![Koninkrijk België [Belgium] Avatar](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Belgium_coa.gif)
Post by Koninkrijk België [Belgium] on Jul 5, 2006 20:42:29 GMT -5
Koninkrijk België, Royaume de Belgique, The Kingdom of Belgium
The Coat of Arms of His Majesty the King, Albert Léopold Clément Marie Meinrad
Background: The 1830 Belgian Revolution led to the establishment of an independent, Catholic and neutral Belgium under a provisional government. Since the installation of Leopold I as king in 1831, Belgium has been a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy. Between independence and World War II, the democratic system evolved from an oligarchy characterized by two main parties, the Catholics and the Liberals, to a universal suffrage system that has included a third party, the Belgian Labor Party, and a strong role for the trade unions. Originally, French, which was the adopted language of the nobility and the bourgeoisie, was the official language. The country has since developed a bilingual Dutch-French system.
European exploration and administration of the Congo took place from the 1870s until the 1920s. First by Stanley who undertook his explorations mainly under the sponsorship of King Leopold II of Belgium, who desired what was to become the Congo as a colony. In a succession of negotiations Leopold, professing humanitarian objectives in his capacity as chairman of the Association Internationale Africaine, played one European rival against the other. The Congo territory was acquired formally by Leopold at the Conference of Berlin in 1885. He made the land his private, personal property and named it the Congo Free State. Leopold's regime began undertaking various development projects, such as the railway that ran from the coast to Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) which took years to complete. Nearly all of these projects were aimed at increasing the capital Leopold and his cohorts could extract from the colony, leading to atrocious exploitation of Africans. In the Free State, the local population was brutalized in exchange for rubber, a growing market with the development of rubber tires. The selling of the rubber made a fortune for Leopold, who built several buildings in Brussels and Ostend to honor himself and his country. During the period between 1885 and 1908, between five and fifteen (the commonly accepted figure is about ten) million Congolese died as a consequence of exploitation and diseases. To enforce the rubber quotas, the Force Publique (FP) was called in. The FP was an army, but its aim was not to defend the country, but to terrorize the local population The Force Publique made the practice of cutting off the limbs of the natives as a means of enforcing rubber quotas a matter of policy; this practice was disturbingly widespread. However, there were international protests spearheaded mainly by Edmund Dene Morel and British diplomat/Irish patriot Roger Casement, whose 1904 report on the Congo condemned the practice, as well as famous writers such as Mark Twain (who wrote King Leopold's Soliloquy) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness also takes place in Congo Free State. In 1908, the Belgian parliament bowed to international pressure in order to save their last bit of prestige in Europe, forcibly adopting the Free State as a Belgian colony from the king. From then on, it became the Belgian Congo.
Form of Ruling Government: Constitutional popular monarchy
Incumbent Monarch: His Majesty, Albert I, King of the Belgians, Leader of the Free Peoples of the Congo,
His Majesty, Albert I
Population: 7,638,800 Souls In Belgium; 5,401,000 In the Congo
National Religion: Catholicism
National Currency: The Belgian Mark
Language(s): Dual-Linguancy in Dutch and French; Minority in German
The Coat of Arms of His Majesty the King, Albert Léopold Clément Marie Meinrad
Background: The 1830 Belgian Revolution led to the establishment of an independent, Catholic and neutral Belgium under a provisional government. Since the installation of Leopold I as king in 1831, Belgium has been a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy. Between independence and World War II, the democratic system evolved from an oligarchy characterized by two main parties, the Catholics and the Liberals, to a universal suffrage system that has included a third party, the Belgian Labor Party, and a strong role for the trade unions. Originally, French, which was the adopted language of the nobility and the bourgeoisie, was the official language. The country has since developed a bilingual Dutch-French system.
European exploration and administration of the Congo took place from the 1870s until the 1920s. First by Stanley who undertook his explorations mainly under the sponsorship of King Leopold II of Belgium, who desired what was to become the Congo as a colony. In a succession of negotiations Leopold, professing humanitarian objectives in his capacity as chairman of the Association Internationale Africaine, played one European rival against the other. The Congo territory was acquired formally by Leopold at the Conference of Berlin in 1885. He made the land his private, personal property and named it the Congo Free State. Leopold's regime began undertaking various development projects, such as the railway that ran from the coast to Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) which took years to complete. Nearly all of these projects were aimed at increasing the capital Leopold and his cohorts could extract from the colony, leading to atrocious exploitation of Africans. In the Free State, the local population was brutalized in exchange for rubber, a growing market with the development of rubber tires. The selling of the rubber made a fortune for Leopold, who built several buildings in Brussels and Ostend to honor himself and his country. During the period between 1885 and 1908, between five and fifteen (the commonly accepted figure is about ten) million Congolese died as a consequence of exploitation and diseases. To enforce the rubber quotas, the Force Publique (FP) was called in. The FP was an army, but its aim was not to defend the country, but to terrorize the local population The Force Publique made the practice of cutting off the limbs of the natives as a means of enforcing rubber quotas a matter of policy; this practice was disturbingly widespread. However, there were international protests spearheaded mainly by Edmund Dene Morel and British diplomat/Irish patriot Roger Casement, whose 1904 report on the Congo condemned the practice, as well as famous writers such as Mark Twain (who wrote King Leopold's Soliloquy) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness also takes place in Congo Free State. In 1908, the Belgian parliament bowed to international pressure in order to save their last bit of prestige in Europe, forcibly adopting the Free State as a Belgian colony from the king. From then on, it became the Belgian Congo.
Form of Ruling Government: Constitutional popular monarchy
Incumbent Monarch: His Majesty, Albert I, King of the Belgians, Leader of the Free Peoples of the Congo,
His Majesty, Albert I
Population: 7,638,800 Souls In Belgium; 5,401,000 In the Congo
National Religion: Catholicism
National Currency: The Belgian Mark
Language(s): Dual-Linguancy in Dutch and French; Minority in German