CAMPION MACHIWENYIKA, an avid follower of Nthungo YaAfrika, notes the writer’s constant reference to Belgian King Leopold’s II letter to the first missionaries journeying to the Congo in 1883. He requested The Patriot to publish the letter in the hope of enlightening Christians worldwide. 

Below is an abridged version. 

REVERENDS, Fathers and Dear Compatriots: The task that is given to fulfill is very delicate and requires much tact. 

You will go certainly to evangelise, but your evangelisation must inspire above all Belgium interests. 

Your principal objective in our mission in the Congo is never to teach the niggers to know God, this they know already. 

They speak and submit to a Mungu, one Nzambi, one Nzakomba, and what else I don’t know. 

They know that to kill, to sleep with someone else’s wife, to lie and to insult is bad. 

Have courage to admit it; you are not going to teach them what they know already. 

Your essential role is to facilitate the task of administrators and industrials, which means you will go to interpret the gospel in the way it will be the best to protect your interests in that part of the world. 

For these things, you have to keep watch on disinteresting our savages from the richness that is plenty (in their underground. To avoid that, they get interested in it, and make you murderous) competition and dream one day to overthrow you. 

Your knowledge of the gospel will allow you to find texts ordering, and encouraging your followers to love poverty, like, “Happier are the poor because they will inherit the heaven,” and, “It’s very difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.” 

Your action will be directed essentially to the younger ones, for they won’t revolt when the recommendation of the priest is contradictory to their parent’s teachings. 

The children have to learn to obey what the missionary recommends, who is the father of their soul. 

Teach students to read and not to reason. 

Evangelise the niggers so that they stay forever in submission to the white colonialists, so they never revolt against the restraints they are undergoing. 

Recite every day – “Happy are those who are weeping because the kingdom of God is for them.” 

Convert always the blacks by using the whip. 

Force them to pay you in sign of recognition-goats, chicken or eggs – every time you visit their villages. 

And make sure that niggers never become rich. 

Sing every day that it’s impossible for the rich to enter heaven. 

Make them pay tax each week at Sunday mass. 

Use the money supposed for the poor, to build flourishing business centres. 

Teach the niggers to forget their heroes and to adore only ours. 

Consider all blacks as little children, and require from them to refer to you as father. 

My dear compatriots; if you apply to the letter all this, the interest of Belgium in the Congo will be protected for many centuries. 

I thank you. – Source – http://www.fafich.ufmg.br/ www.afrikaglobalnetwork.com