Congo

Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost is a disturbing book. The story itself, about the wanton rape of a country by the imperialistic King of Belgium is terrible in its details. As Hochschild points out in an chapter about Conrad, the Heart of Darkness is not an allegory about the theoretical evils of imperialism or, rather it is the shocked reflection from actual visits to the Congo. The overall tone is brightened as Hochschild describes the people who dedicated much of their lives to trying to stop the outrages.

The basics of the story is that through false premises of human rights and anti-slavery, Leopold became the personal owner of the Congo. The famed explorer Stanley played a key role in it as well. My image of him was vague, but he comes out poorly here. The goal was resource extraction and once the rubber market took off, the race was on to exploit it before other markets came online. And if a few locals had to get whipped to death with hippo hide whips, or parents had to watch their children have their hands cut off with machetes, well that's just how the game is played isn't? There is a special club in Hell for the worst of the worst and while he may not be roomies with Hitler, Leopold probably sees him in the cafeteria.

What is more disturbing is how little known the story is today. It was quite the cause celebre in the early 20th century, but it was quickly overshadowed by the German occupation of Belgium. During that war, the Allies used the Rape of Belgium as a propaganda weapon and Congo was forgotten. Hochschild argues that there was no rape, although this book argues otherwise. In any case, the deaths of up to 10 million Congolese due to extreme exploitation and cruelty (one overseer was noted for clearing his the forest around his house, the better to shoot random passersby.)

Hochschild argues that one reason it is forgotten is that the Congo was part of a long chain of barbarity in the 19th and 20th centuries, albeit one of the worst cases. He often compares Leopold and his policies to that of Stalin, hardly a winning comparison.

The crusaders who tried to stop the cruelty didn't all fare so well, many of them were broken by their attempts to highlight what was happening. And as you might expect, those with an interest in the region kept their fingers in their ears. Still they did succeed, as Leopold had to turn over the Congo to the state of Belgium. And many were politically astute. One ally in the US was a racist senator whose goal was to get black Americans to emigrate to Africa. His reasoning was, as long as the Congo was such a mess, there was no way anyone would move there.

Hochschild tells his story in just about 300 pages. He has a big story to tell, but he does it sparingly. All in all, a winner.