Food for thought?

crashed · #11 06-19-2013, 01:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DevilsSon

Very strange. Pasting the text below then.

Take a look at this picture. Do you know who it is?

Most people haven’t heard of him.

But you should have. When you see his face or hear his name you should get as sick in your stomach as when you read about Mussolini or Hitler or see one of their pictures. You see, he killed over 10 million people in the Congo.

His name is King Leopold II of Belgium.

He “owned” the Congo during his reign as the constitutional monarch of Belgium. After several failed colonial attempts in Asia and Africa, he settled on the Congo. He “bought” it and enslaved its people, turning the entire country into his own personal slave plantation. He disguised his “business transactions” as philanthropic and scientific efforts under the banner of the “International African Society”. He used their enslaved labor to extract Congolese resources and services. His reign was enforced through work camps, body mutilations, executions, torture, and his private army.

Most of us – I don’t yet know an approximate percentage but I fear its extremely high – aren’t taught about him in school. We don’t hear about him in the media. He’s not part of the widely repeated narrative of oppression (which includes things like the Holocaust during World War II). He’s part of a long history of colonialism, imperialism, slavery and genocide in Africa that would clash with the social construction of the white supremacist narrative in our schools. It doesn’t fit neatly into a capitalist curriculum. Its bad to “say racist things” (sometimes), but quite fine not to talk about genocides in Africa perpetrated by European capitalist monarchs.

Mark Twain wrote a satire about Leopold called “King Leopold’s soliloquy; a defense of his Congo rule“, where he mocked the King’s defense of his reign of terror, largely through Leopold’s own words. Its 49 pages long. Mark Twain is a popular author for American public schools. But like most political authors, we will often read some of their least political writings or read them without learning why the author wrote them (Orwell’s Animal Farm for example serves to re-inforce American anti-Socialist propaganda, but Orwell was an anti-capitalist revolutionary of a different kind – this is never pointed out). We can read about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, but King Leopold’s Soliloquy isn’t on the reading list. This isn’t by accident. Reading lists are created by boards of education in order to prepare students to follow orders and endure boredom well. From the point of view of the Education Department, Africans have no history.

When we learn about Africa, we learn about a caricaturized Egypt, about the HIV epidemic (but never its causes), about the surface level effects of the slave trade, and maybe about South African Apartheid (which of course now is long, long over). We also see lots of pictures of starving children on Christian Ministry commercials, we see safaris on animal shows, and we see pictures of deserts in films and movies. But we don’t learn about the Great African War or Leopold’s Reign of Terror during the Congolese Genocide. Nor do we learn about what the United States has done in Iraq and Afghanistan, potentially killing in upwards of 5-7 million people from bombs, sanctions, disease and starvation. Body counts are important. And we don’t count Afghans, Iraqis, or Congolese.

There’s a Wikipedia page called “Genocides in History”. The Congolese Genocide isn’t included. The Congo is mentioned though. What’s now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo is listed in reference to the Second Congo War (also called Africa’s World War and the Great War of Africa), where both sides of the multinational conflict hunted down Bambenga and ate them. Cannibalism and slavery are horrendous evils which must be entered into history and talked about for sure, but I couldn’t help thinking whose interests were served when the only mention of the Congo on the page was in reference to multi-national incidents where a tiny minority of people were eating each other (completely devoid of the conditions which created the conflict no less). Stories which support the white supremacist narrative about the subhumanness of people in Africa are allowed to be entered into the records of history. The white guy who turned the Congo into his own personal part-plantation, part-concentration camp, part-Christian ministry and killed 10 to 15 million Conglese people in the process doesn’t make the cut.

You see, when you kill ten million Africans, you aren’t called ‘Hitler’. That is, your name doesn’t come to symbolize the living incarnation of evil. Your name and your picture doesn’t produce fear, hatred, and sorrow. Your victims aren’t talked about and your name isn’t remembered.

Leopold was just one part of thousands of things that helped construct white supremacy as both an ideological narrative and material reality. Of course I don’t want to pretend that in the Congo he was the source of all evil. He had generals, and foot soldiers, and managers who did his bidding and enforced his laws. It was a system. But this doesn’t negate the need to talk about the individuals who are symbolic of the system. But we don’t even get that. And since it isn’t talked about, what capitalism did to Africa, all the privileges that rich white people gained from the Congolese genocide are hidden. The victims of imperialism are made, like they usually are, invisible.

