Heart Of Darkness
...While there has been modernization there has been little change to the status quo. Peace, health, and security are rare commodities in these lands. “Lands” is perhaps the best way to describe the region because there have been a myriad of countries and regimes that have existed in them over the years, including some parts where no one really governs to this day. Tribes and warlords still hold much sway while European powers continue to meddle in the affairs of region. While the nations involved and the commodities they seek may have changed the game remains the same. However after seeing similar situations across the globe and over a hundred years since the last colonial forces left is it really fair to blame it all Leopold. At what point does jungle began to deserve the credit for what has and still goes on
Leopold’s rape of the Congo will forever scar the face of the continent. Perhaps the situation today is explained by the title of an article in Variety called “King Leopold’s Ghost”. Jealous of the other European countries’ colonies he snatched some of the last land left. Only instead of benefiting the nation it was used for his own personal wealth. As Andrew C A Jampoler said in “Journey into the Heart of Darkness”, “What Leopold really had in mind was a wholly owned proprietorship, one that would in time earn a reputation for barbaric cruelty through the enslavement, mutilation, and murder to millions of Africans, and trigger a global civil-rights protest.”
The reason the country was so ideal for Leopold’s exploitation because of the remote nature of the country and the narrow entry point from the sea. “he not only managed to control the Congo as his own private reserve, but waged a successful public relations campaign to convince the world that his African project was a humanitarian, anti-slavery enterprise.” It was effective for many years until the...
View Full Essay
