Hannes Wessels,
I must confess I have been unable to stop chuckling about the furore caused by recent pronouncements made by UK billionaire businessman Sir Jim Ratcliffe. There was instant media and political outrage when he suggested that Britain had been ‘colonised’ by immigrants and then had the gall to go on and explain that in his opinion this alleged ‘colonisation’ process had not made the country a better place.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was immediately incensed, and on behalf of the British people, he demanded an apology from Sir Jim, and got it – sort of. But what I found mildly amusing (not hugely funny because the situation that now pertains in that country is rather tragic in my humble opinion) is that mention of the word ‘colonise’ seems to strike an instant chord with the audience, the majority of whom see it as synonymous with something ghastly almost in the same league as mention of the word ‘holocaust’ is immediately relatable to the death of millions of innocents in Nazi gas chambers.
The problem is few people in the UK and elsewhere have any real knowledge or understanding of what the colonial experience and the age of imperialism was really all about and this is because, since the end of the era in the 1960’s until the present, they have been swamped with a combination of blatant false-hoods, biased reportage and political spin along with severe sanction upon those who might have the temerity to question the conventional wisdom.
One should not forget much of the original disinformation was Marxist inspired and from 1917 the Marxist-Leninists identified decolonisation as a prime target in their quest for a global revolution aimed at the destruction of the capitalist world.
In this regard the saga of King Leopold and the Belgian Congo is relevant. It has long perplexed me because it is invariably presented as a perfect example of the horrors of colonial rule and Leopold is portrayed as a poster-child for the boundless capacity of white-Christians to visit murder and mayhem upon harmless natives in pursuit of plunder, while imbued with an innate sense of racial superiority. While it must be accepted there was forced labour and harsh punishment for disobedience, most historians covering this period insist he and his Belgian cohorts were responsible for the deaths of between 5 and 10 million people which is more than what Hitler is accused of, albeit under different circumstances.
In the pantheon of history’s human monsters these numbers place the Belgian king somewhere near the top of the list but this number has long puzzled me because I have never been able to understand how so few Belgians managed to kill so many people in so short a time. Practical questions like how did they do it, who actually did it, and where are the millions of bodies buried have never, to my knowledge, been satisfactorily addressed by any of the accusers.
In this context it has been fascinating for me to stumble upon the writings of Mr Will Tanner courtesy of Mr. Elon Musk’s ‘X’ platform and to learn from someone who has had the gumption to ignore the conventional wisdom and pursue an independent line of inquiry.
Mr. Tanner starts his polemic by reminding his readers that the territory reported on by the great explorer Henry Morton Stanley following his epic trek in search of Dr. David Livingstone, which subsequently became Leopold’s private fiefdom, before becoming a colony, was not a ‘Paradise Lost’ where the people lived in nature, peace and prosperous harmony. It was actually a veritable hell on earth, utterly lawless, rife with cannibalism, endemic inter-tribal slaughter, ritual human sacrifices, and fertile ground for Arab slave-traders who worked closely with local chiefs happy to prosper from the sale of their own people into permanent bondage.
Thanks to the intervention of the Belgians and the arrival of the Force Publique along with administrators, doctors, engineers, missionaries and other professionals, decisive steps were taken turn the territory away from primitive paganism and towards Christianity in the hope some sort of civilised polity, governed competently along with the rule of law would emerge.
Progress was made, slavers were expelled, violence suppressed, hospitals were built, and a civil administration was introduced; but Leopold’s coffers could not cover the necessary expenses so it was on Henry Morton Stanley’s advice that the exploitation of the rubber resource was focused upon. And it was this endeavour that drew the attention of English liberals along with propogandists aimed at discrediting Leopold and his countrymen because there was resentment at a political and commercial level from people who felt the Belgian monarch was getting too rich too quick from an acquisition he was hardly entitled to. The disinformation campaign was a total success which resonates to this day.
As for the roughly 10 million murdered, the latest scholarly historical enquiry sheds far different light on reality in the ‘Congo Free State’ era to 1908 when it was formally ceded to Belgium. Indeed, it is now found that population decline from 1885 was nowhere near the numbers so long alleged but around 1-2 million – a vast difference and discrepancy to the thesis and numeric put out by Adam Hochschild in his book ‘Leopold’s Ghost’ that became the alleged ‘gospel according to history’. Nor does the actual population decline recorded by Census ascribe causality. While killings there were, some fatalities were linked to the forced labour regime, many others derived from epidemics, sickness, smallpox, dysentery and related tropical maladies as were common then along with the evident flight of people to nearby territories.
