#leopold II

[royalty-nobility]

Grand Duke Leopold with his Family (Emperor Leopold II, 1747-1792)

Artist: Wenceslaus Werlin (since 1776 royal Sardinian court portrait painter in Turin, died 1780 in Florence)

Date: 1773

Medium: OIl on Canvas

Collection: Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Austria

Leopold II was the penultimate Holy Roman Emperor, as well as King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and Archduke of Austria from 1790 to 1792, and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1765 to 1790.

[postcard-from-the-past]

King Leopold II of Belgium

Belgian vintage postcard

[roehenstart]

Leopold II (1741-1790), Roman-German Emperor, Archduke of Austria, King of Bohemia and Hungary, etc. Lithograph by Josef Kriehuber.

[royal-confessions]

“everytime i look at leopold ii of belgium after the pain he caused to congo. i dislike the belgium royal family so much. i wish they can stop that monarchy, they should stop reigning. The Windsor are not the worst 😞” - Submitted by Anonymous

[tiny-librarian]

Maria Amalia of Austria, the 12th child of the 16 born to Leopold II and Maria Luisa of Spain. She was their youngest daughter, and not much is known about her life as she died unmarried at the age of 18.

[kaiserrreich]

Is there any royals that you don't like?

I've just started getting into royal history so I've tried to keep an open mind and stay neutral but I just can't keep an open mind to this:

The Congo Free State... the pictures are just horrifying to look at. Fuck you Leopold II...

[dirklagast]

Leopol de Twiede

Vertellink ouver de miest gekontesteide kuinink van Belzjik

[ronnydeschepper]

De leestips van Nonkel Fons (324)

Fons Mariën las De Zanzibardriehoek van Martin Bossenbroek. Continue reading De leestips van Nonkel Fons (324)

[frida-kahl-of-the-rocky-horror]

Also, I myself acknowledge I am faulty if this. Not really when it comes to Israel/Palestine but more when it comes to Belgium.

Back in the 9th and 10th grade, I was doing a lotta research into World History (for fun and for APWH). When I learned about the Belgian Genocide in the DRC during and after King Leopold II, I began to hate Belgium as a nation and Belgians as a people.

How could an individual own an entire country as a personal slave colony? 

How come more people died in this genocide than in the holocaust but nobody talks about it?

How come he literally put people from his slave colony into human zoos, and those humans remains are in museums?

How could a nation be so evil?

How could such an evil monarchy still be in power, that government still be in power?

Why isn’t this taught in Belgian schools?

How could a country be so evil?

Now, at this time, I was living in the Middle East. The population of Belgians was basically non existent, and I didn’t speak French or Dutch so my interaction with Belgians online was non existent. I was told one POV, one historically accurate POV, and because this was one of the only things I knew about Belgians, I hated the country.

And, of my group of friends who were mostly Middle Eastern, South Asian, South East Asian, North African, Jewish, or American, well, let’s just say that nobody really cared I was being so Belgianophobic

Then I moved to Germany where there were many Belgians at my school, and I realized that like 99% of Belgians had nothing to do with that genocide in the DRC, and blaming the people for the actions of their monarchy and government was a) only going to make them double down and b) lead to more harm for everyone

Also yes I acknowledge Belgium, the country, still has neocolonial control in the DRC and was responsible for what occurred in Rwanda and Burundi, but again, that’s the fault of the government and the corporate elites who crush the proletariat everywhere.

And, while learning basically just German history in IB European History HL, we looked at how propaganda spread, looking primarily at American and Nazi propaganda. One of the biggest tools of propagandists is to convince a people that their government is the only thing protecting them as a people from other countries coming in, destroying their culture, and that they should support everything their country does… Jingoism. And this propaganda used real world accounts as a way to prove it. 

“America should invade Iraq and Afghanistan because they wanted to destroy the American way of life. And we must do it alone because nobody came to our aid during 9/11”

Both of these are half truths

“Nazi Germany must kill all Jews because they stabbed us in the back during WW1”

This statement was largely built on bigoted first hand accounts dialed up to 11 and nothing more

“The non Belgians hate our history, we must unapologetically support it”

And now you have youth groups protesting the removal of Leopold II statues

“Italians must become militant, look how we are treated in USA. A strong Italy needs to exist for the sake of the Italian people”

Yes Italians faced discrimination (see Italian lynchings in USA south) but that doesn’t give you the right to fucking invade Ethiopia

“Israel must become militant, look how we are treated in Europe. A strong Israel needs to exist for the sake of the Jewish people”

Yes Italians faced discrimination (see all of European history) but that doesn’t give you the right to fucking invade Palestine

Once you realize you were the victim of propaganda, it’s easy to spot

If it seems like I've been posting a lot about antisemitism, it's because I've seen massive amounts of it coming from every possible angle and no one seems to give a fuck except Jewish people, who are called traitors and blood-thirsty Zionists for saying anything while "allies" look the other way.

I have seen so much antisemitism on my dashboard from people I previously trusted and respected as leftists and activists. I have seen seen indigenous bloggers, including many former mutuals, say the cruelest and most vile things and act like it's totally fine.

I refuse to be complacent in this hate and violence and cruelty and I highly suggest you all also think long and hard about why antisemitism is becoming so prevalent and explicit in leftist circles and how we're all contributing to it.

This is not a matter of "yeah!! Not all Jews are Zionists!!" You CANNOT categorize people as "good Jews" vs "bad Jews" and if you feel like you need to justify antisemitism against certain groups of Jews, then you are part of the problem.

[carolineofansbach]

[royalty-nobility]

Maria Theresa of Austria with her Sons

Artist: Louis-Joseph Maurice (French, 1731–1820)

Date: 1775

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Collection: Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna, Austria

Depicted People

Maria Theresa of Austria 

Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor

Ferdinand of Austria-Este

Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor

Archduke Maximilian Francis of Austria

[postcard-from-the-past]

King Leopold II of Belgium

Belgian vintage postcard

[srabaskerville]

We, as the third world countries, should start to colonize the first world, they need some democracy I think, let's start with Belgian and in the division we can give it to Congo

[diioonysus]

women in art: ophelia

[therealmackenson10]

Some folks are real tender on the subject but yet won’t be hesitant to tell you about what celebrities are doing or whose the hottest artist. It’s time to wake up to this reality that we’re in. Wake up community. Everything isn’t as it appears to be. Napoleon said it best “History is a lie agreed upon”. If they can control the past which affects the present then they can control the future.

[alwaysbewoke]

king leopold ii killed 20 million between 1880 and 1920 and people rarely talk about it.