레오폴드(Leopold) 2세의 편지. LETTER FROM THE KING OF THE BELGIANS[The Land of the Pigmies]

[레오폴드 2세의 편지와 키플링의 "백인의 부담"이라는 시의 논조는 거의 흡사하다. 야만적이고 문명화되지 않는 비유럽인들을 백인들이 부모와 같은 마음으로 온갖 어려움과 장애를 이겨내고 좀 더 나은 삶을 살도록 교화시키고 문명화시키겠다는 것이다. 하지만 여기에서 빠진 한 가지 중요한 점은 비유럽인들의 입장이다. 백인들은 비유럽인들에게 어떻게 하는 것이 좋은지를 결코 묻지 않는다. 자신들이 우월한 인종이니까 자신들이 이끄는 대로 따라 오라고만 말한다. 그리고, 그것이 가능한 것은 그들의 우월한 "무력"일 뿐인데도, 비유럽인들의 야만성이나 시대에 뒤떨어진 관습(customs that date back thousands of years)만을 탓한다.

레오폴드 2세의 관심의 대상인 콩고 식민지를 두고 말하자면, 자신의 식민지 경영의 본래의 목적은 커튼 뒤로 감추고, 자신들의 목적이 오로지 물질적 * 도덕적 갱생(Our only programme, I am anxious to repeat, is the work of material and moral regeneration)에 있는 듯이 가장한다. 물론 식민지의 현실은 이 그럴듯한 말과는 반대라 할지라도, 백인들의 목숨이상으로 흑인들의 목숨을 소중히 여겨야 한다(not sparing their own blood, they will the more spare the blood of the natives)는 그의 말이 완전히 거짓은 아닐 것이다.

레오폴드 2세를 비롯하여 제국주의자(혹은 식민주의자)들은 자신들의 경제적 * 정치적 이익을 추구하는 가운데, 원주민들을 교화시키고 문명으로 이끄는 것을 문명인의 사명으로 진지하게 믿었는 지도 모르겠다. 하지만 식민지의 현실은 전혀 그렇지 못했다. George Washington Williams의 편지가 이 점을 단적으로 보여준다.]

(285) The mission which the agents of the State have to accomplish on the Congo is a noble one. They have to continue the development of civilisation in the centre of Equatorial Africa, receiving their inspiration directly from Berlin and
Brussels.

-  Placed face to face with primitive barbarism, grappling with sanguinary customs, they[agents] are obliged to reduce these gradually. They must accustom the population to general laws, of which the most needful and the most salutary is assuredly that of work.

- In such countries, I know, strong authority must be imposed to bring the natives (who have no such inclination) to conform to the usages of civilisation. For that purpose we must be both firm and parental.

(286) When our directing will is implanted among them its aim is to triumph over all obstacles, and results which could not be attained by lengthy speeches may follow philanthropic influence.

-  But if, in view of this desirable spread of civilisation, we count upon the means of action which confer upon us dominion and the sanction of right, it is not less true that our ultimate end is a work of peace. Wars do not necessarily mean the ruin of the regions in which they rage ; our agents do not ignore this fact, so from the day when their effective superiority is affirmed, they feel profoundly reluctant to use force.

- The wretched negroes, however, who are still under the sole sway of their traditions, have that horrible belief that victory is only decisive when the enemy, fallen beneath their blows, is annihilated.

- I am pleased to think that our agents, nearly all of whom are volunteers drawn from the ranks of the Belgian army, have always present in their minds a strong sense of the career of honour in which they are engaged, and are animated with a pure feeling of patriotism ; not sparing their own blood, they will the more spare the blood of the natives, who will see in them the all-powerful protectors of their lives and their property, benevolent teachers of whom they have so great a need.

- Our only programme, I am anxious to repeat, is the work of material and moral regeneration, and we must do this among a population whose degeneration in its inherited conditions it is difficult to measure.The many horrors and atrocities which disgrace humanity give way little by little before our intervention. Each step forward made by our people must mark an improvement in the condition of the natives.

(287) Private and public property, the basis of all social development, is defended and respected, instead of being given over to the law that " Might is Right."
(287) This material prosperity obviously consolidates the interests of whites and negroes. Their primitive nature will not resist indefinitely the pressing appeals of Christian culture.

- The network of railways and stations has gradually put an end to the incessant warfare of tribe against tribe, village against village, and thus has brought about a rule of peace.

[Preface]

(xxi)  in 1816 two thousand slaves were still being shipped annually from the Congo

- The Tchambesi, Lake Bangwelo, the Luapula, Lake Moero, and the Lualaba were then all proved to be parts of the Upper Congo, which was thus followed in its entirety four hundred years after the discovery of its mouth by the Portuguese, and shown to cross Central Africa from east to west, and to form a natural means of communication with the very heart of the Dark Continent. (the very heart of the Dark Continent라는 말은 콘래드의 [암흑]을 연상케 하는 말이다. 콘래드는 이 책을 읽었을까?)

[C1]

(8) Speaking generally the people of the Lower Congo are tall and well built, with supple liinbs formed more for agility than strength, and oval heads and faces, quick with intelligent vivacity. Their women are larger and stronger than the men, and they all, in common with other races of the Congo, are remarkable for their small hands and feet, on which are bracelets and anklets of a size that no European could wear.

- Families are distinguished by a singular method of filing the teeth to a point, or cutting them square, or in regular semicircles

(12) Most of these people believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, who lives above the clouds, and does not trouble Himself about mortals whom He has created. More attention, however, is paid to their fetiches, or petty gods, who are thought to busy themselves with the affairs of men. These, especially the fetich of death, are addressed through priests, the ministers of fetish-worship, who consult the image, or fetich, in cases of crime or injury, in order to discover who is guilty of the deed.

* King Leopold II - Speech at the First Meeting of the Belgian Committee of the International Association for the Exploration and Civilization of Central Africa (Nov. 6, 1876) (from The Congo Free State and the New Imperialism)

[레오폴드 2세의 이 연설에서도 두드러지는 내용은 야만의 상태에서 벗어나지 못하고 있는, 특히 노예 무역에서 벗어나지 못하고 있는 중앙 아프리카를 문명화하는데 힘쓰자는 것이다. 그러한 반문명적 상태에서 이들을 해방시켜 "흑인들에게 복음을 전파하고, 상업과 현대 산업을 도입하도록 하자"는 것이 주된 골자이다.]  

(32) the slave trade, which still exists over a large part of the African Continent, is a plague-spot that every friend of civilisation would desire to see disappear.

(33) Sustained by public sympathy, we hold the conviction that, if we accomplish the opening of the routes, if we succeed in establishing stations along the routes followed by the slave merchants, this odious traffic will be wiped out, and that these routes and these stations, while serving as fulcrums for travellers, will powerfully contribute towards the evangelisation of the blacks, and towards the introduction among them of commerce and modern industry.