WEBVTT - The Congo After Leopold 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:10.480 Mmm, hello friends, and welcome again to Behind the Bastards. 0:00:10.560 --> 0:00:13.239 I'm Robert evans Uh and this is a podcast where 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:15.440 we tell you everything you don't know about the very 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.880 worst people in all of history. Now with me today 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:20.840 is a guest who I'll be reading a story to. 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:23.560 My guest is coming in cold to this tale and 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:25.680 does not know what I'll be talking about today except 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:27.640 for in a very broad term. And my guest today 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:31.160 is miss Theresa Lee. Hello, are you doing, Theresa? I'm 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:34.440 doing okay? Well, I like, I am really cold because 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:36.960 I had to ask before what it was about, and 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:40.519 then even that change, so I well, you listened to 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:42.720 the two parter we did on Leopold I did, yeah, 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:44.120 but I visualized it so it was like I was 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:47.880 watching it fantast same time. Um, well, this is another 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:50.159 episode set in the Congo and it's about what happened 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:53.360 after leopold Um. And when I started working in this, 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.120 I wanted to do an episode about the dictator who 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:58.360 took over the Congo after the Belgian's left, a guy 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:01.920 named Bootoo siss Sickle. But as I started researching it, 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:05.800 there was just way too much bullshit that Europeans in 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:08.920 America got up to in the Congo between Leopold dying 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.480 and Boobootoo taking over. And so that's what we're going 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:15.959 to talk about today is all the how the West 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:18.880 continued to fuck the Congo even after, like you think 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:21.800 it had been fucked enough like that that you couldn't 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:25.000 really screw over a group of people more than Leopold had, 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:29.520 But then everything I've written about happens. Yeah, you're yeah, 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:32.360 it's like getting out of an abusive relationship. You're probably 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:35.800 going to get into another one. The studies show, yeah, 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:37.560 and it's it's actually, it's kind of like getting out 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:40.040 of an abusive relationship and getting hit by a bus, 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:42.520 and then the doctor who helps put you back together, 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:48.200 you get into an abusive relationship. It's a that's a 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:54.120 solid sitcom. My Doctor's a bus, my doctor husband the bus. Well, 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:57.840 that's the season to finale me, that's the wedding, my 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:06.000 husband bus busbnd A busbends, a busbend. Someone's gonna photoshop 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:09.799 a poster for that's. Um, are you ready to well? 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:12.400 First off, let's let's love the audience here. A little 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:14.480 bit about you and I worked together for years and 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:21.079 you are a writer, comedian, actress. Yeah, we did. Uh well, 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:25.280 we are most most most famously worked together on a 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:29.040 video about ancient drugs based on or to promote the 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:32.239 book you wrote. And recently it keeps resurfacing. And I 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.639 know when a resurfaces because I'll get messages. Um and 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:38.160 last week I got a few that were like, so, 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:40.560 how was doing so much? And I was like, oh, 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:44.320 that video must have popped up again. We we took mushrooms, 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:50.919 legal mushrooms, mascara and unexpectedly tripped very hard, to the 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:53.440 point where like all of us who were together had 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:55.120 to get a hotel room for the night. They just 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:57.440 kind of sit it out and wait until we were 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:00.839 not actively tripping to go back to our homes. Yeah, 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:02.840 it was real crazy. And the craziest part is that 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:06.280 video is just like the beginning of the trip, Like 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:09.880 it got so much more intense after we wrapped. Yeah, 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:12.400 and yeah it was it was not intended to be 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:15.919 that that intense. But yeah, if you want to, uh, well, 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:18.400 we'll post a link in this episode, I guess to 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:22.960 us doing tremendous amounts of mushrooms. Uh, it's it's great fun. 