A new leader - Let us hope for another Mandela

IN JANUARY 1876 Leopold II, King of the Belgians, was uneasy. He desired, like most of his European peers, a colony.

Without one he felt incomplete. He believed his people needed an outlet for “their excess energies”.

There are descriptions of him dividing Africa, using a table napkin as a chart, during a Brussels luncheon party. “Angola for you, maybe Mozambique for us...”