INTRODUCTION TO THE CONGO QUESTION:
The British
Connection
by Frederick YAMUSANGIE
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a pleasure for me to be in front of you and I must admit
I feel privileged being here to talk about one of the saddest
part of Congolese history and its connection to Britain in
bringing about a solution. I would be as brief as possible
and other information would come during the debates afterward.
When I was approached to give this talk, I saw it as an opportunity,
which one should not miss.
I think there is no need for me to start at the beginning
of colonization of Congo. We all know about it.
What I thought I should focus today is the link between the
struggle of the Congolese and the support of Britain. I mean
British people. This is mainly because we are in London. We
are here because of the problem that is related to the quest
of Congolese Human Right; the problem, which is keeping many
of us looking for a long lasting solution. Although its form
varied from one generation to another, Congolese people I
have come across are continuously saying “We are not
free… We are not independent… The term genocide
should also be applied into our case….”
So that led me to a personal dedication in finding the Denominateur
Commun to the problems of Congolese since 1885, which I call
The Congo Question.
In his book French Lesson In Africa, Peter Biddlecombe, a
British writer, said, “Zaire is Britain’s biggest
trading partner in French – speaking Africa, but we
don't seem to enjoy the amicable relation Zaire has with so
many other countries. Which is doubly odd because if it hadn't
been for Zaire, or at least Zaire gold, Britain might not
have won the last war. For Belgians lent Zaire gold to the
British to enable them, in the dark days when they stood alone,
to buy armaments from the States.
In this state of affaire, I would like to explain why I always
place Britain at the centre of The Congo Question.
At the end of nineteen century, a young man of European descent
was given a job in Congo. What he saw there affected his all
being. He wanted to expose what he discovered in Congo of
King Leopold II. When he turned his energy into writing, that
young man became the person we all know today as the British
Novelist Joseph Conrad. He decided to bring what he saw in
Congo to a wider audience. The cruelties inflicted to Congolese
in the name of production and his own experience in Congo
became the basis of his masterpiece the novella Heart of Darkness.
As said Albert Camus, a French novelist, “In such a
world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it
is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the
executioners.”
Joseph Conrad, as a thinking person, knew where he should
stand.
A t the turn of the century almost one hundred years ago
after the rise of Western imperialism in Africa and in the
time of the exploitation of the Kingdom of Kongo, nearby kingdoms
as well as neighboring lands, were branded Congo Free State;
it became almost as natural seeing a Congolese being brutalized,
humiliated or even killed than expecting a hot day in Congo
itself, in the name of productivity or industrial capitalism.
Maybe the term Free in Congo Free State was a Carta Blanca
to those involved in the project as administrators in whatever
they did in the name of bringing ‘Light' into ‘Darkness',
in which we saw the natives being stripped of their human
dignity.
The horror of that inhumane treatment of the Congolese in
the hands of the Belgians at the time, according to Michela
Wrong, in her book In the Footstep of Mr. Kurtz , left approximately
ten million Congolese dead ; which is also confirmed by the
Congolese journalist, Norbert X Mbu – Mputu in his book
Cent ans d' Evangelisation du Mai-Ndombe (Diocese d'Inongo)
Par les Pères de Scheut , by the Belgian priest Father
Daniel Van Groewheghe in his book Du Sang Sur Les Lianes ,
and also in other books such as the King Leopold's Ghost by
Adam Honchschild.
This may confirm that the exploitation of Congo by King Leopold
II was among the biggest and most horrific genocides in the
last hundred years.
By writing his novella Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad started
a consciousness related to The Congo Question. Here in Britain,
it became acceptable and fashionable to defend the human right
of Congolese. It is beyond the scope of this speech to go
on details about all the people who became associated to the
cause of Congolese.
The publication of that novella brought about the need to
defend the human right of Congolese. And the struggle took
a different momentum when people such as E. D. Morel, Sir
Roger Casement and William Sheppard joined it. Morel was the
one who stood out the most.
E.D. Morel was a British national and a critic of the Belgian
government policies in Congo Free State. His discoveries of
Leopold II's exploitation came from his insider experience
working as a clerk for Elder Demptser, a Liverpool-based shipping
line, in Britain. When he found the discrepancies between
the report (with regard to amounts of import/export goods)
compiled by Congo Free State and his own findings, his conscience
was challenged. He then quit his job and devoted his time
and energy to express his growing concerns about the treatment
of natives in Congo and other part of Africa. He wrote many
books and pamphlets that openly accused Leopold's Congo Free
State of violating human rights and of slaughter. He also
published the picture of Congolese with mutilated hands to
give the liberation of Congolese a different twist.
The reaction to those pictures in Britain was overwhelming.