Is anyone really surprised there are white supremist mass murderers though? Wasn't that pretty much what colonialism was, just couched in a veneer of polite, respectable society? The Brits were at it, the Dutch, the French, the Spanish, and it seems even the Belgians. I had heard of Leopold somewhere but maybe just in passing.

He had an awesome beard though!

DevilsSon · #12 06-19-2013, 01:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crashed

Is anyone really surprised there are white supremist mass murderers though? Wasn't that pretty much what colonialism was, just couched in a veneer of polite, respectable society? The Brits were at it, the Dutch, the French, the Spanish, and it seems even the Belgians. I had heard of Leopold somewhere but maybe just in passing.

It's not about being surprised though. It's about how we think. Really, should colonial crimes be taught in school? Be treated similarly to the holocaust? Or simply ignored? When I think of the holocaust, I get shivers down my back and wonder how humans could have been possibly so evil? When I think of colonialism, I get zero emotions...

And that's just the start of it. It applies to a large part of everyone's socio-political thinking...ah well, I guess at this point it's jumping over into Matrix type pseudo-philosophical debates. Still....we are brain-washed from day 1. It's good to be aware of that as soon as we make any judgement calls.

TwinFan · #13 06-19-2013, 06:57 AM

Why is "abbreviation" such a long word?

samboraisgodUK · #14 06-19-2013, 05:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DevilsSon

It's not about being surprised though. It's about how we think. Really, should colonial crimes be taught in school? Be treated similarly to the holocaust? Or simply ignored? When I think of the holocaust, I get shivers down my back and wonder how humans could have been possibly so evil? When I think of colonialism, I get zero emotions...

There's a really important distinction between colonialism and the holocaust though - namely that colonialism had quite a lot of aims and the suffering of many was a byproduct of that. It's more of an amoral Machiavellian way of thinking that they simply didn't care if indigenous people got hurt as long as they got what they wanted. The holocaust was just downright wanton evil for evil's sake.

DevilsSon · #15 06-19-2013, 06:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by samboraisgodUK

There's a really important distinction between colonialism and the holocaust though - namely that colonialism had quite a lot of aims and the suffering of many was a byproduct of that. It's more of an amoral Machiavellian way of thinking that they simply didn't care if indigenous people got hurt as long as they got what they wanted. The holocaust was just downright wanton evil for evil's sake.

Genocide is genocide. What the reason is doesn't really matter. Holocaust was reckless colonialism as well when you boil it down to the core. Germans took over Poland and killed everyone Jewish there (and everywhere else where they took over). Whatever you see it, the differences are marginal. Killing 10 Million people in Congo is no different and there can't possibly be any justification for it. Just the fact that you argue the way you argue shows how twisted our minds think (and I said it myself - I don't get any emotions thinking about it either...but that is WRONG!)....

Anyhow - just my opinions...

samboraisgodUK · #16 06-19-2013, 06:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DevilsSon

Genocide is genocide. What the reason is doesn't really matter. Holocaust was reckless colonialism as well when you boil it down to the core. Germans took over Poland and killed everyone Jewish there (and everywhere else where they took over). Whatever you see it, the differences are marginal. Killing 10 Million people in Congo is no different and there can't possibly be any justification for it. Just the fact that you argue the way you argue shows how twisted our minds think (and I said it myself - I don't get any emotions thinking about it either...but that is WRONG!)....

Anyhow - just my opinions...

I disagree. However abhorrent the outcome is, I think the systematic, calculated and unerringly efficient murder of Jews simply for being Jewish is morally "worse" than the deaths of indigenous people in Colonialism. Colonists didn't simply go there to kill those people, it was mainly for economic gain in various fashions. For colonists, the deaths of natives was merely a by-product, not the goal of what they were doing. I'm in no way excusing their actions, I think it's terrible, but I think the distinction between the two must be noted.

crashed · #17 06-19-2013, 07:06 PM

Colonialism whilst absolutely about money and power – was also about “taming the natives” – in essence, wiping out their culture and assimilating them into what was considered civilised. So whilst the intention may not have been there to take lives, the intention was definitely there to wipe out ways of life and replace it with something that was imagined to be better. When I look at it that way, I’m not sure what’s worse.

