Come Back, Colonialism, All is Forgiven

[Leonel]

Come Back, Colonialism, All is Forgiven

Le Blanc and I are into our 500th kilometer on the river when he turns my view of modern African history on its head. "We should just give it all back to the whites," the riverboat captain says. "Even if you go 1,000 kilometers down this river, you won't see a single sign of development. When the whites left, we didn't just stay where we were. We went backwards."

Le Blanc earns his keep sailing the tributaries of the Congo River. He's 40 years old, and his real name is Malu-Ebonga Charles — he got his nickname, and his green eyes and dark honey skin, from a German grandfather who married a Congolese woman in what was then the Belgian Congo. If his unconventional genealogy gave him a unique view of the Congo's colonial past, it is his job on the river, piloting three dugouts lashed together with twine and mounted with outboards, that has informed his opinion of the Democratic Republic of Congo's present. "The river is the artery of Congo's economy," he says. "When the Belgians and the Portuguese were here, there were farms and plantations — cashews, peanuts, rubber, palm oil. There was industry and factories employing 3,000 people, 5,000 people. But since independence, no Congolese has succeeded. The plantations are abandoned." Using a French expression literally translated as "on the ground," he adds: "Everything is par terre."

It's true that our journey through 643 kilometers of rainforest to where the Maringa River joins the Congo at Mbandaka, has been an exploration of decline. An abandoned tug boat here; there, a beached paddle steamer stripped of its metal sides to a rusted skeleton; several abandoned palm oil factories, their roofs caved in, their walls disappearing into the engulfing forest, their giant storage tanks empty and rusted out. The palms now grow wild and untended on the riverbanks and in the villages we pass, the people dress in rags, hawk smoked black fish and bushmeat, and besiege us with requests for salt or soap. There are no schools here, no clinics, no electricity, no roads. It can take a year for basic necessities ordered from the capital, Kinshasa, nearly 2,000 kilometers downstream, to make it here — if they make it at all. At one point we pass a cargo barge that has taken three months to travel the same distance we will cover in two days. We stop in the hope of buying some gasoline, but all we get from the vessel are rats.

Even amid the morbid decay, it comes as a shock to hear Le Blanc mourn colonialism. The venal, racist scramble by Europeans to possess Africa and exploit its resources found its fullest expression in the Congo. In the late 19th century, Belgium's King Leopold made a personal fiefdom of the central African territory as large as all of Western Europe. From it, he extracted a fortune in ivory, rubber, coffee, cocoa, palm oil and minerals such as gold and diamonds. Unruly laborers working in conditions of de facto slavery had their hands chopped off; the cruelty of Belgian rule was premised on the idea that Congo and its peoples were a resource to be exploited as efficiently as possible. Leopold's absentee brutality set the tone for those that followed him in ruling the Congo — successive Belgian governments and even the independent government of Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled from 1965 to 1997 and who, in a crowded field, still sets the standard for repression and corruption among African despots.

Le Blanc isn't much concerned with that history; he lives in the present, in a country where education is a luxury and death is everywhere. Around 45,000 people die each month in the DRC as a result of the social collapse brought on by civil war, according to a study released in January by the International Rescue Committee. It estimated the total loss of life between 1998 and April 2007 at 5.4 million. For many Congolese like Le Blanc, the difficulties of today blot out the cruelties of the past. "On this river, all that you see — the buildings, the boats — only whites did that. After the whites left, the Congolese did not work. We did not know how to. For the past 50 years, we've just declined." He pauses. "They took this country by force," he says, with more than a touch of admiration. "If they came back, this time we'd give them the country for free."

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1713275,00.html

Colonialism; Was it really that bad?

 

[Communisto]

As much as it sucks, it's true. Even the most brutal European occupations were better than the current situation in a lot of Africa.

However, I don't think bringing colonialism back is the answer.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

Colonialism; Was it really that bad?

It helped to exasberate many of the ethnic conflicts taking place today. While we didn't tell them to go shoot each other, we certainly didn't help by extending severe discrimination to almost all corners of Africa.

Rwanda is a good example of this.

 

[mrt144]

i think the major flaw in the analysis is that white people and not major european nations are being heralded as the development factor. European colonials by and large happened to be white. I say bring back europeans of all colors. and chinese too.

