 |
| Forest of No Joy |
J P Daughton
W W Norton and Company
New York 2021.
This book has been shortlisted for the Cundill Prize in History and it will not surprise me if it wins the Prize. Post Colonialism in contemporary historical scholarship privileges a set of themes which reinforce the dominant ideological themes in western society: political correctness, black lives matter, and a belief in race equity. In this book we have all three in good measure.
Post colonialism has essentially hitched its wagon to the dominant ideological discourse emanating from western media and academia. Race Equity, identity politics and racial justice. Obviously the enormous human cost involved in the construction of this railway makes it an attractive proposition for such investigation that can stir the liberal western/white "Conscience" while skirting all important political and economic issues. For example, Racism can be critiqued as the institution animating western dominance over Africa and indeed other parts of the world. But the diplomatic and political contexts are to be studiously avoided. The defeat of France at the hands of Germany in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 provided the immediate spur to colonialism in Africa and Germany encouraged this by essentially allowing France a free pass, wink-and-nod at the leap across the Mediterranean on the part of the Chancellor Bismarck. The entire edifice of western domination was built on racial ordering of the human race and the ideology of Progress made colonial societies inured to the costs they imposed on societies they ruled. In the case of the Congo-Ocean Railway too, we find the same allure of Progress an philosophical conceit that virtually dehumanises non white peoples and cultures. The author recognises this aspect when he states that European history recorded its achievements not the trauma of indigenous societies. Since the recognition of the Holocaust as a fact of History, Historians have adopted the eschatology of bearing witness and we find this element in the present book.
 |
| The route |
 |
| A cartoon lampooning the Railway |
The author documents in extreme detail the miserable conditions in which the workers toiled. Since the region was forested and thinly populated, the colonial administration guaranteed the construction company, Bartignolles, the labour force it needed and this proved to be the original sin. Workers had to be "recruited" from Chad nearly 1500 kilometers to the north and all sorts of methods were employed. Chiefs were required to supply a quota of men and if they did not comply they were subjected to beatings in front of their villagers. Further able bodied men were kidnapped and taken in rows bound by coffle to the neck in the same humiliating fashion of slaves and any resistance was met with brute force. Men were shot and beaten to death and no questions were asked. Andre Gide who visited the region when Pacha was the Administrator wrote about the cruelties inflicted upon the people of the region. The Deputies, particularly the Socialists, raised questions in the Assembly and soon the furore died down. The living conditions of the workers was horrible and there was hardly any medical assistance at hand. Even the International Labour Organization did little more than ask a few perfunctory questions.
This book makes sad reading and even if we do not doubt the humanitarian spirit of the Historian, the larger question is: What are we do when confronted with such immense moral issues. Societies that have profited from such exploitation must give a percentage of their GDP as reparations to the affected region. This is the need of the hour. Not pious thernodies.
