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The Congo - The Nightmare Begins - Part One
Manage episode 498040307 series 3502293
It is one of the darkest chapters in human history, and yet—astonishingly—one of the least known. At the turn of the 20th century, deep in the uncharted heart of Africa, a vast swathe of land nearly eighty times the size of Belgium was transformed into a private slaughterhouse. Not by an empire. Not by a government. But by a single man, King Leopold II of Belgium.
This is not just a tale of colonial greed. It’s a story of terror disguised as civilisation. Of rubber quotas enforced with severed hands. Of families destroyed, villages burned, and a nation bled dry, all for profit.
And yet, it was also the birthplace of something extraordinary: the world’s first international human rights movement, sparked by the unimaginable cruelty suffered by the Congolese people and the few brave souls who dared to speak out.
But how did it come to this? How did the Congo, Africa’s vast, impenetrable, and mysterious interior, become the personal fiefdom of one ambitious European monarch? Who was Leopold, really? A civiliser, as he claimed? Or a conman wrapped in ermine?
And what of Henry Morton Stanley, the swaggering explorer who “found” Livingstone and then, in the name of progress, pried open the Congo’s secrets and delivered them into Leopold’s blood-soaked hands?
Join Keith as he follows the shadowy trail of conquest, deception, and despair. through the jungles of Central Africa and the drawing rooms of Europe, to uncover a story so shocking, it changed the world.
For books written and published by Keith Hocton
123 episodes
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