Blog #34 - Red Rubber, White King, Black Death

So far throughout World History A and B, you have studied how Africa had grown as a multi-ethnic continent with different tribes and thousands of languages before the Europeans came to become the crossroads for trade and commerce like it is today.


The northern African countries, the ones that have had the most interaction with Europe (good and bad) like Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Tunisia and Egypt are more economically advanced than their sub-Saharan brethren. Those countries that lie South of the Equator are the ones that we will focus on for most of our imperialism unit in Chapter 24 and revisit before the end of the semester.


The British and the French were the two biggest colonizers of sub-Saharan Africa, but the Belgians, Germans, Dutch and Portuguese also carved up the continent after 1800. This period is known as the "new imperialism" - as if the time period of slavery when up to possibly 20 million Africans were stolen from the continent and shipped over to the Americas was somehow "old" imperialism and this was more "enlightened" because the Euros didn't sell humans and instead sold the resources? Yeah, right.


Some of the worst abuses of Africans were done by the Belgians in the resource-rich Congo. The Belgians extracted tons of rubber (this is where the title of our blog comes from), copper and ivory. Those villages who didn't harvest enough rubber would have children or sometimes women lose a hand. This was when the king himself, Leopold II, owned the Congo, until 1908 when the outrages over such treatment forced him to give it up. To quote a BBC documentary with the same name as our blog, "Until Adolf Hitler arrived on the scene, the European standard cruelty was set by a king."

Link to King Leopold's genocide: http://www.enotes.com/genocide-encyclopedia/king-leopold-ii-congo
A BBC news link that traces the current state of the region to the mess from the 19th Century: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3516965.stm

One thing that is included in your history book that was never included in the stuff that I learned was info from the Africans' points of view. The best examples are in Ch. 24, sec. 2, on p. 754-5 and p. 759-761. I had seen a movie about Shaka Zulu but it really was more about the brave whites who had to take on the Zulus in the scary war in southern Africans. I never got to learn the "other side" of the story or the Africans' side of the story unless I watched Roots which came out when I was 9 (in 1977, I think) or read stuff on my own.

As Americans, we can't claim any kind of moral superiority over the Europeans because of the U.S.'s genocidal policies enacted towards our Native Americans between the 1600s - 1800s. 

Your questions:
1. Can you think of an instance in history that we have studied where one person has had so much power over so many people and abused it so consistently?  Explain.
2. Give at least three examples of abuses that King Leopold's agents forced upon the Congolese people (as mentioned in the people).
3. How were the abuses of King Leopold's Free State exposed in 1904 - 1906?  What eventually happened to his ownership of the Congo?

300 words total.  Blog due Friday, May 29 by class.  

Blog #1 - Conservation, Political Order, or Poverty: Which Do You Fix First?

Using this interactive timeline w/ photos from the National Geographic website, please take a few moments to read it over and then examine this complicated issue in the Congo / Rwanda / Uganda region from a Westerner's (outsider's) point of view. (If your timeline link doesn't work above, here's the timeline link so that you can copy and paste - http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/07/virunga/timeline-interactive )

It appears that there are so many ways to look at this beautiful rain forest and mountain gorilla preserve and the human devastation around it and NOT want to do something about it; in fact, recognizing that a genocide has occurred in 1994 compels (by law) the international community to act. The UN and other nations did act, but not before 800,000 people were massacred in a little over 4 months time in 1994. Afterwards, the massive # of refugees (2.5 million) flooded the Virunga National Park and complicated the wildlife preserve's delicate balance. This remains an issue for five years. Not only are mountain gorillas threatened by poaching during the most recent Congolese war, but the hippo population is down 95% as well as the elephant herds.

Even after a treaty was signed, in an effort to end poverty, the Rwandans seize park land to clear the forests and plants crops. Park rangers are still targets - whether shot by poachers or people looking to cash in on the illegal charcoal trade (chopping and burning trees to make this has been banned to preserve the forests), over 110 rangers have died guarding the park. In 2007, gorilla murders have been used to send messages to conservationists and politicians not to mess with the charcoal trade. When the head warden of the Virunga National Park, Honore Mashagiro, fell under suspicion, he denied it, but questions still remain.

So, after watching the video and examining the timeline, which do you think is the most important priority in this region: to conserve the wildlife of the Virunga; to bring stability and peace by ending the corruption and war; or solve the poverty problem by helping the poor of this region make a living instead of burning forests down to make charcoal?

Answer this question with your reasons why in 150 words.

United Nations - Great Apes Survival Project - http://www.unep.org/grasp/

Raise Hope For the Congo - Protect Women of the Congo - http://www.raisehopeforcongo.org/