As I was reading the chapter David and Goliath in King Leopold's Ghost, I was so excited that a hero finally arrived! E. D. Morel appeared to at last give a voice to the Congolese people, a people that lost their voice to a greed-stricken group of Europeans, specifically King Leopold II.I was amazed that Morel had such an influence on King Leopold from London and that he never left home; he received all of his information from reporters and missionaries and others who returned home to Europe from spending time in the Congo. I wanted to laugh at Leopold for thinking that he could stop all of the bad publicity from leaving the Congo....his biggest critic lived all the way in London and never even traveled to the Congo.
It intrigued me and encouraged me later on when I found out that Morel didn't stop speaking out for important issues. He took up issues in his own country when war was threatening and took up action again. Here is a document that I found concerning Chapter 18:
I hope that more of us can be like Morel. I hope that we can be enactors of change and work for the good of all people. Today in Allen's class and afterwards, we were talking about the power of words. I think that Morel is a prime example of how powerful words are and what we should do with them.
I give Morel credit for leaving his job and taking on full force the defense of a people he had never met. I don't think I could have done that.
