- Check out this map of Africa. Back then, most of this continent had been carved up by European powers. Belgium had a big swath
of Africa right here, where the modern day Democratic
Republic of the Congo is. What Belgium did in the Congo is shocking, and hard to get your head around. It's terrible, in fact. But, Belgium's horrendous
actions in the Congo would lead to this. - I would definitely take the
Johnson & Johnson vaccine. - The FDA has just
approved a third vaccine. - Let's talk about the J&J. - The Johnson & Johnson,
coronavirus vaccine. (speaking in foreign language) - Johnson & Johnson's. - Johnson & Johnson's. - Vaccine. - The new Johnson & Johnson
vaccine is a game changer, for the fight against COVID-19. It is cheaper. It can be shipped without
having to be frozen, so it's way more durable. It's made of really advanced
sophisticated technology that allows you to just get one shot of it instead of the two doses
from the previous ones. - [Reporter] J&J's version
requires just one dose. - That's a big deal when
you're trying to vaccinate literally billions of people. And so to understand how this vaccine that is being rolled out
by Johnson & Johnson, a New Jersey based company, how that is connected to Belgium in the late 1800s in the Congo basin. You have to understand the story of how the sophisticated
technology was developed, and by whom. - [Narrator] One man at
the conference of Berlin, walked away with his own private colony, and showed what colonialism
looked like at its very worst. - [Reporter] This date
marked the beginning of white penetration into
the black heart of Africa. - [Narrator] African sleeping sickness is caused by the protozoan parasite. - [Announcer] Johnson &
Johnson the most trusted name in surgical dressings. ♪ In the language of love ♪ - Let me tell you a story
of one of the most insane and horrendous versions of
European colonialism in Africa. [Female Narrator] The 1880s and 90s, were years of terrifying
upheaval in Africa. - It starts with this
guy, King Leopold II, he was the King of Belgium. And by the way, this
wasn't like 300 years ago. This is like the mid to late 1800s. Belgium, wasn't a big player
in the colonizing game, not like France and Britain, but Leopold sort of wanted to be. He wanted to be a big
boy in peerless nation. So he actually went to Spain and Portugal whose empires were sort
of declining at the time, and offered to buy some of
their colonial possessions. They didn't agree. So, Leopold decided to take
things into his own hands. Like literally on his own. He himself, privately, would
create a colony for Belgium. Okay. So quick pause. I just got an email from Morning Brew. Which is a thing that gets
sent to my inbox every morning, and is a digest of all of
the news that is happening. But it's not just like
the sad, depressing news. It's like actually interesting stuff. I don't like going down
the rabbit hole of trying to find out what news I should be reading. So much of it is like noise
and it doesn't help me understand the world. Morning Brew just gives me a digest, like a spark notes version. Oh, it's literally free. Like there's no money involved here. Like, all you do is sign up, and it takes 15 seconds to sign up. And then you get this in your inbox. I feel like my mornings before this were a little bit more scattered of like what should I be reading this morning? I'm not going to listen to
like a 20 minute podcast. What can I sort of breeze through? Morning Brew just aggregates
it all into one place. Morning Brew sponsored this video. They don't have any signup deal or discount because it's literally free. Like it pays zero money. You just go sign up. The link is in my description. When you click that link, it
helps support this channel, but it also gets you signed up for this like very, very
good quality newsletter. I love it. Thank you, Morning Brew
for sponsoring this video. Let's get back to the story and talk about what is going on
in the Belgian Congo. So Leopold decided to take
things into his own hands. With his own money and his own army. He knew he would need
some support for this in terms of just like approval. So he created an organization, that he called the
International African Society. Leopold builds this organization, and says that it's meant to be a research and philanthropy organization. With a mission to explore
the world for good and for science. But soon, Leopold would use this organization to get his wish of being a big boy colonizer. It was 1884 when a bunch
of the European and Ottoman and American powers who
were colonizing Africa got together and they decided that they needed some
sort of a unifying policy of how they were going to go into Africa, how trade was going to work. But they wanted to work together as they carved up the continent of Africa. Leopold gets up at this conference, it was in Berlin, and he says, listen, I've
got this organization. I would love to take this
organization of mine and go and take over a huge
swath of central Africa. And everyone's like, you
mean like Belgium is going to go take over the Congo? And he's like, no, no,
no, not Belgium, me. I'll do it with my own money. And the European powers
are sort of like, okay. Like how much harm can one
guy and his NGO do going into Congo? So Leopold gets his dream. He gets international approval
to go take over a swath of Africa that is 76
times larger than Belgium. He would call his new private
colony, the Congo Free State. Well, you know what happens next. He doesn't improve the lives of people. That was never his intention. Instead, his army quickly gains control over the local population and starts to use the locals to forcibly extract raw
materials from the land of Congo. Mainly in rubber, whose price was going up during the Industrial Revolution. And in ivory. He would put these quotas
on the local people that they had to get a
certain amount of rubber. And he would instruct his
army that if they didn't bring back their quota, that they were to go remove
their hands or limbs. This is everyone. Men, women and children who are being forced to
work for King Leopold and getting their limbs removed if they don't meet the quota. So, Leopold starts extracting huge amounts of wealth from the Congo. And he uses this new money to build big shiny things back in Belgium. Including this big,
beautiful park and archways that I used to bike past all the time when I lived in Belgium. Or this beautiful train
station in central Antwerp. Wait a minute. That train station looks kind of familiar. (uplifted whistling music) Yeah, that's me showing
Henry the clock tower in this train station. I had literally no idea that
this train station was built on the blood of people in the Congo. Okay, so I know you're wondering what is this terrible story have anything to do with vaccines and Johnson
