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Kendall Smith
Senior Demonstration
Plaehn
April 5, 2012
“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”
–Lord Acton
The Congo Crisis
An old Congolese saying goes, “Death does not sound a trumpet.” In the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, where about 1,200 people die a day, all one can hear is silence. Silence in
the newspapers, silence in the radios, and silence from international powers. Three works written
to rupture the silence are King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild; Heart of Darkness by
Joseph Conrad; and Blood River by Tim Butcher. Hochschild’s historical account takes on the
silence of the Belgian men and women working under the reign of King Leopold II, who
personally owned the Congo Free State from 1885-1908. Conrad offers a personal perspective on
the atrocities of Leopold’s Congo in his fictional account based on the experiences he
encountered during his time working in the Congo Free State. In 2004, Butcher physically
followed the trail of Henry Morton Stanley up the Congo River, and meets a world of corruption
and death on the way. These three narratives come from three very different perspectives; one of
a journalist, one of a historian, and one of an explorer, yet they all connect through their
astounding theme: absolute power. Each storyline contains a main character with absolute power,
who then uses that power to take complete advantage of the Congolese and their country. The
case of imperialism in the Congo attracts attention because many countries have dealt with “a
colonial rule that was cruel and racist,” but those countries have recovered, the Congo has not.
Take Malaysia for example: they received “independence at roughly the same time as the
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Congo…but somehow Malaysia got through it and the Congo didn’t” (Butcher 310). Absolute
power played a huge role in destroying the Congo if it was not “cruelty” or “racism.” The Congo
remains impoverished and helpless not primarily due to a lack of money, or even European
racism, but because each successive ruler has been corrupted by absolute power—because no
one knew just how right Lord Acton could be.
The concept of absolute power in the Congo began with the infamous King Leopold II,
who single-handedly ruled the Congo Free State for twenty-three years, yet never set foot on
Congo soil. This means that of the 10 million men and women who died in the Congo as a direct
result of his actions, not one ever looked the King in the eyes (Hochschild 3-4). Leopold easily
covered up the deaths in the Congo; he took charge of all the newspaper articles and letters
published about the situation in the Congo Free State. He did not care about the death toll; the
only piece of the Congo puzzle that mattered to Leopold was money. Hochschild writes, “what
mattered was the size of the profit…a desire not only for money, but for power” (39). Leopold
searched for power so intensely in Africa because he could not attain any power in Europe due to
the small size of Belgium. His superiority complex, which remained present throughout his life,
even drove his closest family members away from him (40). But Leopold did not need family as
long as he had his huge African empire, which he attained by charming political leaders and
Christian humanitarians into thinking he only wanted the Congo for philanthropic reasons. A
French diplomat, who fell under Leopold’s charm, once stated Leopold’s plans would become
“‘the greatest humanitarian work of this time”’ (Hochschild 46). Leopold’s natural ability to
manipulate became central to obtaining power. He even managed to get the Congo Free State all
to himself without letting the Belgian government have a slice of the “‘magnificent African
cake”’ (58). The more power hungry he got, the more determined he became to acquire power.
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He achieved this by creating several fake philanthropic organizations including the “International
Association of the Congo” and the “International African Association” (65). No differences
between the two organizations ever came to life, but that did not matter because the European
powers recognized the associations and started giving money to them. Leopold knew that in
Africa, more money always equaled more power.
Leopold knew their was enough money hidden in the resources of Africa to make him the
absolute ruler, so his only real distress came from getting money to fund his projects in the
Congo. He knew the Congo would eventually return the money borrowed through profits, but he
needed money to start with. At first, he could not ask the Belgian government for the money
because he promised the Parliament that the Congo Free State “would never be a financial drain
on Belgium” (91). He slowly received money from investors looking to get rich off the ivory and
humanitarians hoping to stop the slave trade in Africa. He eventually even convinced the Belgian
Parliament that if they funded his projects in the Congo, he would leave the Congo to Belgium in
his will (94). With the money he received from donors and Parliament, Leopold sent steamships
with young, hopeful European men to collect ivory and bring it back to Europe. Some of these
men went along with the atrocities they saw daily during their trips. But others, like Joseph
Conrad and George Washington Williams, hurried back to Europe to get word out about the
mayhem. Conrad later wrote, “‘The word ‘ivory’ rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You
would think they were praying to it’” (Conrad 23). The profit made from ivory, and later rubber,
consumed Leopold; the more money he made on ivory, the more power he gained in Europe and
Africa. The more money he had, the more he could expand. The Congo was just the beginning of
Leopold’s plans; Hochschild explains, “the Congo alone was never enough to satisfy him.
