GRGR Re: Achebe on Conrad

[Otto Sell]

Defending Conrad

And one is not to forget that Conrad might be more anti-colonial than his
contemporaries because he was a Pole being born Dec 3rd, 1857 in the Russian
"part" of Poland, banished with his parents (nationalistic activities) to
North-Russia when he was not even four years old. His family suffered
heavily from the Russian imperialism.

Seeing colonization as inevitable does not necessarily mean that he saw it
as "desirable." But it's true that Conrad is mainly talking about the ways
colonization was being done. Marlow describes his own coming home from sea
*before* the Congo-episode, his visits to his friends who are now on the
Nellie his audience who are all part of the "home-departments" of the
imperial process, as some sort of colonization, telling them what all of
them are making other people do:

"(...) and I was loafing about, hindering you fellows in your work and
invading your homes, just as though I had got a heavenly mission to civilize
you." (HoD, chapter 1)

But there is no mission, never has been in the process of colonization, the
word only being a disguise for legalized and more or less stately organized
robbery and murder, in history (50 BC) and today (Conrad's time).

"They were no colonists; their administration was merely a squeeze, and
nothing more (...). They were conquerors (...) your strength is just an
accident arising from the weakness of others." (HoD, chapter 1)

"Marlow's criticism of the roman settlers in Britain is an obvious disguise
for Conrad's own opinion of the colonists in the Congo (...)" (Baines, p.
143).

Since the Prince Albert-speech 1849 colonialism had been presented as a
'Holy Mission' to enlighten those 'poor savages', but it was really about
making money from the beginning:

"(...) the products of all quarters of the globe are placed at our disposal,
and we have only to choose which is the best and cheapest for our purposes
(...)" (Davids, Stinshoff, p. 418)

Contrary to the Europeans who stayed at home and believed what they had been
told Conrad had seen what was really going on "out there", the Congo-episode
just the biggest und cruelest crime.

"(...) Conrad makes us understand how far the colonial quest has deviated
from its original course. It has become a vulgar material venture and not
the spiritual process of enlightenment that it was made out to be by the
Western powers. The colonial enterprise was supposed to be one of the great
adventures of Christian civilization, on a par with the Crusades both in
imagery and in ideology, but Conrad's treatment of it underlines the
deformed image of both." (Darras, p. 51)

Fleishman gives a possible reason for Conrad's "oldfashioned" criticism of
colonialism and imperialism, which

"(...) places major emphasis on the mercenary motives of the conquerors and
their opposite numbers at home, rather than on the non-economic forces that
lead European nations into competition for colonies. This emphasis may be
accounted for by the author's greater familiarity with the individuals who
went out to the tropics than with the mass emotions which backed up
imperialism at home." (Fleishman, p. 123).

Jocelyn Baines: Joseph Conrad, A Critical Biographie, Harmondsworth 1971
Jacques Darras: Conrad and the West - Signs of Empire, London 1982
Jens-Ulrich Davids/Richard Stinshoff (ed.): Rise Like Lions -
Sozialgeschichte Englands in Quellen und Dokumenten 1547-1915, Oldenburg
1982
Avrom Fleishman: Conrad's Politics - Community and Anarchy in the Fiction on
Joseph Conrad, Baltimore 1967
Allan Hunter: Joseph Conrad and the Ethics of Darwinism, Beckenham 1983
Olof Lagercrantz: Reise ins Herz der Finsternis - Eine Reise mit Joseph
Conrad, Frankfurt 1988
Hermann J. Weiand: Joseph Conrad - Leben und Werk, Düsseldorf 1979

Otto

Keith Obye wrote:
(...) Conrad was rather anti-colonial in many ways.  Unfortunately, however
harsh Conrad's condemnation of the excesses of Coloniality, Conrad only
questioned the violence and excesses but not the colonizing mission itself.
The colonizing mission itself was accepted as a given.  So in a sense you
can have it both ways, Conrad both anti-colonial (in terms of the form of
colonization) and yet seeing colonization as something inevitible and
desireable.  Achebe misses the complexity of Conrads position.  Placed in
the proper historical context Conrad would have been a critic with a strong
critique circumscribed by the ideology of empire. much of the book is based
on Conrad's experiences in the Belgian Congo where an incredible genocide
took place around the turn of the century (upwards of 10 million people
perished).  There is a decent history book
on the subject called _King Leopolds Ghost_.
> Cheers, >