Small Group Reflection

How has Europe not discovered how Leopold is treating the people in the Congo and how he has gone against all the promises he made? And if he is discovered what are the ramifications of these actions?

I feel that we could have done a better job of staying on task. I think that sometimes we got a little side tracked either with a book that we should not have been discussion or other things that were not relevant to the conversation. However, I think we did a good job of having everyone talking and did the right about of citing. There was not to much citing that made it hard for the discussion to flow, but instead we used them to reinforce the point that was being made.

King Leopold pg. 1-32

As a person who knew nothing of the Conog massacure before reading this book, I was truly amazed to find out about this tradgic event. As mentioned in the book not many people know of the horrifying event and its crazy to think that an event that rivaled the Holocaust in total deaths is not widely known. In addition, the Europeans obsession with power and greed is astonishing. They took people from their homes in Africa and sold them for thier own profit. They killed thousands of Africans en-route to their new slave home, and for the ones who arrived alive, a life of hard work and no freedom lay a head. All most all of these slaves will never agian see their home and the Europeans think nothing of this. Finally, the attempt of John Rowlands to seperate himself from his past was interesting. He changed his name, made up stories, and lied about things that had happened all in an attempt to forget about his troubled past. It creates many questions in the mind of the reader about why he cannot deal with his past.

1. If people say that your past is who you are then why does John Rowlands want to seperate himself from his past?

2. Why is the Congo Massacure not widely known?

Imperialism

I learned how large of an impact the Europeans had on the World during the end of the 19th century. They acted as a super power and divided the world up like they were God. People suggested reasons why it was humanitarian, but it was all a power struggle. They exhibited greed, and domination.