by K. Blackman 07 05 2020
What then should Britain, the UN and Israel’s Western backers fess up to re the C20’s most enduring colonial act: Palestine?
The Congolese have got their country back – much abused, but still… Maybe a few stolen works of art, and multi-million Euros, should follow.
This mea culpa rates as headline news. Yet how many more weaseling ‘plans’ will be imposed on the Palestinians before Australia finally headlines that a bunch of shrunken land-locked bantustans is no nation – imposed after a munificent White House media flourish for acceptance, the decades-long ‘peace process’ with Israel having died of ignominy…
‘Plans’ and ‘processes’ that have done years of sterling duty as cover for settler towns and farms that creep ever eastward, now far beyond both Apartheid Wall and Green Line. Already Israel in domestic law, and soon to be in shameful international fact.
OK, so Russia did annexation recently in Crimea! True. At least we don’t search for obfuscating phrases to excuse them at the UN. And we imposed sanctions, still in force.
But what historically-twisted guilt-ridden personality disorder afflicts the US and its Australian satrapy when it comes to Israel?? With the US, we lead in blocking UN action to call Israel to book for its litany of colonial abuse of human rights and arrogant unilateralism as occupier of conquered territory. (We eventually got past condemnation of Mandela’s ANC when we opened our eyes to the deeply brutal reality of apartheid South Africa, and understood the roots of the former’s ‘terrorism’).
By staying silent, or curbing our critique, we condone Israel’s actions; by maintaining close and friendly relations with its Zionist government we are implicated, up to our neck. What better opportunity than now, as Israel finesses its roll-out of new annexations, to call an Aussie spade a very bloody shovel?
KB 050720
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Belgian King regrets suffering and humiliation in Congo’s colonial past
James Crisp
July 1, 2020 SMH
Brussels: The King of Belgium has become the first monarch to express remorse over his country’s brutal colonial past.
King Philippe offered his “deepest regrets” over atrocities during Belgian rule in the Congo in a letter to Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi. It was published on Tuesday, on the 60th anniversary of the DRC’s independence.
The king’s great-great-great-uncle, Leopold II, ruled a region containing the whole of the DRC as a private rubber-producing slave state. More than 10 million Africans are estimated to have died there.
A campaign is being waged to remove statues of Leopold in Belgium, and some have been vandalised in Black Lives Matter protests.
“Acts of violence and atrocity were committed that continue to weigh on our collective memory,” Philippe said in his letter. “I want to express my deepest regret for these past injuries, the pain of which is regularly revived by the discrimination that is still all too present in our societies.”…
King Leopold was forced to surrender direct control of the Congo Free State in 1908 and Belgium annexed it, calling it the Belgian Congo. Congo achieved independence in 1960.
Millions of Congolese are estimated to have died between 1885 and 1908 after King Leopold II declared it his personal property.
During Leopold’s rule acts of cruelty were committed, while the subsequent colonial period “caused suffering and humiliation”, Philippe said…