Fantasizing an empire that would encompass the two legendary rivers of Africa, the Congo and
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the Nile” (167). Fortunately, Leopold’s dreams never came true and his absolute power was
limited to the Congo.
Even though Leopold attained the money to send to the Congo Free State, he knew
absolute power required more than just money; rulers in power needed followers. The next piece
of the puzzle for Leopold was figuring out how to make both the white and black men in the
Congo obey him, a strategy Mobutu would later use as well. To this day, people remain
fascinated by how Leopold managed to manipulate so many groups entirely on his own. He
started by handpicking a small group of “high and middle level administrators, and a mini
cabinet of three or four Belgians at the top [who] reported to Leopold directly” (116). This may
have been Leopold’s smartest move because he created a process where everything relied on
him. He engraved in the minds of these men that every decision had to go through him and that
no one else had a say in the Congo. No one could have more power than he did. This strategy
proved to be incredibly successful as no one dared to challenge Leopold’s power during his first
few years of reign in Africa. As Hochschild says, “in the Congo there was no stooping;
Leopold’s power was absolute” (116). This quote proves that Leopold’s power was simply
“absolute.” However, while Leopold used his power to exploit the Congolese and their resources,
he did not see his precious rule as one of violence:
The Congo in Leopold’s mind was not the one of starving porters, raped hostages,
emancipated rubber slaves, and severed hands. It was the empire of his dreams, with
gigantic trees, exotic animals, and inhabitants grateful for his wise rule. (Hochschild 175)
This quotation displays how conceited and blind Leopold was. Since he never actually ventured
to the Congo, he never saw his orders come to life in the forms of “severed hands” and “raped
hostages.” He saw the Congo as he pleased. The scariest type of power comes when the one with
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the power does not even want to see what he or she has done. When even the ruler realizes that
he has become so far entrenched in evil that he cannot turn back. No better example of this
comes to mind than Leopold’s Congo.
Leopold’s absolute power in the Congo inspired Joseph Conrad to create a fictional
character with immense power in his own narrative. While Hochschild’s book gives the reader a
historical account of Leopold’s atrocities in the Congo Free State, Joseph Conrad presents a
fictionalized eyewitness account. Hochschild describes Conrad as an “open-eyed observer who
caught the spirit of a time and place with piercing accuracy” (149). Hochschild recognizes that
the reign Mr. Kurtz’s deploys over the native people in Heart of Darkness is a reflection of
Leopold’s rule over the Congolese. Heart of Darkness presents itself as a work of fiction with
made up characters, but the book is based on Conrad’s personal experiences in the Congo and
the people he met there. The most widely talked about character, Mr. Kurtz, is not a figment of
Conrad’s imagination, but rather a combination of the most grotesque men working in the Congo
at the time of Conrad’s journey. One of these men, who placed severed heads as “decoration
round a flower bed in front of his house” (Hochschild 145) just like Mr. Kurtz, was Léon Rom.
He rose as a Force Publique officer, the group Leopold created to inflict punishment on the local
Congolese when they did not follow orders, and soon became one of the most monstrous
Captains in the Congo (Hochschild 137). He fell into the Congo allure like many other young
men, for the Congo brought one aspect of life these men did not have in Europe: absolute
freedom. Freedom leaves room for corruption, and these men became incredibly corrupted. One
officer wrote back home “‘We have liberty, independence, and life with wide horizons. Here you
are free and not a mere slave of society…Here one is everything! Warrior, diplomat, trader!!
Why not!’” (137). This type of freedom made the rise to power very easy in the Congo, even if it
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was not much power in reality, to these men it seemed as if they ran the world. They believed
they had absolute power.
These men with complete freedom and power lost their sense of morals very quickly in
the Congo. Conrad’s character Kurtz represents one of the men who left their “bourgeois
morality back in Europe” (Hochschild 138). Kurtz’s infamous quote “‘Exterminate all the
brutes!”’ shows the reader just how detached these young men were from European morals and
values (50). In the Congo, they could connect with their innate barbaric thoughts. Kurtz’s
reference to the native Congolese as “brutes” is filled with irony because in reality the young
European men inhabited “brutish” personalities. Marlowe even says, “‘You can’t judge Mr.
