Talk:Congo Free State

Woah! Does that capitalism paragraph belong in there? It seems oddly out of place. -- Zoe

Only part-way so far: that's taken us up to the establishment of the Congo Free State, which is a start. (A bit rough here and there. I'll work it over.) It will probaby work out better if we give some thought to exactly where all this stuff should go: there are entries under King Leopold, Stanley, Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, and Democratic Republic of the Congo, all of which should be part of an intertwined story. I haven't given any thought as to which entry should be the "right" one to put which parts of the story, but I do think that it's imperative that it not be split up all over the place and hard to follow. I suspect that the text I just entered will end up in Congo Free State eventually, but for now I'll just worry about telling the story and figure out the best place to put it later. (Unless someone else gets there before me, of course.) Tannin 11:50 Jan 3, 2003 (UTC)

An afterthought. That "settled at least 10,000 years ago" in the first para. Can that be right? Humanity evolved not much more than 1000 miles away from the Congo basin, is it possible that people took 2 million years (Homo erectus) or about 115,000 years (if we define "human" as H. sapiens) to travel one or two thousand miles, when we know that humans had travelled to China ~ 75,000 years ago, to Australia ~ 53,000 years ago, and to America at least 13,000 years ago? Tannin

1. At one point this article speaks of Leopold's father's opinion of the man -- yet this opinion is nowhere given. Was a sentence or two left out?

2. I agree with Zoe, that the paragraph about capitalism is out of place with the rest of the article, for several reasons. First, I was expecting a detailed account of the misrule of the Congo Free State. Second, my own political biasses which I won't detail here.

3. A last comment: the mention of the Arab slave trader (whose name escapes me here) is fascinating. The slave trade in Africa would be an interesting subject for a future article -- although it may be too politicaly sensitive for some people.

This is a fine start to a potentially valuable article. -- llywrch

Thank you Llywrch. I agree that the parenthetical phrase about Leopold's father is a little confusing as it stands. It's part of a direct quote from Forbath and thus more or less uneditable. Perhaps I can dig out a direct quote from Leopold I somewhere, incorporate it elsewhere, and then simply leave Forbath's aside out.

Detailed account of the misrule is in (slow and plodding) progress. Well, reasonably detailed: I don't have the stomach for too much of that stuff - it's the most gruesome story you could possibly imagine; worse, in a way, than the tale of the Holocast or of Pol Pot's butchery, as at least those two leaders had the threadbare excuse that they honestly believed they were trying to benefit the world in some way. In Leopold's case, he made no noticable effort whatever to improve the lot of his people in any way: he had no "racial purity" to preserve, no "glorious people's revoution" to protect, just pure, plain greed.

Tippoo Tib deserves a lengthy article on his own. I wonder if anyone has done a good biography yet? A very quick Google search doesn't list one.

PS: Forbath's The River Congo is excellent, by the way: it covers a great deal of other ground outside of the current subject and Forbath has a gift for writing clear, readable narrative without ever making you feel that he's simply telling a story and departing from the facts. Tannin

Genocide in the congo Ctrl+V by 172

Please, please. A proper subversive Dirty Commie never uses CONTROL-V. That is a modern Microsoft corruption. Real commies use <SHIFT-INSERT>

Section from the start of Leopold's rule up to the end of the Free State added. Not proof-read, it's 4:30AM here and I'm going to bed. No proof-reading, no 'nuffin.

(If anyone wants to volunteer, I have no immediate plan to do the Belgian Congo section. I'm back to birds and native plants tommorow.) Tannin 17:31 Jan 3, 2003 (UTC)

You people may dislike me, but a brief overview is necessary. The current article goes into micro detail, but gives little insight as to why these atrocities occurred. As a PhD historian, I can assure you that few scholars would seriously assess Leopold’s rule in the Congo without taking the two contrasting concepts of land and labor into consideration. Understanding the contrasting patters of production between the traditional Congolese tribal states and modern, industrial Belgium is essential.

You people don’t seem to understand the colossal leap from subsistence, seasonal patterns of agricultural production to the modern capitalist one, based on specialization/productivity and surplus value. Personally, I consider this a form of progress (though not in the Congo context!) and don’t understand why some readers deleted my contributions, feeling that I have an anti-modern bias.

Mass-production of rubber in a dense, tropical forest in one of the world’s most isolated regions was after all quite a massive endeavor. Other parts of Africa were not cultivating rubber (quite a harsh crop to cultivate); other parts of Africa had milder climates and topographies. So the whole rapid shift to mass-production of rubber might be considered more important than Leopold’s megalomania and insensitivity.

Indeed this was a change (and this change was the export of capitalism) that revolutionized every level of Congolese society forever. That must be noted, considering that this is an article on Congolese history.

Few people will remember the micro details of the article just minutes aftwer reading. So our duty is to give them a general overview, an understanding of not just what happened, but why.

172

A brief summary: yes. Quite right. "You People don't understand ..." I don't know what people you are talking about chum, but don't accuse me of such almighty ignorance.

