Why We Never Saw “King Leopold’s List” at the Oscars
Mention the Holocaust and classrooms fall silent, museums are built, numerous award winning movies are made, yet mention King Leopold II’s…
Why We Never Saw “King Leopold’s List” at the Oscars
Mention the Holocaust and classrooms fall silent, museums are built, numerous award winning movies are made, yet mention King Leopold II’s Congo Free State and you get blank stares, awkward coughs, or the defensive pivot to “well, all colonialism was bad.”
Funny how that works.
Some scholars argue that King Leopold II’s personal fiefdom in the Congo from 1885–1908 featured a death toll and level of systemic brutality that, on a proportional basis, stands shoulder-to-shoulder with, or could in fact surpass aspects of Nazi Germany’s crimes. Hitler’s regime industrialized extermination with ruthless bureaucratic efficiency, Leopold industrialized profit through pure, unadulterated terror.