The Casement Report, a report that documented all the violent actions that King Leopold took on the people of Africa, an example of a brutal action that the Belgium people took was “ A widow came and declared that she had been forced to sell her daughter, a little girl about ten.... I found on returning that the statements made with regard to the girl were true.... The girls had again changed hands and was promised in sale to a town whose people are open cannibals.” These cruel actions taken upon the people of Africa was inhumane, and definitely not humanitarian. King Leopold publicized these incidents to the rest of the world so that he can gain their fear, and everyone would listen to him through terror.
So, if helping the people who are struggling, puts their citizens lives at risk, they usually choose not to. Such as America not helping the citizens in North Korea, if America were to help that would put them at risk of starting a war and no one would want that. Barry R. Posen writes in the New York Times writes, “North Korea may have as many as 250 missile launchers. Some of which could fire nuclear tipped missiles. If some of these mobile units were dispersed at the time of an American attack, it’s unlikely that the US could destroy all of them before one fires a missile”.
Greed is an “Intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food” (Oxford Dictionary). In The Maltese Falcon, everyone has the aspirations of finding the falcon for themselves. This is the driving force behind the murders, and betrayals many of the characters commit. Brigid, Cairo, Wilmer, and Gutman all seek the falcon for the same reason, the unimaginable wealth it will bring them. Possessing this rare object seems to consume them and they will do anything to get their hands on it.
When King Leopold established the Congo Free State, he destroyed the link between the Congolese people and their homeland (Kenneth). King Leopold made one single country between Belgium and Congo. He combined the ethnicities of both of these cultures, taking away the Congolese people’s heritage and culture. In addition to this, the Roman Catholic Church forced their religion and values on the Congolese people, taking away their beliefs, and using violence if necessary. The Belgians forced their values upon the Congolese people in order to assimilate their religion and gain more power.
Throughout The Good Earth we come across many tough conflicts both internally and externally, but even so, many of them we can relate to. Wang Lung, O-Lan, Lotus, Ching, and the rest of Wang Lung’s family all must deal with conflicts between each other, with nature, and within themselves. But they aren’t so different from us and we find ourselves in many of the same situations that our beloved characters do. Wang Lung deals with guilt and greed throughout the novel and it is something that most people can relate to in the entirety of their life.
In the race of European imperialism, European countries dominated innocent African colonies. The driving force behind this? Africa’s bountiful resources. Before Africa’s colonization, the European presence in Africa was extremely limited, mainly due to lack of exploration and diseases (Background Essay). However, this changed as European prominence became largely influential through the discovery of Africa’s resource rich lands.
A vast number of complex cultures and populations have suffered under the violently oppressive rule of an authoritarian leader. Through imperialistic control, slavery, and force, fascist and totalitarian regimes have historically inflicted pain and damage unto millions of innocent civilians. These leaders, these dictators, these societal adversaries, demand that the people work for the state under their forsaken rule. Thus, one man essentially controls the way citizens live, move, and provide. Of the most malicious, greedy, and malevolent fascist leaders, Leopold II of Belgium reigns supreme.
Davidson makes reference to Idi Amin of Uganda as well as Jean-Bédel Bokassa of the Central African Republic, who both are examples of leaders who mirrored the actions of their colonial predecessors. Their rule was similar to that of European colonizers in that they thrived off of the inequality of Africans and took part in lavish celebrations while the majority of their country remained poor. While some believe this corruption is due to some innate greed possessed solely by Africans, a look into history tells you that modern day African rulers have simply just inherited and embraced the lifestyle of the European rules before them, which unfortunately included the massive hoarding of wealth. This hoarding of wealth did not come without any opposition however, which brings about the next theme of dictatorship and how rulers such as Bokassa and Amin maintained their positions of power through the crushing of dissent. The suppression of protests was done through the torture and murder of anyone who criticized, which is exactly how the European colonizers ruled out any opposition and another example of the brutal legacies of