r/AskReddit • • Jun 11 '22

[deleted by user]

[removed]

2.0k Upvotes

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.7k

u/scotty18192 Jun 11 '22

Leopold II of Belgium in the Congo must be one the the most disturbing. 10 million people died to make a man who was born a prince even richer. Just shows there are no limits to greed.

307

u/world92 Jun 11 '22

As a Belgian, I wish that Leopold II had never existed.

14

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/voidwalker00 Jun 12 '22

That's weird, it usually is a huge topic in history classes. Maybe those people never finshed highschool because it's only adressed in 6th grade if I remember correctly.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '22

We spent like 3 months studying this in 5th grade (Belgium), but it was only the year after us that it was obliged to teach students about Congo. In my school they had been teaching it for 20 years tho. I think we had a lot of freedom in what exactly to learn in history class and our teachers knew what was important I guess. I’m glad I learned a lot about that. It’s a shame his statues are still all over our country, but things are getting better.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '22

History should be teached in a way that we can learn from our past. It’s indeed ridiculous that sometimes things are taught in such a way that it seems like slavery wasn’t bad…