King Leopold`s Ghost Book Review

At its peak there were some 19 ,000 conscripted African soldiers under only 420 white officers . He also ed forced or slave labor starting from the rubber boom ' phenomenon in the 1880 's . This system would even outlive Leopold 's death . Forced labor , according to Leopold was the only way to civilize and uplift these indolent and corrupt peoples of the Far East (p . 37

Each laborer had a quota and to meet this , they would carry huge baskets of rubber on their heads for up to twenty miles a day . The

laborer 's wives and children would even be kept as hostages until they produce the required number of rubber . Once they fail to meet their quota , death is bestowed upon them . And this was justified by saying hundreds of heads cut off is only meant to push the other laborers harder . An officer of Leopold once said , My goal is ultimately humanitarian . I killed a hundred people but that allowed five hundred others to live (p . 166

So-called heroes emerged during this time . Political enemies of Leopold and journalists tried to end this culture of labor and terror . A Congo Reform movement was formed . Leopold tried to counter this by bribing editors and even using a pseudonym to write articles on his regime 's defense by himself . Towards the end of his reign , he destroyed the evidence and turned the Congo State archives into ash , hoping to employ the politics of forgetting

Compared to other countries that were once under a genocidal ' rule the Congo experience made little impact in popular consciousness . But theless , the Congo experience was a telling account on how the powerful tried to achieve civilization and progress , ironically through barbaric systems . It is also a classic tale of how the powerful sugar-coated their real...