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Read up on your history before making assumptions
King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa https://www.amazon.com/dp/0618001905/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_aB8TBbCQ7Q6M1
Highly recommend reading "King Leopold's Ghost" to anyone interested in the history of Belgian colonialist atrocities in Africa. Warning: it makes for grim reading.
> it coudl be argued much of africa has a better life and opportunity under colonialism
Read King Leopold’s Ghost from cover to cover before you ever make this claim again.
King Leopold's Ghost is a powerful book on Beligian atrocities in the Congo during its colonial period. Highly recommended for understanding what's taking place there to this day.
If anyone wants to know more about what King Leopold II did to the Congo, I recommend reading King Leopold's Ghost. (amazon link)
Or read a book. Shit, if you even read your own comment it shows that Belgium only sent troops to protect the white civilians. If you actually read that thread you'd see that the other UN members were opposed to providing support to the Belgian-backed secessionists and eventually even intervened to block and engage them. The only reason the US ended up involved on the behalf of the secessionists was because after they didn't want to back up the rebel factions those factions sought and received aid from the Communist bloc.
Though you did remind me that if we get any Free French forces for the Paris Liberation phase, we should probably get some Senegalese representation.
This book was a dark read but will give you a pretty good idea of the DRC up to 2000s iirc. https://www.amazon.ca/Dancing-Glory-Monsters-Collapse-Africa/dp/1610391071?ref=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=d5b8b2b0-9b03-43d0-acc9-5be8094eea0c
Check out Dancing in the Glory of Monsters which gives a fairly harrowing and interesting account of the collapse of the Congo and its subsequent impacts on political life in Africa.
I recently read King Leopold's Ghost per a recommendation in one of the "audiobooks similar to HH episodes" threads:
https://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905
It definitely explores the history in a way that is reminiscent of a HH episode.
That said I would also like to hear Dan's take.
I'm unsure why you're getting downvoted for this. Pre-war Ukrainian politics were messy to say the least - marked by corruption, factionalism between oligarchs and strongmen, and a host of other problems. Many young people in Ukraine were making incredible progress towards overcoming these issues (and building strong institutions in the process) but Ukraine does not become Denmark overnight.
Post-war settlements in nascent democracies are extremely complicated affairs that tend to devolve into pure power politics (for a great read check out <em>Dancing in the Glory of Monsters</em> which details a lot of this same process in post-conflict states in and around the Congo). In an alternate timeline where Azov retains significant battlefield strength post-war and you can imagine how this would impact the post-war political reality of Ukraine.
Anyway there's a worrying trend in these threads of downvoting anything that brings up real issues with Ukraine and the challenges it will face in the post-war period.
Read King Leopold’s Ghost. It’s horrifying and very well done.
King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa https://www.amazon.com/dp/0618001905/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_YKPBDYMEWV8HBP12BTMC
The setting - the Congo (country and river), and the occasional rogue soldier, stationed during Leopold's reign, in isolated areas upriver during the rubber boom.
I'd advise King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa https://www.amazon.com/dp/0618001905, it explains Leopold's history in the Congo in very vivid detail.
Omg, this book is devastating…
If anyone is interested in the backstory you can search the movie Black Hawk Down.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265086/
Or read the book
Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War https://www.amazon.com/dp/080214473X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_NCQ6B50ZYRHAR1NJ0CC0
From Wikipedia:
> They also burned recalcitrant villages, and above all, cut off the hands of Congolese natives, including children. The human hands were collected as trophies on the orders of their officers to show that bullets had not been wasted. Officers were concerned that their subordinates might waste their ammunition on hunting animals for sport, so they required soldiers to submit one hand for every bullet spent.[53] These mutilations also served to further terrorize the Congolese into submission. This was all contrary to the promises of uplift made at the Berlin Conference which had recognized the Congo Free State.
The Congo Free State was a vanity project of Leopold II of Belgium. The book King Leopold's Ghost is a fascinating and depressing read.
Joseph Conrad's book Heart of Darkness is believed to have been inspired by what happened there. The movie Apocalypse Now is a modern interpretation of Heart of Darkness.
For those who want to know how the sausage was really made, The number one ranked book in Amazon under Belgian history that goes into the grisly details :
https://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905/ref=nodl_
Quite a riveting read.
It’s called hyperbole…. Evidently not everyone saw the irony. Oh well. Most American “Right” are more concerned about masks and toilet paper…. As long as it doesn’t concern or upset my comfortable life, I’ll ignore it. Even to the point of destroying the planet.
If you want to read an interesting book on African wars, read “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda”
https://www.amazon.com/Wish-Inform-Tomorrow-Killed-Families/dp/0312243359
{{Congo by David van Reybrouck}} It tells the story of Congo, the country that lost millions of people to the rubber trade. It tells the story of king Leopold II who kept Congo as his own personal colony and tells the story of how he almost genocided Congo in order of getting as much rubber harvested/tapped as possible. For example, hundreds of thousands of people had their hand chopped off because they couldn't harvest/tapp enough rubber in a month. Rubber is one of the most brutal trades of all time.
Not OP, but here's a good place to start: King Leopold's Ghost
I don't know if there's been any studies directly connecting colonialism with the actual state of countries today, but it seems like an oft discussed topic. u/arkatopia is kind of right when it comes to connecting the dots. Countries are like people--they don't overcome abuse easily, and countries live a lot longer, so the result of abuses is very much likely to linger.
