I highly recommend this documentary to anyone wishing to know about the forgotten African Holocaust. While the reenactments are at times rather incongruous and it employs some rather 'dramatic' devices betraying an historians' oath to be 'sine ira et studio' (having the king sit impassive in a mocked-up dock), they in no way detract from the remarkable story of savagery and, in the case of Morel and Casement in particular, heroism. It is a visual companion to Hochschild's 'King Leopold's Ghost', although it provides additional information such as the fate of the chief who brought one hundred and eighty-two long twigs and seventy-six smaller ones to represent that number of adults and children murdered by the A.B.I.R. Company in his district which I had been unable to find anywhere else. It also offers a solid number of other historians from the Congo itself as well as Belgium and the United Kingdom. The epilogue relating to Leopold's posthumous victory is particularly striking. www.tracesofevil.com
Review of White King, Red Rubber, Black Death
White King, Red Rubber, Black Death
(2003 TV Movie)
A searing indictment, both then and now
1 October 2008