Thanks for the offer of a reading list, I think that would be great.

I find Morel's position in 1920 very interesting. On the one hand his
critique of the League of Nations provides a context for what Garvey was
advocating.

On the other hand I would like to learn more about his attitude to German
Social Democracy. His intervention in the Daily Herald happened at a time
when the German Social Democratic politicians were using the proto-fascist
Freikorps to suppress a workers revolution in the Rur.

When McKay started writing for Workers Dreadnought, this paper was aligned
with the Communist Workers Party of Germany (KAPD) an anti-Bolshevik
communist group which played a key role in the Ruhr uprising. (McKay's
subsequent political career does not indicate any particular adherence to
this viewpoint.)

Also worth noting is that Blaise Diagne, the Senegalese representative in
the French Chamber of Deputies, was not only a firm advocate of the
recruitment of African soldiers in the French Army which Morel so
vigorously condemns, but also attended the 1919 Pan African Conference.

In light of the preparations for the series of centenaries related to the
First World War, I think it would be very useful to find ways of drawing
these connections together.

all the best

Fabian

> Arguing about minor aspects of atrocities seems silly but the Congo
> Independent State (usually called the Congo Free State in English language
> accounts) was run by Leopold who was also the king of the Belgians. It
> became the Belgian Congo in 1908. Until then the Belgian parliament and
> voters had no control/and little influence. The whites who ran Leopold's
> personal empire were not all Belgians and they included British, Danes and
> Swedes, as well as the Polish Joseph Conrad. From my work studying a
> German-born Londoner who was there in the Force Publique or military
> police in the 1890s, I suspect that Belgians were a minority among the
> some 1,600 white officers: and all the others in this often vicious force
> were Africans.
>
> Morel exposed the red rubber atrocities, along with Roger Casement. That
> Morel then was a pacifist in World War One (when Belgium was almost
> entirely occupied by Germany) and Casement recruited, for Germany, among
> British soldiers of Irish origin and was executed by the British meant
> that two major figures in the agitation for justice in the Congo were seen
> as far from supportive of Belgium.
>
> The soldiers in the French army used to garrison post-war Germany were
> misreported by the left-wing Lady Warwick who, in the London Sunday
> Illustrated 18 June 1922 asked for 'my English sisters to protect white
> women against black men'. Calmly producing statistics and correcting her,
> Trinidad-born London Dr John Alcindor's response to the alleged 'horror of
> the Rhine' was published on 2 July 1922.
>
> Then (as now) the voice of black Londoners was heard. That historians
> concentrate on the white left wingers has not helped us understand this.
> To think of the Congo as a Belgian colony before 1908 is also a serious
> misunderstanding. It is a complex matter.
>
> I have more than a shelf of books on Leopold's Congo, including two
> biographies of Leopold, Morel's autobiography, an original Red Rubber and
> two biographies of Casement so anyone wanting a reading list just needs to
> ask!
>
> Jeff Green
>
>
>
>
> ========================================
> Message Received: Sep 16 2013, 09:32 AM
> From: "Fabian Tompsett"
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Cc:
> Subject: Re: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death
>
> Another book by Morel is "The Black Man's Burden",
>
> http://ia600307.us.archive.org/18/items/blackmansburden00moreuoft/blackmansburden00moreuoft.pdf
>
> This was published in 1920, and here Morel offers a broader overview Of
> Africa, post World War I.
>
> Morel was noted for his contribution to the racist furore about the use of
> African soldiers in Germany in 1920, shortly after this book was
> completed.
>
> See page 219 where he discusses the use of African troops:
>
> "During the Great War of 1914-18, the French have used hundreds of
> thousands of North and West African troops on the Western and Macedonian
> Fronts. They quartered a large number of West African troops in Morocco.
> They occupied the enemy consulates of Greece with these black troops. They
> have employed them in Russia. They actually garrison German towns with
> them. The atrocities perpetrated by these savage auxiliaries on the
> Western front are known to every soldier. They have been found in
> possession of eyeballs, fingers and heads of Germans in their haversacks.
> Mr Chesterton's pious hope of seeing 'Asiatics and Africans on the verge
> of savagery,' let loose against the Germans has been more than fulfilled."
>
> It was the publication of his racist condemnation of the use of African
> soldiers by the French in George Lansbury's paper, The Herald that led to
> Claude McKay's response in The Workers' Dreadnought.
>
> This book makes it easier to understand Morel's viewpoint, and how the man
> who exposed the Belgian atrocities came to participate in a racist
> campaign against African soldiers.
>
> Fabian
>
>> Hi Amma
>>
>> Thx for that and BTW you can download a full version of Morel's book
>> "Red
>> Rubber" which exposed
>> Leopolod's atrocities to Europe
>> here
>> .
>>
>> Michael
>>
>> Michael Ohajuru
>> 079 40 50 79 00
>>
>>
>>
>> On 15 September 2013 20:40, Amma Poku wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks Michael, I'll share with others
>>>
>>> Amma
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>> *From:* Michael Ohajuru
>>> *To:* [log in to unmask]
>>> *Sent:* Sunday, 15 September 2013, 13:14
>>> *Subject:* White King, Red Rubber, Black Death
>>>
>>> Folks
>>>
>>> With apologies to those who know the story of the Congo but for those
>>> who
>>> don't or missed this first time around on BBC Four, have a look at
>>> White
>>> King, Red Rubber, Black Death the dreadful
>>> story
>>> of how Belgium gave its king Leopold II 50 Million Francs in
>>> compensation
>>> for taking the Congo on as colony, in face of the atrocities he
>>> committed
>>> there.
>>>
>>> An unsettling, disturbing story of greed and man's inhumanity to man on
>>> a
>>> par with the Holocaust or chattel slavery in America yet what Belgium's
>>> King Leopold II did in the Congo sadly, remains a footnote in European
>>> colonial history.
>>>
>>> BBC 4 Storyville's White King, Red Rubber, Black Death goes some way to
>>> shedding some light on this dark, hidden piece of European colonial
>>> history
>>> and the part Britain played in exposing this dreadful wrong.
>>>
>>> BTW Britain gave 20Million pounds in
>>> compensation
>>> to its slave owners
>>>
>>> Michael Ohajuru
>>> 079 40 50 79 00
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>