Chapter 8 Small Group disscussion

After our small group discussion that topic that stood out to me the most was the 10 commandments topic and the discussion and the punishment with the chicotte and why  the Europeans forced the Africans to punish their own for the Europeans own amusement and gain.



For it to be a small group discussion I thought our group did really well. We hit all of the main points and elaborated on them thoroughly. All then questions were pretty repetitive so our discussions ended up in the same place we started.

King Leopold's Ghost

I was shocked when I first began to read this book. Surprisingly I did not even recall knowing about all of the horrific events that took place in Congo. Reading the intro for this opened my eyes to the horrific and greed that took place in Congo. Even though we discussed this in class I still couldn't wrap my fingers around the fact that the Europeans thought that they were going over to Africa to help them and bring "civilisation". Also while reading this book it made me thing about how close all of these events were to home (even though I wasn't born yet). When it was talking about Stanley being and writing to St.Louis it really caught my attention.

Why did Stanley feel the need to lie about his childhood and make up events?
What made Stanley want to travel to Africa?

Thoughts After Class

1. Today in class I learned more about President Obama's decision to end the war and pull American troops back into the US at a gradual pace. I learned a lot about colonizing and imperialism and why different countries wanted to colonize different areas and what the advantages of doing that were.

2. n/a

3. I am interested in which countries which countries and why and if other countries colonize other countries just for greed?