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:26.560 Now let's get into an episode that I have tentatively 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:30.640 titled The Congo after Leopold. So, UM, if you're listening 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:32.480 to this podcast for the first time, you may want 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:35.160 to go back and download the two episodes we did 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:37.720 on King Leopold of Belgium. But I'm gonna give a 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:40.160 little sort of run through of of what happened with 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:41.840 that guy here, just in case you're joining us for 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:43.960 the first time, or maybe you forgot since then, because 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:45.840 there's been a lot of bastards in between him and 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:50.040 and now. So. King Leopold was a Belgian king, obviously 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:52.280 who had a chip on his shoulder. Because Belgian kings 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:54.680 did not have much power in the late eighteen hundreds, UH, 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:58.080 he concocted an incredibly complex scheme in order to take 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:00.680 over a huge chunk of Central Africa up He named 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:03.400 it the Congo Free State. On the surface of the 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:06.240 free state had a philanthropic mission to civilize the tribes 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:09.000 people and fight Arab slavers. In reality, it was all 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:12.840 one gigantic rubber mining operation. Leopold's men enslaved armies of 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:16.720 child soldiers, three quarters of whom died without being trained UH, 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:19.920 and he enforced order through brutal, sometimes fatal whippings and 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:22.679 the severing of millions of hands. Between ten and fifteen 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:26.200 million people died during Leopold's reign in the Congo. So 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:30.960 that's the story. We've a good guy, Yeah, sweet dude, 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:34.920 sweet Beard. By the early nineteen hundreds, word had gotten 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:36.760 out of what was happening in the Congo, and by 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:39.640 nineteen o eight the international community forced Leopold to seed 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.640 control of his Congo to the Belgian nation. And that's 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.280 sort of where the last podcast ends, you know, Leopold dies, 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.640 and I thought long after that, now today we're going 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:51.320 to talk about what happened in the Congo in the 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:55.200 intermediate period. Like, so Belgium is in charge of the Congo, 0:04:55.880 --> 0:05:00.040 but uh yeah, so you would expect things to it 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:02.160 a lot better now that this absolute monster is out 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:03.920 of power. But it turned out that Belgium, the nation, 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:06.600 was not much better than King Leopold had been for 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:10.120 the Congolese people. The chacote, which is that brutal hippo 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:13.159 hide whip that Leopold's men used to keep order, wasn't 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:17.279 banned until it was hippo hip. How do you even 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:20.560 get a hit? Like aren't they very dangerous? Super dangerous? 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:22.120 Kill the hell out of you. You got to shoot 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:24.880 him with a real big gun. Wow. Yeah, I guess 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:26.680 they head guns. Back then. They had tons of guns 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:29.840 for shooting hippos, so they can make more whips. I 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:32.200 was thinking, this is so long ago. I'm like they 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:36.080 were using spears. No, I mean yeah, they did use 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:39.480 spears to kill hippos, but not as efficiently. But there 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.960 was a weird little side thing. Is Adolf Hitler carried 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:46.159 a dog with his entire life. Um oh, I whipped 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:48.240 to whip dogs made out of dogs. It was to 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:50.480 whipped dogs. It was called a dog whip because you 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:52.200 were supposed to use it to whip dogs, and he 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:54.480 would whip dogs with it when he wanted to impress girls, 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:57.560 but he also mainly used it for fighting. This is 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.880 confusing because the hippo hide whip is named hippo hyde 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:04.240 whip because it's made of hippo hyde, and so if 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:06.800 you like follow the logic of that, the dog whip 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:10.120 should be made out of dogs. Like, there's no consistency 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:12.239 in the naming of whips right now. But you wouldn't 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:13.800 want to hit would you? Would I do on'tly go 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:15.600 a whip? Would doo? Much to a hippo. No, but 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:19.000 I'm just saying these naming conventions, somebody needs to organize 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:21.760 the naming here. What if they called it what if 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:26.680 they called it a whippo? Whippo? We should go back 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:30.560 in time. What's Indiana Jones whip out of? Probably leather? Like, 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:32.880 that's probably true. So it's a cow whip, No, it's 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:36.160 a whip. For it's a Nazi whip. Yeah, that's a 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:40.720 fucking Nazi whip right there. Yeah. So Belgium continued to 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:43.520 use forced labor uh pretty much the entire time they 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:45.600 were in charge of the Congo. They claimed it was 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:48.240 a labor tax uh and they would so they would 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:50.400 basically force people to work for like half the year 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:54.839 or more to mine minerals and extract rubber from the Congo. 