What if the atrocities of the Congo Free State were never made known to the public?

John Davis

Banned
In OTL, the atrocities of the Congo Free State were documented brought to light by European missionaries. This resulted in the Belgian government taking the colony from King Leopold is which improved the conditions that the Congolese natives were living under. But how different would Congo be today if the atrocities were never made known to the public and continued past 1908?
 
I would give it at most another year and a half. It's impossible to commit genocide on that scale while keeping it secret forever. Most likely Congo ends up with a lower population and even more messed up than today.
 

Deleted member 94680

It’s near impossible to contain the knowledge of the atrocities. Although control was handed over in 1908, mainstream knowledge went back to at least 1904 with the British Casement Report.

There’s no way for it to continue on much longer than OTL without radically changing the way the CFS went about its business.
 
Much easier than trying to keep it hidden is simply to make it so that it is found out about and nobody cares. The original Belgium Congo publicity was largely an Anglo-Saxon scheme against Belgium to attempt to improve England's own dubious record after its widespread war crimes in South Africa, the benefits of harming a major rubber competitor when English rubber production was skyrocking Malaysia, and in response to Belgian protectionism. If one was able to make it so that the English government had for some reason, a vested interest in not exposing the Belgium record in the Congo, then the story would go nowhere : it only exploded into prominence against Roger Casement was ordered by the English government to investigate the Congo. Without an English state-backed public relations campaign against Congo, the reports will come out and not make very much impact.

How to do that? Maybe give the English a financial stake in rubber operations in the Congo, or improve English-Belgian relations. Alternatively one could just have a major humanitarian disaster somewhere involving people viewed as more important at the time (i.e. white people), instead of Africans, because nobody really cared about what happened to Africans. News about the Congo appears, a few newspapers run stories on it, attention is focused elsewhere, and it gradually loses steam and comes to nothing.
 

Deleted member 94680

Much easier than trying to keep it hidden is simply to make it so that it is found out about and nobody cares.

Not exactly easy.

The original Belgium Congo publicity was largely an Anglo-Saxon scheme against Belgium to attempt to improve England's own dubious record after its widespread war crimes in South Africa, the benefits of harming a major rubber competitor when English rubber production was skyrocking Malaysia, and in response to Belgian protectionism.

Interesting take on it. If you’re blaming the British, just say “the British”. Terms like “Anglo-Saxon scheme” make it sound like you’re issuing a press release from Wilhelmine Berlin.

I like the way you’ve made Belgian genocide the British’s fault though. Very good logic. FYI, Malaysian rubber production was in response to raised demand and increased prices by Congolese producers, not protectionism.

If one was able to make it so that the English government had for some reason, a vested interest in not exposing the Belgium record in the Congo, then the story would go nowhere : it only exploded into prominence against Roger Casement was ordered by the English government to investigate the Congo. Without an English state-backed public relations campaign against Congo, the reports will come out and not make very much impact.

Eh? The Congo Reform Association wasn’t a government body. You’re ignoring the American and Swedish missionaries in all this and even Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. But yeah, it’s Perfidious Albion’s fault.

How to do that? Maybe give the English a financial stake in rubber operations in the Congo, or improve English-Belgian relations. Alternatively one could just have a major humanitarian disaster somewhere involving people viewed as more important at the time (i.e. white people), instead of Africans, because nobody really cared about what happened to Africans. News about the Congo appears, a few newspapers run stories on it, attention is focused elsewhere, and it gradually loses steam and comes to nothing.

Plenty of people cared. That’s what moved the government to launch Casement’s investigation. They had to be seen to do something.


If you want to bend the facts to fit your attack on Britain (great work, by the way - it’s London’s fault, not Leopold’s) why would London publicise it in the way they did? Quietly go to Leopold, put the thumb screws on and get concessions that way.
 
Interesting take on it. If you’re blaming the British, just say “the British”. Terms like “Anglo-Saxon scheme” make it sound like you’re issuing a press release from Wilhelmine Berlin.

I like the way you’ve made Belgian genocide the British’s fault though. Very good logic. FYI, Malaysian rubber production was in response to raised demand and increased prices by Congolese producers, not protectionism.

I take offense from the claim of being an actor of Wilhelmine Berlin, I much prefer to think of myself as dispatches from the Quai d'Orsay ;)

Anyway, I find myself at a loss of where I implied responsibility for the Congo genocide as belonging to England. Conversely, my entire post related to the English government being involved in a program to lead to its exposure and end. I of course condemn without any reservation the horrors of the Belgian Congo, which even more than most colonial regimes was evidently responsible for a reign of terror and brutality which killed numberless amounts of Congolese in the most horrifyingly possible way and which has left a dark and poisonous legacy in the region, but that doesn't remove English state-backed involvement against it. Anything which led to a reform of that was good, which the English humanitarian campaign, even if it was self-serving, was. Just because something is self-serving doesn't mean it is bad.

I would say rather that the logical error is assigned to you for having claimed that I did so.

Eh? The Congo Reform Association wasn’t a government body. You’re ignoring the American and Swedish missionaries in all this and even Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. But yeah, it’s Perfidious Albion’s fault.

There's a reason why all of those figures were English, and the English government ordered Casement to do something for a reason. Anglo-Saxon liberal humanitarianism most always has strategic goals itself: this is hardly unique. All governments use humanitarian, ideological, and propaganda concerns. The English I might say, are simply the best at it, since they've been the most successful at presenting themselves as neutral, unbiased, and concerned about humanitarian concerns, instead of simply doing it for power purposes, even if those power purposes are most often still in play and give the English advantages.

If you want to bend the facts to fit your attack on Britain (great work, by the way - it’s London’s fault, not Leopold’s) why would London publicise it in the way they did? Quietly go to Leopold, put the thumb screws on and get concessions that way.

I would think that if you're pro-British, you would take pride in that your government involved itself actively against the Congo humanitarian crisis, instead of trying to deny it. As for going to Leopold, why? The English got what they wanted in a way which gave them additional humanitarian bonus points and helped clear up their reputation from the Boer war. Simply going to Leopold for concessions wouldn't achieve such benefits.
 
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