A little something to restore a sense of perspective to anyone who lives in a First World country:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24396390
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24396390
The Desperate History of the Belgian Congo
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aedrasteia
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Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness,
In a class on Conrad, the Literature professor let it drop that Conrad based his astonishing, cynical,
bloody novel on his experiences in the Belgian Congo and his characters drawn from events.
Belgium? Yes, Belgium, and before that, Portugal, in 1485.
Modern european colonial history, (my thanks to Dr. M. Smith)
This:
[h=1]King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa [/h]Adam Hochshild, 1999
(exerpt) I myself knew almost nothing about the history of the Congo until a few years ago, when I noticed a footnote in a book I was reading. Often when you come across something particularly striking, you remember just where you were when you read it. On this occasion I was sitting, stiff and tired, late at night, in one of the far rear seats of an airliner crossing the United States from east to west.
The footnote was to a quotation from Mark Twain. Twain had made this comment, the note said, when he was part of the worldwide movement against slave labor in the Congo, a system that had taken at least five to eight million lives.
Worldwide movement? Five to eight million lives? I was startled.
Statistics about mass murder are often hard to prove. But even if this number turned out to be only half as high, I thought, that would still make the Congo one of the major killing grounds of modern times. Why were these deaths not included in the standard litany of our century's horrors? And why had I never heard anything about them before? I had been writing about human rights for years, and once, in the course of half a dozen trips to Africa, I had even been to the Congo....
The Congo was the first international atrocity scandal of the age of the telegraph and the camera, and in its mix of bloodshed on an industrial scale, royal- ty, sex, the power of celebrity, and rival lobbying and media campaigns that raged in half a dozen countries on both sides of the Atlantic, it often feels strikingly closer to our time than one would expect. Furthermore, unlike some of the other great predators of history, from Genghis Khan to the Spanish conquistadors, King Leopold II never saw a drop of blood spilled in anger. He never even set foot in the Congo. There is something very modern about that, too.
Even though they cannot be named, the dead deserve to be remembered.
with respect,
In a class on Conrad, the Literature professor let it drop that Conrad based his astonishing, cynical,
bloody novel on his experiences in the Belgian Congo and his characters drawn from events.
Belgium? Yes, Belgium, and before that, Portugal, in 1485.
Modern european colonial history, (my thanks to Dr. M. Smith)
This:
[h=1]King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa [/h]Adam Hochshild, 1999
(exerpt) I myself knew almost nothing about the history of the Congo until a few years ago, when I noticed a footnote in a book I was reading. Often when you come across something particularly striking, you remember just where you were when you read it. On this occasion I was sitting, stiff and tired, late at night, in one of the far rear seats of an airliner crossing the United States from east to west.
The footnote was to a quotation from Mark Twain. Twain had made this comment, the note said, when he was part of the worldwide movement against slave labor in the Congo, a system that had taken at least five to eight million lives.
Worldwide movement? Five to eight million lives? I was startled.
Statistics about mass murder are often hard to prove. But even if this number turned out to be only half as high, I thought, that would still make the Congo one of the major killing grounds of modern times. Why were these deaths not included in the standard litany of our century's horrors? And why had I never heard anything about them before? I had been writing about human rights for years, and once, in the course of half a dozen trips to Africa, I had even been to the Congo....
The Congo was the first international atrocity scandal of the age of the telegraph and the camera, and in its mix of bloodshed on an industrial scale, royal- ty, sex, the power of celebrity, and rival lobbying and media campaigns that raged in half a dozen countries on both sides of the Atlantic, it often feels strikingly closer to our time than one would expect. Furthermore, unlike some of the other great predators of history, from Genghis Khan to the Spanish conquistadors, King Leopold II never saw a drop of blood spilled in anger. He never even set foot in the Congo. There is something very modern about that, too.
Even though they cannot be named, the dead deserve to be remembered.
with respect,
grumpywolfman
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A Q&A from the article link:
Q: How can we help the Congolese people to benefit from their own natural resources?
A: We can pressure international players in the resources extraction industry to be more transparent.
In 2010 CNN reported about a new U.S. law aimed to ensure that smart phones are not helping fund wars in Congo and neighboring countries.
From the CNN report:
"Funding for armed groups often comes from the sale of minerals -- often to American companies -- from mines the groups control," said Rep. Jim McDermott, a Democrat from Washington state. "This legislation will help save thousands of lives and help protect countless women in the Democratic Republic of Congo by cutting off a key source of funding for armed groups."
"This is a step in the right direction," said Frederick Golooba-Mutebi, a senior research fellow at Makerere University in neighboring Uganda, who regularly visits Congo. "It protects the interests of the Congolese ... a lot of minerals are going to be certified, and the law will do away with fly-by-night businesses and introduce bona fide companies that don't infringe on the rights of the the people."
However, he cautioned, there's still work to be done. "It may not be a water-tight law, the bigger and better-connected companies can find a way around it," he said. "But it will help cut funding to some rebels, especially among smaller companies, and every little thing we can do to fight them helps."
Bigger-better-connected companies such as mentioned in these articles:
projected censored - 2001
nytimes - 2004
zmagazine - 2006
grumpywolfman
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I find it amazing: 'Blood Diamonds' are a major n-no in the trade (officially). But people can rather happily live without sparklies (I know the majority of diamonds are not pretty and are used in industrial application)
Having to pay a fare market value for the essentials for the cellphone innards would have the global population up in arms.
or is it something like 'I need (read: want really bad) my smart phone, so I don't care if they rape thousands of women in the process'?
Having to pay a fare market value for the essentials for the cellphone innards would have the global population up in arms.
or is it something like 'I need (read: want really bad) my smart phone, so I don't care if they rape thousands of women in the process'?
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