All that aside, there's an even WORSE thing to consider, which is that, surprise, colonialism didn't end ! It's still going on ! But now it's done economically, with the capitalist elite relying on local elites in the countries, strong armed by organizations like the IMF, to extract the resources by proxy.
There are a massive amount of problems in African, South American, and South Asian countries, and many of them are the result of government failures, from governments hamstrung, maligned, and hindered by the end of colonialism AND the continued pressure provided by the modern day, seemingly innocent and peaceful, economic variant.
It can come across offensive to some to suggest one needs evidence of that, when the history of these places is obvious, and it is naive to suggest that a country can go from being an English Colony primarily for extracting ores/local resources, and just spring into a modern, fully developed nation over the course of only a few decades. That'd be a feat if they were isolated from the world economy, but with those pressures (coming primarily from the ex-colonizers) it's practically impossible.
Read about how ineffective the UN was during the Rwanda genocide. I wouldn't hold my breath expecting them to do anything.
This is a great/depressing book about it: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shake-Hands-Devil-Failure-Humanity/dp/0099478935
Read this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Shake-Hands-Devil-Failure-Humanity/dp/0786715103
If you wish to know exactly how and where and why the UN has failed to stop genocides in the past. (Specifically in Rwanda)
I warn you though, it is the most difficult book I have ever read. Even setting aside the horrific details of the genocide itself (which is not a small thing to set asside) there are truckloads of acronyms, long unfamiliar african names and many, many (real)characters to keep track of.
But, tl;dr: Yes. The UN definitely could have stopped that genocide if the organization weren't so beholden and paralyzed by fear of retribution from member states.
In short: The UN mostly exists as a scapegoat to heap blame upon for general international failings that, really, belong to its member states. And an organization to steal credit from upon successful missions.
This meme comes with a book recommendation about the Great War of Africa and tells what happened after the Rwandan Genocide
For Belgium and the Congo both, I would instead recommend King Leopold's Ghost.
The book "explores the exploitation of the Congo Free State by King Leopold II of Belgium between 1885 and 1908, as well as the large-scale atrocities committed during that period. The book succeeded in increasing public awareness of these Belgian colonial crimes." (Wikipedia)
I don't think that's the book their ambassador would want us to read, though.
Relative to Bosnia. Try this, Kagame interviewed about why they couldn't bring them all to justice, not least because a very large number were parked in refugee camps in the DRC. The story of the Rwandans closing those camps is pretty horrific too.
All good--for context in terms of my favorite non-fiction reads, this one is pretty high on the list, and it's not exactly riveting reading.
Her comparison to the Rwandan genocide is ahistorical garbage.
In Rwanda it was a country divided along tribal lines that had long been incited to hate and fight for power with each other. It was a sectarian ethnic conflict, and the violence happened under government supervision under government orders. It was not just some random political violence by fringe groups. There's nothing close to what happened in that country going on in the USA.
Reading on this: https://www.amazon.com/Machete-Season-Killers-Rwanda-Speak/dp/0312425031
We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families is a great read about tribalism and the causes and events of the Rwandan Genocide. Long title but great book.
Are you suggesting that India and Pakistan, before partition, weren't subjected to 200 years of British colonial rule? That the arbitrary colonial borders drawn up by the British didn't involuntarily mash together a part of the world that was largely Muslim with a part of the world that was primarily Hindu? That atrocities and human rights abuses did not occur on a regular basis, including intentional famines? Have you done any historical reading about the actions of the East India Company in SE Asia? Do you have any thoughts on why many in the Middle East have a deep-seated, generational resentment of the Imperial behavior of the West?
Perhaps it has something to do with the firebombings and mustard gas?
>But most of the unpeaceful ones are Muslim.
This sweeping generalization is laughably ignorant. But engaging you further will not be useful, as your worldview is grounded in faith instead of historical research. If you don't think the atrocities committed by Western imperial powers didn't permanently fuck-up and fuck-over India, Africa and the Middle East, I can't help you.
Your use of the world "unpeaceful" suggests to me that you don't have a college degree. This is not to put you down, it's just to say that engaging you further will be pointless since you already have your mind made up about the "bad guys."
I can make a book recommendation though, if you have the stomach and the balls to read the historical events that inspired Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
https://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905
> wonder what the UN achieved there. They saved the lives of thousands or even tens of thousands of people while the rest of the world sat back and did nothing.
A little recommended reading on the subject: Shake Hands with the Devil
> Do you think the world would sit back and watch, like it did other genocides? Or would it be stopped quickly?
Hate to say it, but that depends on who is being killed. In my experience, people don't tend to do things - Shake Hands with the Devil speaks to this. This is a life changing book, I wouldn't read it unless you feel prepared...thinking about genocide in an abstract way with numbers in one thing. Reading a first hand account of how we collectively failed hundreds of thousands of Rwandans is another. Rwanda happened in 1994, I'm old enough to remember that and I'm not that old. It speaks to where we were and where we still are. So yeah, I think these things continue to happen and I think we let them happen all the time.
I mean there is a large scale civil war happening in Syria right now and most of the country has been gutted. I wouldn't say people are really "helping" the situation...and nobody wants the refugees (especially the USA). Technically its a civil war, but I feel we could be doing a lot more positive things to help out the situation.
Millions are/have being tortured and killed in slave labour camps in North Korea and absolutely dick all is being done about that.
Everyone is simply watching and waiting as Duterte in the Philippines is encouraging his country men to kill other countrymen based on suspicions of selling drugs, being rapists, murderers....Death toll isn't super high just yet, but people are being killed without consequence.