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:57.640 All of the uranium used to make the Hiroshima and 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:00.120 Nagasaki bombs was mine in the Congo by people who 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:03.040 are regularly whipped bloody to guarantee their compliance. So this 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:07.000 goes on the early nine hundreds through the forties. Right now, 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:08.760 In a tiny bit of fairness to the Belgians, they 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:10.800 didn't do nothing in the Congo. They built one of 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:14.080 the biggest hospitals in Africa and established a really good infrastructure, 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:18.080 so like good power system, good roads, um better than 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:20.840 most African colonies got. So if you're just looking at 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:23.600 what the Belgians had sort of installed, the buildings they 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:27.680 put together, the municipal like stuff, uh, Congo seemed like 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:30.680 it was in a good position, like for when it 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:35.480 was finally free, because stuff for Western civilization, right, It's 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:38.640 like they needed to make it so that Western people 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:42.680 could see a familiar life there. Yes, zero of the 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:45.440 things they built in the Congo were meant for Africans, 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:49.520 and in fact, the society was super segregated, like they 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:52.520 were building nice houses for Belgians and then the Africans 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:55.800 could the huts. They were building nice houses for white 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:58.360 people and they were building they were really building it. 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:01.240 The Africans were probably building that and they were being 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:03.680 forced to build it through labor taxes. Yeah. Yeah, So 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:06.920 it's amazing how shitty they continue to be to the 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:10.400 Congo even after this monster leaves. And because it's one, 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:12.520 it's yet another one of the stories where the world 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:15.480 gets angry, Like stories come out about how bad Leopold 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:17.280 is and the world gets furious and he demand he 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:19.640 not be in charge anymore. And then as soon as 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:22.000 he's gone, they're like, well, guess the problems over. We 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:24.440 can stop caring about the Congo. They just need a 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.880 place blame somewhere. Yeah, and once that guy gets out, 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:32.760 the story is done and nobody pays any more attention. Yeah. Remarkable. 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:38.120 Um So the capital of the Belgian Congo was Leopoldville, 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:42.000 and it was divided into African and Western areas. Like Leopoldville. 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:47.560 It's Conshosha today, but it was called Leopoldville. Classy right, 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:51.240 not creative at all, name it after the guy who 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:54.120 did the worst things of anyone in the country. Black 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:56.560 people were not allowed in the European parts of town 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:58.920 after dark and would not be served in white's only 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:03.080 hotels and restaurants. Belgians considered most Congolese people to be macOS, 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:07.360 which literally means monkeys. The good ones were called evolu, 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:11.640 which means basically the evolved. Yeah wow, you got that 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:19.200 French real quick? Is it differently pronounced that? I out? Okay? Yeah? 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:21.840 So yeah, be evolved. So these people would be allowed 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:23.920 to be evolved, to be allowed to say, buy wine 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:26.840 if they little white inspector coming to their home first 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:29.800 and make sure the toilet was clean, specifically their toilet. 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:34.600 If you're evolved, you can pay me money. How awful, 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:38.839 No wine unless you're toilets clean, which college would be different. 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:41.679 If that's how it worked, is all I'll say. Yeah, true, 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:45.960 evolved children were allowed to attend school with white kids, 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:48.800 but they had to agree to be regularly checked for fleas. 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:54.200 Children are literally not done growing. That's the definition of children. Yeah, yeah, 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:59.040 how can even white children are not evolved? It's not 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:05.439 internally consider the logic of racist colonialists. But no, it's 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:08.560 a good Yeah, it's it's frustrating the language they use 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:12.400 as always really frustrating because that's also so it's just 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:16.240 the dick thing to call people. Sure, yeah, um ad 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:20.120 dick thing to call yourself to which, yeah, it's more 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:23.760 like a Nazi into things. It's everybody like that's one 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:25.839 of the big stories of the twentieth century is like 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:28.000 the first half of the twentieth century is just everybody 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:31.679 getting Charles Darwin's theory of evolution wrong and using it like, well, 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:34.679 I hate people who aren't white, so that means like 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:36.880 I'm just going to take this book that's popular right 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:40.480 now and use it to like justify my hatred. Yeah, 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:43.360 they're like, I just trust that. I'm like, they assume 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:45.880 that they're evolved or whatever, and then they're like, so, 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:48.559 then I must be right all