University of California UCOP | in the congo

[MUSIC PLAYING]

OK. What I would like to talk to you today is about labor under colonialism. It's one of the key features of colonial society. It's one of the key ways by which colonial authorities made money out of their colonial societies.

Let me just refer back to a point that I'd made the other day, when I talked about the sort of that took place in the later part of the 19th century. And I made the point that when Europeans decided to go into Africa and actually conquer African countries and establish control over them, initially through private enterprise companies-- British Company, British South Africa Company, et cetera, et cetera-- they were looking for a way to make a profit . They were attracted by goods.

And I just want to, sort of, give you a list of some of the goods that became particularly important in the mid to later part of the 19th century. I'd pointed out the other day the significance of the discovery of diamonds in the late 1860s, and then of gold in South Africa in the 1870s, as being extremely attractive to people going in and wishing to speculate, and trying to make their own fortune in some sort of fashion.

But there were some other, sort of, more prosaic goods that were extremely important. And these relate, also, just like the development of the steam engine, to the development of industrialization in Europe and in the United States, and also to the development that was consequent on industrialization and the growth of cities and the rise of a new middle class in both Europe and in North America of new needs and new wants, purchased by these middle class people.

Now, some of the goods that were particularly important in the, sort of, middle of the 19th and later part of the 19th century were vegetable items from Africa that were used as lubricants. Because we're looking at a period of industrialization when petroleum was not the main item that was used. We had not got the development of the motor industry yet, but all sorts of lubricants were needed for the new machineries which were being developed.

They were needed for the gas lamps in the cities that were growing.

And these lubricants came more from Africa than from any other part of the world. Such lubricants came from the oil of the groundnut, or what we would know as the peanut, this plant here. A huge trade in groundnuts had taken place in Africa in the middle of the 19th and later part of the 19th century. I mean, it had taken place before in the early part of the century and in the 18th century, but there's a huge expansion in the 19th century.

Another item that's used-- again, it's an item that's part of indigenous trade in Africa-- but is palm nuts. Nuts that grow on palm trees. And again, these are used for oil. They're pressed, the oil is extracted, and these become the primary lubricants before the utilization of petroleum at the end of the 19th and then into the 20th century to the present day.

But there are other items that are used also. And this, you know, arised from the development of a middle class. A middle class that has hobbies, and wishes to, sort of, follow them. Here we have, in fact, a picture of the price list for ivory to be used for piano keys. There's a huge expansion in piano playing in both North America and in Europe in the middle to later part of the 19th century, and just middle class people get to play the piano. It's no longer just the exclusive monopoly of the wealthy and the aristocrats.

We have the playing of billiards-- pool tables, and so forth. And here's another image from the latter half of the 19th century-- a man sitting on just a huge pile of billiard balls, all made from ivory. You can think about how many elephants would have been culled to produce that much ivory, because of course you have to kill them to get the ivory.

Here's another picture from the middle to later part of the 19th century-- piles of ivory being exported out of East Africa into North America and into Europe. Another picture of ivory for export. This image is actually from a town called Ivoryton, which is in Connecticut, one of the, sort of, key import areas for North America in the latter part of the 19th century, where all of this ivory is being brought in, again, to be made into piano keys and into billiard balls, and other things, for the entertainment of the middle classes.

Well, when you see all of this stuff, it's one of the prime, let's say, publicists of the wealth of Africa in the latter part of the 19th century-- one of the people who sort of wrote most eloquently for a potential public interested in the market in Africa, and what could be made for it-- was Henry Morton Stanley. Some of you might be familiar with Stanley because he's the person who went searching for Dr. Livingston in the middle of the 19th century, found him, and became famous for the statement "Dr. Livingston, I presume?"

Henry Morton Stanley had grown up in the United Kingdom. He'd come to America as a young man. He actually grew up as a young man in New Orleans. And he had a really excellent eye for the possibility of profit in Africa.

