I just finished a rather harrowing journey back in time to the Belgian Congo via Adam Hochschild's book King Leopold's Ghost. In this non-fiction work Hochschild pummels the reader with a barrage of information from government records, personal accounts, and news articles that leave your head spinning and your mind envisioning severed hands, starvation and disease, and whips made of hippopotamus hide juxtaposed next to overwhelming opulence. King Leopold, the Belgian king who, along with his young country, was late into the Scramble for Africa, ended up with the interior - or the Congo River basin. But he made the best of it. Proclaiming himself to be a grand humanitarian, ridding Africa of those evil Arab slave traders, he put the native to work, first in bringing ivory and then in wild rubber harvesting. Of course, Leopold never went there directly. He obsessed about the Congo from home and had officials go there to explore and set up camp and force the "lazy natives" to bring in their quotas. In the meantime, the profits from their labor went into building and expanding Leopold's grandiose residences and lavishly providing for his very young mistress.
Leopold was quite the con-man, a talented manipulator. When negative press exposed his violent control of the Congo, he was able to weasel and bribe his way out. Though this is first and foremost a work of historical non-fiction, Hochschild's vivid characterization of King Leopold gives it a bit of the flair of a novel. You also meet several other notable figures. For example the explorer H.M. Stanley, African-American missionary William Sheppard, and the reformers who seek to expose Leopold: Roger Casement and journalist E.D. Morel. The author holds these latter two in high esteem as the first human rights reformers of the 20th century. They laid the groundwork for Amnesty International and a host of other organizations that seek to expose and correct human rights abuses.
I'm very glad I read the Afterword, because the author makes some excellent points by providing some insightful historical perspective. First, the Congo was by no means unique. Hochschild references the German genocide of the Harero people in Namibia, and the Portuguese abuses of forced laborers harvest cocoa beans (whose chocolate was purchased by Congo reformer and Quaker, William Cadbury.) However, the story of colonialism in the Congo provides enough fodder for a 306 page book, so he doesn't go into great detail about the other European colonies. Secondly, I like his point that Africa's problems today should not be fully blamed on European colonialism. Yes, that did have a share, and a very significant one. However, as Hochschild points out, other countries like South Korea and Ireland have come out from under colonialism to "build reasonably just, prosperous, and democratic societies." (pg 318) So what's the difference? What makes Africa so ill-suited to this end? Well, first, according to Hochschild, Africa's long history of chauvinism. Subjugating women generally has negative effects on society as a whole. By keeping women down, he argues, governments keep themselves down. I couldn't agree more. True, some societies are prosperous and chauvinistic (i.e. Saudia Arabia) but they are unique examples, often attaining their wealth by cornering a certain market (a.k.a OIL) and in the end, they are not really very nice societies to live in (unless you're really into high-end shopping, and not so much into human rights). Another reason for Africa's developmental crisis is the legacy of slavery. It's not just European slavery we're talking about here. Africans enslaved each other well before we started enslaving them. While the West was swept with abolitionism in the 19th century, Africa never had an abolitionist movement. Now that sounds a little paradoxical. Why would AFRICA need an abolition movement? I would argue that they do. The abolitionists fought for human rights, for the value of human life. It said that ALL people, regardless of race, class or national origin should be treated equal. Most of us Westerners have bought in to this ideal (although I'd argue we're secretly all a little racist in our own way - but that's a discussion for another time). Africans, for the most part have never had a movement that says "Hey! People have inherent value and rights and you should stop treating them like CRAP!" So, there you have it - child soldiers, blood diamonds, gang-rapes, tribal violence - all legacies of a mentality that says some people are just inferior. True, Europeans certainly made it worse, but I am going to go out on a politically incorrect limb nonetheless and suggest that Africa needs to take some responsibility for its troubles.
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