King Leopold's Ghost

King Leopold’s ghost is a great documentary on Belgiums imperial conquest of Africa, and goes into detail about the conquered territory which is now the democratic republic of Congo. The documentary reveals horrifying images of a conquest that slaughtered millions and left a country horribly scarred.

               According to the documentary, King Leopold the II inherited a Belgium that was striving to get ahead. It was one of the few European countries that was not a colonial power. So he set his eyes on Africa. He sent men to get as much land as they could “legally acquire”. They did this by having the local chiefs sign away their land with “treaties”. However these illiterate chiefs had no idea that they were signing away their own land. Leopold then sent military forces to seize his territory, and he induced what can only be described as slave labor. He had his workers mine gold and other valuable minerals, use their own bodies to extract rubber by peeling it off their bodies (which was extremely painful), and if they didn’t do as they were told they would be punished severely. They would be denied food and water, their family members would be taken hostages, or they would have their limbs severed. This slave labor allowed merchants to sell certain goods at a profit as high as 700%, and Leopold took full advantage of this. By the time of his death he was sitting on one of the largest fortunes in all of Europe, which was worth roughly 1.1 billion dollars. The death toll of these events rests between five to ten million people.

               This is an excellent example of European imperialism in all its glory. All these horrible acts where justified with the same meta-scientific, racial experience that evolved to justify things like this all over the world, Including all of Africa, Asia, South America, and the middle east. All of these places still carry deep social, cultural, and economic scars inflicted by European economic interests. Imperialism still continues today, it’s simply changed. The tactics have changed, the materials have changed, but it’s still here. The super powers still go out of their way to ensure that their economic interests are met.