King Leopold
Few atrocities in the history of our world have been brought to the attention of the general public with out reluctance. It is as if a great guilt is held by those who stood by and did nothing, our home nation included. My historical perspective was dramatically changed by this book, more so than any historical book I have ever read. In grade school through high school and even AP European History I was never taught about this horrific event in the history of human beings. Perhaps by teaching it, we are simply acknowledging the fact that the situation would have been far less dramatic, and possibly even prevented, had we, as Americans, stepped in, had President Harrison taken the letters seriously. It is disappointing morally to read of killings this atrocious but it is appalling to realize that technically, by not consenting to teach this in public schools, the individuals in charge are still attempting to cover-up this series of events, although hopefully not consciously. Although I'm no conspiracy theorist, more or less, not learning about genocide of this proportion leads me to believe the powers-that-be still hold a sprinkle of guilt about the subject matter.
I believe that this is mainly because an admittance of other countries abusing the African people would obscure the horror of the institution of American slavery. The power of this novel displays itself through its revealing knowledge and information that allows for new understandings and insight into such an uncharted territory. I enjoyed the fact that Hochschild included the personal voices of the victims of this violence as opposed to losing them in the larger narrative, which is feat I realize is very difficult to accomplish. King Leopold wanted nothing other than to control the monetary income of the Congo in order to keep up with other European colonizing powers. This topic stuck out in King Leopold's Ghost to me as a historically altering fact. Maybe the world at large just doesn't know about the situation and perhaps it doesn't want to know. Overall I immensely enjoyed this book more so than the books previous to it. There were many people who knew of this happening and yet did nothing. Another tragedy for the people of that area of the world wouldn't be welcome. As a reader, this brought up a number of questions, which seem typical of this type of violence. King Leopold used many tools to accomplish this goal including religion, his stature, manipulation, connections, and he was very willing to use all of them for his own selfish greed. is is that the people in charge of grade school curriculum are as in the dark as the general public on this subject. This genocide as a byproduct of imperialism is not as propagated as such incidences as the Holocaust or the reign of Lenin. I appreciated the fact that Hochschild centered much of his story on the brave souls that helped out these people, but he also referenced to those that didn't help or even participated; to those that stood by and did nothing, including entire monarchies. Initially I felt that the entire concept of this genocide was hidden because of our American history with slavery and unwillingness to accept another countries inhumanity towards that demographic.
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Acceptance Essays
