![]() | Belgian Africa was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 10 January 2015 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Belgian colonial empire. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here. |
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | On 21 June 2022, it was proposed that this article be moved to Belgian Empire. The result of the discussion was no consensus. |
(From Gsd2000's talk page) You removed the reference and while it should be better explained couldn't it fall under corporate colonialism? While its not owned by the state, its generally still considered part of the colonial empire. The Dutch and the English were known to have used this early on. 12.220.94.199 01:27, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I have read however, that the Belgian govt was looking to gain a foothold in Central America before they decided on Africa.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.68.31.11 ( talk) 02:07, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
"Belgium's major modern day vestige of colonialism is its “universal jurisdiction” law which, it asserts, allows it prosecute human rights abuses no matter where in the world or by whom they were committed. Due to conflicts with the European Court of Human Rights, Belgium amended the law in 2003 in order to reduce its scope."
I believe that the above sentence is POV, and unless anyone objects I'd like to remove it. There is absolutely no objective link between the universal jurisdiction law of 1993 and any form of Belgian colonialism that may have ever existed. And if there is, I'd like to ask the person who added that sentence to cite some sources for that.-- Ganchelkas 13:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
The sentence is not only POV, it's also wrong. Universal jurisdiction did not exist in Belgian law before 1993, and has nothing to do with Belgian colonialism. Furthermore, the law was not amended "due to conflicts with the European Court of Human Rights" but due to conflicts with Belgium's transatlantic ally - and now some POV from my side - that were surely not motivated by human rights concerns. I'll delete the paragraph. MaartenVidal 19:31, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
From about 1844 until about 1845, Belgium had a small colony in the New World, known as "St. Thomas", or "Santo Thomas de Guatemala" [1] [2] [3]. In itself it was small and transient enough not to be worth mentioning; but the fact that Belgium did have a colony in the New World is interesting. Maproom ( talk) 12:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't see anything in this article, or any other for that matter, mentioning that French was the sole official language of the Belgian colonies. In fact, I don't know this to be accurate, but it would seem that the former Belgian Congo had only French as an official language. Assuming my presumptions to be correct, does anyone know why Dutch was not given an official status? AnthroGael ( talk) 22:15, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
"Contrary to Belgium itself, the colonies had no de jure official language. Although a majority of Belgians residing in the colonies were Dutch-speaking, French was the sole language used in administration, jurisdiction and secondary education. " [1] Denis ( talk) 19:28, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
The artical is incomplete its leaving out a cardinal Key fact the exact amount of Territory control by this empire either land and inland area or total area such as land plus sea based territory in a certain radius of the land which would be the largest extent of the territory if oceanic territory near there coasts are included. 76.244.151.164 ( talk) 16:09, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
This in regards to the now lengthy section about the accuracy of population statistics in the Congo Free State. I think this material belongs under the Congo Free State article, and not in the overarching Belgian Colonial Empire article. It is too detailed to go into the accuracy of population estimates in the Congo Free State in what should be a short summary here. As it is, the summary is unbalanced. Ottawakismet ( talk) 19:23, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
"The regime in the Congo was responsible for using forced labour, murder and mutilation to force indigenous Congolese who did not fulfill quotas for rubber collections. It is estimated that millions of Congolese died during this time". Why not to mention a lot of it was exaggerated by the British who wanted to get Congo for themselves? Congo was again mentioned during the second world war when the UK wanted it.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.153.128.193 ( talk) 14:57, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
The reason is that they did not. This is itself leftover propaganda from Leopold II’s time. 2A00:23C7:E287:1900:9CD1:65F4:F739:E05C ( talk) 23:48, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: no consensus. Data analysis in attempts to find the most common name proved inconclusive. Other arguments are also deadlocked between precision opposing with concision and consistency supporting. ( closed by non-admin page mover) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mello hi! ( 投稿) 17:33, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
Belgian colonial empire → Belgian Empire – There were no other Belgian empires. And in such cases, it is customary to name articles like this: British Empire, Dutch Empire, Italian Empire, Omani Empire, Portuguese Empire, Spanish Empire etc. The word "colonial" is needed when there were non-colonial empires with the same name, for example: French Empire, Danish Empire, German Empire, Swedish Empire etc. BlackBony ( talk) 20:55, 21 June 2022 (UTC)— Relisting. Spekkios ( talk) 22:48, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
"the name that is most commonly used"in reliable (and ideally specialist) sources. Lubiesque, in fact, has provided data which directly contradicts this claim. If you want to make this argument, I am afraid that you will need to adduce some evidence to this effect. As someone who happens to have spent a decade researching Belgian colonial history, my own view is that this is simply not the case. — Brigade Piron ( talk) 22:03, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
![]() | Belgian Africa was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 10 January 2015 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Belgian colonial empire. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here. |
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | On 21 June 2022, it was proposed that this article be moved to Belgian Empire. The result of the discussion was no consensus. |
(From Gsd2000's talk page) You removed the reference and while it should be better explained couldn't it fall under corporate colonialism? While its not owned by the state, its generally still considered part of the colonial empire. The Dutch and the English were known to have used this early on. 12.220.94.199 01:27, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I have read however, that the Belgian govt was looking to gain a foothold in Central America before they decided on Africa.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.68.31.11 ( talk) 02:07, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
"Belgium's major modern day vestige of colonialism is its “universal jurisdiction” law which, it asserts, allows it prosecute human rights abuses no matter where in the world or by whom they were committed. Due to conflicts with the European Court of Human Rights, Belgium amended the law in 2003 in order to reduce its scope."