Changes in the mode of production consequent to European settlement happened everywhere. So far, this is a history of the Congo Free State. (With a section on the modern DRC tacked on at the end.) The appropriate place to consider global changes in the MOP is in a more general article, which should be referenced from here, of course, and the appropriate place to consider mass production of (for e.g.) rubber is in the period when this mass production actually took place - which was, in the main, well after Leopold was dead.

The forced transition to capitalisim is indeed a highly relevant matter to the Congo's history, but no more so than it was in every other part of Africa, and the Congo is a very poor place to chose to attempt to explain it, as the brutality of the regime, even after Leopold's demise, was exceptional. If you want to expound on the transition from hunting and gathering, subsistence agriculture and herding to wage labour, then there are much better places to do it: Portugese East Africa for one, South Africa for another. In fact, Leopold's regime had less in common those last mentioned than it did with Tippoo Tib's. Tannin 23:34 Jan 3, 2003 (UTC)

Absolutely as I sugested yesterday it has its natural place in Coloniaism So far same the text is in incorporated in Genocide, History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Leopold II of Belgium and New Imperialism User:Ericd

"The bourgeois ethic wage of wage/labor productivity" Why is it bougeois it's occidental it's capitalist. [[User:Ericd]

Your point, Ericd?

172

Capitalism, an economic system in which capital, or wealth, is put to work to produce more capital, ideologic and out of topic why not occidental productivism ? User:Ericd

" ploughed back into monumental buildings in Brussels " what the use of this sentence wasn't "None of the profits from rubber production was reinvested in the Congo region or returned to it in the form of improved infrastructures, education, or improved medical care" more explicit User:Ericd

Between 1880 and 1920 the population of Congo thus halved; over 10 million ‘indolent natives’ unaccustomed to the bourgeois ethos of labor productivity, were the victims of murder, starvation, exhaustion induced by over-work, and disease.

‘indolent natives’ unaccustomed to the bourgeois ethos of labor productivity, indolent native is polemical for the rest it's redondand

And murder why ? It should be explained this not an obvious consequence of capitalist exploitation ? User:Ericd

I think it is possible to combine the two statements: "None of the profits from rubber production was reinvested in the Congo region or returned to it in the form of improved infrastructures, education, or improved medical care. Instead, profits were used to construct monumental buildings in Brussels" can satisfy both sides of the argument, if the facts are correct. As for infrastructures, these were created in the Congo, most notably the railroad from Leopoldville to the Atlantic, through slave labor and at a high human cost, in order to make transportation of the commodity more efficient. I do not know if any monumental buildings were, in fact, built in Brussels with proceeds from this slave labor. In both instances, these are facts that can be verified. Danny

Maybe I'm just tired of reading that one paragraph in every article that mentions the Belgian Congo, Leopold II, & all that, but I believe it is redundant here & should be removed. (That was the point of my earlier edit.) The reasons are these:

1. Yes, capitalism had a part in the criminal misrule of the Congo. And undoubtedly misogeny played a role in Jack the Ripper's infamy. But would any account of Jack's murder spree by deepened with a doctrinaire feminist accusation about how men have historically subjugated women over the millenia? (And saying that, I have probably opened another can of worms & incited a new flamewar.)

2. We don't need a discussion about a cultural difference over the concept of "hard work" between the Congo natives & Europeans. Read what Tannin has written: the inhabitants could have been industrious & hard-working (just like the Protestant work ethic encourages us all to be), & they still would have been the victims of a sadistic & exploitative regime. And I can't shake the sense that this defense sounds like a lame excuse couched in politcally correct terms for acknowledged slackers & malignerers.

3. Tannin has stated the figures for this atrocity in far more objective terms elsewhere -- & properly documented.

I tried to substitute this redundant paragraph with some material explaining this from another point of view, but obviously I was writing without checking my facts carefully enough. I'll leave the development of that line of thought to someone who has the interest & time to do it right.

I'd delete the paragraph myself, but some people think their prose is too golden to know when it is irrelevant, & I'm not interested in starting another edit war. -- llywrch 21:03 Jan 4, 2003 (UTC)

This article is very weak about the Mobutu era even the renaming to Zaire seems omitted.

Tannin:

I don’t understand why you keep deleting the section on changes in Congolese society. I’m surprised that you of all people would be doing this, given that you have a better grasp of history than most. Contrasting concepts of land and labor must be noted. Contrasting patterns of production must be noted.

I removed the controversial statements, if that's why you've been deleting this section.

I must note as well that the article mentions the geography and topography of the Congo and the harshness of cultivating rubber. Hence, the article is not suggesting that the toll in the Congo was merely the result of the export of capitalism.

172

Tannin:

I’m not sure why the section on changes in Congolese society belongs below the “end of the Congo Free State”. It seems as if it belongs earlier in the article. Otherwise, I appreciate that it’s still there.