However, where I must take issue with Sir Ian on his recent comments is over his choice of words. For better or worse, European colonists brought something that might loosely be referred to as ‘progress’ when they went into Africa. They also left the relative safety of their homelands to venture into a wilderness fraught with hardship and danger; many perished in the process, but they brought the wheel, the written word, the concept of the rule of law, modern medicine, the telegraph, the internal combustion engine to name only some of their introductions.
The people who have come to Britain, have in many cases fled alleged hardship at home (often from countries that have become failed states in the aftermath of the imperial era) in search of comfort and safety in a highly developed, relatively prosperous country, where they can be sustained by a system into which they have contributed nothing.
Maybe Sir Jim should have used the word ‘settlers’ because they give ‘colonisers’ a bad name.
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Great Article. What we are told by the academics and media today and the truth of what really happened sometimes make you wonder if we are talking about the the same place and time
Excellent article mr Wessels, quite an eye opener. Makes one wonder how anglicized Joseph Conrad was and with whom his affiliations were closest.
History appears to be fluid, changing with the current narratives forced upon the public.
Sad having to question everything one has been taught. Worse, watching the same propaganda force fed to the next generation.
Wow, what an interesting article! My heart has followed Africa for sometime and tears flow thinking of the good relationships that were cultivated between the races that have been destroyed by the advent of bolshevism. Sometimes my heart boils thinking of the treachery, but I have enough to do facing it now in the States! I have a special South Afrikan friend here in the states and I truly love the Afrikaners!
Absolutely spot on.
Outstanding commentary all round. I stand educated.
Thanks John. Not often an Umtali Boy gets to teach a Plumtree Boy anything!
Good article Hannes. Don’t forget the Duplicitous Pommie Commies have been brainwashed by the BBC🤔BS since birth and then given a free dumbed down socialist education which is why they haven’t got a clue as to what is going on in the real world which is why they are being invaded by illegals…..the same goes for the Azis, Keewees Canucks and Yanks etc.
When colonialism is debated today, the Congo is frequently invoked as the ultimate moral indictment. The image is familiar: forced labour, rubber quotas enforced through violence, and the personal rule of Leopold II of Belgium over the Congo Free State. There is no serious dispute that the regime was coercive and that many people died. The historical record demonstrates violence, extraction, and severe demographic stress. What deserves greater caution is the way Congo population figures are sometimes used as a blunt instrument to condemn colonialism as a single, uniform phenomenon.
The widely cited claim that “ten million died” is not derived from a pre-existing census. No reliable population count existed before 1885. Estimates of demographic loss are reconstructed retrospectively from missionary reports, later colonial enumerations, tax records, and modelling. Depending on the assumed starting and end points, implied losses vary considerably. A higher estimated baseline combined with a lower later count produces a vast deficit; a lower baseline and higher later count produce a far smaller one. This does not negate suffering; it simply underlines the uncertainty embedded in the arithmetic.
Equally important is structure. The Congo under Leopold II was not a conventional colony administered by a parliamentary government. Between 1885 and 1908 it functioned as the personal sovereign possession of a European monarch, operated through concession companies and enforced by the Force Publique. Revenue did not flow into a metropolitan treasury subject to normal political oversight. In institutional terms, it resembled a concessionary corporate regime under monarchical control more than it resembled British India or French West Africa. That distinction matters when drawing general conclusions about colonial governance.
This broader differentiation is central to the argument advanced by Nigel Biggar in Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning (book I enjoyed reading). Biggar contends that empires varied in structure and outcome and should be judged in the round, weighing institutional development alongside coercion. Although he does not focus on the Congo, his methodological point applies: colonialism was not a single model.
The Congo Free State illustrates the dangers of highly personalised, extractive rule. It should be analysed with precision rather than rhetorical inflation. Acknowledging brutality does not require numerical exaggeration; nor does questioning uncertain estimates excuse injustice. Historical credibility depends on holding both truths together.
Colonialism was a good thing for most of Africa and its demise was entirely at the instigation of the Communists and their odd bed fellow, the United States.