Kurtz as you would an ordinary man’” (56). Conrad writes this in his book to demonstrate how
the mentality of men in the Congo really did change. These men could exploit and kill whomever
they pleased; the men received more power than they could handle. Kurtz symbolizes the
epitome of a man who lost his morals when given absolute power. Marlowe attributes this as,
“‘All of Europe contributed to the making of Mr. Kurtz”’ (49). Conrad explains to the reader that
all of the men and women back in Europe who supported the ivory market and the actions of
Leopold were the ones who kept men like Mr. Kurtz exploiting the Congo. Even the people who
only sent money to the Congo and did not partake in any violent acts against the Congolese
deserve the same amount of guilt. They just paid other people to do it for them. The same is true
today of the millions of people who support companies such as Apple, Panasonic, Dell, and
Nintendo. The products made by these companies need a resource called coltan (Butcher 24).
Millions of Congolese children mine coltan everyday in dangerous working conditions. This
means that supporters of Apple are unknowingly funding the deaths of millions of Congolese
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children. Leopold’s manipulation from absolute power set in place a system of perilous financial
support that still remains in place today.
The worst part of absolute power is how it constricts the beholder so tightly that the
beholder cannot escape it. Kurtz ‘“hated [the Congo] and somehow he couldn’t get away’” (56).
He could not escape because he got so attached to the power. Once one receives that kind of
power over people, he or she cannot just go back to having to little or no power without serious
psychological effects. Kurtz knows that if he returns to Europe, he will have nothing. Not
because he could not obtain a job in Europe, but rather because nothing will ever be as good as
absolute power. Even the natives fell under Kurtz’s spell, as they would literally “crawl” on their
hands and knees to him (58). The people, whose lives he destroyed, worshiped him. This also
explains why he stays worried that other men are hunting for his job throughout the book. He
cannot let go of his power; absolute power had completely constricted him. Conrad presents
Kurtz’s physical sickness in the book as a metaphor for the mental sickness of men like Léon
Rom whose “‘appetite for ivory had got the better of—what shall I say—less moral aspirations’”
(57). The addition of absolute power forced Kurtz to lose sight of who he was before he reached
the Congo, a transformation that consumed many men working under King Leopold II. As these
men became more powerful, their craving for money grew and their racist behaviors worsened.
Absolute power stemmed from racism and the desire for money, but was not limited to
King Leopold II’s reign over the Congo Free State. More recently, Joseph Désiré Mobutu took
the title of most corrupt ruler. Mobutu’s first step as dictator brought the country back 100 years
by renaming everyone and every place to a tribal name. This included the country itself, which
returned to the name Zaire. Over the next thirty years, “his personal wealth at its peak was
estimated at 4 billion [dollars]” (Hochschild 304). Where did all this money come from? Zaire’s
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very own rubber market; the exact same place Leopold gained his wealth from in 1894. His
dictatorship stood “as a perfect example of a kleptocracy, a state where rampant greed and
corruption erode normal economic activity” (Butcher 238). He stole straight from his own
country, and no one dared to stop him. He did not even have to earn this kind of power: it was
given to him straight from Western powers who feared the Congo would fall to Soviet influence
during the Cold War. Hochschild portrays the relationship as:
The Western powers had spotted Mobutu as someone who would look out for
their interests. He had received cash payments from the local CIA man and
Western military attachés while Lumumba’s murder was being planned…With
United States encouragement, Mobutu staged a coup in 1965 that made him the
country’s dictator. And in that position he remained for more than thirty
years…The United States gave him well over a billion dollars in civilian and
military aid during the three decades of his rule. (302-303)
This quotation demonstrates how imperative Western powers were in the placement of Mobutu’s
absolute power. Without Western powers, he would not have had nearly as much financial
support for his horrific actions. Once Washington supported Mobutu, he “became untouchable”
(240). The United States expected a return in most of the money they threw into Zaire, but, of
course, Mobutu had no intention of helping anyone but himself. Just like any other ruler with
absolute power.
Mobutu took absolute power to a level that even Leopold could not reach. Butcher
describes Mobutu as, “an icon of modern African evil, an individual who did more than almost
anyone to set the Congo and the wider region of central Africa on its downward spiral” (241).
