Analysis Of King Leopold II's Congo

The sheer magnitude of the death toll in King Leopold II 's Congo remains a little known fact in most Western nations, even today. The eight to ten million African lives lost during Leopold 's rule over the Congo have been forced from the collective conscious of Americans and Europeans. Perhaps the shame of inaction is too much to bare. Inaction during a genocide seems deplorable in this day and age, yet intervention by Western nations is never really guaranteed. There are several reasons, all inexcusable, why Western nations failed to intervene while millions of Congolese were being senselessly slaughtered. The atrocities committed in Leopold 's Congo went unpunished for years because of a carefully constructed smoke screen of humanitarianism,

The notion that Africa was in need of a civilizing force was prevalent throughout the Western world during the colonial period and, in many ways, remains popular today. King Leopold II of Belgium drew heavily on the popularity of philanthropy when he began his plot to takeover Central Africa. He wined and dined the heads of key humanitarian organizations, scientists, and explorers, continually reassuring him that his interests in the Congo were purely based on good will and a healthy curiosity. Leopold was not the first, or the last, head of state to claim to have intentions of civilizing Africa as a curtain to disguise a greater colonizing mission; why shouldn 't they believe him? Through this guise Leopold was able to slowly and carefully build for himself a privately owned colony. He initially imposed himself as a warden to the Congo, under the auspices of the International African Association and later the Committee for the Studies of the Upper Congo. Later, he slyly changed the patron organization to the International Association of the Congo, an organization without philanthropic goals; this change went

Even E.D. Morel, a British citizen and leader in the fight against Leopold, believed that imperialism was a totally acceptable practice as long as the colonizing force was just. "...Morel was so enraged by Leopold 's villainy that he ignored his own country 's use of forced labor -- wide, though far less murderous -- in it 's African colonies.." (210.) He was blind to the fact that British colonial subjects in Africa were made to pay high taxes, which essentially led to forced labor. If Western nations publicly condemned Leopold for his practices they opened themselves up to investigation within their own colonies, which in many cases could prove extremely damaging. Although Leopold 's Congo was by far the most violently run colony at the time, other Western nations did not want to risk appearing hypocritical on any level. It was much easier for the heads of states to blindly support a supposed humanitarian effort than to launch investigations in the Congo and risk calling to attention atrocious similarities in their policies on Africa. Additionally, because the Congo was owned by Leopold and not Belgium, other countries could not simply humiliate Belgium 's parliament and had to instead appeal to a single man who was clearly difficult to shame. As George Washington William suggested in his Open Letter the