War demands innovation. The constant political corruption and tension between the Congolese Government and its people have forced both sides to resort to drastic measures. The threat of cannibalism is one of the ingenious war tactics that the people of the Congo have used during times of need. While killing someone with a gun, public executions, or torturing have not gotten the desired results, the Congolese viewed cannibalism as the new method for winning the war. During the Congo-Arab War, the Second Congo War, and the violence that still lives on today in the Congo, cannibalism has been a constant presence, but is used in war rather than in terms of survival or desire of human flesh. Though the act of cannibalism cannot make a dead human more dead, it is viewed as a means to kill the opponent’s spirit. The use of cannibalism for psychological warfare is intended to portray the Congolese soldiers as radical and predatory, though it is not part of their historical culture. Without the constant violence throughout the Congo’s history, cannibalism would never have been used by the Congolese as a psychological weapon against their enemies.
Due to many different cultures, cannibalism is practiced in various ways for completely different reasons all over the world. Explained by Kat Nickeson, an African anthropologist, there are only two types of cannibalism (excluding survival cannibalism): mortuary or endo-cannibalism and ritualistic or exo-cannibalism. Endo-cannibalism, eating the members from one’s community, was practiced by Native Americans to mourn their dead relatives and to feel as if they continue to live on inside the living. Aztecs, on the other hand, practiced exo-cannibalism: eating human beings outside one’s community fo...
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... Langford. The Fall of the Congo Arabs. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969. Print.
Kiley, Sam. “Chaos and cannibalism under the Congo’s bloody skies.” The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/aug/17/congo.theobserver (retrieved May 13, 2013).
Nickeson, Kat. “Cannibalism in the Congo: A New Take on the Ancient Practice.” Kat’s Africa. http://katsafrica.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/cannibalism-in-the-congo- a-new-take-on-an-old-practice/ (retrieved April 21, 2013).
“The Truth Behind the Cannibals of the Congo.” The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/the-truth-behind-the- cannibals-of-congo-567654.html (retrieved April 21, 2013).
“The UN Condemns DR Congo Cannibalism.” BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2661365.stm (retrieved May 13, 2013).
Weeks, John H.. Among the Congo Cannibals. London: Seeley, Service, 1913.
One of the main things the Aztecs are known for are their human sacrifice rituals. They believed that life and balance would not be possible without offering sacrificial blood to the gods since the gods sacrificed themselves to give them the sun. Burying the dead was seen as an act of feeding the earth. The Aztecs preformed two rituals for the dead, the first being for children and the second being for adults. The ritual for adults put special focus on warriors who died in
War is the means to many ends. The ends of ruthless dictators, of land disputes, and lives – each play its part in the reasoning for war. War is controllable. It can be avoided; however, once it begins, the bat...
Killing Squads would enter towns and gather the people, usually in vast open areas. Open areas are easier to dig the mass graves where the dead would be put. After victims gave their valuables to the killing squad and were undressed, they were gassed in vans, shot in trenches, or shot in prepared pits (USHMM). People gassed in vans were killed by the carbon monoxide produced by the van because the exhaust pipes were blocked. These research findings reveal the harsh tactics of killing squads.
Cannibalism is a long-standing taboo in our society; the thought of humans preying on other humans for a food source disgusts and astounds us. Though the practice is not common amongst modern day humans there is some evidence to suggest that ancient humans resorted to such measures, and a recent discovery in Madagascar attests to the possibility that some carnivorous dinosaurs fed on their own species (Perkins, 2003).
Cannibalism is a concept that is foreign to modern society despite its pertinence in recent human culture. In the essay “Cannibalism: It Still Exists,” Linh Ngo explains the concept of cannibalism, discussing in further detail and comparing and contrasting the different types of cannibalism and the situations in which it was utilized. By incorporating devices such as definition, illustration, and cause and effect, the essay was effective in relaying the idea that cannibalism is still around.
The acts of violence that were performed by rebels in Africa were horrific. Adults and children were murdered, mutilated, tortured, and raped. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone performed despicable acts of cutting off a people's body parts with machetes to instill fear in the community. If you were working in the diamond mines and not performing up to the standards of the rebels you would lose a body part as punishment. Rebels would continue to do this from one village to another in order “to take control of the mines in the area” (Hoyt). It is estimated that in Sierra Leone that over 20,000 people suffered mutilation. The acts that the rebels performed to these innocent victims was clearly a violation to their human rights. The RUF collected 125 million a year to fund their war on the government and the people of Sierra Leone.
