The Truest: Why a Game Should Include King Leopold II

Most people would say the ruler of the Third Reich killed many people, but few people would utter the name of King Leopold II. This man never entered the Congo, but was responsible for the deaths of 10 million people there and more.

In order to increase the revenue from the rubber trade, the Second King of Belgium ordered his underlings to force Congolese to work. If the work was not completed on time, the King’s men would commit atrocities like maiming and dismemberment, as some sort of punishment. Meanwhile, Leopold II just sat back and grew richer off the backs of the natives.

King Leopold II is a classic example of a true exploiter. Against the horrors he perpetrated, it seems utterly absurd to refer to Jeff Bezos as an “exploiter” of labor. The Congolese suffering the King’s abuse would probably consider a job at Amazon a luxury vacation by comparison. Jeff Bezos is a capitalist who trades value for value. Leopold was a brute, who didn’t “trade” at all, he enslaved and tried to enforce Christianity on the population, and anyone who resisted was destroyed. The difference between these two men is incalculable.

King Leopold II did not directly rule the people of the Congo, but he did order his subordinates to carry out his plan for nearly eradicating their population. He owned Landolphia vines which yielded rubber in the raw. No one else claimed as wide a swath of land for this type of vegetation.

His stranglehold on the continent during the “Scramble for Africa” in the 19th century only perpetuated the ideal of Europeans ripping and running the entire land mass. The terror of limb amputation only gave way to the killing of millions.

While this bit of trivia may be dark, it often enlightens audiences of one or many. Government schools don’t cover it at all. His reign is probably scarcely studied in universities around the world. It is such an ugly past, most people want to cover it up, by focusing on the Führer during the 1930’s and 1940’s in Germany.

Few, especially Belgians wish to know about the nastiness of history. They wish to scurry away from facts as disconcerting as they are. People tend to hide and shy away from facts or even argue the count of those killed, as if it’s a numbers game.

King Leopold II should be remembered for his depravity and for his authoritarian excesses that destroyed the lives of millions of Congolese. His anti-man, anti-reason, anti-life approach should be upheld as an example of how not to be.

We should be able to discuss disturbing topics like these. Perhaps one way we could do it is to include them in games. Shows like Jeopardy! often presents serious topics. The Congolese who suffered under the Second Belgium King should be the ones who, like the late great Toni Morrison said, “have a bench by the road.”

These men, women, and children should be memorialized in our lecture halls, our classrooms, and yes, even game shows. We should be able to take this bit of dark history and illuminate each other with information they might not otherwise learn, or might consider irrelevant to their lives, but which is anything but. There is an urgency for facts like these to be disseminated throughout the culture. It would take an effort for people to drop their reservations and allow the facts to rule in their lives.

King Leopold II is one of the worst rulers in all of human history. He should be studied, and remembered, if for no other reason than to realize what “exploitation” really means, so we don’t flippantly use the word to refer to such people as Jeff Bezos.