How Perspectives Can Be Warped: Belgian Colonization of Congo & Social Darwinism
Belgium’s colonization of the Congo occurred during a unique time period where shifting dynamics between global powers following industrialization shaped the differing economic and political structures between Africa and Europe. Following the Berlin Conference of 1885, where Europeans (with no African representation) gathered to decide how to “carve up” Africa, delegates recognized the Congo Free State as a free trade area under King Leopold’s personal control. Belgium (and Europe more generally) held great advantages over the Congo (and Africa more generally) — in medicine, transportation, and military technology (the maxim gun) — that helped facilitate colonization. In 1885, Leopold II of Belgium officially took over the Congo (which gave Leopold a land 76 times larger than Belgium), and he enforced economic and political policies to the point where natives and their resources were exploited. While claiming these drastic changes were in the best interest of Africans, Europeans treated Africans as second-class citizens in their own communities — they could not attend hospitals, schools, and social clubs built by Europeans — with justifications rooted in racists theories. Moreover, the Congo was abused economically, as Europeans had 42 percent of the colony’s income while only accounting for 110,000 people as compared with 13.5 million Congolese people. However, on June 30th, 1960, Congo achieved independence, and speeches given by King Baudouin (the king of the Belgiums from 1951 to 1993 and the great-grand-nephew of Leopold II) and by Patrick Lumumba (the newly-elected Prime Minister of the Congo) could not have displayed Congolese colonization in more stark ways. King Baudouin claimed Leopold had been a genius and created advanced infrastructure that ultimately resulted in happier lives for natives and unification of ethnic groups. On the other hand, Prime Minister Lumumba claimed natives underwent harassing slavery with wounds lasting for 80 years. While Lumumba viewed Belgium's colonization as detrimental to the Congolese people and the cause of eighty years of suffering, King Baudouin claimed Belgium's colonization brought civilization and prosperity to the Congo, because he believed, as his Belgium predecessors did, in Social Darwinism and European superiority. The contrast between these two leaders’ views of the history of the Congo exemplifies how limited perspectives can shift narratives of the same history and can give a swayed view of the truth.
Prime Minister Lumumba chose to directly remember the harms brought upon natives, as his perspective was centered on the Testimonies from the Congo Free State and the work of George Washington Williams. When Lumumba claimed that the “humiliating slavery” was the “fate [of the Congolese people] for eighty years of a colonial regime,” he reflects the first-hand accounts of those who were exploited. For instance, a Congolese interviewed by the Casement report claimed: “When the soldiers were sent to make us cut rubber, there were so many killed we got tired of burying.” The grueling imagery associated with this recount suggested how the colonization prioritized economic gain (rubber production) to the point where people were dying, which is depicted in Lumumba’s interpretation. Another example of the exploitation reflected in Lumumba’s speech is the recount of Mr. Kirby, an American missionary, where he recalls “the shooting down of 20 male Congolese to pay for a lost dog, the forcing of Congolese to drink from latrines, [and] the shooting down of handcuffed blacks.” This notion of exploitation and clear unjust treatment is clearly emphasized when Lumumba described the“… massacres where so many… brothers perished.” In this sense, Lumumba centered his perspective, where he ignored the positive effects (most of which were historically inaccurate) of colonization referenced by King Baudouin by choosing to specifically acknowledge and “trust” sources of similar nature to the Testimonies of the natives. Furthermore, Lumumba’s interpretation of the history reflected the “deceit, fraud, fraud, robberies, arson, murder, slave-trading, and general policy of cruelty” described by George Washington Williams, an American, in 1890. The harsh diction described Leopold’s unjust abuse of power which caused a sense of distrust from the deceit and fraud. Ultimately, Lumumba centered colonization as having completely negative effects, relying on sources with similar tone and mood to Testimonies and the perspective of Geroge Washington Williams to “form” his argument.
Contrastingly, King Baudouin viewed colonization as of great value to the Congolese, reflecting his “argument” through sources with European superiority beliefs, (or a Eurocentric viewpoint) such as King Leopold’s private letters and official documents of the Berlin Act of 1885. For instance, in his June 30th, 1960 speech, Baudouin points out that the post-colonization period brought “… ethnic groups together with one another,” while the pre-colonization period consisted of “odious slave trafficking that decimated its populations.” These descriptive differences show Baudouin’s perspective to be strictly concerning colonization’s benefits, and how there was a drastic positive change. Furthermore, Baudouin’s description of the pre-colonization period reflected the private letter of King Leopold — in 1883, Leopold commanded missionaries to “.. encourage [the Congolese] to love poverty” and ordered the missionaries to “…evangelize the savages.” Baudouin referenced these “savages,” crumpled by poverty, as the remnants of the slave trade. Moreover, this idea of turning the Congo from a nation hurt by the slave trade into a stronger nation centered Baudouin’s argument around the selections from the 1885 Berlin Act. In article VI, the Berlin Act states: “Each of the Powers binds itself to employ all the means at its disposal for putting an end to this trade and for punishing those who engage in it.” In a similar manner to the Berlin Conference, Baudouin centered his argument around benefiting the Congo from a previously terrible situation to one that has civilized, humanized, and advanced Congolese society. Also, Baudouin silenced and failed to acknowledge the perspective of Lumumba, as Baudouin only acknowledged prosperity and ignored the exploitation and dehumanization of Leopold’s rule as described in Lumumba’s interpretation. Baudouin seems to “trust” sources that reflect positive advancements and seems to “distrust” those who point out colonization’s truths of exploitation. From a historical perspective, Baudoin’s perspective is rooted in European superiority beliefs and Social Darwinism. After the industrial revolution, and the complete reversal in economic world dominance that created a “gap” between the European global powers and the “third-world” nations of China and India, Europeans started to gain beliefs to justify why whites were the superior race, and beliefs that the white man’s duty is to help civilize the savages of the African continent. In this sense, Baudouin remembers the Belgian Congo differently than Lumumba because of the “gap” created from the Industrial Revolution that ultimately synthesizes a Eurocentric perspective.
In the case of Belgium's colonization, King Baudouin of Belgium and Prime Minister Patrick Lumumba of the Congo describe different histories, despite Lumumba’s being far more historically accurate. However, Baudouin’s speech still has historical value. Baudouin (and arguably Lumumba, but to a far less extent) presents a limited narrative because he chose to focus on certain sources while neglecting others. Though one may argue these differences were indisputably affected by biases shaped by identity and positionality (namely, how Baudouin and Leopold are related by blood, and it would be in the best interest of Leopold to defend family), situating Lumumba and Baudouin in the historical time period after the Industrial Revolution — where some European believed in the gap was a natural cause and exposed their natural superiority — can help reveal these discrepancies in interpretation. More generally, though, there are many concrete historical examples where conflicting stories are told. Whether it is the story of America in 1492 being a heroic discovery by Columbus versus the exploitation of Native Americans, or, more recently, the varying perspectives on the President’s role in encouraging the storming of our nation’s capital, history can (and will) be told in different ways. While this may seem intimidating, considering all sources, — not hand-picking certain sources and not ignoring others — along with situating the time period in a historical perspective, checking for validity, bias, and limits, will help synthesize multiple perspectives that can help construe history in the most accurate lens possible.
