Sayo Ajiboye
DMin Overture 1
May 2007
King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa
By Adam Hochschild
384 pages
Horchild’s book is a story of unimaginable atrocities which were committed in the heart of Africa scarcely a hundred years past. It describes the pain of the rape in Africa in the name of civilization, it is a story that demands attention today when the same motivating forces of greed for commercial dominance holds large sections of Africa in its onerous grip. Horschild effectively described genocide on a scale that makes Hitler’s activities look tame. In the garb of philanthropy, King Leopold II of Belgium and his agents destroyed thousands of villages and hundreds of thousands of homes. They murdered millions of innocent people and built large swatch of modern Belgium on fund from the labors of these victims.
Horschild asked the readers to “try to imagine…,” the only problem is how to imagine the unimaginable? How do you measure the suffering, the terror, the hopelessness and the share cruel servitude of two generations of central Africans – in their own homeland? This is the challenge in reading Horschilds Leopold’s Ghost; it is the challenge of imagining the unimaginable.
Leopold II became king when the stars of Kings were waning all over Europe. Their wings were being clipped and the era of rule of the people was gradually becoming the norm. Leopold’s circumstance was further compounded in that he was king over a nation that he himself derisively described as “petit.” He not only derided the geographic littleness of his nation he derided the mental capacity of the people; he was known for saying “little nation, little people.” As King of Belgium, he reigned from 1865 to 1910 and came from a family filled with sadness. Leopold literally took out his sadness on the African people who lived in the Congo River Basin. He did this while masquerading as a great humanitarian.
Horschild showed how Leopold built a small army of adventurers who co-opted a larger group of Africans to unleash a reign of terror on the Congo. The gradual process of co-opting Africans forms a sad study in human confusion. The question for the co-opted African was simple, “how do I survive my oppressor? Survival for Africans in Leopold’s Congo was either by assimilation or by rebellion. Assimilation was largely the norm, rebellion was furiously and mercilessly crushed.
The Force Publique was the epitome of the assimilationists position. Resistance was not completely absent however. Horschild also detailed extensive and determined effort recorded in diaries of the Europeans; resistance was however visited with massive massacres, the cutting of hands and the severing of heads. The first commissioner in the equatorial region wrote to the government “To gather rubber in the district… one must cut off hands, noses and ears” (165).
One comes off reading Horschild with an immense sense of sadness. As an African, it makes an extremely grievous reading and introduces me to an extremely heavy sense of powerlessness. What is to be done in this situation? How should one react especially when the effects of Leopold’s Congo still embroils these same valleys in massive violence that has not been resolved in three decades. How is power being used today? Who are the financiers of the current impasse? What are their gains from doing so? Diamonds…? Timber? Titanium…? Uranium…?
How does this current impasse tie into the global realities of immigration? In what ways is the massive exploitation of new arrivals in the global north similar to what King Leopold did in Congo? Are immigrants the “new kongo people?” Are immigration agents who are tearing families apart in mid America the new Force Publique? Reading about Leopold’s Congo leaves one with an immense sense of sadness, worse than sadness however is the sense of powerlessness. Must the just always remain powerless in fighting the wicked? These are thoughts that hang over my heart like a cloud after reading this book.
DMin Overture 1
May 2007
King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa
By Adam Hochschild
384 pages
Horchild’s book is a story of unimaginable atrocities which were committed in the heart of Africa scarcely a hundred years past. It describes the pain of the rape in Africa in the name of civilization, it is a story that demands attention today when the same motivating forces of greed for commercial dominance holds large sections of Africa in its onerous grip. Horschild effectively described genocide on a scale that makes Hitler’s activities look tame. In the garb of philanthropy, King Leopold II of Belgium and his agents destroyed thousands of villages and hundreds of thousands of homes. They murdered millions of innocent people and built large swatch of modern Belgium on fund from the labors of these victims.
Horschild asked the readers to “try to imagine…,” the only problem is how to imagine the unimaginable? How do you measure the suffering, the terror, the hopelessness and the share cruel servitude of two generations of central Africans – in their own homeland? This is the challenge in reading Horschilds Leopold’s Ghost; it is the challenge of imagining the unimaginable.
Leopold II became king when the stars of Kings were waning all over Europe. Their wings were being clipped and the era of rule of the people was gradually becoming the norm. Leopold’s circumstance was further compounded in that he was king over a nation that he himself derisively described as “petit.” He not only derided the geographic littleness of his nation he derided the mental capacity of the people; he was known for saying “little nation, little people.” As King of Belgium, he reigned from 1865 to 1910 and came from a family filled with sadness. Leopold literally took out his sadness on the African people who lived in the Congo River Basin. He did this while masquerading as a great humanitarian.
Horschild showed how Leopold built a small army of adventurers who co-opted a larger group of Africans to unleash a reign of terror on the Congo. The gradual process of co-opting Africans forms a sad study in human confusion. The question for the co-opted African was simple, “how do I survive my oppressor? Survival for Africans in Leopold’s Congo was either by assimilation or by rebellion. Assimilation was largely the norm, rebellion was furiously and mercilessly crushed.
The Force Publique was the epitome of the assimilationists position. Resistance was not completely absent however. Horschild also detailed extensive and determined effort recorded in diaries of the Europeans; resistance was however visited with massive massacres, the cutting of hands and the severing of heads. The first commissioner in the equatorial region wrote to the government “To gather rubber in the district… one must cut off hands, noses and ears” (165).
One comes off reading Horschild with an immense sense of sadness. As an African, it makes an extremely grievous reading and introduces me to an extremely heavy sense of powerlessness. What is to be done in this situation? How should one react especially when the effects of Leopold’s Congo still embroils these same valleys in massive violence that has not been resolved in three decades. How is power being used today? Who are the financiers of the current impasse? What are their gains from doing so? Diamonds…? Timber? Titanium…? Uranium…?
How does this current impasse tie into the global realities of immigration? In what ways is the massive exploitation of new arrivals in the global north similar to what King Leopold did in Congo? Are immigrants the “new kongo people?” Are immigration agents who are tearing families apart in mid America the new Force Publique? Reading about Leopold’s Congo leaves one with an immense sense of sadness, worse than sadness however is the sense of powerlessness. Must the just always remain powerless in fighting the wicked? These are thoughts that hang over my heart like a cloud after reading this book.
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