And I just wanted to read you just a little bit here from a book that he wrote in 1885, talking about what could be made as a profit for people who go to Africa. And it's like the statement that I'd mentioned earlier about the importance of labor. This actually ends with that statement, to the potential way that you could develop Africa. And you could develop Africa in a way that it would be more profitable than making a living in the United States in the middle of the 19th century, particularly in the Mississippi Valley. Here's Henry Morton Stanley, The Congo is as

Rich as North America, 1885.

"Let us take North America, for instance, and the richest portion of it-- the Mississippi basin, to compare with the Congo basin previous to its development by that mixture of races called modern Americans. The Congo basin is much more promising at the same stage of underdevelopment." That means before Europeans came, in his perspective.

"The forests on the banks of the Congo are filled with precious redwood, lignum vitae, mahogany, and fragrant gum trees. At their base may be found inexhaustible quantities of fossil gum, with which the carriages and furnitures of civilized countries are varnished. Their bowls exude myrrh, and frankincense. Their foliage is draped with orchilla weed, useful for dye.

"The redwood, when cut down, chipped, and rasped, produces a deep crimson powder, giving a valuable coloring. The creepers, which hang in festoons from tree to tree, are generally those from which India rubber is produced, the best of which is worth two shillings per pound. The nuts of the oil palm give forth a butter, a staple article of commerce, while the fibers of others will make the best cordage. Among the wild shrubs are frequently found the coffee plant.

"In its plains, jungles, and swamp luxurate the elephants, whose teeth furnish ivory, worth from eight shillings to 11 shillings per pound. Its waters team with numberless herds of , whose tusks are also valuable. Furs of the , leopard, monkey, otter. Hides of antelope, buffalo, goat, cattle, et cetera, may also be obtained."

And here I return to the quote that I'd mentioned in the previous lecture. "But what is of far more value, the Congo possesses over 40 million of moderately industrious and workable people, which the red Indians never were. And if we speak of prospective advantages and benefits to be derived from this gift of nature, they are not much in theory or in number or value to those of the well-developed Mississippi Valley."

So here we have the prime, in a sense, PR person of 19th century last quarter, talking about what could be found in Africa. The vast quantities of valuable items that could be used, and used for an industrializing Europe. For varnishes, for oils, for lubricants. All sorts of items could be taken.

And he found a prospective mentor in King Leopold of the Belgians. Leopold, as an individual, was interested in investing-- making a fortune for himself in some sort of fashion. And became enamored of Henry Stanley, as, likewise, Stanley became enamored of the King. And they worked in league, Stanley as the agent of Leopold in Africa, identifying areas where the King could go and intervene, and carve out a territory for himself.

And in particular, the area that, of course, looked the most valuable to Leopold was the Congo. It was not within the British sphere of influence, or desired by the British at the time. Nor the French. The Germans were not really players in Africa at that time. I mean, Germany had not been combined into a single power. So the Congo was some place of great attraction to Leopold, who decided to, in fact, go into the Congo and create his own personal empire in that area.

But the key thing then was, what do you do? How do you mobilize the labor to work for you in some fashion to produce a profit? Let's look at some of the PR aspects that went with this. Because, of course, going into the

Congo had to be sold as something whereby you were doing it not for your own personal benefit-- no one ever says they're trying just to make money for themselves, or to make money just out of a business-- but they want to do it for the betterment of people. Think back to the words of the Berlin Conference.

The slicing up and the scramble for Africa was being done for the benefit of Africans. To protect them from Arab slavers. To protect them from hierarchical, dictatorial, and murderous rulers, such as Shaka. To bring Christianity and democracy to them. To bring freedom from oppression, as it was suggested that they were suffering from, with their own rulers and through the exploits of Arab slave traders.