172, there are several points to make:

I don't "keep deleting it". I deleted it just once once, on several other grounds which will become clear shortly, and because it repeated stuff that appears all over the place in other articles. I was neither the first nor the last person to do so. When you restored it, I shrugged my shoulders and accepted that.
I have kept moving it to the section of the article where, if it belongs at all, it is most clearly relevant: i.e., to the period after 1908.
As you say, wildly contrasting concepts of land and labor are crucial to understanding the development of capitalism. (And for that matter, to the history of the African slave trade, at least so far as the "labour" side of the statement goes.) But this is true of all Africa, not especially the Congo any more than, say, the Cape Colony or Portuguese East Africa. It is not necessary to insert the same passage into every history page. Further, it is a basic understanding without which one cannot get a grasp on the development of capitalism anywhere: in particular, in the 17th & 18th Century UK, where this massive world-wide social change began in earnest.
In a mere 20 years, Leopold's regime simply did not have time to turn the Congo into a capitalist state. He made a start of sorts, but in broad it remained a slave economy until well after Leopold had been removed from power. In the early 20th Century, rubber accounted for 90% by value of the Congo Free State's exports: it was, however, gathered from vines and trees in the forests to comply with Leopold's brutal rubber tax, not from plantations. Even in Ceylon and Malaya - the world pioneers in plantation rubber - 1909 production was about 3000 tons. Contrast this with ~ 50,000 tons from wild trees in South America, and ~25,000 tons from vines and trees in the whole of Africa (the Congo Free State being by far the largest individual producer). The Congo did not produce any plantation rubber until considerably later - by which time, of course, it had long since become the Belgian Congo - and that section is the appropriate place to discuss the effect of capitalism.
You say "the article is not suggesting that the toll in the Congo was merely the result of the export of capitalism", and mention geography and the difficulty of cultivating rubber. As we have seen, the cultivation of rubber did not begin until the era of the Belgian Congo; the geography was something that the native people had been dealing with on a daily basis for thousands of years, and it's not really appropriate to describe Leopold's regime simply as "capitalism". If Leopold was a capitalist, then what was Tippoo Tib? It is difficult to find a conceptual difference between the exploitation of native land and labour at gunpoint to gather latex on the one hand, and the exploitation of the natives themselves at gunpoint to gather slaves on the other. As you know, capitalism implies, amongst other things, the reinvestment of surplus, and though there was considerable reinvestment in the Congo Free State (notably to build the railways), the overwhelming feature of the period was not this relatively minor reinvestment but rather the simple extraction of wealth on a grand scale. The death toll in the Congo Free State, in other words, is best regarded as not so much a side-effect of capitalism as it is a simple slaughter in the cause of an invader's greed. Leopold had more in common with Pizzaro or Cortez than he did with John D. Rockfeller or JP Morgan.
Very briefly, for it's a beautiful summer Sunday morning here and I ought to be outside enjoying it, I have more difficulties with your style than with your content. Broadly speaking, I don't disagree with the thrust of your writing. (As I have noted elsewhere.) I do take issue with the way it is expressed though. There is little point in writing a technically correct assessment of a historical period if it is unclear to the general reader. It is the duty of the historian, above all else, to communicate. Does this mean we should dumb things down? No! Does it mean that we should strive to present the understandings of history in the clearest, simplest language possible? Absolutely! (This is, of course, a "do as I say, don't do as I do"! My own prose is far from blameless sometimes.) Notice that all the best historians are capable of expressing themselves such that the intelligent layman can read their work with interest and follow them into surprisingly arcane conceptual territory without great difficulty. If we are to introduce the idea of differing concepts of "labour" and "land" between cultures (as we most certainly should) , it is not sufficient to simply mention them, or even define them - they need to be expressed in such a way that the imaginary reader (who may well be highly intelligent and an expert in some other, unrelated field, but must be assumed to be a non-historian) can easily grasp the essence.
Lots more to say on this theme, but I can hear the wrens calling. I must join them.

Tannin 01:48 Jan 5, 2003 (UTC)

A very quick PS. The introduction of technical terms, especially terms from political economy which have become loaded with emotive associations in the minds of most non-specialists, is something to avoid except where absolutely essential. Just as writers on mathematics have learned the hard way that littering texts for the general reader with mathematical formulae is a sure-fire shortcut to eternal obscurity, so too must the historian be aware that many of his most useful terms are counter-productive in non-specialist contexts. In fact, it is worse for the historian than it is for the mathematician: readers see a formula and just skip over it because they don't understand it or don't want to stop and puzzle it out before continuing, but readers see text laced with terms like "multinational", "capitalism", "accumulation of surpluses", "inalienable", "commodities", and "bourgeois" and, unless the terms are used sparingly, and in a way that makes their technical meaning clear (as opposed to their emotion-laden common meanings) they recoil in horror. Readers don't understand mathemetician's technical expressions (their formulae). Readers misunderstand political economist's technical expressions (words like those listed above) - which is a good deal worse. Tannin

Complete change of subject. I have tracked down three biographies of Tippoo Tib, under the variant spelling, "Tippu Tip" (actually this seems to be the more common spelling - maybe I should change the article to reflect this.) One was written in 1903, another at about the same time by Tippoo Tib himself, and the last one is more recent: Leda Farrant, Tippu Tip and the East African Slave Trade, Hamish Hamilton, 1975. It's out of print. Tannin