king lepolds ghost

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King Leopold 's Ghost

Three words came to mind after reading Adam Hochschild 's king Leopold 's

Ghost . Authentic . Authoritative . Persuasive . The genius of this book emanates

from the historical foundation the author laid about the Congo basin from its

initial interaction with Cao , and his visit from Portugal in 1461 . Here Cao found

a bulging civilization with a complex political structure , an effective tax system

supported by a buoyant and fruitful economic system . These were a people who

marked their

traveling distances accurately , a people whose dating system were

accurately lunar based . So much for a savage people with dark civilization who

needed Christian enlightenment , the kind that Leopold II claimed he could offer

Leopold II was a man who cleverly rapped his aim for material possession and

the possession of a people and their land under the cloak of philanthropy and

humanitarianism . Hochschild exposed Leopold II as the personification of evil

that he was , a wicked man with no human respect . But the Congolese may take

little comfort in knowing that Leopold II was a genuine awful person . A man that

could not get along with his own family , his wife nor his children . His daughter

Louise chose to be committed to an insane asylum rather than remain in a loveless

marriage that he had arranged for her , for his own convenience . His second KING LOEPOLD 'S GHOST 2

daughter did not recent him any less . A man of immense power who was unable to

extract love from his family , the same way he extracted ivory and rubber from the

sweats and bloods of the Congolese indigenes . The book is a masterful presentation

of how far men in power are willing to go for the acquisition of obscene and illicit

wealth . In Leopold 's Congo men were killed for failure to meet rubber quotas . He

dismembered their hands , ears , eyes , and even penis 's , to show as example , what

could happen to those who fail to meet their production quotas . He seized their

family members and held them hostage for ransom . Hochschild weaved his book

cleverly together as he traveled from the invention of the Congo Free State by

Leopold and Stanley to the assembly of the excessively repressive Force Publique

It was this army , the Force Pubique , that was charged with the king 's dictatorship

at half the entire budget of the country . With a they had the

green light to stifle a country many times the size of Belgium . One such incident was

the report of a Force Publique officer who was quoted as saying , I made war

against those who failed to meet their quota , one example was enough , a hundred

heads cut off , and their have been plenty of supplies ever since . My goal is ultimately

humanitarian , I killed a hundred people , but that allowed five hundred others to

live . After the establishment of the Force Publique Leopold then pushed his evil

plans forward . For king Leopold and Stanley...