Adam Hochschild

‘King Leopold’s Ghost’ is a searing indictment of colonialism in general and King Leopold II’s rule of the Congo in particular. It is a lucid, brilliantly written, and devastating book, highlighting a period in history that the developed world has made every effort to forget. I hadn’t previously realised the sheer scale of exploitation that equatorial Africa had suffered. Hochschild estimates that in less than forty years prior to the 1920s, the Congo lost at least HALF of its population, some ten million people. This appalling toll was the result of starvation, disease, malnutrition, exhaustion, and a drop in the birth rate, as well as large-scale murder. The book notes that this does not qualify strictly speaking as a genocide, as the colonial regime was not trying to exterminate a particular race. Rather, they were enslaving an entire race in order to extract all possible profit from them, through utterly inhuman treatment.

The story of how Leopold II created this terrible regime and the campaign against him is told brilliantly here. Leopold is a disturbing figure; as monarch of Belgium he was a figurehead with little power over his small country, so he poured his energy into finding a better kingdom elsewhere. In the Congo, his rule was absolute and his ‘subjects’ were slaves, although throughout his life he never actually visited the place. Leopold’s extraordinary skill at PR, breath-taking hypocrisy, and bald-faced lies are a reminder that spin was not invented in the late twentieth century. Leopold named his colony the ‘Free Congo State’ and claimed that by establishing it he was protecting Congo’s people from enslavement by alleged ‘Arabs’. Over mere decades, Leopold stole some one billion dollars of resources from the Congo, largely by exporting rubber and ivory gathered by enslaved workers. He used some of these proceeds to construct grand buildings around Belgium, the origins of which were largely ignored then and still are now.

This book is a good complement to Franz Fanon’s [b:The Wretched of the Earth|66933|The Wretched of the Earth|Frantz Fanon|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1427605420s/66933.jpg|865773], which also confronts the evils of colonialism and their legacy. Hochschild mentions and Fanon discusses the fact that colonised countries have never had the chance to even ask for reparations, despite the damage inflicted upon them. The Congo is known today for its unstable government and ‘Resource Curse’, a term which tacitly makes developing countries seem responsible for their rapacious exploitation by the developed world. This book does not go into this legacy in detail, as it concentrates largely on the period from the 1870s to 1909. What it does make clear, though, is that such losses of life comparable in scale to that of world wars have been largely consigned to footnotes. Yet it is wrong to discuss poverty in Africa without considering the ghosts of King Leopold II and his ilk. Europe’s economic development took place through resource appropriation and human enslavement. To forget that would be a hideous injustice. I highly recommend reading this book, which has encouraged me to read more on the topic (including [b:Heart of Darkness|117837|Heart of Darkness|Joseph Conrad|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1317686353s/117837.jpg|2877220]).… (more)