the time, because that's 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.480 how I'm here. Yeah, scientist is like animals that are 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:54.080 more fit survived better, and so guys like, oh, I've 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:57.679 got a big house. That means I'm more evolved. I 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:04.240 stole all my stuff from are people? Yeah people, the 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:08.600 deductions we come to, it's remarkable. So, yeah, the few 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:10.640 African children who are allowed to attend schools in the 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:13.160 Congo had to endure lessons on why King Leopold, the 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:15.760 guy who had killed by some counts half the country, 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:20.839 was a great hero. Jacques Delpecheen, a historian interviewed for 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:23.839 the documentary version of King Leopold's Ghost, grew up in 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:27.079 the Congo during this time. He's an African, and he 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:29.439 said this quote. What we learned in the textbooks was 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:32.400 that Leopold was the greatest benefactor the Congo ever had 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:36.240 because he sacrificed his fortune for the Congolese. Is he 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:38.920 like a Thanos character? Because he killed half the country 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:42.240 and then some people celebrate him, but he's actually evil. 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:46.199 Yeah kind of, except for like, wasn't Thanos's goal to like, 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:51.160 he wanted to eliminate half the population to create more resources. Yeah, 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:54.320 but he was killing people to do that. Leopold wanted 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:57.920 to build sweet houses and was willing to kill half 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:01.959 the population for that. Also, he wanted to tricycle. He 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:06.079 bought a really cool tricycle. Um, so that's different than Thanos. 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:09.400 But well, there's going to be more monrable movies that 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:11.840 tricycle might show up. Tricycle might show up. He might 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:16.160 write a tricycle to his teenage prostitute Bride's house. If 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:20.160 that's Infinity War two, I will be in the front row. 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:24.280 This isn't testing super well for Disney. Are you do 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:27.400 we need the teenage Prostitute Bride? Actually? I feel like 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:30.599 the Teenage Prostitute Bride is very Disney because most of 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:38.080 those princesses are like fourteen years old. Boy. Yep, there's 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:44.000 always a king in those stories. Okay, anyways, so h 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:46.679 most kids in the Congo were not even lucky enough 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:50.839 to benefit from a shitty education. Educating Black Africans was 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:54.080 not considered a priority by the Belgians because Congolese independence 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:55.920 was assumed to be decades away, so they were just 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:58.040 going to be working in mines anyway, why teach them 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:00.440 how to read? When the Belgians were said the forced 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:02.760 to hand over control of the Congo to the Congolese 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:06.600 in nineteen sixty, only seventeen Congolese people actually had university 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:09.360 degrees now. A major source for this episode was a 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:12.079 book called In the Footsteps of Colonel Kurtz by Michelle 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:13.760 O Wong, a journalist who lived and worked in the 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:16.840 Congo in the early nineteen nineties. As part of her 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:19.000 research for the book, she talks to a Belgian professor 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:22.040 named Stingers. Uh this she was asking this guy if 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:24.920 she if he thought that Leopold's legacy of exploitation had 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:28.199 had any impact on the continued disastrous mismanagement of the 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:32.559 Congo's resources under African rule since in the decades since independence, 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:36.760 and Professor Stinger claimed that since Congolese people don't have 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:39.199 any memories of that time. Because people don't there's not 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:41.920 a lot of like passed down recollections of what happened 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.679 during the Leopold years, Leopold couldn't be at fault for 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:47.679 the modern state of the Congo because people didn't even 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:50.959 remember him, which ignores the fact that carry much like 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:54.720 a like just the frat boy who like he's like, oh, 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:58.920 she didn't remember I roofied her, So I can't be 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:02.040 at fault because she the memory. That is exactly what's 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:06.440 going This is like the national version of that. They 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:10.240 don't remember what happened. It's fine, yeah, yeah, he's it's 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:12.760 ignoring the fact that this guy killed between a third 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:14.880 and more than half of all of the human beings 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:18.400 in the congo um, which probably would not leave a 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:21.920 lot of strong memories. Like it's like if if you've 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:24.560 ever met a Jewish person whose whole family but one 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:26.840 person died in the Holocaust, they don't have a lot 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:29.280 of stories of that time, but it has an impact, 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:33.320 Like surviving that sort of trauma does something to you. 