Bholanath
Jedi
Typical of CNN/Time: they leave out the crucial historical context for their readership of Amerikan sheeple.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/05/28/coverstory.tm/index.html
Reading this just made me want to recommend the book _King Leopold's Ghost_, by
Adam Hochschild. It may not be perfect, but everyone in the "overdeveloped world" should read this book.
The mind-numbing sociopathology of King Leopold II of Belgium (around 1900) is a classic case for study. Not a fake cowboy, but a fake colonial emperor, old Leo never visited the country he owned, but merely enriched himself off the starved, tortured slave labor, the elephant ivory and rubber. It was the beginning of the end for Africa. Until that time (1890's), no white man had gone more than 20 miles in from a coast in all of Africa. (see Stanley and Livingston) Its a horrifying story, equal to the holocaust of the Native Americans. "Human rights" was barely a concept in the world's vocabulary. Mark Twain and other radicals were deeply involved in bringing these crimes to light. At the end, the citizens of Brussels breathed clouds of smoke coming from the burning official records of the human- and resource-pillage being tossed, for weeks, into the furnaces of the royal palace. No shredders in those days.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/05/28/coverstory.tm/index.html
Reading this just made me want to recommend the book _King Leopold's Ghost_, by
Adam Hochschild. It may not be perfect, but everyone in the "overdeveloped world" should read this book.
The mind-numbing sociopathology of King Leopold II of Belgium (around 1900) is a classic case for study. Not a fake cowboy, but a fake colonial emperor, old Leo never visited the country he owned, but merely enriched himself off the starved, tortured slave labor, the elephant ivory and rubber. It was the beginning of the end for Africa. Until that time (1890's), no white man had gone more than 20 miles in from a coast in all of Africa. (see Stanley and Livingston) Its a horrifying story, equal to the holocaust of the Native Americans. "Human rights" was barely a concept in the world's vocabulary. Mark Twain and other radicals were deeply involved in bringing these crimes to light. At the end, the citizens of Brussels breathed clouds of smoke coming from the burning official records of the human- and resource-pillage being tossed, for weeks, into the furnaces of the royal palace. No shredders in those days.
