"Where There Aren't No Ten Commandments"

Chapter 8 is the first chapter in the book thus far to address the slaves and the slave trade directly. There is no beating around the bush in this chapter. The only attempt to cover up the evidence of the trade is on page 130 where they are called "volunteers". However it does nto take a genius to figure out that they are obviously nto volunteers, especially with information in the rest of the chapter. The chapter opens up discussing the luxuries that the Europeans possess even the Congo. Even though they are hundreds of thousands of miles from a civilized world. Leopold is still trying to cover up the slave trade, but he is being challenged more openly now, some people pay attention while others do not. As he is running out of funds he begins to call on fellow states men for help.

By the time he is done a lot of the Belgian officials who wanted no part in Africa owned large parts of it. The African's, realizing that this will not stop, begin to form bands of rebels, some more successful than others. Yet none being able to significantly effect Leopold's purposes. Men, women and children are taken slaves without any discrimination, weak or strong. The process of the children going to mission schools is introduced as well as the Force Publique, which is French for Public Force. Often times there were young black men under the control of one or two Belgian officers. They were forced tod o the dirty deeds. Hochschild makes a parallel between the Nazi's camps and the Congo. 
World War 2 is well known and there is a lot of information about the atrocities that happened in the German camps. The Congo on the other hand is not well publicized and virtually NO ONE knows what took place here. THis chapter has a white hand account, an honest one, about what took place. But it also have the account of an African woman Ilanga, who watched her husband be murdered right in front of her. Of course there are also accounts of the people behind this horrible regime. Last of all this chapter does not forget to check in with Leopold and his family life, as well as his political life.

The pictures are placed in the middle of this chapter. They are in chronological order in terms of what the reader knows as the book has revealed it. They start out innocently showing the pictures of the rulers, Leopold, Stanford and Sanford as well. Then they move into a picture of an African rulers, and missionaries. There true color of this chapter are revealed in the pictures of the slaves themselves, and the effects the Belgians had on their home life. At the end the pictures are of things and people that will be addressed in later chapters. There are also political cartoons and an advertisement for a gathering at the church of England. 


People are still taken advantage of in all parts of the world, Africa included. China however also has a large, practically forced labor system. As the massive factories pay very little to the Chinese workers. Africa still has forced labor, it is simply largely ignored as it is not happening on our own soil. Everything is a distance, which makes it a lot easier to deal with. There is not wide spread usage of media in Africa because there is no money for technology there. Thus the world is left to be blissfully ignorant of everything that goes on there.

Quiz Questions

1.Why is slavery first “nakedly” addressed first in this chapter? No euphemisms or analogies.
2. Why do you think at the end of the chapter, page 139, there is a translation from French to English for the white people songs, but no African dialect for the song the Africans sang?
3. What did Congo provide for the male youth of Europe?
4. How does Lefranc’s observations/account affect our perception of life in Congo?5. While the use of the slaves for the railroad is described, very briefly, why is there no further mention of the railroad and its progress?