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:37.120 And the people with the worst memories are gone because 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:40.680 that they're dead, yeah, and there's just an absence in 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:42.920 their place. And that is a kind of trauma in 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:44.960 and of itself. And that's the kind of trauma that 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:48.120 the Congo was going for. So in her book, Michelle 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.080 Wong sums up what she sees is Leopold's impact on 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:55.600 monitored Congolese people. Quote, keep your head down, think small, 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.840 look after yourself. These constituted the lessons of Leopold. The 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:02.520 spirit what's compreh sensibly crushed does not recover easily. For 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:05.480 seventy five years, from eighteen eighty five to nineteen sixty, 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:09.920 Congo's population had marinated in humiliation. No malevolent witch doctor 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:12.240 could have devised a better preparation for the coming of 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.800 a second great dictator. So that second great dictator would 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:18.280 be Mobot Ciccu, who we will talk about on a 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:21.480 future episode about the Congo, but before we talk about 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:24.160 that guy, and what this episode is about is about 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:27.800 the first hopeful attempts at reform and happiness for the 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.480 Congo and the bastards who ruined it all because there 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:33.160 was a chance in nineteen sixty the things we're going 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:34.880 to go okay for the Congo, that it was going 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:38.720 to become a prosperous democratic nation. And yeah, this is 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:42.560 an episode about how that was all shattered. Yeah, you 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:46.560 look super excited. Can't wait, just really can't wait for 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:49.840 the good mood this is going to put me in. Yeah, Well, 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:52.560 it all starts with a guy named Elias Elias Okita 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:56.640 Sumbo who would grow into a man named Patrice Emery 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:59.040 the Mumba. Wait, he changes his name when he becomes 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:01.120 a man. Yeah, a cultural thing. I don't know if 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:03.520 it was a cultural thing, but he did it. So 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:06.040 I became a man and now my name is different, 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:07.600 and I think there was a little bit of like 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:11.480 Patrise Lamomba is kind of a more European eed named 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.720 than Elias okay to Sombo, and so he was like, yes, 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:16.880 it might have been a little bit of that. He 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:20.240 was born on July two and a small village in 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:23.200 a part of the Congo called the Kasai Oriental. Patrise 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:25.400 is something of a hero to very large numbers of people, 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:29.960 particularly Africans. Now, Patrise is a big hero to very 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:32.960 large numbers of people, particularly in Africa. And we are 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:34.600 going to go into some detail on him because he's 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:36.840 an interesting dude, but not as much as we'd go 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:40.640 into for someone like Saddam Hussein because alas this podcast 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:42.960 is behind the bastards and not behind the chill dudes 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:46.880 who got sucked over by politics. Um. Now, Patrise received 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:49.480 a minimal education from a missionary school, so one of 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:51.760 those schools where he's learning about how great Leopold was, 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:54.440 and he wound up as a young adult in Stanleyville, 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:59.760 named after a frequent Bastard podcast side character, Henry Morton Stanley. Uh, 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:02.560 the explorer who discovered the Congo, mainly by shooting his 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:05.720 way through it and murdering thousands of people. Uh. Yeah, 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:08.120 So basically every city in the Congo was named after 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:11.280 someone who had killed huge numbers of Congolese people. Um. 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:19.879 Pretty sweet. Also, what the Stanley cups named after? I 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:24.000 hope not that would I'm not aware of him inventing hockey. 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:25.960 That would be a very surprising turn for his I 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:30.280 think he died poor and filled with syphilis. I hope so. Yeah. 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:33.720 So Patrice grew up conscious of all of this, of 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:35.600 the fact that he was living in a city named 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:38.639 after a murderer, that his the Congo had been essentially 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:41.600 conquered by this terrible king. He was aware of all this, 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.199 Like the propaganda did not take and he grew up 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:48.719 resentful of the cruel and obvious plunder of his people. Uh. 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:52.359 He eventually moved to the capital, Leopoldville, and worked as 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:56.280 a postal clerk, press correspondent, and then brewery sales director. 