 

[Princeps]

Get rid of third world debt, don't support reactionary forces, and so forth. Then you'll have some real progress. Colonialism didn't go anywhere, it just changed shape: and arguably got worse.

 

[Elrohir]

If they've regressed, then they simply regressed from what Europeans brought. Much of Africa is effectively very similar to what it was pre-Colonization. Only instead of spears, now they've got AK-47's.

I don't know what to do about Africa, but I doubt sending the army to take it over is a good idea. Colonialism sucked, and if the current situation is actually worse - which I'm no so sure of, knowing as I do how badly the Belgian Congo was run - that's all the more reason not to try it again.

 

[ArneHD]

I think part of the problem was that, as far as I know, there were few black administrators, once the Europeans left, there was no one with the administrative skill to keep the trains running, the plantations farming and the mines churning. Or for that matter, the schools educating, the taxes payed or the water works pumping.

I think this is why much of Africa has "failed" today.

 

[GoodGame]

Uniformly, maybe not. In specific situations it was equivalent to slavery, except the difference was it was slavery in your own country.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1713275,00.html

Colonialism; Was it really that bad?

 

[amadeus]

Told you so!

Get rid of third world debt,

Yeah, defaulting on debts really worked in South America. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me 10 times, shame on me.

 

[Arwon]

Colonialism didn't go anywhere, it just changed shape: and arguably got worse.

Bingo. Thread over.

 

[Communisto]

Bingo. Thread over.

And yet, the question of "was the direct rule of Europeans better than the autonomous rule of Africans or worse?" has not been fully discussed. But who cares as long as you can drop in for one liners!

 

[Phlegmak]

Recolonizing Africa isn't an answer to anything. The Africans simply have to take care of themselves from now on.

 

[Pannonius]

They finally realised the truth. And now they want the Europeans back. The problem is, Europeans don't want them back.

 

[ArneHD]

They finally realised the truth. And now they want the Europeans back. The problem is, Europeans don't want them back.

I'm not so sure that, say, France would decline an offer to take back it's African holdings. Perhaps Belgium or Portugal would refuse, but I don't think many others would.

Edit: Now that I think about it, France in particular would be keen to have their holdings back. Algeria was an integral part of France right up until the point it became independent.

 

[warpus]

Poland would likely take back it's former holdings in the U.S., if asked.

We would increase the quality of life in that wretched country by leaps and bounds.. but nooooo, the Americans think they know better.

 

[emzie]

Recolonizing Africa isn't an answer to anything. The Africans simply have to take care of themselves from now on.

To quote my great uncle, a colonialist in Kenya, "the darkies cannot govern themselves"

What you're suggesting is akin to me coming into your home, taking everything, from your electronics to your plumbing, and then saying "well life dealt you a hard hand, best of luck with it"

There's no nation insurance.

 

[amadeus]

To quote my great uncle, a colonialist in Kenya, "the darkies cannot govern themselves"

What you're suggesting is akin to me coming into your home, taking everything, from your electronics to your plumbing, and then saying "well life dealt you a hard hand, best of luck with it"

There's no nation insurance.

What did the British take from Kenya that they haven't paid back tenfold? As far as I know, there weren't any railroads, schools, ports, office buildings, or factories in Kenya prior to colonization.

 

[Bill3000]

Investment, education for proper administration, and reorganization into non-divide-and-conquer states is what is needed, not simply colonialism.

With that said, I absolutely love the false dichotomy here.

 

[Pannonius]

To quote my great uncle, a colonialist in Kenya, "the darkies cannot govern themselves"

What you're suggesting is akin to me coming into your home, taking everything, from your electronics to your plumbing, and then saying "well life dealt you a hard hand, best of luck with it"

There's no nation insurance.

They had electronics in pre-colonial Africa? And plumbing too?

 

[emzie]

What did the British take from Kenya that they haven't paid back tenfold? As far as I know, there weren't any railroads, schools, ports, office buildings, or factories in Kenya prior to colonization.

Oh I didn't mean it in that sense... I was trying to explain a colonialist attitude!

Kenya is actually quite well off compared to Africa. My Grandmother's siblings were teachers and doctors. They might have not allowed locals to grow crops, but it wasn't bad at all compared to what's been left in Western Africa.

That's not to say that life in a Nairobi slum is fun....

They had electronics in pre-colonial Africa? And plumbing too?

Replace 'electronics' with 'resource wealth' and 'plumbing' with 'infrastructure'