“Colonialism was a good thing for most of Africa and its demise was entirely at the instigation of the Communists and their odd bed fellow, the United States.” I being from the States totally like your comment and this article! I quoted you to point out the US has been an odd bed fellow of the Bolshevik’s for a long time now! I am sorry my country has colluded with Bolshevism, and the overthrow of countries whose people were valiantly fight against it. May their memory always be in our hearts and prayers. And may we all keep up the good fight! We are in the thick of it still and it is spreading like cancer and will soon engulf us all! God bless you!
✍️John Alan Coey (12 November 1950 – 19 July 1975) was a U.S. Marine who served in the Rhodesian Army as one of the “Crippled Eagles”, a loosely organised group of U.S. expatriates fighting for the unrecognized government of Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe) during that country’s Bush War. A devout Christian, vitriolic anti-communist, he was the first American fatality of the war. He moved to Rhodesia to join its army in 1972, the day after graduating from college in his home town of Columbus, Ohio, and served until he was killed in action in 1975. He kept a journal throughout his service that was posthumously published as A Martyr Speaks.
Coey received United States Marine Corps officer training during his studies and was on track to receive a commission when he requested discharge and left for Rhodesia, asserting that the U.S. government had been infiltrated by a “revolutionary conspiracy of internationalists, collectivists and communists” and that fighting for Rhodesia would allow him to better defend Western interests. He joined the Rhodesian Special Air Service (SAS) and passed with the rank of trooper in November 1972, receiving recognition as one of the army’s best recruits of the year. However, his political views led to an acrimonious fall from favor within the SAS, his expulsion from its officer training programme in October 1973 and ultimately to his leaving the unit four months later. He redeployed to the Rhodesian Army Medical Corps, from which he was posted to the Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI) heliborne commando battalion in July 1974, concurrently with his promotion to corporal. He thereafter served as an instructor and commando medic in the RLI.
Though not an officer, Coey exerted some influence on tactical doctrine, making numerous suggestions to his superiors and pioneering the combat medic role in the Rhodesian Army, which caused him to be nicknamed “the Fighting Doc”. He was killed in action in Mashonaland in the country’s north on 19 July 1975, shot through the head while running into the open to treat two fallen comrades. His remains, originally buried in Que Que in central Zimbabwe, were reinterred in Ohio in 1979. His journal and some of his letters home were compiled into A Martyr Speaks by his mother soon after he died, and published in 1988
https://www.christianlibertybooks.co.za/item/martyr_speaks
Thanks for this Phil, I remember John very fondly. God Bless Him.
The Empire of Tippu Tip
By the mid-19th century, Zanzibar-based traders had pushed deep into the Maniema region of the eastern Congo. The most formidable of these was Hamed bin Mohammed el Murjebi, known as Tippu Tip.
The Ivory and Slave Nexus: These were not merely merchant caravans; they were private armies. To secure the “white gold” (ivory), they required “black gold” (human labour). Thousands were captured to carry tusks to the coast, with a mortality rate that decimated the interior population.
The Disruption of Sovereignty: These traders established “Sultanates” that overthrew traditional tribal structures. By the time the Force Publique arrived, they found a region already defined by fortified “zerebas” (stockades) and a population traumatised by decades of raiding.
Thank you for your comment! I didn’t know about that! Alas when the Muslim horde was unchecked they racked havoc upon their neighbors!
Totally agree Hannes. The chopping off of limbs was a practise long carried out by locals, before the advent of colonialism. This was standard practise/punishment/retribution of savage tribes vying for domination and slaves.
Very well said. There’s a wonderful book called “Blood River: A Journey into Africa’s Broken heart” by Tim Butcher that documents his travels in the DRC in the footsteps of Stanley in 2005. It is an incredible read. I have had chats with Zimbabweans involved in the fighting between 2002-4 and South African charter pilots flying between mines in more recent years. It seems that the place has always been a reasonable facsimile of hell, with a short intermission between 1900 or thereabouts and 1959 (or thereabouts) and it is only getting worse. The infrastructure the Belgians created out of the jungle at vast material and human cost has been almost entirely reclaimed by the jungle. The sheer scale of the killing in the last 3 decades pales anything else by comparison. This in a country that should be one of the wealthiest on earth.
Or should be known as “Invaders” as they are all arriving “illegally” !