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:59.919 Uh so that's cool. Yeah, it sounds like very more 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:06.639 turn Yeah, just you know, yeah, those were all just 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:09.159 ways to pay the rent. Patrese's passion to day it 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:11.600 would be a podcast, but back then it was anti 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:15.560 colonial activism. Um. He was charismatic and good at giving speeches, 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:18.359 so he got pretty popular. And he looked like some 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:22.840 guy you went to high school with. Oh is this him? Yeah? Ok, yeah, yeah, 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:26.680 this picture will be up on our website. He's smirking 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:29.880 like he's kind of like to take a picture. Yeah, 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:32.760 he he does not want to take a picture, but 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:35.680 he just looks like it just looks like some guy. Yeah, 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:39.200 nice guy. Now. Patrese was the head of the Congolese 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:42.680 National Movement, the largest political party in the country. It 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:46.359 was dedicated to achieving independence within a quote reasonable time frame. 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:49.600 Their main foe was the center right Alliance of Bakongo, 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:52.760 who demanded immediate independence. Both parties applied a lot of 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:56.680 pressure to the Belgian administrators of the colony. Things reached 0:18:56.720 --> 0:18:59.600 a fever pitch in ninety nine with protests that descended 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:02.240 into hiding so bloody and violent it convinced Belgium to 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:07.200 abandon the Congo asap. So before in like recently the 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:09.560 late fifties, they had been sure that it was decades away. 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:11.600 Probably the eighties or nineties is when they'd have to 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:14.639 give up the Congo. But this unrest convinces them, we 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:19.360 just gotta fucking leave now. Um really modern or really 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:22.800 um yeah, very recently, like they were in in the 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:25.520 nineteen forties, they were whipping people to death for not 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.520 mining uranium fast enough. And that uranium is what made 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:31.080 all of the first nuclear weapons that the US used 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:33.000 in the Cold War or had in the Cold War. 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:37.479 It's also in Mission Impossible, the new one. Oh cool. Well, 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:41.119 I'm sure that was a less exploitative use of the Congo. 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:44.639 They probably filmed in Canada, right, probably, I don't know, 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:49.000 on a green screen screen. Uh So, Independence Day was 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:54.520 set for June nineteen sixty. Now, Belgium's King Bowdwin the 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:57.119 first flew to the Central African nation to give the 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:01.160 colony away to itself. Boudwin was the great great grandson 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.720 of Leopold. I'm pretty sure I did the math in 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:06.960 my head. In pictures he looks no judgment here, but 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:09.639 he looks like the biggest nerd ever. In fact, everyone 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:12.680 in this story kind of looks like a guy you'd 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:15.640 have played D and D with in junior high. Uh, 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:18.359 if you were going to cast about to win the 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:21.120 first in a movie, you would want to travel back 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:24.359 in time to steal Crispin Glover off the set of 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:26.320 Back to the Future and stick him in a uniform 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:30.680 like that. There's a picture of Leopold like it's a 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:35.760 huge nerd, which you know, no judgment, but so you 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:37.879 have an accurate but you kind of want. Yeah, like 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:42.479 a contrast from like villainous, looks like a villain right 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:45.240 to like kind of nerdy, Like I'm sorry, you're like, 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:50.000 I don't really want to be in charge of the Congo. Yeah. 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:52.080 So we're going to learn about what happened during that 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:54.600 independent ceremony, which is a big story, and of course 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:59.119 the what happened afterwards next. But first, before we get 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:02.120 into more of the Congo history, we're going to sell 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:07.560 some products. Who loved drugs maybe, Now that's what when 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:10.960 you say products, it's possible, it's possible that the ad 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:13.280 that comes up will involve a drug. It is and 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:16.119 actually that might be happening. But before we do that, 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:20.320 do you like, do you like Dorritos. I love Derita. 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:22.720 Is it let me ask you, is it the Is 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:24.960 it the crisp crunch of biting into one for the 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:27.200 first time? Or is it Is it the way that 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:29.639 that the coding of the dorritos, that the way the 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:32.480 flavor builds upon itself as you eat more. It's like 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:35.240 an orchestra just builds and then the beat drops and 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:38.240 you're like, yeah, cheesy, cheezy, jeezy, yeah, And that's I 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:40.760 love it when that cheesy beat drops. That's what really 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:43.800