Émile Banning

"A people needs air, broad horizons, an ideal which charms its imagination and makes its heart beat; reduce it to household calculations, to the politics of party interests, it will disintegrate and corrupt itself."

"The doctrine of state ownership of land established since 1890 is the exact opposite of free trade, the new doctrine is reprehensible, going against both the natural rights of the indigenous people who will be deprived, and the rights of the Imperial powers as determined in the act of Berlin."

"The desert reveals its secrets; the great mystery of interior Africa is revealed day by day."

"Everything seems to indicate that a decisive hour has sounded in the history of the world, the hour when an almost virgin continent and ignored races will cooperate in the work of humanity."

"Wherever this regime has been applied in one form or another, it has led to economic stagnation and decline and political revolt."

"The King isolates himself and becomes less and less accessible to our advice."

"You may want to, Sire, but then you will find someone other than me to carry out such a will."

"From a moral point of view, there is a way to whitewash negroes, and to this view Africa undoubtedly presents the largest field that can be cultivated."

"Belgium only does pure philanthropy."

"The more we increase in numbers, the more we starve and become poorer. ... Either our population will shrink, or our territory will expand."

"The King is no longer the same; the change of character and spirit observed in him for two or three years is accentuated and makes fear of a catastrophe, at a time when he had only to let it go to be a remarkable King, perhaps to become a large figure."

"By the end of 1892, all the King's collaborators during the first and second phases of Belgian work in the Congo had therefore ceased to participate. M. van Eetvelde, who had increasingly isolated himself from them, remained alone in possession of the sovereign's confidence, with the sole program of being the passive instrument of his designs. This third phase of the administration of the state of Congo affected all signs of impending dissolution."

"Honest man, great citizen, modest servant of the country, who was always in pain, rarely in the spotlight, and who has not been replaced."

"Freedom of trade and navigation in the Congo Basin, exclusion from any differential treatment, assimilation of foreigners to nationals in civil and commercial terms, prohibition of entry rights for twenty years, condemnation of trafficking. There is only one downside: the African work does not have the international character that he would have liked."

"Emile Banning's ideology was based on "three noble principles": God, Freedom and Fatherland."

"The Christian inspiration from Chateaubriand and the love for nature underline Banning's romantic character. At the same time, Banning shared in the colonial ideology of Brialmont and Lambermont, which seemed rather based on a positivist principle: the 'struggle for life' of little Belgium. Emile Banning developed another positivist variant based on the inequality of races and peoples. Each race or people, which in the course of history had established a territory for itself, largely determined its historical fate, but could also suffer its fate. Banning thus formed a vision of history based on the organic needs of peoples. The Germanic race was at the same time the great example for Banning because of their growing self-esteem and romantic nation-building, and the great ogre, because their recent state growth could have negative territorial consequences for small Belgium."

"Emile Banning was a young man who, like the king, had a limp and went on to create a furore as a romantic imperialist of the most dangerous sentimental kind. … Banning's liberalism was of the kind that sought to divide people into races, then formulate the true historical fate for each race, a belief that was already degenerating into a fertilizer that fueled the growth of racist fascism in Europe."

"For him to colonize was above all to civilize."

"My dear Mr. Banning, I am returning the 2nd sheet to you. I find this of extreme interest. You would have to read many volumes to acquire the geographical notions that you have so condensed into a few pages. I read this with great charm. You're giving the matter a nice boost. I have no comments to make. I made a small cross at the top of page 28, because I thought it was better to put "revise" instead of "revis" or "undertook" instead of "undertakes." A thousand friendships. (s) Jules Van Praet."

"It's my ruin you stipulate and you can't want it."

"I want it to be and it will be."