And so there is a certain amount of public relations that is built around the enterprise that Henry Stanley engages in, and that he engages in with King Leopold as well. And here, I just want to show you a series of photographs that Stanley had taken-- obviously studio shots of him-- as, in a sense, what we would think of as the Great White

Hunter. Gun under his arm, helmet on his head. In some places I've seen the young man beside him described as his adopted son. In others, simply as just a young African boy with him.

In all cases, what we see is an image of the European male sort of trying to, sort of, bring some help to the young person in Africa. To benefit them in some sort of way. We see this in a second shot-- in this case, the supplicant nature of the young man to Henry Stanley.

The persistence of this image, which was very strong in the late 19th century and so supporting a rush to Africa, is seen in those images that I showed you in a previous lecture of King Solomon's Mines. I mean, in a sense, Henry Stanley, with his and his gear, is really a model for all of those images in King Solomon's

Mines, from these, sort of, 1930s onwards, through the Richard Chamberlain ones up through the Patrick Swayze-- up through, in fact, the Raiders of the Lost Ark image, even if it's not based, or it's just not meant to be

King Solomon's Mines, it was certainly based on it. Always the imagery of the strong white hunter going into Africa to protect people. Protect people from oppression and treachery.

I put this image up just to, sort of, catch a sense of what the Congo was like when Henry Stanley goes into the Congo. And I showed you a series of images the other day showing how he had arranged for a steam engine- powered boat to be transported across Africa into the interior-- into the interior rivers and lakes. Well, this image captures the sense of the commerce that was already existing.

Commerce did not have to be introduced in Africa. It was already vast and ongoing, and it's captured through these canoes, often up to 100 feet long with 100 rowers on them, who plied throughout the River Congo traveling and trading in vast quantities of goods. Some of them slaves, but that, very-- actually, a relatively small part of the trade.

These people were trading along the Congo River, and if we look at this map, which I'd shown you before, which shows the commercial enterprises that were established in the Congo. This area here, which, as you've seen before essentially is as large as Western Europe, you'll see, as I pointed out before, these are the positions of the King there. The Congo River goes down here to the coastline, the Atlantic Ocean here, and goes up through that very steep way through which the boats had to be carried.

But once you're inland, you have this whole series of river basins through which items can be traded. Just for a later lecture, I would just like you to notice this the area here, called the Katanga Trust. This will come up in another lecture. But just remember the word "Katanga."

Here's this vast land. Indigenous traders. Seemingly open for Europeans to go in and trade, and to trade in a vast number of different things, as Stanley pointed out. Here is an ad in the later 19th century for Congo Soap. "A World-wide Reputation." Looking like the European man is bringing it to the market from Africa. He's got his helmet on, carrying it on his back. And here we have "Mr. HM Stanley writes, 'I consider the Soap excellent.'" You can rely on his word. He's the person who's going into Africa. You can rely on him to tell you what is good.

Well, how is this produced? How are these items produced? Well, here's the key one. And this is the one that becomes the most profitable trade in the Congo for Stanley, and for King Leopold. It's the key one. And this is rubber. And it becomes exceptionally important in the latter part of the 19th century as we have the development of greater industrialization. As we start to get the development of the automobile industry in the early part of the

20th century.

So here we have a rubber tree, with rubber tapped by a man, in a sense, making slices across the tree so that the rubber oozes out down here into a can, and then is collected by people. Much in the same way that, say, for example, maple syrup is collected in the United States. This is the key product. This is what becomes the most valuable product in Africa.

And it's very, very important, because of it's relative uniqueness in Africa. We will see that rubber is also found in the forests of South America. But in the late 19th century, the Congo is the area where rubber comes from. And that's what gives it its greatest value.

Well, how do you produce it? Because it's a pretty labor-intensive crop. You've got to do all of this tapping to get the rubber to go into the buckets. These have to be collected. These have to be taken to the canoes. They have to be taken from the canoes to the coast. There's a lot of work that goes on in it.