It resulted in the formation of a movement known as The Congo
Reform Association, which was co-founded by Sir Roger Casement
and E.D. Morel himself. Most popular individuals of the time
joined the struggled as Mr Morel was clever enough to publish
those pictures in his newspapers.
I think it is an example for today's Congolese editors and
journalist to follow.
And then Britain became the centre of the Congolese liberation
movement. Many great minds of the time joined the struggle.
The people such as Mark Twain and Sir Arthur Canon Doyle became
a part of it.
My friends, I must assure you that there is power in writing;
and many people here in Britain are ready to help the Congolese
in the quest for solving The Congo Question.
There are here in Britain those people who are ready to sacrifice
their life for the Congolese cause. One of the questions the
Congolese should ask themselves is “Are we using the
right format in trying to connect with our British allies?”
So for something that started as a small book called Heart
of Darkness and later on created such support from the British
in the cause of the Congolese, there should be a need in coping
it. And I can assure you that although dormant; the Congolese
still have their vital support within the British people.
For some reason Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is unknown
by le commun de mortel in Congo today. And I urge all Congolese
people today to read Heart of Darkness.
Heart of Darkness is the tale of Charles Marlow, an English
seaman, who went to the Congo. Marlow, the fictional character
and the narrator, told his adventure to his friends on board
a cruising yawl called the Nellie on the river Thames overlooking
Gravesend while it was immobile.
Early in his tale, he points out to his friends “The
conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away
from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter
noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look
into it too much.”
He then sums up the ethos of the imperial enterprise in “They
were no colonists; their administration was merely a squeeze,
and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors, and for
that you want only brute force – nothing to boast of,
when you have it, since your strength is just an accident
arising from the weakness of the others. They grabbed what
they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was
just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale,
and men going at it blind – as is very proper for those
who tackle a darkness …”
Are those problems, expressed by Joseph Conrad in Heart of
Darkness, still alive today? That is the question.
According to my dear friend Professor Yuko Kurahashi, those
problems still exist.
Quoting from her speech in the Conrad Society (UK) thirtieth
international conference under the leadership of Dr Keith
Carabine, Professor Kurahashi said, “Coltan is used
to manufacture cellular phones and laptop computers –
so today it is a very important commodity. Are the Congolese
being fairly treated by those who want coltan? Under the colonization
of Leopold II and the Belgian government, natural resources
such as Ivory and Rubber were extracted. Today it is coltan.
… It is very important to realize that we have been
exploiting others and their resources, and that with today's
technology the process may be more subtle but no less dangerous.”
Although some of us are now aware of the link between the
extraction of coltan and the misery of the Congolese in the
East of their country, we are allowing ourselves to be ‘blinded'
by the comfort that brings the gadgets such mobile phones
and laptops. Are we not???
Talking about the slaughter of the Congolese in the hands
of the Belgian of the time, I would like to get a quotation
from a letter that Joseph Conrad sent to Sir Roger Casement,
“ And the fact remains that in 1903, seventy five years
or so after the abolition of the slave trade (because it was
cruel) there exists in Africa a Congo State, created by the
act of European powers where ruthless, systematic cruelty
towards the blacks in the basis of administration, and bad
faith towards all the other states the basis of commercial
policy .”
There is a passage in the book French Lesson in Africa, although
it should not be attributed to the author but it is worthwhile
pointing it out. It says “… And probably because
the last thing we want is for Africans to do things for themselves.
Just think what chaos a self-sufficient Africa would cause
to the world's agriculture and industry.”
Can these last phrases sum up the new attitudes of the Congolese
long-time allies, I hope not. Or it is because the Congolese
themselves are not using the right format in propagating their
problems.
That is an open question….
To conclude, I would like to say that we are living in period
of greater opportunities. Anything is possible. We should
be ready to open our hearts and minds to greater and greater
possibilities and also to be prepared to any eventuality.
We are living in the information age. Information is becoming
available at the click of a mouse. I believe the conscientiousness
that led to the formation of The Congo Reform Association
in Britain, is still alive.
Thank you.
This speech was made during the Conference held by Wake Up
Congo in London.
Frederick Kambemba Yamusangie is a novelist, playwright and
poet who was born and partly brought up in Zaire (now known
as the Democratic Republic of Congo) in Africa. He studied
communication engineering at the University of Kent at Canterbury
in England and now lives in Essex, United Kingdom. He is the
author of Full Circle (iUniverse Inc., 2003, Lincoln, Nebraska,
USA) and Beneath the Blue Sky: A Short Book of Poetry (Baltimore,
PublishAmerica, 2005, 79p)
Info about Yamusangie:
http://www.congovision.com/livres_mputu.html
CongoVision
26/4/2006
http://www.congovision.com/nouvelles/yamusangie1.html
|
