The Hearts of Darkness: How European Writers Created the Racist Image of Africa
Part Three
by Milton Allimadi
Mr. Allimadi is CEO and Publisher of The Black Star News, based in
New York City. He has graciously given BAR permission to serialize his work. Part
One appeared in the January 24 issue of BAR, Part Two in the January 31 issue.
A European Meets a ‘Savage' Intellectual
Europeans wrote the stories that formed their own perception
of Africans, without any contribution of the Africans they described.
In one of the rarest instances, Samuel Baker - one of the
most famous of these European trespassers - inadvertently allowed one of the
Africans he encountered to speak for himself in Albert N'Yanza (1866). The result of their conversation is
remarkable as we will shortly see. Since Baker's book is still widely consulted
as reference by many Western writers who travel to Africa, it is worth
reviewing parts in some detail.
The Black man was born for the sole purpose of servitude -
preferably under the supervision of whites, Baker insisted. "The negro has been, and still is,
thoroughly misunderstood," he explained. "However severely we may condemn the
institution of slavery, the results of emancipation have proved that the negro
does not appreciate the blessings of freedom, nor does he show the slightest
feeling of gratitude to the hand that broke the rivets of his fetters."
"'The negro does not appreciate the blessings of freedom,
nor does he show the slightest feeling of gratitude,' Baker insisted."
Baker further observed: "His narrow mind cannot embrace the feeling of pure philanthropy that
first prompted England to declare herself against slavery, and he only regards
the anti-slavery movement as a proof of his own importance. In his limited
horizon he is himself the important object, and as a consequence to his
self-conceit, imagines that the whole world is at issue concerning the black
man." Baker continued: "England,
the great chief of the commercial world, possesses a power that enforces a
grave responsibility. She has the force to civilize. She is the natural colonizer of the world. In the short space of
three centuries, America, sprung from her loins, has become a giant offspring,
a new era in the history of the human race, a new birth whose future must be
overwhelming." England's
remaining task was to "wrest from
utter savagedom those mighty tracts of the earth's surface wasted from the
creation of the world - a darkness to be enlightened by English colonization."
Baker was the perfect agent and propagandist for European
commercial conquest of Africa. Only
trade with the "civilized" world could rescue the barbarian continent. "The savage must learn to want; he must
learn to be ambitious; and to covet more than the mere animal necessities of
food and drink," Baker explained. "This
can only be taught by a communication with civilized beings: the sight of men
well clothed will induce the naked savage to covet clothing, and will be the
first steps towards commerce. To obtain
the supply, the savage must produce some articles in return as a medium of
barter, some natural production of his country adapted to the trader's wants."
It followed from Baker's reasoning that the white man's
burden was controlling the Black man, in order to civilize him. "The
history of the negro has proved the correctness of this theory," he wrote. "In no instance has he evinced other than a retrogression, when once
freed from restraint. Like a horse
without harness, he runs wild, but, if harnessed, no animal is more
useful. Unfortunately, this is contrary
to public opinion in England, where the vox populi assumes the right of
dictation upon matters and men in which it has no experience."
The decline of whole economies could be traced to the
emancipation of Black people, Baker asserted: "In his state of slavery the negro was compelled to work, and, through
his labour, every country prospered where he had been introduced. He was suddenly freed; and from that moment
he refused to work, and instead of being a useful member of society, he not only
became a useless burden to the community, but a plotter and intriguer, imbued
with a deadly hatred to the white man who had generously declared him free." No mention by Baker of the essence of
slavery - pillage, rapes, massacres, torture and uncompensated labor.
Baker was infuriated whenever he encountered Black men who
did not accept the natural order of things and believed that they were equal to
or superior to whites. He recalled how Kumrasi, king of the Bunyoro,
disrespected him, after he had traveled through the Sudan into Uganda. Baker
hoped Kumrasi would rush to see him and help him "discover" a mountain or
lake. "We received a message today that we were not to expect Kumrasi as
great men were never in a hurry to pay visits," Baker sneered, in Albert N'Yanza. "It is very trying to the patience to wait here until it pleases these
almighty niggers to permit us to cross the river."
"Baker was
infuriated whenever he encountered Black men who did not accept the natural
order of things."
Eventually, Baker traveled further north and reached the
Lutoko, who live in what's now part of the Sudan. It was here that Baker had
the remarkable conversation with Commoro, the Lutoko chief, whom he described
as "the most clever and common-sense savage that I had seen in these
countries."
