{"id":4087,"date":"2017-01-01T08:00:02","date_gmt":"2017-01-01T00:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=4087"},"modified":"2021-11-25T18:12:55","modified_gmt":"2021-11-25T10:12:55","slug":"167-you-are-not-free-if-others-are-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=4087","title":{"rendered":"167. You Are Not Free If Others Are Not"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is not this the fast that I choose:
\nto loose the bonds of injustice,
\nto undo the thongs of the yoke,
\nto let the oppressed go free,
\nand to break every yoke?<\/span><\/strong> [Isaiah 58:6<\/span><\/a>, NRSV<\/em>]<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[L] A father looking at the remains of his children.\u00a0 [R]\u00a0\u00a0Mutilated children in Congo under Leopold II.<\/span><\/p>\n

This picture shows a Congolese man, named Nsala,\u00a0photographed by English missionary Alice Seeley Harris. The man had arrived at her mission quarters clutching a parcel that contained what was left of his five-year-old daughter who had been killed and dismembered as a punishment when his village failed to meet the rubber quotas demanded by the imperial regime of Leopold II, the King of Belgium.<\/span><\/p>\n

Having \u201cformally\u201d acquired rights to the Congo territory at the\u00a0\u201cConference of Berlin\u201d\u00a0in 1885, Leopold II made the land his private property. History would have been kinder to him had he been a more decent human being towards the Congolese people. But history does not forget. During his mad reign over Congo, his campaign of terror had millions murdered and countless thousands mutilated, many of whom were children. He has been labeled the butcher of Congo, the deranged master of a horrendous genocide, the architect of the African holocaust in Congo. In King Leopold\u2019s\u00a0Ghost<\/em>, Adam Hochschild estimates that over ten million Congolese died during the years that Leopold and subsequently the Belgian Government controlled the country. It is also estimated that perhaps this Belgian holocaust claimed more lives than the Nazi\u2019s, but no one was ever brought to book and the crime is largely unknown now.\u00a0In fact, Hitler himself was encouraged by the fact that \u201cnobody\u201d was talking about the Congo genocide by the time he came onto the world stage.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> Newspaper cartoon depicting King Leopold II as a snake twisting off the arm of a Congo slave<\/span><\/p>\n

But history does not forget.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the level of the human person, the truth is even more biting: No one is free if others are not<\/strong>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Freedom fighters and social activists know that well.<\/span><\/p>\n

Christianity might have brought some surface civilization to the Caucasians in Europe and North America, but their records of extreme racism and slavery, rape and murder, topped by horrendous genocides, testify to their own ultimate enslavement. No parade of nice linen and jewelry, high teas and genteel banquets, or impressive titles and crowns can hide the darkness of the heart<\/em> of ruthless colonizers. History never tires of uncovering colossal abuse of humanity by self-proclaimed gentlemen of high society the darkness of whose hearts qualified them as megalomaniacs. The infamous King Leopold II of Belgium, the personal colonizer of Congo, was one such pathetic and ultimate slave of a dark heart.<\/span><\/p>\n

River Congo is a monstrously deep and long river in Africa, by which the country is named. A Bantu word, \u201cCongo\u201d means \u201cmountains\u201d as the river flows through elevated terrain covered by rich rainforests and jungle heavily laden with rubber trees, minerals, gold and diamonds. The immense richness of the land has been an endless source of avarice for the modern industrial world of Europe and thus a curse to the millions of local inhabitants living there at the time. The European need for minerals and agricultural commodities fired a great surge of European colonialism in the race to carve up and subjugate the vast continent of Africa in the 19th Century. At the time, the Europeans knew no better than to bleed every colony dry. As the ends justified the means, slavery and inhumanity ruled the day. In schemes of short-term folly, colonial powers slaughtered and plundered the multitudes. King Leopold II of Belgium belonged to that class of inhuman European colonizers who carved up Africa for mob-looting legitimated by an international club.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1908, after an international outcry, Leopold was forced to hand over his territory to the Belgian Government. They controlled the Congo until independence in 1959, and left it in utter ruin.<\/span><\/p>\n

George Washington Williams<\/a>, a one-time American Civil War soldier was among the first in 1890 to expose Leopold II\u2019s atrocities in the Congo to the outside world. You may like to google the full letter he wrote to King Leopold titled \u201cAn Open Letter to His Serene Majesty Leopold II, King of the Belgians and Sovereign of the Independent State of Congo By Colonel, The Honorable Geo. W. Williams, of the United States of America.\u201d<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

At the end of a list of ten charges against Leopold II and his government, the lengthy letter concluded on the following:<\/span><\/p>\n