During the years of European imperialism in Africa, Joseph Conrad saw the Congo as Europe's (specifically Belgium's) heart of darkness. In modern day America, we have our own heart of darkness: the Middle East.
Take Iraq, for example. In 2003, American troops invaded and conquered Iraq. We invaded Iraq under the pretense of disarming Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, ending Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, and freeing the people of Iraq. This scenario and rationale is very similar to that of the Belgium's in Heart of Darkness.
The U.S. invades Iraq to destroy weapons of mass destruction and to "free" its people, and Belgium invades the Congo to "civilize" its people. Hypocrisy is easily identifiable in both cases. Iraq, in fact, had no weapons of mass destruction to threaten the world with, and many Iraqis greeted the American troops not as liberators, but as enemies. America claimed that it waged war on Iraq to stop potential nuclear war and to free an oppressed people, but obviously neither of these reasons were true. In the case of Heart of Darkness, Belgium never actually "civilized" the Congo, or even really tried to do so.
So why, if not for the reasons that they stated, did Belgium occupy the Congo? And why did America occupy Iraq? Well, the answer is pretty simple. They did it for money. Belgium couldn't care less about "civilizing" the Congo. It only conquered the Congo for its ivory. Money and profit at the root of this question. America went to war with Iraq for oil. Official statements do not matter; America used Iraq and the rest of the Middle East as a scapegoat for 9/11 and jumped at the chance to go to war and make a profit off oil. As soon as the U.S. could open up areas of Iraqi energy sectors to foreign investments after the war, it did so. American oil companies made enormous profits.
As a side effect of Belgium's ideology of "civilizing" the people of the Congo, many people throughout Belgium came to think of the Congolese very one-dimensionally; they thought of them as beasts that needed to be tamed. As a side effect of America using an entire region as a scapegoat for one terrorist act, many Americans have developed completely unjustified prejudices against anyone of Middle Eastern descent. This is exemplified by Ahmed Mohamed, a boy who was arrested for having a muslim-sounding name and brown skin (he built a clock, brought it to school, and people though it was a bomb, so he was arrested).
Great post! I agree with your post completely. I really liked the specific facts and linking the prejudices of the past and present.
ReplyDeleteNice post, Aidan. I definitely agree that there are very unfair stereotypes that have resulted from the mindset that Americans have towards Muslim people. And I also agree that America's desire for oil has driven the resulting "war on terror". America needs to realize that only a small amount of Muslim people are actually the ones who are terrorists, and are often extremists who do not reflect the ideas of the the general public.
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