Saturday, February 28, 2004
Leopold of Congo
When I read history as interpreted by apologists for colonialism like Niall Ferguson, I always wonder whether they have forgotten about King Leopold's personal fiefdom, the the Congo Free State. Of course, Mobutu Sese Seko arguably ran the country into the ground in a worse fashion than Leopold, but that doesnt discount the severe damage perpetrated by Leopold and his flunkies (after all, the Congo had exactly 17 college graduates at the time the Belgians handed over power, and the 17 included the soon-to-be-assasinated Patrice Lumumba). The legacy of his violence continues to this day in that most forgotten of wars -- one where 4 million people have died in the last 5 years.
For those in the U.K., BBC Four is showing a documentary called "White King, Red Rubber, Black Death" on that catalogs in detail the horrors that Leopold and his cronies unleashed in Africa.
He turned his "Congo Free State" into a massive labour camp, made a fortune for himself from the harvest of its wild rubber, and contributed in a large way to the death of perhaps 10 million innocent people (ed:how many people know about this statistic compared with knowledge about the Holocaust?).
"Legalized robbery enforced by violence", as Leopold's reign was described at the time, has remained, more or less, the template by which Congo's rulers have governed ever since. Meanwhile Congo's soldiers have never moved away from the role allocated to them by Leopold - as a force to coerce, torment and rape an unarmed civilian population.
The film opens with the shocking images of some of Leopold's victims - children and adults whose right hands had been hacked off by his agents. They needed these to prove to their superiors that they had not been "wasting" their bullets on animals. This rule was seldom observed as soldiers kept shooting monkeys and then later chopping off human hands to provide their alibis.
In the film's most powerful sequences we see reconstructions of the terror caused by Leopold's enforcers and agents. We see a village burnt without warning and its people rounded up; its men sent off into the forests, and its women tied up as hostages and helpless targets of abuse until their husbands return with enough wild rubber to satisfy the agent. This, we are told, was the "moment of truth" for the whole community. If the men did not bring back enough and the agent lost his commission, he would order the deaths of everyone.
The story of DR Congo makes for very compelling and sad reading -- how one of the potentially richest (natural resources) and largest (the size of western Europe) countries in the world ended up becoming one of the, if not the, poorest country on earth. If you are interested in reading more about the historical horrors of the Congo, I would strongly recommend King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild and and In the footsteps of Mr.Kurtz by Michela Wrong. The latter documents the 32-year disaster that was Mobutu's presidency. Talking about Mr.Kurtz, one mustn't forget Joseph Conrad either, who set his apocalyptic Heart of Darkness in Leopold's Congo Free State as well.
For those in the U.K., BBC Four is showing a documentary called "White King, Red Rubber, Black Death" on that catalogs in detail the horrors that Leopold and his cronies unleashed in Africa.
He turned his "Congo Free State" into a massive labour camp, made a fortune for himself from the harvest of its wild rubber, and contributed in a large way to the death of perhaps 10 million innocent people (ed:how many people know about this statistic compared with knowledge about the Holocaust?).
"Legalized robbery enforced by violence", as Leopold's reign was described at the time, has remained, more or less, the template by which Congo's rulers have governed ever since. Meanwhile Congo's soldiers have never moved away from the role allocated to them by Leopold - as a force to coerce, torment and rape an unarmed civilian population.
The film opens with the shocking images of some of Leopold's victims - children and adults whose right hands had been hacked off by his agents. They needed these to prove to their superiors that they had not been "wasting" their bullets on animals. This rule was seldom observed as soldiers kept shooting monkeys and then later chopping off human hands to provide their alibis.
In the film's most powerful sequences we see reconstructions of the terror caused by Leopold's enforcers and agents. We see a village burnt without warning and its people rounded up; its men sent off into the forests, and its women tied up as hostages and helpless targets of abuse until their husbands return with enough wild rubber to satisfy the agent. This, we are told, was the "moment of truth" for the whole community. If the men did not bring back enough and the agent lost his commission, he would order the deaths of everyone.
The story of DR Congo makes for very compelling and sad reading -- how one of the potentially richest (natural resources) and largest (the size of western Europe) countries in the world ended up becoming one of the, if not the, poorest country on earth. If you are interested in reading more about the historical horrors of the Congo, I would strongly recommend King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild and and In the footsteps of Mr.Kurtz by Michela Wrong. The latter documents the 32-year disaster that was Mobutu's presidency. Talking about Mr.Kurtz, one mustn't forget Joseph Conrad either, who set his apocalyptic Heart of Darkness in Leopold's Congo Free State as well.