Well, what you get is the mobilization of the Congolese. Those 40 million people that Henry Morton Stanley referred to as the greatest asset of the Congo. The 40 million people that the Congo had that he says is unique, and different from the lack of such labor, as he would argue, in the United States before the coming of the European. I mean, he dismisses the Native American as a possible source of labor. But here in the Congo, we have them.

And look at this image. These are people who were used as rubber laborers in the later part of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century. And the key thing, when you look at this closely, is to see that they're all got bondage on them, in various forms. Their arms are tied. They've got ropes around their necks. They're all tied together. This is how you mobilize labor in conditions that people would prefer not to engage in labor.

Because the key thing, again, that I would emphasize about colonial labor policies is the readiness of colonial authorities to force people to work on terms that they themselves-- the Africans-- would not choose to work. Because they were paid so little, and required to do so much. So here's one of those images of these people in bondage.

Here's a second image-- in this case, these are people in a jail in Bouma, in the Congo. Again, we see everybody as bound. Ropes around their neck. Arms bound. Legs bound. And here, the mortality among native prisoners in Bouma jail is enormous, the normal death rate being 50% to 70%. Very high death rate. These are prisoners, but again, these are people who would have been arrested for not engaging in labor under the conditions which were set to them by King Leopold.

Labor wasn't something that only African men were meant to engage in. In this case, we have an image of African women in the Congo being required to dig the fields. Here, in the back, and in a rather sort of spectral way, we have the image of the white overseer. As you can see, he's got his white pith helmet on, just like Henry Morton Stanley had, and the white clothes.

But here, all of these women, they've been digging the fields, they've been hoeing, they've been engaging in agricultural labor. These are things that they would do, indeed, in their normal life. I mean, if we think back to the earlier lecture I gave that showed the multiple ways in which people dug, you know, their fields, and engaged in agriculture. I mean, often growing three or four crops overlapping at the same time.

These people didn't, you know, have an absence of an understanding of hard labor. It's just that in these conditions, they're being forced to work for King Leopold and his particular personal company. Just as they're being forced to work for other companies in the Congo. I'd like you to think about the way in which the image of all of these people-- the men, especially, with the bondage around their necks, their hands bound-- actually reflects the, sort of, pro scramble for Africa imagery that we find in David Livingston's books. Remember that I'd made the point that David Livingston said that what was necessary in Africa was for Europeans, and missionaries in particular, to go into Africa to free Africans from the depredations of Arab slavers. And he'd, in his missionary journals, had had these images.

These are the images that the Berlin Conference people refer to when they talk about the necessity for the European conquest of Africa. To get rid of this. To stop it.

But they weren't-- as you can see in the Congolese case, we have this immediately reproduced. I want to show you just one other image that sort of captures this. This is an image actually, from from around about 1905. And the point with this is to say that the bondage and, you know, the control of labor that you see in the Congo is not just unique to the Congo. It's a widespread pattern throughout colonial Africa.

This was drawn-- this is a picture of a labor-- group of men engaged in forced labor in German East Africa. And actually it was drawn by a African teenager who was accompanying a white traveler in East Africa. And here again, it's the same thing. People are being tied around their neck, all roped together and being forced to engage in work.

Well, Stanley's, and particularly Leopold's, activities in the Congo drew a great deal of condemnation. And there's been a considerable amount that's been written. Probably the best book that's been written about the Congo is Adam Hochschild's book King Leopold's Ghost, which has now sold something like 300,000 or 400,000 copies in

10 or 12 languages. I mean, it's touched a nerve with people who've been concerned about the way in which colonialism is depicted, and would really like to know exactly, you know, how it was operated.

Well, one of the first people to write about King Leopold's activities, and to do so in an extremely critical way, was this man, George Washington Williams, an African American author, and actually the author of the first history of African Americans in the United States, as well as in Africa. I mean, he's essentially a pioneer historian both of African Americans and of Africa. And George Washington Williams, in 1889, had in fact been highly critical of King

Leopold and what he was doing in the Congo. And that's right, you know, just within five years of the Berlin Conference and the scramble for Africa.