Among all the copious themes of fairy tales, cannibalism was indeed a more ambivalent one. Despite the obvious manifestations of good karma, positive characteristics and amiable nature, the common depictions of cannibalism alluded that fairy tales were more than stories that were “too good to be true.” Fairy tales such as The Juniper Tree and Hansel and Gretel even presented cannibalism with an attitude of apathy, as if cooking human stew were nothing churlish but ordinary. However, those vivid descriptions of cannibalism, though appeared to be too cruel and baleful for innocent children, played significant roles. It completed their coming of age journeys, providing them masculinity while“relieving their preconscious and unconscious pressures”(Bettelheim,
Cannibalism as a Sexual Disorder Cannibalism occurs prevalently in both Tarzan and Heart of Darkness, and is a controversial topic with which the public is largely unfamiliar. Although cannibalism is generally thought of in a primitive animal sense, experts have revealed that cannibalism can be identified as a sexual disorder (O’Connor). A cannibal is scientifically classified as an anthropophagus (“Anthropophagus”), which falls under the category of Anthropophagy. Anthropophagy by definition is the sexual gratification caused by consumption of human flesh or blood. Although rather disturbing, sexual cannibalism is now accepted as the more common variety of cannibalism (O’Connor).
During the author’s life in New York and Oberlin College, he understood that people who have not experienced being in a war do not understand what the chaos of a war does to a human being. And once the western media started sensationalizing the violence in Sierra Leone without any human context, people started relating Sierra Leone to civil war, madness and amputations only as that was all that was spoken about. So he wrote this book out o...
Over the course of human history, many believe that the “Congo Free State”, which lasted from the 1880s to the early 1900s, was one of the worst colonial states in the age of Imperialism and was one of the worst humanitarian disasters over time. Brutal methods of collecting rubber, which led to the deaths of countless Africans along with Europeans, as well as a lack of concern from the Belgian government aside from the King, combined to create the most potent example of the evils of colonialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s. The Congo colonial experience, first as the Congo Free State then later as Belgian Congo, was harmful to that region of Africa both then and now because of the lack of Belgian and International attention on the colony except for short times, the widespread economic exploitation of the rubber resources of the region, and the brutal mistreatment and near-genocide of the Congolese by those in charge of rubber collecting.
“The sweetly sickening odor of decomposing bodies hung over many parts of Rwanda in July 1994: . . . at Nyarubuye in eastern Rwanda, where the cadaver of a little girl, otherwise intact, had been flattened by passing vehicles to the thinness of cardboard in front of the church steps,” (Deforges 6). The normalcy of horrible images like this one had cast a depressing gloom over Rwanda during the genocide, a time when an extreme divide caused mass killings of Tutsi by the Hutu. Many tactics such as physical assault or hate propaganda are well known and often used during times of war. Sexual assault and rape, however, during times of war is an unspoken secret – it is well known that rape occurs within combat zones and occupied territories, but people tend to ignore, or even worse, not speak of the act. There have been recorded cases of rape and sexual assault in almost every war in human history. Genocidal rape was used as a gendered war tactic in the Rwandan genocide in order to accomplish the Hutu goal of elimination of the Tutsi people in whole, or part.
One can easily note the physical and sexual violence brought upon the people (black and white) of Congo after independence, but we must locate the other forms of violence in order to bring the entire story of Patrice Lumumba to light. The director’s attempt at bringing the story of Patrice Lumumba to the “silver screen” had political intentions.
Also prone to catching ones attention, is the concept of cannibalism in the Southwest. Dismembered bodies, broken and charred bone, and other mutilation as well as other biochemical investigation suggest its presence in the archaeological record. (Billman, 2000; Turner and Turner, 1999; White, 1992) If indeed it was cannibalism, it is hypothesized by (Turner 1999) and Leblanc (1999) to be used as an intimidation practice to assist in the expansion of a particular people. However other interpretations of these findings comes as witch killing, mutilation without cannibalism, as well as mortuaristic practice. (Bullock, 1998; Dongoske, 2000, Darling, 1998, Bullock, 1998) sources paired respectively.
“Everything in this room is eatable, even I’m eatable. But that is called cannibalism, my dear children, and is in fact frowned upon in most societies.” –Willy Wonka
The war was worsened by the wealthy minerals in the ground and the influence of the mineral was strengthened by the fear and displacement the war caused. The intertwining of these two destructive forces is seen in the story Salima is told by a man who bought her. In this he tells of a man who stuffed”...the coltan into his mouth to keep the soldiers from stealing his hard work, and they split his belly open with a machete”(31). Not only does this story show the harsh conditions the men are exposed to in war, but also it further demonstrates the hold coltan has on the minds of those who live in the Congo. The want for coltan leads to the destruction of the community and individual identities of those involved as it perpetuates a cycle of war that damages men, induces violence against women, and ultimately creates a cycle of lost identity.