Marcel Yabili > Quotes

“The obsession with seeking in Africa's colonial past the causes of all its miseries today is the work of people intimately convinced that Africa is doomed, that it is unable to take care of itself today, and that, finally, the fate of the Black will only improve if the White comes back to repair what he has done wrong: these “hidden Afro- pessimists “ are hiding, under gratuitous accusations, anger, or demand for reparation, their own disarray. This explains why their words are sterile, never accompanied by proposals for solutions to the problems they evoke. They are doing a lot of harm to Africa because they divert issues that have worth.”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“This heroism was also that of the first missionaries. They had a life expectancy of about 5 years in Congo, and some were given extremely anointing at the time of their journey to Africa. There were many young idealists. Their graves are still lined up in the Mpala locality, which overlooks Lake Tanganyika. The Catholic mission was a fort where people who fled slavers and brutality took refuge.”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“Millions of dead' appears nowhere in the rich oral tradition of my ancestors, nor in Lumumba's speeches. Nor does it appear with Mobutu, who was born and raised in the Equator province, where the ABIR and the Anversoise exploited rubber.”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“The anti-clericalism of some Belgians falsified history by attributing the low level of education to "the racism of the missionaries", while it was they who provided education and educated the African elite with the first university priest Stefano Kaoze in 1917”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“Congo Free State had an annual 'Bulletin Officiel' from 1885 to 1908, it was a member of the Universal Postal Union and one Congolese franc was worth one Reichsmark. The Bulletin had 9,777 pages in 23 editions from 1885 to 1908. The Free State's income rose from 0.6 million Congolese francs in 1891 to 35 million in 1908. So by no means all the money went to Leopold II. These figures are hushed up by all critics.”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“It was only in 1926, long after Leopold II, that the whip was introduced in local courts with Congolese chieftains and dignitaries as judges. In 1959 the use had completely disappeared, but Laurent Kabila reintroduced it in 1997 and now the whip is a common torture of the police.”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“Demographer Jean-Paul Sanderson, estimated the decline of the Congolese population during the reign of Leopold II and after, between 1885 and 1920 at several hundred thousand, and there were several reasons for this: diseases, malnutrition (including because men worked in the rubber harvest rather than farming), fewer births. Professor Anatole Romaniuk of the University of Alberta in Canada wrote a study on this, showing that almost half of the women in Congo in the second half of the 19th century suffered from Afro-Arab slavery and did not give birth to a single living child because of 'une stérilité massive pathologique d'origine vénérienne', i.e. because of massive infertility due to venereal disease. This factor trumped all other causes.”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“The French's acts of violence did not exonerate Leopold, but they did not make it into the Angelo-International press: Brazza's 1905 report was not published until 1965.”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“Human zoos existed in many countries (France, Norway, USA), but only Leopold II was accused of bringing Congolese to Belgium in 1885, 1894 and 1897.”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“The Chinese who mine cobalt mines in the Congo are now whipping Congolese workers with impunity. A video of this went viral, but no action group or government reacted to it.”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“The current problems in Congo (poverty, 27 million people in famine, enrichment by the top, brutal rapes, murders, ...) receive much less attention than those during the time of Leopold II.”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“The rubber production only took place in the northwest of the Congo, in the Equateur province, a very small part of the huge country.”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“The much-criticised rubber regime of Leopold II had only a brief heyday and disappeared from the tables of Congolese resources shortly after 1900 in favour of palm oil and palm nuts. The production tables also show that the population increased from 1890 onwards and was not exterminated. In 1888, And revenue from the 'red' rubber largely went to the Free State for public expenditure, including road construction and the army. These budgets, too, are never cited by the narrators, ever. Ditto for the rubber tables, which show that far more rubber arrived in Antwerp from French Congo and Angola than from the Free State in the early period. Rubber from Congo Free State accounted for barely 10 per cent of world production. The big supplier was the Amazon with 70%.”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“Lumumba praised Leopold as a genius and builder of the Congo; in his fierce speech of June 30, 1960, he denounced 9 forms of violence, but the "severed hands" and the "chicotte" (whip) were not among them. The chicotte was part of the sharia and the Arab slave traders, but it was banned in the law that was introduced by Leopold after 1885 for Congolese citizens.”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“Jules Marchal, Adam Hochschild, Lucas Catherine and Daniel Vangroenweghe deliberately did not publish reliable figures and did not read the 1905 investigation report, set by Leopold II. They are spreaders of fake news.”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“Tout le défi est là : c’est de montrer qu’il ne suffit pas qu’il ne suffit pas d’avoir des textes. Il faut les connaitre, les animer de manière convenable et donner au pays une chance d’avoir la justice que tout le monde réclame”
― Marcel Yabili

“White American, Adam Hochschild, with no solid Africa knowledge, purveyed the horror book King Leopold's ghost, 1998, from Stanley's English-language travelogue, and Ben Affleck further presses the lie, based on Hochschild's fabrications, in a film soon to be released.”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“La décision du ministre des Finances de reconnaître l’exonération des droits et taxes sur l’importation du livre est une victoire”
― Marcel Yabili