But he, and his criticism, is followed by others. In particular, we have missionaries who are highly critical of what is going on in the Congo, and who start taking photographs that depicts what exactly happens when you have forced labor being used by King Leopold and his employees to collect rubber. In this case, we have two Presbyterian missionaries-- both of these are Americans-- standing with these men. And these men are holding hands. Hands that have been cut off people.

What became public, particularly in the first decade, or the first five years of the 20th century, was the actions that

Leopold and his employees actually engaged in, in trying to force people to collect rubber. And that is the use of physical violence. Not just the roping of people together and the forcing of them to go and work collecting rubber and working in the fields, but if they didn't collect enough rubber, if they didn't work fast enough, if they didn't meet their targets, then they were maimed.

And in this case, these hands were cut off people who had not produced enough rubber quickly enough. And their hands were cut off as an incentive to their fellow producers to work harder. Otherwise, this would happen to them.

Now, photographs like this became commonplace in the early part of the 20th century, as taken by missionaries who were very critical of Leopold's work.

The person who's probably most important, in some ways, in documenting the activities of Leopold and his employees is Roger Casement, an Irish nationalist, who in 1903 submitted an official report to the British government, detailing exactly the processes by which Leopold's employees forced people to work for them. And I'm going to ask you in relationship to this lecture to read the document that details this.

This isn't-- it's an excerpt from Casement's report, and in particular what's important about it is the fact that he went around and interviewed people. He found exactly what had happened to them. So he can give a name, and in some ways a face, almost, to these. I mean, other people can give a face as well. And he documents the way in which the cutting off of hands and other limbs was not just an isolated event.

Because the Belgians, at first, in reaction to this, when some of these were published, started claiming that these were, in fact, the product of indigenous practices of maiming. That people, you know, just in the same way that they'd use scarification on their face, might cut their hands off. It doesn't seem a common sense belief, but if you have depictions of Shaka as a tyrant who would kill people just because they sniffed or sneezed out of turn, then there's a public that might believe that.

The Belgians also suggested that maybe it was African soldiers who cut the hands off, not European. Or maybe it was wild animals that bit pieces off of people. I mean, all of this was sort of put forward by King Leopold's employees, and dismissed pretty fast. It didn't come through.

Apart from George Washington Williams, Roger Casement, there's ED Morel. And I mention these people because you can get all of their works online and read them yourself, so you don't have to sort of just read snippets. You can go and find Red Rubber, a key text on the story of the rubber slave trade on the Congo. See, the rubber slave trade, it's-- Europeans have gone into Africa to free Africa from slavery, but there's a new form of slavery that's been established. It's called colonial labor.

Probably the most important work, however, there, was the one, the [INAUDIBLE] published by Mark Twain. This came out-- I think it was 1905 or 1906. Here we go. Back then, priced 25 cents, King Leopold's Soliloquy. And it's presented as a defense of King Leopold, but in a mocking defense. And if we can see this, here's the front page of it. OK, 1905. King Leopold's Soliloquy-- A Defense of His Congo Rule, by Mark Twain. It's obviously not a defense of his rule.

And here we have, "A memorial for the perpetuation of my name." The notion that the Congo is essentially an empire of horror that's being built solely in the interests of one single individual. It's interesting, because let's contrast that with the Nicholas Kristof image of Africa now, with being beset with problems, which you can see in, say, in the form of a single person, Robert Mugabe. Here, we have, at the beginning of the 20th century, a notion of Africa as beset by problems, but the problem exists in the form of a single individual, King Leopold of the Belgians.

This is a composite photograph. This is actually from Mark Twain's book, King Leopold's Soliloquy. And you can research all of these individual people. Because all of these people are, in fact, described in various ways.

