For our second project as action in our Humanities class A Nation’s Argument, we were challenged to debate the validity of Germany’s colonization in Africa as a variety European and African countries. SM and I represented Belgium, the first European nation to enter into Africa with the intentions of colonization. This was a difficult task as they led a massacre of the Congolese people for their economic benefit in the newly developing rubber industry. Our argument is explained below along with a brief statement of what our opponents might point out about our perspective and it’s bias.
Our General Argument:
All of the nations have a right to enter into Africa because we can all bring culture and diversity and spread the light of Europe into places that don’t have that yet. We have profited immensely over the years and this is our chance to spread that further. Belgium was the first nation to enter into Africa with the assistance of Henry Morton Stanley and we aimed to help them learn how to become a community and create functioning and productive societies in ways that have worked for Europe for many years. In order to help instruct Congo on our ways, we set up a very clear system of how communities work together to produce something, such as rubber. Division and organization helped to manage the resources, land and people; a territory that was 76x bigger than what Belgium has in Europe, it helps make things manageable in terms of teaching new ways to the Congolese people as well as building smaller communities.:
The Other Side:
We brutally killed and harmed 4 to 8 million people and then destroyed the records of it in 1908, post-annexation. We took the land so Leopold would have something to individually rule and feel his own power as king because Belgium is a country with a parliament system of government. Leopold never visited the land, but was caught on multiple occasions divulging his true intentions of dominating and subjugating the people so he could be considered more of a world super power.