In 1906, Mark Twain wrote an anti-imperialism treatise on Belgium’s King Leopold.
Twain wrote that King Leopold’s critics said he ruled “as a sovereign … absolute, irresponsible, above all law; trampling the Berlin-made Congo charter under foot … claiming and holding its millions of people as my private property, my serfs, my slaves; their labor mine, with or without wage; the food they raise not their property but mine; the rubber, the ivory and all the other riches of the land mine …
“They have told how I planned and prepared my establishment and selected my horde of officials — “pals” and “pimps” of mine, “unspeakable Belgians” every one — and hoisted my flag, and “took in” a President of the United States, and got him to be the first to recognize it and salute it.”
[PHOTO: Victims of King Leopold’s soldiers.]
Below: A new photo of the Make Poverty History march, and Londonbear and Chris Floyd speak eloquently about Africa:
PHOTO: Cyclists pass Gladhouse reservoir near Edinburgh as they make their way to the capital for today’s Make Poverty History march where they will join about 100,000 others. — From The Scotsman‘s article, “Suddenly, there is a real opportunity to change Africa.”
(Check Indymedia UK for the latest on demonstrations and protests.)
Today, Londonbear has diaried a powerful polemic, “We Should Give Africa Nothing.” calling for justice for Africa.
So too has Chris Floyd, the Moscow Times columnist, at his Empire Burlesque blog:
As we’ve noted here before (here and here), and as others have noted (here), the “Live 8” concerts are, in the main, a goodhearted but wrong-headed diversion by unconsciously co-opted pop stars being used to obscure the brutal and rapacious exploitation of Africa by the world’s richest countries. But one good thing to come from this PR-apaloooza is that it has – temporarily, no doubt – focused attention on Africa’s plight and the West’s central role in creating it.
There’s nothing new about this knowledge, this blood guilt that stains the very fabric of Western civilization.
Floyd quotes a poem by Rabindranath Tagore at his blog:
“…Others came with iron manacles,
With clutches sharper than the claws of your own wild wolves:
Slavers came,
With an arrogance more benighted than your own dark jungles.
Civilization’s barbarous greed
Flaunted its naked humanity.
You wailed wordlessly, muddied the soil of your steamy jungles
With blood and tears….
…Meanwhile, across the sea in their native parishes
Temple-bells summoned your conquerors to prayer,
Morning and evening, in the name of a loving god.
Mothers dandled babies in their laps;
Poets raised hymns to beauty.
Today as the air of the West thickens,
Constricted by the imminent evening storm;
As animals emerge from secret lairs
And proclaim by their ominous howls the closing of the day;
Come, poet of the end of the age,
Stand in the dying light of the advancing nightfall
At the door of despoiled Africa
And say, ‘Forgive, forgive – ‘
In the midst of murderous insanity
May these be your civilization’s last, virtuous words.”
***
Tagore was not the only one to see the truth, of course. Indeed, more than a generation before, in 1905, a voice rose from the midst of the West itself to decry “Civilization’s barbarous greed.”
It was Mark Twain — too often remembered now (if remembered at all) as the genial author of those school-assignment chores, Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. Twain was much more than this, of course, much darker in spirit. He was also one of the fiercest opponents of anti-imperialism that America has ever seen. Here is his cry into the heart of darkness: King Leopold’s Soliloquy.
More on today’s events:
Links to scheduled events on TV and other media outlets
“Will Live 8 really matter?,” LA Times (subscription, free):
That opening line from the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” is meant to invoke the memory of Live Aid in July 1985, when dozens of the world’s top pop musicians rallied together to raise money and food for Africans dying of starvation. …
Notice the wind machines on the Edinburgh ridge in the picture from The Scotsman. The UK is doing something about alternative energy.
Not entirely off-topic, however, because that reduces by however small a margin the need to exploit Africa for such resources as oil.
Nice reporting, Susan. Now to read all the details . . .
Your work is fantastic. How many people even know who the damnable King Leopold was and his horrible, inhuman crimes?
I’m glad you’ve reminded us of this in the context of debt relief, etc. Thank you.
I agree Susan is amazing… the stories she highlights have not only political and social overtones, but heart. Very important, that. I read most everything she writes, lol.
As an aside, I thought I’d mention that Sirocco has done the first two in a series of four diaries on the Congo, the backstory about King Leopold and and others, and how all the history of the country is affecting things today. Interesting, informative and infuriating :). Here are the links:
Robbing the Congo I: A deal with the Devil
Robbing the Congo II: Unspeakable richness
Change a few words and this part of Twain’s piece would be an excellent summary of the impact of the Internet:
The BBC had an intersting background piece on an exhibition in the Belgian Royal Museum of Central Africa which now gives an idea of the atrocities carried out in Leoplod’s name. This comment on the later history is enlightening in view of the record since and links in with some of the remarks in my diary:
It perhaps ought to be added that not too many uestions were asked by the USA officially providing the rubber still ended up in the factories of the NE.
Estimates of the numbers attending the protest march in Edinburgh vary around 250,000 and was the largest demonstration in Scottish history. While this is excellent news and bodes well for the G8 meeting where protestors will be allowed near enough to the hotel to be heard. More sobering is the thought that the numbers on the streets of Edinburgh today are less than the number who will needlessly die of hunger and disease in Africa between now and the G8 meeting.
Londonbear, if you haven’t seen it, I recommend renting or buying Lumumba, a film made by HBO and directed by Raoul Peck. It’s available in both DVD and VHS.
And thank you for your brilliant diary on all of this.