“Il y a un très grave problème qui se pose au Congo. Il ne s’agit pas seulement de la violence dans l’Est, du viol des femmes. Il y a en cause, pour le moment, l’avenir même du Congo, parce que les Congolais ne lisent pas les livres. Et un peuple qui ne lit pas les livres n’a pas d’histoire, il n’a pas de mémoire collective. C’est un peuple qui est voué à la disparition. Donc, c’est cela ma grande préoccupation…”
― Marcel Yabili

“Il précise qu’à l’indépendance, « Le pays n’avait pas été désossé et abandonné nu et squelettique ! Il avait hérité d’un riche patrimoine en recherches de cartographie, en faune, flore, minerais, administration territoriale, enseignement, santé et infrastructures » qu’il aurait suffi de gérer. Y a-t-il seulement eu une autre colonie avec pareil héritage?”
― Marcel Yabili

“De Amerikaan Adam Hochschild, zonder stevige Afrikakennis, puurde uit Stanley’s Engelstalige reisverslag het horrorboek King Leopold’s ghost, 1998, en Ben Affleck perst de leugen, op basis van Hochschilds verzinsels, verder uit in een film die weldra verschijnt.”
― Marcel Yabili, Mijn ‘waarheid’ over Leopold II: Nepnieuws ontkracht

“L'Américain Adam Hochschild, sans aucune connaissance solide de l'Afrique, a propagé le livre d'horreur Le fantôme du roi Léopold, 1998, à partir du carnet de voyage en anglais de Stanley, et Ben Affleck pousse encore plus loin le mensonge, basé sur les affabulations de Hochschild, dans un film qui sortira bientôt.”
― Marcel Yabili, Le roi génial et bâtisseur de Lumumba: un exercice de critique historique sur le plus grand fake news

“Stanley raamde met wat hij zag langs de Congostroom en zijrivieren het bewonersaantal van het bekken op 40 miljoen, een cijfer dat hij in de Franse vertaling halveerde, en die gefantaseerde bevolkingsberg is medio de twintigste eeuw, door ernstig demografisch onderzoek, geslonken tot 10 à 15 miljoen.”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“Nergens zijn er aan de Evenaar onder Leopold II, of zijn Belgische opvolgers na 1908, volkerenslachtingen geweest à la de zieke heersers Hitler, Stalin of Pol Pot. Wel hebben Lucas Catherine, Jules Marchal en Daniel Groenweghe het bestrijden van het imperialisme — of het wegschrijven van hun ontgoochelingen in Afrika — gezien als de overtreffende trap van het antikapitalisme. En auteurs als Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle en Hugo Claus hebben met een bloeiende verbeelding en de insteek van Don Quichote, een potpourri gemaakt van Congo Vrijstaat en zijn stichter.”
― Marcel Yabili, Mijn ‘waarheid’ over Leopold II: Nepnieuws ontkracht

“Il y a quelque temps, j’ai écrit un livre sur l’histoire du Congo en trois versions, dont en swahili”, dit-il. Et d’ajouter : ”Je me suis rendu compte qu’au Congo, si les gens s’expriment en Kiswahili, ils doivent aussi apprendre à le lire. Mais rien ne leur est proposé en swahili, car il n’y a pas d’auteurs qui écrivent en swahili”
― Marcel Yabili

“L’impact, il est réel. Les gens ne vont plus avoir peur de faire venir des imprimés, des livres. Vous allez voir tout de suite toutes ces revues vont maintenant coûter moins cher”
― Marcel Yabili

“In Belgium, secularism manifested itself in anticlericalism allied to the Freemasons. This led to the establishment of a secular university in Lubumbashi to counter the launch of the Catholic University, Lovanium, in Kinshasa. The first university courses were taught during the Second World War; this event is cut from the history of the country because it was the initiative of Catholic missionaries. For the same reasons, Jef Van Bilsen and the Manifesto of African Conscience of 30 June 1956 are cited as precursors of independence, without any mention of the Catholic bishops who had previously taken some distance from the Colony by calling for the political emancipation of Blacks and by condemning racism in all its forms. Such political rebellion by missionaries were common in Africa and it is still perpetuated within episcopal conferences.”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“It was put in the books that Thomas Kanza was the first university graduate, but he was a secular and a Congolese from Belgium (1956). The very first graduate was Paul Panda Farnana, an agronomist trained in Belgium (1907). But considering post-secondary education, it is father Stefano Kaoze (1917) who is the first graduate trained in Congo.”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“L’indignité des chercheurs de « compensations pour une colonisation scandaleuse », l’indignité de ceux qui se croient obligés d’être « repentants », me choque : j’ai connu la colonie heureuse et des colonisés très heureux, j’ai aussi connu le règne de la corruption, de l’injustice et de la pauvreté dans le pays indépendant.”
― Marcel Yabili

“Je veux attirer l’attention de tout le monde sur la situation des enfants. Car ce sont eux les dirigeants de demain, les parents de demain. D’ici à 2030, la population Congolaise va doubler. Le nombre d’enfants sera aussi multiplier par deux. Ainsi donc, toutes les décisions prises doivent tenir compte de leur situation, parce qu’il faut préparer leur avenir.”
― Marcel Yabili