We-- you know, the missionaries met some of them. Casement met some of them. We can find out who each of these are. It's not just an atrocity photograph of anonymous individuals, but we'll know who, you know, the young boy-- person is there, who's got a hand missing, or another hand missing. A hand. Hand. All of these people maimed by King Leopold's employees, as a way of making sure that their families, the other members of their communities, worked harder to produce rubber, and did not slow down.

Here is a very famous atrocity photograph, again, from around the first half decade of the 20th century. Nsala, of the District of Walla, looking at the severed hand and foot of his five-year-old daughter. The severed hand and foot there. Boali, a victim of the Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company. ABIR-- A-B-I-R-- Militia, which had one of those contractual districts in the Congo. And these images became extremely widespread at the beginning of the 20th century, and led to a great deal of denunciation of King Leopold and his empire.

You have this image here. Punch, the London satirical newspaper, "In the Rubber Coil." So here we have, in a sense, Africa, but in this case, obviously the Congo. But here it is. "The Coils of King Leopold." A crown. Sneering face. The woman retreating with her baby, trying to escape the worst excesses of imperialism and colonial capitalism at that time.

This image-- I just put this one on. It's not from the Congo. It's actually from South America. Casement, after he had written his report about forced labor in the Congo and reported that to the British Parliament, then went to South America and wrote, also, a very well-known report about rubber workers in South America. The Indians of the Putumayo. Again, here it is. Colonial labor. Chains. Bondage, around the neck, around the limbs, and hands, to force people to work. I mean, it's a universal feature of colonialism in the early part of the 20th century.

And it's important to think about that when you sometimes look and see people talking about, is colonialism good or bad? Is there a balance sheet? It's important to look and see, well, what exactly happened to people? What were some of the key features? What happened to those 40 million people who lived in the Congo that Henry Morton Stanley talked about as a great economic resource?

But, you know, history is not always kind to everybody. Actually, Leopold himself has to give up his personal possession of the Congo in 1908, and transfers his own territory-- what was literally owned by him as an individual-- into the hands of the Belgian crown. And from 1908 onwards, Belgium, in fact, has a colony in the

Congo.

But other things happened to other people, not necessarily because of the report they wrote, but Roger

Casement-- this is a picture of him in 1916-- Roger Casement-- perhaps he's such a good critic of colonialism in the Congo because he himself lived in a colonial society. He lived in Ireland. Born and bred in Ireland. And Ireland in the late 19th and 20th century, as it had been for centuries, was a colony of Great Britain. People didn't have the right to the vote. They didn't have the right to express themselves politically.

And during the First World War, Casement was-- he was accused of negotiating with the Germans to get support for an Irish Republican movement in Ireland. Here he is. He's tried-- he's tried on charges of treason, and he's hanged in 1916. Here we have a story from the times-- "Casement Hanged for High Treason. The Irishman went bravely and calmly to the gallows, and the end came quickly. 'It's a beautiful morning,' he remarked pleasantly to the guard. Hemp, not silk, noose was his fate."

But his report had had its effect. His intended effect, in that Leopold was no longer the ruler of a highly oppressive colonial state. But that didn't mean that forced labor was absent from the Belgian Congo. They continue to use it for decades afterwards, and I'll have you read some documents that look at that. The utilization of forced labor in the Congo, as you have utilization of forced labor in other colonial areas well into the middle of the 20th century.

But how is it remembered? How is the Congo era remembered? And I just want to end this lecture with two pieces of evidence that we have. The first one, on this slide and the next slide, comes from an educational project in 1944, whereby Belgian missionaries were teaching Africans about their history. And this is an excerpt from one of their lesson plans. And this is how the missionaries taught about that era of the forced labor. The cut off hands. The Rubber era. And let's go through it. "Leopold reigned on the Congo from Europe with great wisdom during 24 years." Think of the words that are actually used, and think of how these are perpetuated in other things you might read. Think also, maybe, do you think any of these words being perpetuated in descriptions now of what colonialism was like? Or what we might have thought Africa was like before the present time period.

