BOOK REVIEW:

King Leopold's Ghost:

A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

by Adam Hochschild (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998)

Reviewed by Adam Hunt (March 2006)

Some Iraqis believe the ghosts of slain prisoners haunt the cells of Abu Ghraib. Saddam Hussein tormented and killed his enemies in the notorious prison, but in recent years it became a US-run lock-up for uncooperative Iraqis. With revelations of torture and abuse at American hands, it seems another breed of ghost mingles with the souls of dead prisoners – the spirit of the colonial masters of centuries past. They also haunt the interrogation rooms at Guantanamo Bay, drift through the maquiladoras of Mexico and pace the halls of international development agencies in numerous Third World countries. The colonizers of today no longer sever the hands of colonial servants nor do they force villages onto slave ships. But other forms of exploitation and cruelty are no less rampant.

Today’s empires do not come close to reiterating the maniacal boldness detailed in Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost. Set in turn of the nineteenth century Africa, the book chronicles the bloody butchery of a Congolese colony owned not by a country, but by an individual: King Leopold II of Belgium. Leopold’s ravaging of the African Congo is breathtaking in scope and brashness. With royal power diminishing, the king grew obsessed with seizing the last remaining colonial spoils for his regal coffers. The monarch was shrewd, manipulative and willing to do anything to hold on to the passing vestiges of royal prestige. With unflinching vividness, Hochschild profiles this ruthless man and the neglected chapter of history he represents.

The wicked guile and unspeakable cruelty with which the king dominated his new realm astonishes the imagination. Under the guise of philanthropy, Leopold sent explorers, mercenaries and merchants to build and control his nascent African empire. Administrators employed the harsh tools of 19^th century colonization. Torture, warfare and slavery subdued the 200 ethnic nations living within the European-drawn borders of Congo. Hundreds of thousands of villagers were forced to porter goods and equipment, serve as soldiers policing their own people or toil at feeding the world’s appetites for rubber and ivory. Uncooperative Congolese were tortured or bludgeoned to death. In a grotesque system of accounting, governors ordered soldiers to present one severed right hand to superiors for each shotgun shell they had fired. Villages were burned. Women were taken hostage and raped. Infants were tossed into the jungle. When all was told, up to 10 million Africans were murdered, mutilated or died from hunger, disease, overwork or battle.

Fittingly subtitled A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa, Hochschild’s book details these atrocities and also gives us intimate portraits of both the colonizers and those who railed against the system in the name of humanitarianism. Hochschild is especially deft at guiding us through the political mind and manipulative maneuverings of King Leopold as he attempts to quench his vicious appetite for riches and prestige.

Leopold schemed and lied his way toward a work of staggering inhumanity. Posing as the regal philanthropist, the king played nations against each other, exploiting the colonial competitiveness of the era. Proposing Belgium and his private Congo ‘corporation’ as the non-threatening alternative to French or other big-power domination, Leopold’s scheme constructed a grimly complex African gulag - a tropical graveyard that out-cruelled the other gory colonizing projects of the era.

The period was profuse with the justification of colonization as a force that would tame savage natives and usher them into modern civilization. Worse, the extermination of entire peoples and cultures was seen as acceptable business practice. Native peoples were scarcely human, were viewed as throwback savages with a barbarous hatred of white people. Certainly we have come a long way. But this denigration of the native exists today, in less overt forms. We see it in the attitudes of some corporate managers working overseas or in the actions of development workers stationed in world hotspots. Or in media portrayals such as the recent King Kong film, where indigenous islanders are portrayed as bloodlusting zombie orcs, ascribed with less humanity than an oversized primate.

It was in this overtly racist era of the late eighteenth century that Leopold launched his African project under the guise of philanthropy. Obsessed with gaining control of his piece of the African pie, Leopold exploited this humanitarian excuse and touted his project as one that would “found a chain of posts or hospices which… ultimately, by their humanizing influences, (would) secure the abolition of the traffic of slaves,” (p. 66). The king even espoused democracy, claiming he would lay the groundwork for “a confederation of free negro republics,” (p. 67).

A distant ‘ghost’ of King Leopold whispers to modern day military and economic colonizers. Just as the king claimed to be gifting freedom to the savages, capitalism’s modern monarchs publicly rationalize intervention in similar terms. Now that weapons of mass destruction have been stricken from the list of justifications for the Iraq war, we are told that the real objectives were to end the scourge of human rights abuses and spread democracy to the Middle East. Other real motivations – the consolidation of American hegemony and the acquisition of an oil state colony – are revelations left unspoken by the Bush regime. Torture, domination and gunfire are justified as necessary to free the people from the savagery and backwardness of dictators and Islamists.

Successful oppressive rule rides on the compliance of those whose job it is to follow orders. While modern economic rulers export ‘peacemaking’ troops, corporate managers, international agency administrators and development workers, King Leopold needed obedient mercenaries, explorers, merchants, governors, guards and steamboat captains to run his regime. And the rewards were great for those who participated.

King Leopold and his explorer mercenaries such as Henry Morton Stanley (whose supposed utterance of “Dr. Livingston, I presume,” remains an enduring colonial legend) relentlessly assaulted the indigenous African ways of life. They threatened tribal leaders and duped them into handing over land to Leopold’s corporation. They pitted ethnic clans against each other, enslaved some, bribed others. Employing the “lazy native” defence, torture and brutal discipline were justified as methods to get slothful Africans to work for their own benefit. In order to lift the savages into the world of modernity and civility, strict measures of control had to be taken. The colonial masters ‘selflessly endured’ the backwardness and indolence of the Dark Continent, nobly shepherding the savages into the twentieth century. Meanwhile, they feasted on fois gras, living lives of opulence and pampering at the expense of those they claimed to be liberating.

