The Dream and the Nightmare
In the decades after the Second World War, a very different kind of world emerged. The British and French colonial empires finally decayed and died, and large swathes of Africa and Asia became independent. It was a moment of profound hope – a chance for newly liberated peoples to chart their own futures, free from the exploitation of distant European capitals.
But the hope was short-lived. One of the darkest chapters of 20th century history is the reestablishment of Western control, primarily in Africa, through the creation of neocolonialism. The dreams of a post-colonial world were mercilessly snuffed out by European powers, and primarily by the United States of America.
Today, we look at Ghana and Congo, and the relationship between the two – and the seeds of the destruction of those dreams, which were largely snuffed out during the 1960s.
The Crime of the Congo
The story begins with the Belgian Congo. In 1884-85, a conference was held in Berlin where the European powers partitioned Africa amongst themselves. One outcome was the awarding of Congo to King Leopold II of Belgium.
Leopold II’s first objective on possessing Congo, declared many Belgians, was to suppress the slave trade. But the reality was very different. As Kwame Nkrumah argued, the purpose of Belgian rule had been not to suppress slavery, but to change its nature, to make slavery more profitable.
Huge profits were generated from the forced labour of the Congolese in the collection of wild rubber and the killing of elephants for their tusks. Villagers unwilling or unable to meet assigned quotas were subject to rape, arson, bodily mutilation and murder. The lashing of people with a whip made of sun-dried hippopotamus hide with razor-sharp edges was widely practised. A hundred lashes could be fatal.
An American missionary in the Congo in 1899 explained the system: “Each time the corporal goes out to get rubber, cartridges are given to him. He must bring back all not used, and for every one used he must bring back a right hand.” A state official informed him that in six months on the Momboya River, they had used some 6,000 cartridges – meaning 6,000 people were killed or mutilated. In fact, the numbers were more, for soldiers killed children with the butts of their guns.
In the 23 years of King Leopold’s rule, an estimated 10 million people died as a consequence of brutality and executions – about 50% of the entire population.
The Congo Free State lasted until 1908, when Leopold was forced to cede control to the Belgian government. The transfer of power mitigated the very worst excesses, but it by no means ended the pitiless exploitation.
The Uranium that Changed the World
The territory was open for business. One of the entrepreneurs was the British industrialist Lord Leverhulme, who created huge palm oil plantations, reliant on ruthless cruelty and the forced labour system. During World War II, Congolese workers were forced to labour at everything from railways to rubber plantations to the heavily guarded uranium mine at Shinkolobwe.
The Shinkolobwe mine produced uranium that was far richer than any other uranium in the world. It assayed as high as 75% uranium oxide, with an average of 65%. By contrast, ores of marketable quality from the Colorado Plateau contained just 0.2%. The higher the concentration, the easier it is to extract – both about the chemical processes and the associated costs.
This uranium was essential for the Manhattan Project. It was used to build the first atomic bomb tested in the Trinity Test in July 1945, and the bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
George Padmore, the historian and friend of Kwame Nkrumah, understood the significance. In an article titled “Africa Holds the Key to Atomic Future”, he reported that the uranium deposits in the Belgian Congo were being closely guarded. The miners, he noted, received an average wage of 25 cents per day plus rations and a hat provided by the company. Once they entered the mining compound, they were never allowed to return to their villages.
The miners were vulnerable to many adverse health effects caused by uranium – renal failure, diminished bone growth, damage to DNA, cancer, shortening of life, and changes in fertility. The dust from the sites and the water used for dust control contain long-lived radioisotopes that spread into surrounding areas.
The Machinery of Neocolonialism
The formal decolonisation of Africa in the 1950s and 60s did not end Western control. It changed its form. The tools of neocolonialism were numerous and sophisticated: debt, the Bretton Woods system, the dollar system, coups against key leaders, Western corporate infiltration of emerging economies, and the threat of internal subversion.
National independence leaders and national liberation revolutionaries became key targets during the Cold War. The pretext was always the same: if they veer too far to the left, they will open their air bases and ports to Soviet shipping. But the real fear was different. The West did not want a muscular version of the Bandung movement – a bloc of nations that refused to be vassal states, that refused to hand over their raw materials cheaply, that refused to open their markets unconditionally.
These were the movements that needed to be crushed. And they were.
The Legacy
The exploitation of the Congo’s resources continues to this day. The use of child labour in mining rare earth minerals for mobile phones, the ongoing wars within Congo and the wider region, the violence that is still the product of mineral exploitation – all of this is the legacy of neocolonialism.
As I said in the episode, I rarely talk about Africa, and that’s on me. Without understanding Africa and neocolonialism, much of the rest of the 20th century doesn’t make any sense. It’s a huge omission, and one I want to rectify.
This episode is the beginning of that journey.
Susan Williams’s White Malice is available from all good bookshops. Please consider buying from an independent retailer or directly from the publisher.
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