Africa -China Review Africa -China Cooperation and Transformation
By: Mweusi Karake
There is an old Greek fable often attributed to a Greek story teller and fabulist Aesop who lived more than half a century BC; died in Delpli Greece in 564 BC!, Aesop’s birth date is unknown but that is irrelevant. The fable has been given different tittles, but my most favorite of the Aesop’s Fables: is “The Mice in Council”. It goes as follows:
0nce upon a time all the Mice met together in Council, and discussed the best means of securing themselves against the attacks of the cat. After several suggestions had been debated, a young Mouse of some standing and experience got up and said, “I think I have hit upon a plan which will ensure our safety in the future, provided you approve and carry it out. It is that we should fasten a bell round the neck of our enemy, the cat, which will by its tinkling warn us of its approach.” This proposal was warmly applauded, quickly acclaimed, but just before the final adoption, an old Mouse got upon its feet and said, I agree with you all, that the plan before us is an admirable one: but may I ask, “who is going to bell the cat”? And the mice looked at each other, and having failed to find a volunteer, each slowly varnished. That is a story dating back to 500 BC, and as at 2020 AD, the cats still hunt the mice and each mouse is on its own.
The moral of the story:
Scholars of philosophy and literature, would create the moral of this story. Unlike Arithmetic where one plus two equals three; literature and Philosophy allow several “correct” answers! That in an exam would score one hundred percent.
In the above feeble based on the final outcomes; the following morals could all be correct:
- The most obvious: it is easier said than done!
- The less daring: don’t wage a war that you know you can’t win.
- The most decisive: If you decide that you cannot fight; your fate is entirely in the hands of your oppressor.
The young mouse proposed to “bell the cat”, the old wise mouse asked who was up to the task, and all the mice withdrew. Each mouse was looking at the individual’s high risk involved in trying to “bell the cat”. The council did not consider the fact that if they all attacked the cat, and try to” bell” it, its ability to kill all of them was zero. In every war there is collateral damage. Unless individuals are willing to die for a common cause, each individual will die separately.
Below I will use just one African example, for it is a herculean task to exhaust injustices done to Africa.
The Case of Democratic Republic of Congo:
A private Fiefdom
Whereas all imperial powers were cruel and illegal, the case of Congo was unique in that Congo became a private property of an individual!
The craving of King Leopold II, to benefit from the Congo started with his interaction with, a very young English “ explorer” and journalist, Henry Morton Stanley, who just in his 20s was based in Central Africa. King Leopold deployed him to the Congo in 1879, to meet with native chiefs, who through bribes, coercion and often force, made them to sign a deal with the king based thousands of miles away on a different continent.
The deal signed in the language the native chiefs did not understand, allowed Belgium to acquire title deeds to Congo’s lands. During the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, popularly branded as the scramble for Africa, where different European countries, shared among themselves parts of Africa, Belgium’s acquisitions were formalized. Belgium’s hegemony was recognized officially and the many chiefdoms merged to form a huge piece of land that was to be known as Congo Free State. Eventually, Leopold II, converted Congo into his own private fiefdom known as the Congo Free State. Although there was nothing “free” about it. Unless it meant ‘’Free hold”.
Belgium’s rule in what was the Congo Free State, now Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC), was particularly cruel, exclusively between 1885 and 1908, when the country, was run as a private fiefdom by King Leopold II. The territory under Leopold’s control exceeded 2,600,000 km2 (1,000,000 sq miles).
Belgium was still a young kingdom; King Leopold II, being its second king after his father Leopold the first. Taking into account the fact that modern day Belgium is only, 30,689 sq kms, The megalomaniac Belgian king, whose country had just acquired a chunk of African soil about 85 times the size of his kingdom.
It is not surprising therefore, that Leopold originally found it difficult to run such a vast land amid financial problems, the Congo Free State was ruled by a tiny cadre of administrators, not only from Belgium but drawn from across Europe. Initially, the property proved unprofitable and inadequate, with the state always close to bankruptcy.
The different native chiefs therefore; if they were united they could have reclaimed their land, but each on his own like the “mice” mentioned above, were helpless.
Rubber boom-Rubber curse.
Rubber producing trees grow in rain forests mainly found in Africa and South America. The Congolese like other human being, inhabiting rain forests had found various uses for rubber for thousands of years. However, rubber became a vital natural resource with the rise of modern industrial society in the 19th century. In 1839, Charles Goodyear, improved the process called vulcanization, which modified rubber so that it would support extreme temperatures. It was then that natural rubber became suitable for producing plastic horse pipes, tyres, industrial bands, shoes, shoe soles, and other products.
The popularization of bicycles made demand for rubber even more, leading to what became the “rubber boom”. The boom would then be accentuated after 1900 by the development of the automobile industry and the expansion of the tire industry to produce car tyres. To the people of Congo however, the rubber boom became a curse.
Congolese Children whose hands were amputated because their families did not produce enough rubber! Photo: katsafrica.wordpress.com
King Leopold, personal estate, was now no more potentially bankrupt, but was instead rubber mine. He forced the Congolese to work under particularly obnoxious conditions. Men were allocated deliverable quotas, those who could not meet their quotas had their hands and feet chopped off, to enforce the quota even more, wives and children of those who could not meet the quotas were severely punished, at time an entire village was erased!
The results? Instead of fighting the oppressor, Men enlisted entire family members to meet the quota. The rubber harvest in the Congo Free State directly contributed to Belgium’s rising economic power.
The demand for natural rubber which was abundant in the territory, created a radical shift in the 1890. To facilitate the extraction and export of rubber, all “uninhabited” land in the Congo was nationalized, with the majority distributed to private companies as concessions were kept by the state.
Different records indicate that Slave labor to develop vast rubber reserves, maiming and torture cost the lives of between 10 million and 15 million people. Well beyond Jews killed by Nazi Germany. Some claim that actually the number of those killed was up to 20 million.
Watch this space for part II of the article in our next publication.
Mweusi Karake is a veteran journalist and former head of Public Relations/Corporate Communication at the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).For comments or opinion email us on; info@africachinareview.com