Talk:Belgian colonial empire

Belgian colonialism
(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)
 * It is true that the English and Dutch empires grew from commercial ventures... however that is completely different to the Belgians in Guatemala who were allowed to operate there as a private enterprise by permission of the actual colonial masters. The Belgian government/monarch did not have a "colony" in Central America, and it would be highly misleading to even mention it in this article.  Gsd2000 01:53, 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)

Universal jurisdiction law
"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)

Belgium's American colony
From about 1844 until about 1845, Belgium had a small colony in the New World, known as "St. Thomas", or "Santo Thomas de Guatemala"   . 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 have just noticed Gsd2000's mention above of "Belgians in Guatemala". Maproom (talk) 23:41, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Also there was an 1843 contract with Ladd & Co. to colonize the Kingdom of Hawaii but it fell apart. DYK on March 20. Not sure that would be removed however if I aded it, given above. W Nowicki (talk) 17:01, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Colonial Official Languages
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)
 * Some years since this was posted, but it seems that both French and Dutch were official languages if the stamps and coins of the country are anything to go by.---Brigade Piron (talk) 20:53, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if there really were official languages (in Belgium itself, both were de jure equal), but French was (and still is in these present-day countries) in any case the de facto sole official language and lingua franca in Belgian colonies, since French had always been the language of those in power in Belgium. SPQRobin (talk) 18:14, 12 June 2013 (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. " Denis (talk) 19:28, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

This artical is Incomplete
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)

Census accuracy in the Congo Free State
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)

British propaganda
"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)

Requested move 21 June 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

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, mellohi! (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)
 * Oppose - Regardless of what Wikipedia article titles are at present -- thankfully, Wikipedia is not a reference... -- it is customary to say French colonial empire, Portuguese colonial empire, Dutch colonial empire, Italian colonial empire, German colonial empire, Belgian colonial empire, Danish colonial empire.  "British Empire" is a well-established exception that confirms the rule. --Lubiesque (talk) 21:50, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Support - There is no other Belgian Empire. Charles Essie (talk) 22:11, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
 * "Belgian colonial empire": 35,800 hits; "Belgian empire": 22,500 hits. "Empire colonial belge": 9,700 hits; "Empire belge": 3,000 hits. That there are no other Belgian empire is irrelevant. That is not a determining factor--Lubiesque (talk) 22:15, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Lubiesque's statistics. ITBF (talk) 00:33, 22 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Support. Common and logical name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:28, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Can you provide any evidence to support its use as a WP:COMMONNAME. None has yet been presented, and it appears directly contradicted by Lubiesque's statistics. I also note that key specialist texts on the subject like Vanthemsche's Belgium and the Congo use the term "Belgian colonial empire". —Brigade Piron (talk) 08:31, 23 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Support per nomination, Charles Essie and Necrothesp. As indicated, since Belgian Empire already redirects to Belgian colonial empire, this is simply a matter of WP:CONSISTENT with other Wikipedia main title headers. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 01:13, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose. "Belgian colonial empire" is a NDESC and meets the requirements because there is no term for the "empire" which ever had widespread contemporary currency. "British Empire", by contrast, for example, is a WP:CN and not a NDESC. This is reflected in the capitalisation of Empire which is now proposed, incorrectly, here. The consistency argument therefore misses the point. Consistency with French colonial empire is much more appropriate, imo.—Brigade Piron (talk) 08:29, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Brigade Piron, your comparison with the French colonial empire is not correct, since the article French colonial empire is called so (NDESC) to distinguish it from the First French Empire and the Second French Empire. In the Belgian case, there is no need for a NDESC and a simple and clear WP:COMMONNAME can be used. Consistency with Dutch Empire, Italian Empire, Portuguese Empire, Spanish Empire etc is much more appropriate. Belgian Empire is a WP:CN and not a NDESC, therefore the capitalisation of Empire is needed. --BlackBony (talk) 19:40, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * , I note your claim that "Belgian Empire is a WP:CN" but we have not been shown any evidence here that this it is indeed "the name that is most commonly used" in reliable (and ideally specialist) sources., 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)
 * @Brigade Piron reliable specialist source, as you asked. BlackBony (talk) 22:12, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid that one source (from a non-specialist work) is not sufficient to prove your case. It is true that Fieldhouse talks about a "Belgian Empire" in the section heading you reference, but his chapter heading is called "Portuguese, Belgian and German Colonial Empires". I have cited the Vanthemsche book above as an example of "Belgian colonial empire" being used and I note the same writer has published an article with the same title. Other sources even question whether Belgium can strictly be said to have ever had an "empire" (eg 1 and J.-L. Vellut, “Belgium: The Single-Colony Empire,” in The Age of Empires, ed. R. Aldrich. (London, 2007), 220–37). It is true that some sources do refer to a "Belgian empire" as a shorthand but very few that I can see on google books talk about an "Empire" with a capital "E". In many senses, the Belgian case is closer to Denmark's (the parallel is made directly in the source cited above which also cast doubt on whether Denmark can be said to have had an "empire") - our article is currently titled Danish overseas colonies. —Brigade Piron (talk) 22:41, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * With regard to "The consistency argument therefore misses the point.", it should be noted that, although English Wikipedia follows forms used within WP:RELIABLE SOURCES, it also follows its own WP:MOS. Since British colonial empire redirects to British Empire, Dutch colonial empire redirects to Dutch Empire, Italian colonial empire redirects to Italian Empire, Portuguese colonial empire redirects to Portuguese Empire and Spanish colonial empire redirects to Spanish Empire, it appears to be counterintuitive that here, Belgian Empire redirects to Belgian colonial empire, instead of the other way around. The consistency argument is thus very much the point. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 19:28, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Oppose. Either term is fine and both are descriptive. So the question is which description is best for our readers. In the Belgian case, the word 'colonial' is clarifying. Srnec (talk) 19:06, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Support for conciseness and consistency with like articles, as well as to avoid the potentially confusing suggestion of other (non-colonial?) Belgian empires. ╠╣uw [ talk ] 12:46, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Strong Support because the ngrams say that Belgian Empire was always prefered over Belgian Colonial Empire (case insensitive) and also per Charles Essie, Necrothesp and Huwmanbeing. >>> Extorc . talk  08:59, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * And also per Roman Sniper that X Colonial Empire usually redirects to X empire. But here Belgian empire redirects to Belgian Colonial Empire. So rename per WP:CONSISTENT >>> Extorc . talk  09:00, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Yet when googling, I get 27,900 hits with "Belgian colonial empire" as opposed to 17,200 hits with "Belgian empire". That must mean something --Lubiesque (talk) 22:21, 8 July 2022 (UTC)