Chapter 20!

After reading chapter 20 it really showed me how nasty that humans can be to other humans.  From the 1750s to the 1900s the Europeans were on the surge for power so they sent out to conquer other places and expand their empire.  One spot in particular that they tried to take over was Africa because Africa was so rich in many recourses and even the people were used as slaves and apart of the work force.  This is just so hard to even see the picture of the damages that the regimes would do because when they were trying to take over, they didn't just try to take over the older population, but also the young children.  You can see from the picture in the book little innocent children with were harmed greatly from the conquest of the Europeans trying to take over.  Children's hands were taken off, and I cannot even begin to imagine the pain that they felt from just the physical and mental aspects of the horrific events that took place in their own homeland.
I personally don't have much respect for the European's surge for power because it was mainly the bigger and more technologically advanced societies overtaking the smaller societies.  Which is basically the story of life, but I just can't seem to go with that and just seeing that, that is just how things went.  I don't get how people could just go to little innocent village and harm the innocent people including the women and children.  For example the British soldiers in East Africa would go to village and take everything and by that I mean everything.  "every soul was either shot or bayoneted.... We burned all the huts and razed the banana plantations to the ground." pg 549  That is just so inhumane and disgusting that I can barley read that with out feeling some sort of anger towards those soldiers.  I don't understand how people can do that to other people and not feel and sympathy, I mean yeah you are trying to express your power by taking over other places, but have some care in your heart at least for the young women and children.