Introduction
Significant advances in human rights will always be made at a time when men and women have already faced enough abuse pushing them towards a need of action. This is critical moments in history when people have suffered in silence and forced to accept whatever comes on their way to life’s circumstances. It takes courage to decide that despite the pressures, despite traditions, and the prevailing assumptions people have to speak out against the tortures and the oppression. People who speak out risk their safety, their families, their reputations, their friends and even the loss of their lives to speak out for those who are suffering. It is a bold humanitarian step to speak against all forces that are ready to destroy you if you bring them down. In the 1880s when the European powers carved in for lands in Africa, King Leopold II seized Congo as his personal colonial protectorate. During his reign, Millions of Africans lost their lives while being forced into slavery. While masking his actions as humanitarian, Leopold, looted rubber from Congo, brutalized people and slashed the population by almost half. Though he did a great deal in making sure his actions were recorded in history, some few people were daring enough to speak out of the atrocities In Congo. Hochschild in the book ‘King Leopold’s Ghost’ makes sure the crimes by King Leopold and the actions of those who spoke out against the atrocities don't go forgotten but remain embedded in people's Mind 1 . This paper is a discussion of those who spoke out during the Congo Holocaust.
King Leopold’s rule in Congo brought about a holocaust in Congo due to the events that were orchestrated by Leopold. As the rest of the Europeans scrambled and partitioned Africa, King Leopold took over Congo with a mentality that it was not a populated region. His mission was to get riches from the land as well as wipe out the Africans whom he did not consider as people in the region. As he began his rule, he tricked the Africans by making the actions of those who were already there like slave traders as brutal and assured Africans of protection and freedom. African chiefs blindly fell into the trap by King Leopold and signed off their land to King Leopold and ended up becoming slaves. King Leopold’s rule therefore begun on a very sad note and did not promise anything good to the people. He forced the people into slavery collecting rubber and killed them in the process. He ordered his people to chop off their hands as proof of killings. He shot those who showed any sign of rebellion. He whipped others to death who did not prove to be productive in the fields. And he starved them by destroying their farms while taking the food for himself and his people. All this while he masked his actions as humanitarian until some famous people and missionaries who went to Congo for their innocent missions found themselves as first witnesses of the horrifying Holocaust and decided to speak out.
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George Washington Williams who was black American journalist risked everything by writing all he had encountered in Congo in an open letter to King Leopold II. His actions were very vital to bringing the attention of the world to the abuse that was happening in Congo. Europeans then started to discuss the Congo Question to appease the public, and King Leopold created a commission to protect the natives which he did nothing to substantiate it. Meanwhile, the natives of Congo continued to suffer 2 .
Edmund Morel, a British shipping agent, wrote a book called Red rubber and started a campaign in Britain in an attempt to encourage Belgium to annex the colony. An Irish patriot Roger Casement sent back home floods of messages to condemn the atrocities in Congo. His actions landed him a death sentence in the gallows of London. Joseph Conrad while sailing into Congo also made efforts to tell the world of his encounters while in Congo. He published a book called the heart of darkness based on his experiences in Congo.
The first witnesses of the Abuses were however missionaries. Protestant missionaries tried to bring the attention of the world to what was happening in Congo, but they failed miserably. The missionaries failed in their attempts since at that time almost every European country was trying to get a colony in Africa and missionaries were not meant to be meddling with politics. They were supposed to concentrate on what took them to Africa and not interfere in politics. The missionaries were therefore not a reliable source. King Leopold also considered their report as lies and as an effort to [paint the otherwise Catholic Belgium as bad. For that reason the efforts of the missionaries were null. Nonetheless, the efforts by the media proved to be effective and later Leopold gave up Congo to the Belgians. Even after giving up the colony he had no intention of letting the world Know what he had done therefore tried to burn the evidence.
One thing that will remain in the ending of the Horrors of Congo is the contributions of the few who spoke out. It was because of their courageous and selfless acts that Congo Finally was free of Leopold’s bad rule. As Conrad Put It what Cong went through is equivalent to a rape of a nation. He ends his book with the phrase the horror, the horror! 3 . Indeed No other world could befit the events that happened in Congo.
Bibliography
Hochschild, A. (2013). King Leopold's Ghost: A story of greed, terror, and heroism in Colonial Africa . London: Pan.
1 Hochschild, A. (2013). King Leopold's Ghost: A story of greed, terror, and heroism in Colonial Africa . London: Pan.
2 Hochschild, A. (2013). King Leopold's Ghost: A story of greed, terror, and heroism in Colonial Africa . London: Pan.
3 Hochschild, A. (2013). King Leopold's Ghost: A story of greed, terror, and heroism in Colonial Africa . London: Pan.