I believe that the above sentence is POV, and unless anyone objects I'd like to remove it. There is absolutely no objective link between the universal jurisdiction law of 1993 and any form of Belgian colonialism that may have ever existed. And if there is, I'd like to ask the person who added that sentence to cite some sources for that.-- Ganchelkas 13:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
The sentence is not only POV, it's also wrong. Universal jurisdiction did not exist in Belgian law before 1993, and has nothing to do with Belgian colonialism. Furthermore, the law was not amended "due to conflicts with the European Court of Human Rights" but due to conflicts with Belgium's transatlantic ally - and now some POV from my side - that were surely not motivated by human rights concerns. I'll delete the paragraph. MaartenVidal 19:31, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
From about 1844 until about 1845, Belgium had a small colony in the New World, known as "St. Thomas", or "Santo Thomas de Guatemala" [1] [2] [3]. In itself it was small and transient enough not to be worth mentioning; but the fact that Belgium did have a colony in the New World is interesting. Maproom ( talk) 12:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't see anything in this article, or any other for that matter, mentioning that French was the sole official language of the Belgian colonies. In fact, I don't know this to be accurate, but it would seem that the former Belgian Congo had only French as an official language. Assuming my presumptions to be correct, does anyone know why Dutch was not given an official status? AnthroGael ( talk) 22:15, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
"Contrary to Belgium itself, the colonies had no de jure official language. Although a majority of Belgians residing in the colonies were Dutch-speaking, French was the sole language used in administration, jurisdiction and secondary education. " [1] Denis ( talk) 19:28, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
The artical is incomplete its leaving out a cardinal Key fact the exact amount of Territory control by this empire either land and inland area or total area such as land plus sea based territory in a certain radius of the land which would be the largest extent of the territory if oceanic territory near there coasts are included. 76.244.151.164 ( talk) 16:09, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
This in regards to the now lengthy section about the accuracy of population statistics in the Congo Free State. I think this material belongs under the Congo Free State article, and not in the overarching Belgian Colonial Empire article. It is too detailed to go into the accuracy of population estimates in the Congo Free State in what should be a short summary here. As it is, the summary is unbalanced. Ottawakismet ( talk) 19:23, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
"The regime in the Congo was responsible for using forced labour, murder and mutilation to force indigenous Congolese who did not fulfill quotas for rubber collections. It is estimated that millions of Congolese died during this time". Why not to mention a lot of it was exaggerated by the British who wanted to get Congo for themselves? Congo was again mentioned during the second world war when the UK wanted it.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.153.128.193 ( talk) 14:57, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
The reason is that they did not. This is itself leftover propaganda from Leopold II’s time. 2A00:23C7:E287:1900:9CD1:65F4:F739:E05C ( talk) 23:48, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: no consensus. Data analysis in attempts to find the most common name proved inconclusive. Other arguments are also deadlocked between precision opposing with concision and consistency supporting. ( closed by non-admin page mover) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mello hi! ( 投稿) 17:33, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
Belgian colonial empire → Belgian Empire – There were no other Belgian empires. And in such cases, it is customary to name articles like this: British Empire, Dutch Empire, Italian Empire, Omani Empire, Portuguese Empire, Spanish Empire etc. The word "colonial" is needed when there were non-colonial empires with the same name, for example: French Empire, Danish Empire, German Empire, Swedish Empire etc. BlackBony ( talk) 20:55, 21 June 2022 (UTC)— Relisting. Spekkios ( talk) 22:48, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
"the name that is most commonly used"in reliable (and ideally specialist) sources. Lubiesque, in fact, has provided data which directly contradicts this claim. If you want to make this argument, I am afraid that you will need to adduce some evidence to this effect. As someone who happens to have spent a decade researching Belgian colonial history, my own view is that this is simply not the case. — Brigade Piron ( talk) 22:03, 23 June 2022 (UTC)