A trip to the heart of darkness

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Listen to the yell of Léopold's ghost,
Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host.

Vachel Lindsay



After 5 months back in Blighty working in a call centre for a Debt Collection agency, I decided to take a short trip to Brussels. I've handed in my notice at the company, as I'm going to return to Africa in January 2008.

I took advantage of a special offer on Eurostar - a return journey with a nights accommodation.

I had 3 days off work. I left my Dad's house in Kineton on the 10th of December, taking the train down to London. I booked into a cheap hotel in Paddington. It had the smallest bathroom I've ever seen. The toilet was angled at 45 degrees so that it could fit into the tiny space. Even so, I was forced to step over the toilet to get at the shower.

The next morning I caught the Eurostar train from the new St Panchras Station. It took less than 2 hours to get into Brussels - the heart of darkness of my title.

The Heart of Darkness

Whilst in Brussels I did most of my Christmas shopping, buying Belgian chocolates and beer. I also visited a number of tourist sites including:

1)The Grand Place

2)Musee Royaux des Beaux Arts de Belgique

3)Musee des Instruments de Musique

4)Musee Royal de l'afrique Centrale (Musee du Congo)
This museum was opened following the world fair of 1897 originally as propaganda for King Leopold II's private colony in the Congo. His propaganda claimed his aims were idealistic - bringing civilization and Christianity to Africa.

In fact he brought forced labour killing 10 million Congolese out of a total population of 20 million.

King Leopold's real aim in his Congo Free State was to amass as great a personal fortune as he could. His agents used a system of forced (slave ) labour which stripped the Congo's forests of wild rubber, imposing quotas on villages and taking hostages when not enough rubber was collected. The symbol of Leopold's rule was the chicotte - a whip of hippopotamus hide used to flay victims, sometimes to death. Villagers were flogged, imprisoned and had their hands cut off.

Large parts of the rubber producing districts were de-populated. The author Joseph Conrad described Leopold's rule in Congo Free State as

the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience.

Leopold is remembered by many Belgians as the "Builder King" - much of the splendour of Brussels and other cities in Belgium is a result of his many building projects. A colonial splendour built on the blood of millions of Congolese.

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