Congo: The land of war, riches and a long suffering people

The name Congo evokes three major images in Kenyans — Franco Luambo Luanzo Makiadi of TPOK Jazz Band, Mobutu Sese Seko and Patrice Lumumba.

Franco gave Africa musical sound that remains etched in their minds; Mobutu was the president of Zaire, today known as the Democratic Republic of Congo, for 32 years; and Patrice Lumumba is beloved by pan-Africanists and is a political martyr in the DRC and Africa.

But the Congo — not the river or the smaller cousin across the river — remains an enigma.

This is the second largest country in Africa; it contains an incredible amount of minerals; it still has the most diverse vegetation in Africa; River Congo provides it with a waterway of 4,700 kilometres from the interior of the country to the Atlantic Ocean; it is hugely culturally diverse — there are almost 250 languages spoken in the DRC, with Lingala and Kiswahili — the two languages that Kenyans most associate with Congo — among the major ones.

Yet this African giant has been in turmoil since its independence from Belgium.

Why has Congo remained such a backwater; in political turmoil for over five decades; defined by internecine wars, many of them sponsored by its neighbours?

David van Reybrouck tries to tell the story of Congo in Congo: the Epic History of a People (2010/2014). Congo is 600-plus pages of enchanting anecdotes, historical facts, anthropological and cultural details, journalistic commentary, political and economic analysis about the DRC.

It is a book that reads more like grand fiction than the social history that it is. This is the kind of book that leaves the reader wondering whether we are headed towards the ‘end of history,’ as Francis Fukuyama would have the world believe.

It is no easy task to review this book simply because of the breadth of its narrative — the stories that Reybrouck animates in order to illustrate what he calls the country’s ‘turbulent history — not only the post-colonial period, but also the colonial and a part of the pre-colonial times’ are just too many for one to analyse in one attempt. But Reybrouck does a good job of it.

Congo: the Epic History of a People is largely told through the eyes of ordinary people. It begins with the story of Nkasi, a Congolese who at about 90 years ‘… had lived in five different countries, or at least in a country with five different names’; and throughout the text Reybrouck introduces Congolese men and women whose take on their country’s history will make you question the history of Congo as is known through the media or history books.

In 1885, the area was called Independent State of Congo, although this was simply the private property of King Leopold II of Belgium. In 1908 it became Belgian Congo; the Republic of Congo in 1960; it was renamed Zaire by Mobutu when he came to power; and reverted to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997.

The tragedy of Congo is that since its formation — as geographically defined through the eyes of a European cartographer — it has been the plaything of the Belgians first, traders and multinational companies, Zairean politicians in the post-colonial period, neighbouring countries including Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Sudan.

Congo is a magnet because of its mineral and natural resources. This wealth has produced a country that is permanently in the grip of violence, wars and displacements.

In the past decade and a half, more than five million Congolese have died due to these wars. Millions are refugees all over the world, including here in Kenya. The government in Kinshasa has sustained a semblance of order in huge parts of the country of late.

SCRIPT OF ALIENATION

Reybrouck suggests that we go back to history in order to understand this tragedy. But the official Congolese is a script of alienation; of political criminality beginning from the time of Leopold II who enslaved thousands of Congolese people and whose agents cut off the hands of thousands more in order to coerce them to tap rubber and killed those who resisted.

Reybrouck shows that the incoming African politicians were no better; fractious and driven by tribal suspicions. At independence in 1960, Joseph Kasavubu, the first president, couldn’t work with the Prime Minister Lumumba.

Lumumba was murdered. Mobutu overthrew Kasavubu and reigned for three decades, dragging Congo into all kinds of political and economic directions.

But he remained the darling of the West because he was a buffer against the Russians. In that time he bankrupted the country. But this is a known tale. What the world hardly knows is how the Congolese have survived this turbulence.

You will read stories of how religion, football, music, trade, dressing (the sapeurs), drinking etc became mechanisms to make the tyranny of politicians and multinational corporations bearable.

As for music we know of Franco, Tabu Ley, Dr Nico, Mbilia Bel, Tshala Muana, Kofi Olomide, Werrason, countless music orchestras etc. Congolese music colonises much of the continent today, sang in a mix of French, Lingala, Kikongo and other languages.

As for the Sapeurs, look up the video — Sapeurs — a short documentary by Guinness — and you will know how dressing can be an antidote to poverty and suffering.

Sapeurs refers to the society of elegant persons of the Congo. These are men who claim that ‘when a person is well dressed people forget their problems.’

Well, probably the only thing one is left with in hard times when the prices of food rise steeply is the clothes. It is easier to put on a ‘show’ that all is well than to brood in misery. Sapeurs began, according to Reybrouck, as a group of “young people disgusted with Mobutism.”

They saw dressing as a form of ‘social commentary’ where dressing was a challenge to the Mobutu-designated abacost.

ECONOMICALLY INDEPENDENT WOMEN

With the economy seemingly permanently depressed from the 1990s, the ordinary Congolese found ways around it. China had arrived on the scene with affordable goods. Many of them simply went to Guangzhou.

Reybrouck actually travelled to Guangzhou to see for himself how groups of young Congolese women bought and imported goods into Congo, turning themselves into a new class of economically independent women.

Chinese companies made available goods that were previously exclusive to the ruling and economic elite although these goods have also killed local manufacturing in Congo, as they have done elsewhere in Africa.

But beyond empowering the entrepreneurial women of Kinshasa, the Congolese everyday language is richer.

Reybrouck writes, “Because the clothing, television, and generators that are ‘made in China’ have a strikingly short product life, the Lingala language now has a new adjective: nguanzu. It comes from Guangzhou and means ‘not particularly durable,’ or ‘unreliable.’ Meanwhile, a woman who cheats on her husband is now also said to be nguanzu.”

Religion always comes in handy in times of crisis. For a country that has been troubled since it was founded as a modern state, it is no surprise that Kimbanguism has deep roots in Congo.

Simon Kimbangu founded a religious movement in 1921 which claimed to heal Africans. Such a stance naturally clashed with the Belgian authorities and the dominant Catholic Church. Kimbangu was jailed and died in prison in 1951.

Today his church is the biggest indigenous church in the Congo.

Those are some of the means that the Congolese have survived their country’s misery. Through what is at times a stunning invocation of history and everyday legends, Reybrouck will make you think again about the DRC.

For him it is a country whose people are always trying to make the best of what is often a dystopic reality through story, song, dance, prayer, sports, or trade.

The writer teaches literature at the University of Nairobi. [email protected]