& Johnson and the pandemic? Here it goes. Buckle up. So while Leopold is doing
all this terrible stuff in the late 1800s, almost the 1900s, something happens in neighboring Uganda. An epidemic breaks out of this mysterious disease
called sleeping sickness. This is what they called it. They didn't really know what it was. But Leopold catches wind of the fact that there's a disease spreading into the Congo where he
has all these people, and this giant operation
for wealth extraction. And he sort of freaks out. He's like my whole wealth
operation might get wiped out by this random epidemic. So, he decides to put out a cash prize for anyone who can go down and devise a solution or a remedy to the sleeping sickness. And then he starts to
invest in actual researchers and scientists, to go down to the Congo and start studying tropical diseases. To make sure that nothing catches him by surprise and wipes out his operation. Okay, well eventually
the world catches wind of all the terrible things
that King Leopold II is doing in the Congo. And they start to mount
pressure against Belgium the country, and the actual
government of Belgium to put an end to this. It's 1908, and finally
the Belgian government is like, dude, stop, like you're done. And they officially take
Leopold out of the driver's seat and they annex the Congo for themselves. And the Congo becomes an
official Belgian colony for the first time. But these scientists and researchers who Leopold set up to start looking into tropical diseases, they didn't leave. They stayed. They kept doing this work
and they actually started to make some really
important breakthroughs. They establish an official
state run organization called the Prince Leopold
Institute for Tropical Medicines. An institution that was leading the world in understanding tropical medicines and teaching research and
study about this topic. This organization was based
permanently in the Congo, as well as, in Belgium. Fast forward a few years,
and the Congo officially declares independence from Belgium. - With political independence from Belgium control of the entire
Congo was turned over to what is called the
Central Congo Government, with headquarters in Leopoldville. - By this time, all of the holdovers from the King Leopold
days are sort of gone. And now the Institute
for Tropical Medicine is actually like a legitimate institute that is doing groundbreaking,
cutting edge research and study on all sorts of pathologies, and viruses, and parasites
and diseases in this region. They're basically leading the world in tropical diseases
and understanding them. They moved their headquarters
from Leopold's house in Brussels to the city of Antwerp where that beautiful but
terrible train station is. And they sort of turn into like a school, like an institution where they're training researchers to then go out
and work in the real world. Okay. So here's where it starts to really
connect with modern day. You have the Institute
of Tropical Medicine, which was effectively built from King Leopold's
operation in the Congo. A lot of the researchers and students from the Institute of Tropical Medicine were graduating and moving on and joining particularly
one pharmaceutical company, that was a Belgian pharmaceutical company, that was down the road from the Institute of Tropical Medicine. This pharmaceutical
company was called Janssen. And as researchers from the Institute of Tropical Medicine joined Janssen Pharmaceuticals
they continue to do that groundbreaking work around the world. Developing many of the medicines that the WHO considers
essential medicines. - [Reporter] Vaccines,
serums, medicines, and drugs. - They continue to do work
in the Congo, for example. Where, just recently,
they developed the vaccine for Ebola in the Congo. - [Female Reporter] A
Belgian doctor was part of an international team
that was called to Yambuku in the heart of the
Democratic Republic of Congo. - This is their old stomping grounds where so much of this
understanding of different viruses, and parasites, and diseases was founded during the King Leopold days. But instead of the colonizing efforts of the early 1900s, now
these institutions are actually doing really good work, and actually saving lots of lives. In 1960 Janssen Pharmaceutical, which is full of all these Institute of Tropical
Medicine researchers, gets purchased by a New Jersey company
called Johnson & Johnson. - [Announcer] Made only
by Johnson & Johnson, the most trusted name
in surgical dressings. ♪ In the language of love ♪ - And yes, this pharmaceutical
company Janssen, which is now a division
of Johnson & Johnson was the actual company
that developed the miracle COVID-19 vaccine that is
saving the world today. - [Reporter] Today,
Janssen Pharmaceutical, as part of healthcare
giant Johnson & Johnson announced this. - The chairman of Janssen, by the way, is a graduate of the Institute
of Tropical Medicine. Their long legacy in the Congo, and their focus on scientific research around tropical diseases is what gave them the capability to be able
to step up to the task and create a vaccine for COVID-19. In other words this, led
to this, led to this, led to this, led to this. - [Reporter] The first J&J doses expected to go into American's arms
within 24 to 48 hours. - Again, we think it's really important for our country and the world. - Okay. So I know this
sounds like I'm doing some sort of like exposé
on Johnson & Johnson and Janssen, and they're like dark past. I'm not. The work that they're
doing today is amazing. It is saving so many lives. The Institute of Tropical Medicine is an amazing public health institution that does really really useful work for saving many lives around the world. And yet, when you trace back the roots of why this institution exists and the original motives for it, they're pretty (beep) up. - [Female Reporter] His 23
year reign was so brutal that the population halved, while Leopold and his men
amassed huge personal fortune. - What this story teaches
me is just how impossible it is to find an institution
that wasn't founded on some bloody dark past. The country I live in, and the
democracy that I am proud of is founded on blood of stolen
people from another continent. How do I evaluate something
that I think is good when I really understand
that the backstory behind it is terrible,
and bloody, and horrific? The fact that this lifesaving
game-changer vaccine has a legacy that is based
on a greedy horrific King massacring a bunch of people in the Congo is a really uncomfortable tension. But if you look close enough, it's one that exists in
nearly everything around us.
Hmmm https://youtu.be/IMY4UOA7E_w