this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2024
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chapotraphouse

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Context: Twain wrote a satirical piece in 1905 written from the perspective of King Leopold II. The satire here is that Twain's Leopold is defending his actions in the Congo Free State. The whole thing is great and I encourage everyone to give it read as a biting critique of colonialism. But in this section, Leopold is blaming the Kodak company for exposing the horrors (instead of blaming himself for the horrors). I think the connection to Gaza is self-evident:

[Studies some photographs of mutilated negroes—throws them down. Sighs] The kodak has been a sore calamity to us. The most powerful enemy that has confronted us, indeed. In the early years we had no trouble in getting the press to “expose” the tales of the mutilations as slanders, lies, inventions of busy-body American missionaries and exasperated foreigners who had found the “open door” of the Berlin-Congo charter closed against them when they innocently went out there to trade; and by the press’s help we got the Christian nations everywhere to turn an irritated and unbelieving ear to those tales and say hard things about the tellers of them. Yes, all things went harmoniously and pleasantly in those good days, and I was looked up to as the benefactor of a down-trodden and friendless people. Then all of a sudden came the crash! That is to say, the incorruptible kodak—and all the harmony went to hell! The only witness I have encountered in my long experience that I couldn’t bribe. Every Yankee missionary and every interrupted trader sent home and got one; and now—oh, well, the pictures get sneaked around everywhere, in spite of all we can do to ferret them out and suppress them. Ten thousand pulpits and ten thousand presses are saying the good word for me all the time and placidly and convincingly denying the mutilations. Then that trivial little kodak, that a child can carry in its pocket, gets up, uttering never a word, and knocks them dumb!

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