Faint, but still dangerous, echoes of this sentiment can be heard today in the offices of companies and international development agencies all over the world. In the name of ‘development,’ ex-patriot aid workers live within walled compounds, ply the dirt streets in Land Rovers and employ locals to clean their toilets and care for their children. In hushed tones over gin tonics, they moan of the stupidity and laziness of the locals. They do what they can to manipulate their projects into appearing successful while eyeing the horizon for new CV material and better salary opportunities. A harsh portrait indeed, but an all too common one. It must be said that many in the international development field serve with devotion, integrity and humility. But too often, King Leopold’s ghost can be found wearing sleek sunglasses and driving a Land Rover to yoga class.

Western development workers, businesspeople, teachers and travelers are drawn overseas for a variety of reasons: adventure, mystery, sympathy, a sense of justice, curiosity. But just as alluring is the fact that the veneration of the Western persona (in some countries) allows them to hold a special status in exotic lands. In my years working on the Thai-Burma border, I encountered many a wily figure evading the mediocrity they had earned back home. Back in their home countries they may have had few friends, little financial success, no romantic potential and plenty of anonymity. But in Thailand they are granted respect, power and celebrity status. It’s easy to reshape your estimations of self-importance when everyone affords you instant respect – your skin colour becomes your cachet.

Hochschild deals with a similar phenomenon in describing the foreigners running Leopold’s Congo. For a young man toiling in Europe, a move to Congo endowed him with instant status, wealth and power. Much like the foreigner in modern day Thailand, “someone slated for life as a small-town bank clerk or plumber in Europe could instead become a warlord, ivory merchant, big game hunter, and possessor of a harem,” (p. 137).

Still, the human rights movement has been built on the hard work and rigid integrity of many overseas activists and aid workers. Much of the Hochschild book is dedicated to following the historical evolution of the human rights movement in the Congo context. Anti-slavery International, Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International were all created by dedicated Westerners sincerely outraged by what they’d encountered overseas. These were men and women willing to risk their careers, families and lives to fight against injustice. Their roots can be traced to the work of people like Edmund Morel and Sir Roger Casement, British activists who worked tirelessly against the growing brutality meted out by King Leopold and his henchmen. Lobbying and public awareness campaigns that coalesced around the Congo fiasco brought the human rights movement a partial victory in the case. After years of pressure, King Leopold was forced to sell his control of the colony to Belgium and the violence ebbed substantially (but not fully).

While the efforts of these pioneers are well documented in King Leopold’s Ghost, it is the time spent with George Washington Williams and William H. Sheppard that is most riveting and meaningful. The two were African American activists and explorers who (working separately) documented the brutality of the state of Congo and lobbied for an end to Leopold’s control. All too often history is presented through the eyes of white Westerners. Unfortunately few accounts written by Africans affected by slavery and colonialism remain. The author is not able to give us much in the way of the African perspective of this era. But by including voices of black American activists, Hochschild broadens our view of human rights’ evolution and celebrates men often omitted from the annals of its history.

Hochschild casts the work of such dedicated activists in stark contrast with Leopold’s smokescreen of humanitarian motives. The conquest of Congo unfolded in the context of growing international outrage over slavery. The King’s formidable PR machine drummed the beats of freedom. This reputation for fighting slavery entered the mythology and echoes of the Belgian ‘heroics’ can be heard even today.  But the reality in Congo was severe for those being ‘freed’ by the Belgian corporation. Leopold’s business dealings with prominent Arabian slavers serve as a salient example. One of the King’s conditions on securing the ‘freedom’ of slaves was that they were conscripted into the Force Publique – an army of Congolese that essentially operated as a corporate police service – for a period of seven years. Others were ‘liberated’ back to their villages only to be forced to work the rubber trees or porter for the military.

Even some in Leopold’s regime fought against the increasing cruelty of the Belgian beast – but not always for humanitarian reasons. Many in the era understood that the category of conquest with the most sustainable potential was economic. As a British parliamentary committee reported, “savages are dangerous neighbors and unprofitable customers,” (p. 212). Activists such as Edmund Morel sacrificed much for their Congo crusade, but they didn’t necessarily question the colonial traditions the brutality was built upon.

Modern day parallels abound. Nations such as the US claim to be spreading freedom and democracy. But they do so only insofar as it supports their nationalist economic or short-term security interests. Some corporations and development institutions also pay lip service to human rights and self-determination. But meanwhile their work is dedicated to building global markets for First World goods and establishing pools of cheap, submissive labour. Nation states grow weaker as corporate CEOs gain influence and power. Like the Congolese, modern-day workers of the Third World are freed from one kind of slavery, only to be committed to another.

And just as King Leopold claimed he was bringing the fruits of freedom and trade to Africans, the colonizers of today sell their efforts as necessary to lift developing countries out of poverty. The International Monetary Fund and the other institutions force rigid and severe prescriptions on struggling Third World economies. Governments must follow the edicts of those in far off lands if they are to escape their punishments. And in extreme cases, foreign lands are occupied by armies in the name of democracy, but in the spirit of empire.

The concept of human rights is a profound threat to oppressive regimes such as the one thrust on the Congolese by the Belgian King. King Leopold’s Ghost is a definitive outsider’s perspective on a human rights holocaust. Its meticulous and bold detailing of a travesty and the movement that fought against it provides illumination for our modern day search for solutions. The world has come a long way. But sadly the ghosts of King Leopold’s era haunt Iraq, Afghanistan and factories and fields around the world. Enemies are tortured. Workers are exploited. Leaders are co-opted. Economies are subordinated. And national interests are swapped like geopolitical trading cards. The more Hochschild and his ilk bring the brutal past to light, the better we can apply those lessons to the battlefields, prisons, factories and oil fields of today.