Butcher saw the remainder of Mobutu’s horror first hand during his visit to the Congo. He recalls
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a young man say, “This is a terrible place where terrible things happen. You really must leave
before they find you” (236). This quote sums up the atrocities of the Congo, for they really were,
at the most basic level, just plain terrible. And Mobutu is the one who left the Congo in this
terrible state. The man Butcher quotes emphasizes that Butcher must leave before “they” find
him. The “they” this man refers to are the infamous rebel groups that run rampant throughout the
Eastern section of the Congo. Mobutu invited most of these Hutu-based rebel groups in the
forests following the Rwandan genocide (13). These groups took complete advantage of the
terrain, people, and wealth hidden in the Congo. With Mobutu’s help, they took it all and still
remain in Eastern Congo to this day. His power was so drastic that it allowed his own country to
be completely run over by another country.
Just like King Leopold and Mr. Kurtz, Mobutu’s greatest strength was the ability to mask
the atrocities happening directly under his rule to the rest of the world. Butcher claims, “There
was a certain brilliance to Mobutu’s evil. He was the consummate showman, luring George
Foreman and Muhammad Ali to his capital, Kinshasa, for the most famous bout in boxing
history” (239). This famous match, which would come to be known as ‘Rumble in the Jungle,’
convinced the rest of the world that all activity in the Congo remained prosperous under Mobutu.
He even dared to mutter the famous last words of Mr. Kurtz, “‘The horror! The Horror!’” when
he saw “mutilated bodies” of Congolese people, as if he had never seen a dead Congolese man
before (239). He had everyone fooled. The Mobutu scam ran until 1997, but this loss did not turn
into a gain for the Congo. The Mobutu administration ran the country into the ground, as “most
public services had ceased and the government had become, as it was under Leopold, merely a
mechanism for the leader and his entourage to enrich themselves” (315). Mobutu’s initial
precautions to strip the country of technology and return back to indigenous ways was mere evil
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genius. He advanced the country so far backwards that no one man or group of men would be
smart enough to surpass the technologies that Mobutu allowed only himself and his military to
indulge in. Absolute power had once again prevailed, which sent the country into a downward
spiral, one that the country may never get out of.
Mobutu could not have exploited Zaire without absolute power. Mr. Kurtz could not have
taken advantage of the tribes around him without complete supremacy. King Leopold II could
not have made billions of dollars without the advantage of unlimited authority. Each leader
advanced the country farther and farther back in civilization with their corruption from power.
Butcher describes this concept as “a country with more past than future, a place where the hands
of the clock spin not forwards, but backwards” (249). Since the Congo has only moved
backwards for the past 130 years, the only way the country can reverse their situation and make
progress is by taking away their one disadvantage: a leader with complete control. The only way
to move forward is to remove power from the people who are constantly moving the country
backwards; the people who condone the silence. However, removing a corrupt leader from
power cannot fix the entire problem. Butcher claims, “the people of Africa must share
responsibility for showing themselves unable to change [the government]”. Unfortunately, “the
people of Africa have not been capable of working together to rein in the excesses of dictators”
(335). Since the people have not had a human rights leader to stand behind such as Nelson
Mandela or Martin Luther King, we have not seen much change in the Congo. Today in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, there is a democracy led by President Joseph Kabila, yet the
people have still not taken a stance. However, movement by the people is always very risky,
which we saw throughout the Arab Spring. While Kabila has not proven to be as corrupt as
Gaddafi or Mubarak, 1,200 people still die every single day due to disease, murder, plummeting
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birth rate, starvation, exposure, and exhaustion (Hochschild 226). Progress needs to be made
internally by a multitude of people instead of slow development encouraged by only one
president. Butcher asserts, “You solve Africa’s problems by creating a system of justice that
actually works and by making leaders accountable for their actions” (325). Once the people
create this system of justice, we can start to see positive, long-lasting change in the Congo.
Absolute power in Western Africa can be stopped, but it is up to the people to determine how
much longer they will let it stand in the way of their sovereignty.
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Works Cited
Butcher, Tim. Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart. New York: Grove, 2008. Print.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness: Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Criticism.
Ed. Paul B. Armstrong. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2006. Print.
Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial
Africa. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. Print.