Stereotypes make everything simpler, easier to comprehend. If all boys liked blue and all girls liked pink, birthday shopping would be far easier; if all French men were terribly attractive and all British men had dreadfully snaggled teeth, meeting good-looking men would be somewhat more straightforward; if all those with white skin in the Congo had been evil villains and all those with dark skin innocent victims, Congolese colonial history would certainly be less convoluted and complex. Unfortunately, stereotypes are never completely accurate, making everyday life considerably more complicated than anyone would like it to be. It may be true that a great many Europeans contributed to the abuse of a great many Africans, but it is also true that some Europeans defended African rights, while much of the abuse, torture, and murder in the Congo was committed by Africans against Africans (Hochschild 122).
Typically, three avenues led Africans to work under Leopold and his companies, committing atrocities against their own people. One of the first groups of Africans to join Leopold’s forces was that of the African mercenaries (123). Until the arrival of the Europeans in Africa, tribes frequently made war on one another. Within Africa, loyalty depended not upon skin colour but upon clan and blood, implying that the mercenaries, imported from various regions, did not regard Africans from other tribes as their brothers. This perspective left the mercenaries free of any allegiance to the men and women they tortured and killed and free to view their position merely as an occupation, a means of earning a wage, rather than a way of life or personal decision.
The second group of Leopold’s soldiers were conscripted, forced into labour and often transferred to a different part of the Congo far from their familiar lands and tribe. This displacement led them, again, to feel less brotherly towards their victims, Africans of different tribes. In addition, their European supervisors outlined the choices clearly: obey and brutalize your fellow Africans or be beaten to death (Hochschild 122, 226). Any attempt to refuse, to behave humanely, to spare prisoners, still resulted in violence and imminent death. Chiefs turned their people over to Leopold to spare themselves and their families; men murdered, severed hands, beat other men, and fought to spare themselves from the same fate. The African soldiers could either bring back the hand of a dead man or have their own lifeless hand severed and presented in its stead.
The third avenue by which to enter Leopold’s employ was simply to enlist voluntarily. This group of soldiers acting by their own free will seems by far to be the cruelest, most inhumane of all Leopold’s soldiers. The enlisted men can only be understood through the study of humanity’s immense capacity to disassociate, to disconnect, to distance, to desensitize. In the words of a Nazi commandant overseeing Treblinka and Sobibor: “To tell the truth, one did become used to it” (Hochschild 122). With each murder, with each beating, the African soldiers became further dehumanized. Enlistment began with the simple urge to avoid pain, to avoid suffering, to avoid weakness, to desert the losing side for the winning side. One enlistee explained that he simply preferred “to be with the hunters than with the hunted” (Hochschild 127). Human selfishness and the overwhelming desire to escape pain even at someone else’s expense led the African enlistees to become completely desensitized to the pain of others, allowing them to continue down the paths of violence.
Humanity is caught in a constant battle between self-interest or selflessness, ever-torn between cruelty and kindness. The colonial Congo was one such battleground, ravaged by those who chose the ways of violence and greed over peace and justice.
