Sunday, April 19, 2009

Colonization to Exploitation





Colonization to Exploitation – for materialistic profit

When foreigners take over another land without the approval of its residents is called colonization. There are many reasons as to why people colonize other lands. Colonizing a land ensures that the trade and commerce of that land in under the hands of the colonizers. Richard Hakluyt, in his book Reasons for Colonization, wrote that the British colonized – "to plant Christian religion, to traffic, to conquer or to do all three." This shows that colonization often begins with the thirst to gain power or spread one’s religion.
Many countries colonize to show other colonizing countries that they have more power than the others do. An example of colonizing due to thirst for power is King Leopold II’s colonization of Congo. His comments in 1860, “I believe that the moment is come for us to extend our territories. I think that we must lose no time, under penalty of seeing the few remaining good positions seized upon by more enterprising nations than our own,” clearly showed the thirst of power that the colonizing countries had to prove themselves better than the rest. Often such colonization that has been done only to gain power leads into exploitation. Exploitation means to take advantage of the other’s helplessness. It means to forcefully take away the property of others or use it in a brutal way.

By bringing Congo under his control the king could take over the rubber and ivory trade. He became the ruler of over 2 million sq km and 30 million people by betraying the trust of the people – he hired the famous explorer Henry Morton Stanley who made corrupt treaties (cloth and trinket treaties) with native chiefs of Congo. The treaties were in favor of Leopold. In many cases the chiefs not only gave away their land but also promised to provide workers for forced labor. Under Leopold II’s rule, the indigenous tribes of Congo faced massive killings. He referred to land where no European lived as ‘vacant’ and encouraged people under his employment to exploit it. To receive the set rubber and ivory quotas from the locals, he called an army (FP) to mainly terrorize the people. Villages were burnt, locals were tortured, whipped and their hands were brought back so show the white officials that the soldiers hadn’t wasted their bullets. The hands were cut off to make up the shortage of rubber. Instead of carrying baskets of rubber back, the soldiers carried baskets of hands back. Often the soldiers “cheated” by cutting of hands of live people. A Danish missionary wrote after seeing a native being killed, “…the soldiers were paid bonuses on the basis of how many hands they collected.”
The brutal regime of King Leopold II for 27 years led to the genocide of Congolese people. The death toll varies from 3 million to 30 million.
The political cartoon, “In the Rubber Coils,” clearly shows the pain suffered by the Congolese people. The snake symbolizes Leopold and the man symbolizes the common Congolese people. The snake is shown to be crushing the man to death and the man is helpless, he can’t protect himself as he has no weapons with him to kill the snake. It tells that out of helplessness the people of Congo had to follow the orders of King Leopold II and if they couldn’t satisfy him, the result was their death.
This colonization which led to such a massive humanitarian disaster was the result of the exploitation by King Leopold II. He had colonized Congo not to help the Congolese people progress but just for merely gaining power in any way possible - by abusing his power.



Sources - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Congo, In the Rubber Coils, http://www.religioustolerance.org/genocong.htm, http://www.yale.edu/gsp/colonial/belgian_congo/index.html

2 comments:

  1. Wow Amrita, what a very informative post!
    You have obviously done a lot of research, and reading all the new and interesting facts about the colonization of Congo really got me reading. I can tell that you have put them in your own words since the information on the internet can be a little too boring and difficult to understand, whereas your blog posting is easy to understand and fun to read. I particularly like how you highlighted some of the words and sentences, especially the parts; "cheated" and
    “…the soldiers were paid bonuses on the basis of how many hands they collected.” They really grabbed my attention!
    Overall, a really thoroughly written blog. Well done!

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  2. Excellent post, Amrita. You did very well at analyzing the main content. Your use of lighter and darker text accentuates your main point, and the structure of your post is quite effective. Your use of images and quotes, "Villages were burnt, locals were tortured, whipped and their hands were brought back so show the white officials that the soldiers hadn’t wasted their bullets." provide a devastating indictment of King Leopold.

    I have heard that when the Belgians left the Congo around 1960, there were only a handful of university graduates -- showing the Belgians had absolutely no intent in developing the country and, as your title indicates, were only there for exploitation.

    Did you find anything like that in your research?

    It is sad to think of man's inhumanity in cases like you detailed. What can we do to avoid that?

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