Chapter 70 Gide's Travels in the Congo

Gide's Travels in the Congo This is one of the famous anecdotes in French literature: Andrew Gide wanted to go to the Congo when he was young Collecting butterfly specimens, he was only in his twenties at the time. Unexpectedly, this wish was delayed until he was in a He was in his fifties when he finally had the opportunity to travel to the Congo in 1925.This is delayed by more than thirty The wish that could only be realized in 2000, although he had overwhelmed his original enthusiasm for collecting butterfly specimens in the Congo. It was a big discount, but it gave him another kind of harvest, that is, seeing the French

In the area of ​​the Congo and the Belgian Congo, colonialist exploitation of the Congolese natives, and All kinds of dark cruelty and injustice.This made Gide unable to remain indifferent, so when he returned In the "Congo Travel Notes" (published in 1927) written by Empress Guo, although it also mentioned Congo's magnificently colored big butterfly, but most of the pages are about the lives of Congolese natives, A life of misery and misery under the oppression and torture of the colonialists. Once in the Congo, Gide sat in on the case of a young French officer accused of abusing his subordinates.From the merits

The report revealed that the officer asked the wives of the native soldiers under him to take turns sleeping with him every night.soldiers At first, he dared to be angry and dare not speak out, but as soon as he had the opportunity, he jointly sued him for abuse.The officer was later sentenced Sentenced to one year in prison, but then probation was announced.Gide said: "I cannot imagine the many Natives, how do you feel about this trial? The punishment Sambre received can satisfy their sense of justice ? " During the trip, Gide and his companions were woken up in the middle of the night by a native village head who told him

The complaint said that a white officer took two soldiers to a certain village to execute collective punishment, because Once ordered the villagers to move to another new cultivation area, because they were reluctant to leave their cultivation and because the tribes of the residents in the new area were different from them, they requested exemption from resettlement.Unexpectedly, it was considered a violation of Disobedience to orders, so troops were sent to carry out collective punishment.The black mayor told Gide that when the white soldier After the officer and two soldiers arrived in the village, they grabbed the twelve men in the village, tied them to trees, and then

They shot and killed all the women, and then killed all the women with knives. Finally, they captured five children and killed them. They locked themselves in a hut, and then set fire to the hut.The village head said that this punishment killed a total of Thirty-two people were killed. The reason why this person came to sue in the middle of the night was because he saw Gide and his party sitting in the seat of the local governor. If you want a car, you know it must be someone.He knew that there would be no chance to allow him to speak after dawn, so he took the opportunity to wake them up at night.

Sure enough, Gide said, the village head was arrested and imprisoned the next day, and he was also arrested along with his family members. arrested.Although Gide had written a letter for him to take with him, requesting the local governor to protect the man, but does not take effect. Not long after Gide's travels in the Congo, he discovered that there was a powerful opinion among the whites that In order to treat black people, we must use violence to make him afraid, and only then can we establish our prestige.One The Belgian doctor told Gideli that this was the only effective way, thinking that not only the stick, but sometimes the

It is not hesitating to bleed.He said he killed a black person once himself, but hasten to say that's not Not for his own sake, but to rescue a friend who would otherwise be dead egg. Gide said that the Caucasians in Congo are not only officials, but also businessmen; This is true of people, even women.They don't have a good word for the blacks they hire, face to face Call him a "bastard" and call him a thief.Gide saw a lady call her black servant a "thief" to his face, I was very surprised, but the lady said: "This is the custom here. If you live for a long time, you should do the same."

this.Just wait and see! " Gide said that he lived in Congo for ten months without changing his servants.he never scolded In a word, they never lost a single little thing.He believes the two are related. The Caucasians not only monopolized the Congolese market, but also brought sub-goods that could not be sold in Europe to the Congolese, paying high (Gide found on board a batch of expired European bad cans, which were being shipped to the Congo sell), and in the Congolese market, lower the market price of indigenous products.Some people may think that white people are in African colonies buy things at a higher price than the natives pay.Unexpectedly, the opposite happened.Gide

Say, the price of a chicken is three francs if a black man buys it himself; but if it is bought by a white man, it costs only One franc: because the law stipulates that white people should enjoy preferential treatment when shopping from natives.One day Gide hired His Congolese servant asked Gide to buy him a chicken, which would save him two francs. The phenomenon that horrified Gide most in the Congo was the abuse of black child labor by white colonialists. He once saw a group of child laborers, all of whom were eleven or twelve years old, without a smile on their faces.Gide Each of them was given a piece of rusk, and they took it with their hands and put it in their mouths without saying a word or showing any sign of it.

There is no emotion, it is completely like a "domestic animal".The result of the inquiry was that this group of child laborers had not been working properly for five days. Shi has eaten, and it is said that they are all fugitives. On another night, they found a group of children, both male and female, aged But eight or nine to twelve or thirteen years old.Gide found an interpreter to ask this group of children, knowing that they came from They were caught from different villages to work without wages, and they hadn’t had any official food for six days.Gide Decided to continue investigating the matter the next day.But by the next morning, the group of children had been rushed to

Elsewhere, the native interpreter was also arrested and imprisoned. This is what Gide saw in the Congo more than thirty years ago.For more than thirty years, colonialists have been Congo's oppression has only intensified.Only recently has the spark of national self-consciousness illuminated the darkened Africa, This awakening will no longer be held back by any coercive force.