Category Archives: Exploitation

Noble Causes

Classic Books, Colonialism, Exploitation, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

 

Joseph Conrad in his short novel shreds western illusions viscerally. For example,  Fresleven, was the most gentle and quiet creature enthralled by the “noble cause,” but he was seen whacking an old black chief with a stick.   Conrad knew that the illusions would fail and then something brutal would happen.  I want to warn you there is an awful word coming here. Conrad described it this way, “he probably felt the need at last of asserting his self-respect in some way. Therefore he whacked the old nigger mercilessly, while a big crowd of his people watched.” That tells you a lot about Fresleven. It wouldn’t be the same without that awful word.

Kurtz came to the centre of Africa thinking he would do good work. He had the best of intentions.  Yet those intentions ended with a ring  of hideous human heads on spikes around a campfire in the centre of the dark jungle. This was a place where Kurtz came to be worshipped like some evil god. That is where his good intentions and illusions inexorably led.

After being in the jungle, in that darkness, Kurtz came to see everything as belonging to him.  It was all his.  As we know that is a common western attitude. As Kurtz said,

“‘My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my’– everything belonged to him.  It made me hold my breath in expectation of hearing the wilderness burst into a prodigious peal of laughter that would shake the fixed stars in their places.  Everything belonged to him—but that was a trifle. The thing was to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own.  That was the reflection that made you creepy all over. It was impossible—it was not good for one either—trying to imagine.  He had taken a high seat among the devils of the land—I mean literally. You can’t understand with pavement under your feet, surrounded by kind neighbours ready to cheer you or to fall on you, stepping delicately between the butcher and the policeman, in the holy terror of scandal and gallows and lunatic asylums—how can you imagine what particular region of the first ages a man’s untrammelled feet may take him into by the way of solitude—utter solitude without a policeman—by the way of silence—utter silence where no warning voice of a kind neighbour can be heard whispering of public opinion?”

The Europeans thought they owned everything. There was a big illusion.

In that dark place people no longer have their illusions to protect them. They are naked subject to the devilish forces hiding in the dark terrible forest. No policeman can help us there, for none is available.  We have to rely on our own inner strength and convictions genuinely held. False pretenses of doing charitable work will not save us.  No cause no matter how noble will be enough. Only the truth can save us.

Joseph Conrad and The Heart of Darkness and The Conquest of the Earth

Books, Colonialism, Exploitation, Indigenous People After Contact, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

 

It is time to return to the classics. The novel, The Heart of Darkness is certainly one of the best books I have ever read. I think I have now read it 3 times.   It is well worth a re-read. It is a definitely a classic. And it is a short read (unlike Moby Dick).

The book was originally serialized in Blackwood’s Magazine in England in1899 by Joseph Conrad whose original language was Polish. He only became fluent in his twenties. It always amazes me that he became such a good writer in English in such a short time.

It is a simple story. A steamboat captain Marlow, travels up the Congo River to meet Kurtz an agent of the ivory company for whom he works. There, Marlow finds Kurz living among “the savages.” He tells the story to a group of civilized Englishmen drinking and smoking cigars while sailing the river Thames in London.  The setting is important. A key question is whether or not the heart of Darkness is London or the Congo.

The novel describes a journey by Marlowe, the protagonist and narrator, to the heart of Africa.  It was a trip up the winding Congo river, (we presume). That river is described, not accidentally, as a snake. There Marlowe found a corrupt agent of the English company hunting for ivory.  The book powerfully describes the black heart at the centre of European colonialism and exploitation of the continent of Africa and other places as well. He reveals the deep dark truth hidden by the pretense of lofty moralistic goals.  Illusions he calls them. Of course, the book is more than a trip to the heart of the darkness of Africa, it is also a trip into the heart of darkness of each of us who remain behind in the safety and comfort of our homes. That darkness exists there too.  And what Marlow finds, and what we would find in the centre of our own heart of darkness, if we were brave enough and honest enough to make the journey was horror!

One of the interesting things about how the story is told, is that it is told by Marlowe to 4 or 5 others sitting on a boat in the Thames. Why there? Why is this relevant?  In my view it is important because Conrad wanted to make it clear that everyone is capable of savagery. The savage is within each of us–even civilized people in London, the centre of the world at that time. London is also in the heart of darkness!

Conrad lays bare the reality behind the ‘civilizing’ goals of the European traders. With that he lays bare the thin veneer of civilization and the thin armour around our own darkness inside of us, for none of us are pure. We are all tainted.  We all share the rapacity that engulfed the traders like Kurtz.

With Conrad’s analysis we also learn the despairing truth behind the notion of the “benevolent despot” that has so tortured Africa. It is a lie. A lie that Kurtz embodied.  Kurtz who eventually gave way to unspeakable lusts and gratifications had gone to the heart of the continent with enlightenment goals. Sentimentally, he wanted to be a humanitarian helper. So many Europeans have gone with similar lofty goals only to be thwarted. Not usually as sensationally as Kurtz, but they have been destroyed nonetheless by their own rapacity and naiveté.

As Marlow takes the trip up that river he realizes the land is a swamp and he feels the reality of the person who ventures into this dark heart on behalf of some commercial enterprise back home.  Conrad feels for the innocence of that intrepid venturer, who does not know what he is getting into.

” Or think of a decent young citizen in a toga—perhaps too much dice, you know,–coming out here in the train of  some pretext, or tax-gatherer or trader even, to mend his fortunes.  Land in a swamp, march through the woods, in some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had close around him,–all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men.  There’s no initiation either into such mysteries.  He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable.  And it has a fascination, too that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination—you know, imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate. “(emphasis added)

 

Our commercial enterprises into the heart of dark continent have come cloaked in lofty goals.  But, according to Conrad, the people who came may have looked like religious zealots looking to help the poor savages, but they were the real savages.  They came with strength. It was an accidental strength based on the technological weakness of the indigenous.  There was no moral superiority that accompanied it. Conrad described those efforts this way,

“It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind—as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.  What redeems it is the idea only.  An idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea—something you can set up, and bow down before and offer sacrifice to.”

 

One of the things Conrad looks at in the book is the conquest of the earth by the men of Europe a dubious enterprise at best.  Conrad took a close look at colonialism and the sense of superiority and what he saw as the darkness at its heart. As he said, it was not always pretty.