"The cold world congratulated him about it. In 1908, Leopold the Second offered to its Belgian compatriots the country of the Congo." Well, he didn't offer it. He was forced to give it up. Because in the face of the criticism from people like Morel and Casement, and so on. "From then on, from 1908, one calls it the Belgian Congo. That is why all Belgians put their mind on civilizing the blacks. The body, the intelligence, and the heart."

Back to that message of the Berlin Conference of the middle of the 1880s. That the reason for colonialism is for the civilization and the protection of the indigenous peoples of Africa. "Children, if there were no whites"-- because this runs through a lot of historical analyzes of Africa. What would have happened if Europeans hadn't come to Africa?

"If there were no whites, one would not know of a more prosperous Congo than previously. People now do not wage big battles anymore between villages. They don't kill themselves anymore. They put on some clothes. The whites have constructed beautiful houses."

The thing about "they don't kill themselves anymore," that falls back to the depiction of African society-- a different African society-- but an African society in the minds of many Europeans-- that one of Shaka in the early 19th century-- whereby Africans killed one another all the time. They're always engaged in bloodthirsty wars. Something for which there is relatively little evidence that there is any greater extent of it there.

But this other theme that comes through, which is that whites created everything that's in Africa. And it gets perpetuated for much longer, even, than 1944 onward. "The state created some roads. Big paths everywhere for vehicles and bicycles." As though roads had not existed before.

"One doesn't carry any heavy burden anymore. The whites provide work, and the blacks help them, and so forth. The priests take care of the soul and the body. They build hospitals. Missions, to teach the people God's true religion. They taught the children all kinds of professions. Carpenters, masons, teachers, clerks, et cetera. Their business became profitable. The doctors heal the patients. The judges settle the palavers."

This is the civilizing mission. One thing to bear in mind, and I'll take it up when I talk about Lumumba, is that when the Belgians leave the Congo in 1960, this country that's as large as Western Europe by itself, and with a population numbering probably close to 100 million people, there are probably only six people who have a college education at that point. So you have to wonder, what is the level of education that's actually extended? What's being talked about?

But I also just want to finish this lecture with another statement, and it sort of captures some of the nostalgia that can exist for a glorified image of colonial Africa that didn't exist. And this is the one that I had mentioned when I was talking about Time magazine's image of Africa, when I made reference to an article in Time magazine from, I think it was 2008, which was entitled "Come Back Colonialism-- All Is Forgiven." And this article in Time magazine was based on an interview with one Congolese individual.

This man Le Blanc-- the white-- "earns his keep sailing the tributaries of the Congo River. He's 40 years old, and his real name is Malu-Ebonga Charles"-- known as the white, because it appears that he was sort of partly-- either his mother or his father had been a European, so he's a somewhat of a mixed race person. But this is what he is quoted as saying in Time magazine.

"On this river, all that you see-- the buildings, the boats-- only whites did that. After the whites left, the Congolese did not work. We did not know how to. For the past 50 years, we've just declined. He pauses. They took this country by force." Referring to, obviously, Stanley and Leopold. "They took this country by force," he says, with more than a touch of admiration. "If they came back, this time we'd give them the country for free."

And we have to think back. Well when you say that only whites did that, the buildings, the boats, well, we know we've got these images of all of the boats and the descriptions in the 19th century. The trade was there, the market, the surplus production, all of that energy was there.

The key thing about this is not so much Mr. Le Blanc's memory of it, because people can always be found who have certain memories of things that may or may not accord with past reality, although they may be a real memory to them themselves, is that Time magazine published this, with this title, and in a sense gave its imprimatur to a notion that because Congo suffers so much in the 20th century, it must have been better in the past when the whites were there.

But if we really look back when the whites were there, it certainly wasn't better. It was a hideous place. And that's shown to us by the work that was done by George Washington Williams. By Roger Casement. By ED Morel. By Mark Twain.