But in November 1884 he invited all the African contenders to Berlin for the dissection of a continent, as Leopold waited in Brussels. Europe, particularly in the Balkans, was so tense that the powers, accustomed to fierce competition, pivoted their rivalries on to Africa: British and French ‘explorers’ – usually imperial soldiers – raced to claim slices of the ‘cake’ if only to deny it to the other. Ideology and religion always reflect political contingency: Christian mission and mission civilisatrice, justified by theories of racist superiority and eugenics, dovetailed perfectly with
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