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Congo: White King
Red
Rubber, Black Death
A Belgium King’s Sins Revealed in Film
Who were the most brutal wielders of machetes
in African history responsible for the amputation of thousands
of human hands?
Under-age black combatants looking for
revenge and survival by joining militia groups in unstable
economies?
No. They were greedy Europeans who wanted
easy fortunes derived from the sale of rubber for tires for the
new auto factories that sprang up at the turn of the twentieth
century.
By the time the Europeans were finished with
the economic subjugation of the part of Africa called the Congo,
an estimated 13 million Africans had been killed—more than
twice the deaths attributed to Adolph Hitler during the World
War II era.
This little known and often concealed
genocidal fury is brilliantly explored in the film, Congo:
White King, Red Rubber, Black Death, which will have its
first major theatrical screening in the New York City area from
October 21-28 at the Quad Cinema at 34 West 13th St. Five
showings are scheduled each day, starting at 1 p.m. to 10:55
p.m. to accommodate varied audiences.
Frederick Hudson, marketing consultant for
the distributor, Artmattan Productions, noted that – the
distributors view this film not as a commercial enterprise, but
as a mission, a calling for the exploration of the genesis of
the African continent’s current woes. Previous screenings of
the film in small venues were extremely well received and the
community called for the messages to be shared with all sectors
of the community. Schools, churches, human rights groups are
encouraged to take advantage of group rates to see this
historical expose.
Leopold of Belgium was considered to be one f
the first genocidal rulers of Africa. His devastation set into
motion a shadow of colonialism which still casts darkness on the
richest continent in the world in terms of natural resources.
Audience members in the past saw many current parallel with the
global crises that challenge our world today.
By the same token, there is a message of
redemption of the human spirit in the movie when the human
rights movement began in Belgium in response to journalists’
dogged determination to tell of the horrors that came from one
man’s desire to degrade mankind.
Ticket information and travel information can
be obtained at 212-255-8800. For group sales reservations, call
877-378-7109.
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Read
also Esther Iverem's
Revealing
Africa’s Hidden Genocide
posted 21 October 2005* * *
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The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo
Film
Review by Kam Williams
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King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed,
Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa
By Adam Hochschild
King
Leopold of Belgium, writes historian Adam
Hochschild in this grim history, did not
much care for his native land or his
subjects, all of which he dismissed as
"small country, small people." Even so, he
searched the globe to find a colony for
Belgium, frantic that the scramble of other
European powers for overseas dominions in
Africa and Asia would leave nothing for
himself or his people. When he eventually
found a suitable location in what would
become the Belgian Congo, later known as
Zaire and now simply as Congo, Leopold set
about establishing a rule of terror that
would culminate in the deaths of 4 to 8
million indigenous people, "a death toll,"
Hochschild writes, "of Holocaust
dimensions." |
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Those who survived
went to work mining ore or harvesting rubber, yielding a
fortune for the Belgian king, who salted away billions
of dollars in hidden bank accounts throughout the world.
Hochschild's fine book of historical inquiry, which
draws heavily on eyewitness accounts of the
colonialists' savagery, brings this little-studied
episode in European and African history into new light.—Gregory
McNamee
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Rape Crisis in Congo Tied to Mining Activity—Washington
Eve Ensler, author of
The Vagina Monologues, helped launch an
international awareness raising campaign called V-Day in
2007 to end sexual violence in eastern Congo. UNICEF
estimates that hundreds of thousands of girls have been
raped in the last decade in the two eastern provinces of
North Kivu and South Kivu. "Corporate greed, fueled by
capitalist consumption, and the rape of women have
merged into a single nightmare," Eve Ensler said at U.S.
Senate hearings on May 13. "Women's bodies are the
battleground of an economic war." Ensler said that
international mining companies with significant
investments in eastern Congo value economic interest
over the bodies of women by trading with rebels who use
rape as a tactic of war in areas rich in coltan, gold
and tin.
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"Military solutions are no longer an
option," she said. "All they do is bring
about the rape of more women." The United
States has invested more than $700 million
in humanitarian aid and peacekeeping to
Congo, according to the U.S. Department of
State.
Prendergast said this money will do nothing
to root out the economic causes of eastern
Congo's conflict and sexual violence.
He said
a comprehensive long-term strategy to combat
rape needs to change the economic calculus
of armed groups. Prendergast asked senators
to support the Congo Conflict Minerals Act,
which was introduced by Kansas Sen. Sam
Brownback, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and
Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold in April of
this year. |
The bill aims to
break the link between resource exploitation and armed
conflict in eastern Congo by requiring companies trading
minerals with Congo or neighboring states to disclose
mine locations and monitor the financing of armed groups
in eastern Congo's mineral-rich areas.
"The sooner the
illicit conflict minerals trade is eliminated, the
sooner the people of Congo will benefit from their own
resources," said Prendergrast. U.S. consumers,
Prendergrast said, can also help by pressuring major
electronic companies - from Apple to Sony - to certify
that cell phones, computers and other products contain
"conflict-free minerals," a campaign tactic popularized
by the Sierra Leone-based film
Blood Diamonds. Such a process would use a
tracking system for components, similar to that
developed in 2007 under the Kimberly Process. This
international certification scheme ensures that trade in
rough diamonds doesn't fuel war, as it did in Angola,
Cote d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and
Sierra Leone during the 1990s.