Jim Bon Jovi · #18 06-19-2013, 09:49 PM

I knew who it was

I don't particularly want to get drawn on this as I'm a History teacher and so looking at it from a pragmatic stand point more than anything.

It's a very well written article but the reality of teching history is that there's only so much time to do it which means a hell of a lot of history is going to be missed out and once you start arguing that we should be teaching X, it's not long before Y and Z are thrown into the ring too and there's got to be some semblence of order and process in what is taught or else kids would be taught history in segregated little chunks with no critical thinking or analytical skills to see how certain historical events impacted society or how they lead into other events.

If anything I feel the Holocaust and the World Wars get too much emphasis (I know certain schools who do WW1, Weimar Germay and WW2 in every single one of the 6 years that the children attend!!!)

As for why they don't teach about Leopold is that unfortunately for him he was kicking around during the build up to WW1 and that (to my mind as a historian) has a much bigger and wider impact on the whole world than him being a criminal nutter. FWIW colonialism and Leopold himself is mentioned in the section that deals with imperialism and empire building but to focus on the genocide there would lead kids away from the reasons behind colonialisation. As has already been stated - murder and genocide were not primarilly the aims of imperialisation for the most part.

There's certainly a lot of politicising that can take place in history teaching (Can't help but notice how our curriculum is getting much more Scottish based instead of looking at the UK and European context, must be a refrendum coming up!!!) but the kids are taught about slavery, the wiping out of the American Indians, the Holocaust and some schools do the fall of the Raj and so on so the article is a bit facetious and biased when it makes out that we just gloss over all of this stuff because the truth hurts. That's not the case at all.

DevilsSon · #19 06-20-2013, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim Bon Jovi

... but the kids are taught about slavery, the wiping out of the American Indians, the Holocaust and some schools do the fall of the Raj and so on so the article is a bit facetious and biased when it makes out that we just gloss over all of this stuff because the truth hurts. That's not the case at all.

The guy who wrote it is American - they might not be taught anything like that in school at all given the racial divide that exists over there (assumption).

I agree with you Jim. There's only so much time and the World Wars are certainly the two most catastrophic events that have ever happened to humanity, and especially to Europe. Also - my grandparents were young adults when WWII happened. My parents grew up with the consequences and half of Europe is still affected by a certain Ribbentrop - Molotov Pact.

Yet when we are talking about millions of people being tortured, humiliated, starved, experimented on, and killed - the reason should be nothing but a footnote. We don't talk about it because those people were a different race and it happened quite a long way from our backyard. Also, there haven't been global voices equivalent to the one of, say, Elie Wiesel to make sure that people don't forget such atrocities. But it is what it is I guess, and I wouldn't know how it should be addressed differently...which is a bit of a sad state of affairs.

Jim Bon Jovi · #20 06-23-2013, 11:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DevilsSon

The guy who wrote it is American - they might not be taught anything like that in school at all given the racial divide that exists over there (assumption).

I agree with you Jim. There's only so much time and the World Wars are certainly the two most catastrophic events that have ever happened to humanity, and especially to Europe. Also - my grandparents were young adults when WWII happened. My parents grew up with the consequences and half of Europe is still affected by a certain Ribbentrop - Molotov Pact.

Yet when we are talking about millions of people being tortured, humiliated, starved, experimented on, and killed - the reason should be nothing but a footnote. We don't talk about it because those people were a different race and it happened quite a long way from our backyard. Also, there haven't been global voices equivalent to the one of, say, Elie Wiesel to make sure that people don't forget such atrocities. But it is what it is I guess, and I wouldn't know how it should be addressed differently...which is a bit of a sad state of affairs.

I'm sure some of our American friends will be able to confirm or deny if American excesses (particularly with regards to the Manifest Destiny era) are taught but I would be very surprised if they didn't.

We might not always get it right and we might gloss over or not investigate certain parts of History as much as they should in the West but generally speaking, we're quite good at taking stock of our past and facing it, maybe not head on but certainly not sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting "lalalalalalalalala" like the Japanese like to do.

Food for thought?

NBJ - Everything Else