The two men spoke about politics, religion, and philosophy,
through an interpreter. Even though Baker recorded the conversation
disparagingly, he unwittingly showed contemporary readers how his host was much
more intelligent than Baker himself. The conversation at one point focused on
Baker's inquiry as to why the Lutoko exhumed the bodies of their dead:
Baker: "But why
should you disturb the bones of those whom you have already buried, and expose
them on the outskirts of the town?"
Commoro: "It was
the custom of our forefathers, therefore we continue to observe it."
Baker: "Have you no
belief in a future existence after death? Is not some idea expressed in the act
of exhuming the bones after the flesh is decayed?"
Commoro: "Existence
after death! How can that be? Can a dead man get out of his grave unless we dig
him out?"
Baker: "Do you
think that man is like a beast, that dies and is ended?"
Commoro: "Certainly;
an ox is stronger than a man; but he dies and his bones last longer; they are
bigger. A man's bone breaks quickly -
he is weak."
Baker: "Is not a
man superior in sense to an ox? Has he
not a mind to direct his actions?"
Commoro: "Some men
are not so clever as an ox. Men must
sow corn to obtain food, but the ox and wild animals can procure it without
sowing."
Baker: "Do you know
that there is a spirit within you more than the flesh? Do you not dream and
wander in thought to distant places in your sleep? Nevertheless, your body
rests in one spot. How do you account for this?"
Commoro (laughing): "Well,
how do you account for it? It is a thing I cannot understand; it occurs to me
every night."
Baker: "The mind is
independent of the body; the actual body can be fettered, but the mind is
uncontrollable; the body will die and will become dust, or be eaten by vultures
but the spirit will exist forever."
Commoro: "Where
will the spirit live?"
Baker: "Where does
fire live? Cannot you produce a fire by rubbing two sticks together, yet you
see not the fire in the wood. Has not that fire that lies harmless and unseen
in the sticks, the power to consume the whole country? Which is the stronger,
the small stick that first produces the fire, or the fire itself? So is the
spirit the element within the body, as the element of fire exists in the stick,
the element being superior to the substance."
"The white traveler unwittingly showed contemporary
readers how his host was much more intelligent than Baker himself."
Commoro: "Ha! Can
you explain what we frequently see at night when lost in the wilderness? I have
myself been lost, and wandering in the dark I have seen a distant fire; upon
approaching, the fire has vanished, and I have been unable to trace the cause -
nor could I find the spot."
Baker: "Have you no
idea of the existence of spirits superior to either man or beast? Have you no
fear of evil except from bodily causes?"
Commoro: "I am
afraid of elephants and other animals when in the jungle at night but of
nothing else."
Baker: "Then you
believe in nothing; neither in a good nor evil spirit! And you believe that
when you die it will be the end of body and spirit; that you are like other
animals; and that there is no distinction between men and beast; both
disappear, and end at death?"
Commoro: "Of course
they do."
Baker: "Do you see
no difference in good and bad actions?"
Commoro: "Yes,
there are good and bad in men and beasts."
Baker: "Do you
think that a good man and a bad man must share the same fate, and alike die,
and end?"
Commoro: "Yes; what
else can they do? How can they help dying? Good and bad all die."
Baker: "Their
bodies perish, but their spirits remain; the good in happiness, the bad in
misery. If you have no belief in a future state, why should a man be good? Why
should he not be bad, if he can prosper by wickedness?"
Commoro: "Most
people are bad; if they are strong, they take from the weak. The good people
are all weak; they are good because they are not strong enough to be bad."
Baker began to get annoyed by Commoro's resistance; he was
oblivious to the clear fact that the "savage" was getting the better of him in
the dialogue. He made one final attempt, which he referred to as "the beautiful
metaphor of St. Paul as an example of a future state," to lure the chief closer
towards Christianity. Baker dug a small
hole in the ground and buried a grain of corn before continuing the
conversation.
Baker: "That
represents you when you die. That grain will decay, but from it will rise the
plant that will produce a reappearance of the original form."
Commoro: "Exactly
so; that I understand. But the original grain does not rise again; it rots like
the dead man, and is ended; the fruit produced is not the same grain that we
buried, but the production of that grain: so it is with man - I die, and decay,
and am ended; but my children grow up like the fruit of the grain. Some men
have no children, and some grains perish without fruit; then all are ended."
