A good representation of likely outcomes:
There is much talk of the barbaric times we live in. Certainly, there is something so horrifying and sickening in the sex-slave practices of Isis, for example, that you have to seriously wonder what the point of human beings is.
But the 19th and 20th centuries were surely the darkest chapters in human history? Empire is still celebrated in ol' Blighty (or at least looked at with a certain nostalgia). And Belgium and the heart of darkness? I wonder if there's been any admission of the horrors it committed?
You can harp on all you want about civilisation. To be quite frank, pathological behaviour accompanied by sophisticated toys and 'rational' forms of organization a civilisation do not make.
2 comments:
Belgium and the Congo... When I was a child, the schoolbooks did not mention any of those horrors. It was known in historians' circles, but glossed over elsewehere.
Until in 1985 a Belgian writer published a thoroughly researched book "Red Rubber. Leopold II and his Congo". Published in Dutch and French. No escaping the terrible facts. Since then, at last, many more articles, books and exhibitions for the general public have confronted the colonial misdeeds.
"pathological behaviour accompanied by rational forms of organisation" - yes, you're right - that is not civilisation
I saw this picture in yesterdays guardian and it sent shivers down my spine. You know,fff, I keep on coming back to this -I don't know why- but when you think of the atrocities human beings inflict on one another Muslim, atheist whatever) you have to wonder.
..the heart of darkness.
I seriously don't know how anyone or any society can confront their misdeeds. I know over here there has been no consciousness of the war crimes in east pak. But what would it mean to truly do so?
Thanks for the reference. Had only heard of king Leopold's ghost but never had the stomach to read it.
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