In search for explanations - start from the beginning...

The last weeks have been tough. As one of my last entries mentioned, we have encountered a lot of people that tried to deceive us (sometimes in incredibly sneaky and time consuming ways)… just to gain some benefit –ultimately money. The web of lies and the amount of people have been overwhelming. For now, the great majority of Congolese people I have encountered, are untrustworthy. Some are even aggressive and mean at times. Mama Berthe tells me: ‘The people of Mbanaka are all bad’ and Papa Jose (the Hotel owner) re-emphasized the third time this week ‘not to trust any Congolese, because they lie and will try to trick you to get your money’. 

After talking to the doctor from MSF from Cameroon he explained that especially the women in this region are known to be particularly aggressive and ‘self-confident’. Our friend David, who works for the French development Service, confirms that he has never seen such levels of corruption and unwillingness to admit faults or learn. Why does the situation seem so crazy right now? What has happened to the DRC that people are like this? I have never been to a place as harsh as this, and for now I can’t see how I can have a positive impact in this place. My believe in the people of the Congo has been tremendously weakened over the last weeks. So for now I will try to understand their past, to make more sense of the present…

As I am reading „Africa’s World War – Congo, the Rwandan genocide, and the making of a continental catastrophe“ – by Gerard Prunier  - I want to cite the following: 

“ Bordering on seven different countries, the Zaire-Congo is the heart of the continent, but a weak heart, that was faintly pumping its life fluids into an oversized and flabby body. There was a simple reason for this: both the climate and the human-to-land ration were and always had been unfavorable. In addition, the ruthless private economic exploitation of this huge space by King Leopold II of Belgium in the late nineteenth century had resulted in a quasi-genocide that had durable traumatized the population. 

                Later Belgian colonization was a strange affair. A mixture of state capitalism, colonial anthropology run amuck, Church-sponsored paternalism, and forced labor, it was a unique blend that both protected the natives and brutalized them, made enormous amounts of money and ran progressive social protection programs, did everything and its opposite, but that always followed the beacon of a single idea: Africans were children whom you could spank or reward, depending on the circumstances, but whom you should never trust or treat seriously”

I had a cold shiver down my spine after reading this part, because people around us have in fact described the Congolese as ‘acting like children’. And I am frightened to admit that also I felt that people here need education, organization and discipline – just like children. Has it become a self-fulfilling prophecy for this nation? My often preached empathy, love and understanding for other cultures does not seem present in the Congo anymore. I feel judgment, anger and racism emerge inside of me. My only hope is education – of myself…

                So the book continues: “Apart from South Africa, the Belgian Congo was the most industrialized and ‘developed’ territory on the continent. By 1958, on the eve of 

independence, 35 percent of all adults were in salaried employment, a proportion unknown elsewhere in Africa. But this development was deceptive out of the whole salaried workforce, barely fifteen hundred could be termed ‘professional’, while the others were unqualified workers, farm laborers, petty clerks, and assorted fundi (artisans and repairmen). By the time of independence in 1960 there were only seventeen (17) university graduates out of a population of over twenty million. The Belgian paternalistic system needed disciplined, semi qualified drones; it did not need people who could take responsibility: the whites were there for that”.

Only 17 people who had graduated from university – out of twenty million people. After destroying traditional forms of organizing society, the Belgian ‘project’ seemed to be stopped before it really began. With a further nail in the coffin hammered in by the Belgian when they assassinated one of the educated and elected officials ‘Patrice Lumumba’ only seven months after ‘granting’ independence. Certainly the DRC had a pretty terrible start…

As I continued my reading I hope to understand the time of Mobutu. Any comments or additional info is welcomed to help me to keep hope in humanity and the DRC ; )