One can almost imagine Baker leaping to his feet in
exasperation. Was Commoro implying that Baker himself, a European, was a
heathen who would rot after his death? "I was obliged to change the subject of
conversation," he wrote, in Albert N'Yanza, "In this wild naked savage there was not even a superstition upon
which to found a religious feeling; there was a belief in matter; and to his
understanding everything was material." At the same time, Baker was
forced to concede that Comorro was no ordinary savage: "It was extraordinary to find such clearness of perception combined
with such obtuseness to anything ideal."
"Baker asked the
chief to show him how to get to Luta N'zige, the great lake through which the
river Nile flowed, so he could ‘discover' it."
One feels terribly cheated that Baker did not record any
more of this insightful dialogue and instead chose to abruptly end the
conversation with Commoro. Baker should have asked the chief about his attitude
toward Europeans such as himself - it's clear from the preceding dialogue that
Commoro would have offered some interesting perspectives. "Giving up the religious argument as a
failure, I resolved upon more practical inquiries," Baker wrote, and
described how he asked the chief to show him how to get to Luta N'zige, the great lake through which the river Nile flowed, so
he could "discover" it.
"Suppose
you reach the great lake, what will you do with it?" Commoro asked Baker, and we can almost see the wise chief mischievously
scratching his chin. "What will be the
good of it? If you find that the large river does flow from it, what then?"
Chief Commoro would have been puzzled and amused had someone
informed him that the strange white man eventually reached the lake and that
upon his return to England, renamed it Lake Albert in honor of Queen Victoria's
husband; and, for his "unique" discovery in Africa, Baker was knighted by the
Crown. Commoro would have been more shocked that, nearly a century later, long
after Uganda's formal independence in 1962 from Britain, there was a school
still named Sir Samuel Baker Secondary School in Uganda.
The Abyssinians Rout the Italian Empire
When Western writers were not preoccupied with analyzing the
Africans' intellectual and moral backwardness, they were reinforcing the myth
of Europeans' military genius relative to Africans.
Consider this assessment offered in an article published in The New York Times on July 25th
1879, after the military confrontation between a Zulu army and British forces. "Whether or not providence is on the side of
the heaviest battalions there can be little doubt of the result of a contest
between a civilized nation, with great military and naval power and
inexhaustible resources," proclaimed
the Times, "and a primitive and barbarous tribe, however brave and unyielding."
The Times' editors
were angered and taken aback by the Zulus' temerity, for daring to defend
themselves against the British forces intent on conquering them and occupying
their land. "Sooner or later, the
powerful nation was destined to bring the savage tribe into abject submission
or demolish it utterly," the Times article declared with finality. "The justice of the cause had nothing to do
with this foregone conclusion."
Eleven years later the Times
was glorifying and justifying Italy's brutal aggression against Ethiopia, which
was then referred to by its ancient name, Abyssinia. The Italian ruler
Francesco Crispi - a descendant of Machiavelli - had just defeated Menelik II,
the Abyssinian monarch, in a major battle. "THE ITALIANS IN AFRICA," exulted
the Times in thick bold headlines, in
an article dated February 2nd 1890.
"Results of Crispi's Brilliant Policy," proclaimed the sub-headline.
"'The powerful nation was destined to bring the savage
tribe into abject submission or demolish it utterly,' the Times article
declared with finality."
What led to the battle was Italian treachery. They had
concluded the Treaty of Uccialli with Menelik in 1889, giving the monarch the
"option" to use Italy as an intermediary in dealings with other European
powers. However, the Italian version of the treaty - unlike the Amharic version
that Menelik retained - actually made Ethiopia an Italian protectorate. The
emperor immediately rejected the agreement when he discovered the deceit,
leading to war.
The article was one of the most absurd melodramatic
celebrations of European imperial assault on Africa, declaring that Italy had "achieved triumph upon triumph in Africa,"
and that there was a surrender by "all
the tribes," and when the
Italians occupied Adowa (or Adwa), the ancient capital, they were welcomed "by the natives as liberators." Since not a single "native" was quoted, we
can easily dismiss this assertion as propaganda.
"Europe now marvels and perhaps
scarcely credits its own eyes. Italy in Adowa!," the Times article continued, in its hyper-melodramatic tone, "Is it true or is it a dream. Nothing in the
world has the power to drive the Italian troops from their central position."
Still, the editors must have realized that even at the
height of 19th Century European conquest and colonization of Africa,
it was highly hypocritical of a leading newspaper in a "democratic" society to
blatantly celebrate such unprovoked aggression, even if the victims were
savages. So the Times article offered
a rationale for the invasion. "We
could not thus speak, however if the programme of Italy in Africa was one of
pure conquest, because exploits exclusively military are in too great
opposition to the sentiments of progress, of peace, of work, of companionship,
that should form the pivot of modern life," the article stated. "But instead, we may rejoice in and applaud
this conquest of civilization and Christianity over barbarians and savages,
over unbelief, over habits of ferocity, over brutal ignorance of every human
law, religious, social and civil."