Germany has already
developed a pilot fingerprinting system for tin that
could be expanded to other minerals and help establish
certified trading chains, linking legitimate mining
sites to the international market.
Truthout
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Congo has attracted
attention in the media [as a place that is suffering]
systematic rape in war. One statistic quoted is 200,000
rapes since the beginning of the war 14 years ago, and
it is certainly an underestimate.
When in Congo, I met government representatives and
particularly women who had been raped and violated. It
was interesting but also disappointing - nothing is
getting better and more and more civilians are
committing rapes.
But I should be fair and say that there has been
progress, the government has introduced laws against
rape, it has a national plan and there is political
will. There is a lot to do to implement the legislation,
but now there is an ambitious legal ground to stand on
to be implemented by the police, judiciary and health
care.
Margot Wallstrom - "There Is Almost Total
Impunity for Rape in Congo"
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Heart of Darkness
By
Joseph Conrad
Missing
words have been restored and the entire
novel has been repunctuated in accordance
with Conrad’s style. The result is the first
published version of
Heart of Darkness that allows
readers to hear Marlow’s voice as Conrad
heard it when he wrote the story.
"Backgrounds and Contexts" provides readers
with a generous collection of maps and
photographs that bring the Belgian Congo to
life. Textual materials, topically arranged,
address nineteenth-century views of
imperialism and racism and include
autobiographical writings by Conrad on his
life in the Congo. |
New to the Fourth
Edition is an excerpt from Adam Hochschild’s recent
book,
King Leopold’s Ghost, as well as writings on
race by
Hegel,
Darwin, and
Galton. "Criticism" includes a wealth of new
materials, including nine contemporary reviews and
assessments of
Conrad and
Heart of Darkness [Contents]
and twelve recent essays by
Chinua Achebe,
Peter Brooks, Daphne Erdinast-Vulcan,
Edward Said, and
Paul
B. Armstrong, among others. Also new to this edition
is a section of writings on the connections between
Heart of Darkness and the film
Apocalypse Now by Louis K. Greiff, Margot
Norris, and Lynda J. Dryden. A Chronology and Selected
Bibliography are also included.
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B.B. King Thrill Is Gone /
B.B. King-The Thrill is Gone with lyrics
B.B. King - The Thrill Is Gone ft. Tracy Chapman /
B.B. King—The
Thrill Is Gone
B. B. King & Eric Clapton—The
Thrill Is Gone /
B.
B. King—The
Thrill Is Gone (1993)
B.B. King is the
greatest living exponent of the blues and considered by many to be the
most influential guitarist of the latter part of the 20th century. His
career dates back to the late forties and despite now being in his
eighties he remains a vibrant and charismatic live performer. B.B. King
has been a frequent visitor to the Montreux festival, appearing nearly
20 times, so choosing one performance was no easy task. This 1993
concert will surely rank as one of his finest at any venue. With a
superb backing band and a great set list its a must for any blues fan.
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The
Thrill is Gone
The thrill is gone
The thrill is gone away
The thrill is gone baby
The thrill is gone away
You know you done me wrong baby
And you'll be sorry someday
The thrill is gone
It's gone away from me
The thrill is gone baby
The thrill is gone away from me
Although I'll still live on
But so lonely I'll be
The thrill is gone
It's gone away for good
Oh, the thrill is gone baby
Baby its gone away for good
Someday I know I'll be over it all baby
Just like I know a good man should
You know I'm free, free now baby
I'm free from your spell
I'm free, free now
I'm free from your spell
And now that it's all over
All I can do is wish you well
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Super Rich: A Guide to Having it All
By Russell Simmons
Russell Simmons knows firsthand that
wealth is rooted in much more than the
stock
market. True wealth has more to do with
what's in your heart than what's in your
wallet. Using this knowledge, Simmons
became one of America's shrewdest
entrepreneurs, achieving a level of
success that most investors only dream
about. No matter how much material gain
he accumulated, he never stopped lending
a hand to those less fortunate. In
Super Rich, Simmons uses his rare
blend of spiritual savvy and
street-smart wisdom to offer a new
definition of wealth-and share timeless
principles for developing an unshakable
sense of self that can weather any
financial storm. As Simmons says, "Happy
can make you money, but money can't make
you happy." |
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Salvage the Bones
A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
On one level, Salvage the Bones is a simple story about a poor black family that’s about to be trashed by one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. What makes the novel so powerful, though, is the way Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy. The force that pushes back against Katrina’s inexorable winds is the voice of Ward’s narrator, a 14-year-old girl named Esch, the only daughter among four siblings. Precocious, passionate and sensitive, she speaks almost entirely in phrases soaked in her family’s raw land. Everything here is gritty, loamy and alive, as though the very soil were animated. Her brother’s “blood smells like wet hot earth after summer rain. . . . His scalp looks like fresh turned dirt.” Her father’s hands “are like gravel,” while her own hand “slides through his grip like a wet fish,” and a handsome boy’s “muscles jabbered like chickens.” Admittedly, Ward can push so hard on this simile-obsessed style that her paragraphs risk sounding like a compost heap, but this isn’t usually just metaphor for metaphor’s sake. She conveys something fundamental about Esch’s fluid state of mind: her figurative sense of the world in which all things correspond and connect. She and her brothers live in a ramshackle house steeped in grief since their mother died giving birth to her last child. . . . What remains, what’s salvaged, is something indomitable in these tough siblings, the strength of their love, the permanence of their devotion.—WashingtonPost |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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update 8 January 2012
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