"We may rejoice in and applaud this conquest of
civilization and Christianity over barbarians and savages."
These assertions, invoking moralistic and divine
justification for European imperialism were so nonsensical that the Times editors' were compelled to temper
it. So, at the very end, the article finally offered the true motive behind
Italy's aggression: "The water roads
of Africa and the large commercial arteries in the hands of Italy signify that
they are also in the hands of the civilized world, which can now introduce
without fear the benefits of commerce, of exchange, of relations of any and
every sort, and in short time produce the best profits from the immense natural
wealth existing there." This brief sentence easily summed up the
essence of Europe's entire interaction with Africa.
The Ethiopians continued their resistance and were never
fully subdued. They smarted under the
humiliating yoke of Italian domination for six years. Then, suddenly, the Ethiopians struck back with brutal
efficiency. This time around, the good newspaper was suddenly singing a
mournful tune.
"ITALY'S TERRIBLE DEFEAT," the Times lamented, describing the great battle of Adowa, in an article
published on March 4th 1896.
The newspaper reported that 3,000 Italian soldiers were massacred by
Ethiopian troops in the battlefields of Adowa. Additionally, 60 heavy guns were
captured and all provisions for the Italian troops were completely destroyed.
Italian casualties included generals of the Army, the paper reported. Out of a
total original force of 10,596, those killed or missing numbered 4,133, while
2,000 were captured. In fact, Menelik called off his troops when the Italians
fled in panic; otherwise the entire army would have been annihilated.
This defeat was so thorough and embarrassing that the
Italian nation refused to accept it. Instead, the military commander, General
Oreste Baratieri, was blamed for poor military strategy by the Italian
government and newspapers. Every possible excuse was entertained; the Italians
could not credit the Ethiopians with military genius. The Ethiopians too
suffered heavy losses; but it was their country and they were willing to make
sacrifices to defend and liberate it.
Reinforcements from Italy were to be quickly rushed to
Africa, the Times reported, and
political conditions were so grave that the Pope canceled a major diplomatic
banquet. The Italian government was completely destabilized by the defeat, the
paper reported, and its survival was in jeopardy. "The present campaign against the Abyssinians threatens to become one
of the most disastrous in which the Italian arms have ever taken part," the
Times concluded, "and what the final
outcome will be it would not be hard to predict."
"The defeat shook
the foundations of their moral convictions and their sense of racial
supremacy."
Italian citizens - indeed, all Europeans - were simply
incapable of conceptualizing what had occurred, deep in "darkest" Africa, and
they were traumatized. All the racist literature and myths they had been reared
on had never even hinted at the possibility of such a defeat in Africa. The
defeat shook the foundations of their moral convictions and their sense of
racial supremacy to the core.
What compounded the traumatic embarrassment was the fact
that during the early part of the invasion, Gen. Baratieri had scored several
victories against Menelik's army. Baratieri had become so emboldened that he
returned to Rome and asked Parliament for more funds so that he could
"annihilate" the Ethiopians. Italian journalists stoked national euphoria by
endorsing the campaign in newspaper articles and even hailed Baratieri as the
second coming of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the hero of Italian unification in 1861.
Gen. Baratieri, in turn, could not resist boasting that he would return with
Emperor Menelik in a cage.
Yet, when commander Baratieri returned to Africa to conclude
his victory, the savages refused to cooperate with his plans. They tamed the
general and cut down his troops, with Menelik, 52, riding on horseback from one
battle to the next, exhorting his troops and leading the rout. Later, in Italy,
Baratieri was charged and court-martialed for "cowardice." The Italians had
been defeated before in combat; but never before by Black "savages." The
national psyche was unprepared; riots broke out in the streets of Rome, perhaps
in fear that the savages would pursue the Italian troops all the way back to
Italy. Eventually, the Italian government collapsed. The Ethiopians forced
Italy to pay several million pounds as compensation before releasing the
captives. With a few more generals like Menelik II, the history of Africa could
have taken a dramatically different course.
© Milton G. Allimadi
Next week, Part Four: The New
York Times as Apartheid's Apologists
The Hearts of Darkness: How European Writers Created the
Racist image of Africa
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