The other day I saw a Reuters news item which described the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital city centre as a shabby city centre. A few lines below there was a reference to Kinshasa’s main train station at the end of one of the city’s once grand but now bedraggled boulevards.
It was evident that this story had not been written by an African, least of all by a native of the Congo. One could easily sense the foreign-cum-colonial hubris and arrogance oozing through the lines. Here was this foreigner trying to remind us how far Kinshasa has fallen since the end of the colonial era. Here was a subtle, but very well oiled apologia for the colonial era in the Congo, the era during which, presumably, the city centre was neat and the boulevards grand.
No country in Africa has suffered more at the hands of foreign powers than the Democratic Republic of Congo. No country in Black Africa has been abused, pillaged and raped by foreigners more than the Congo. Nowhere else in Africa did European colonialism leave a more horrible scar than it did in the Congo.
Even today, foreign armies still occupy large swathes of this great country at the heart of our continent. In a manner of speaking, the Congo remains a colony of foreign powers today.
Although I may not agree with every single argument in the article, I agree with the general premise that people need to look at the whole picture, and understand the historical background of the Congo, before judging and belittling it. I also agree that the Congo is a microcosm of Africa, because it is the living proof of the criminal nature of colonialism, and the most stringent indictment the "law of shame" that was enacted - then repealed - recently in France, pointing to the positive achievements of colonialism, form the colonies. Although there has been a few positive, and quite unavoidable (in other words, not philanthropic) side effects - I will give them that - my country should resound as a gong of shame for the Europeans, and a call for reparations... Click on "read more" below for the full article.
Don’t sneer at DR Congo, it mirrors the decay in Africa
By Dominic Odipo
The other day I saw a Reuters news item which described the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital city centre as a shabby city centre. A few lines below there was a reference to Kinshasa’s main train station at the end of one of the city’s once grand but now bedraggled boulevards.
It was evident that this story had not been written by an African, least of all by a native of the Congo. One could easily sense the foreign-cum-colonial hubris and arrogance oozing through the lines. Here was this foreigner trying to remind us how far Kinshasa has fallen since the end of the colonial era. Here was a subtle, but very well oiled apologia for the colonial era in the Congo, the era during which, presumably, the city centre was neat and the boulevards grand.
No country in Africa has suffered more at the hands of foreign powers than the Democratic Republic of Congo. No country in Black Africa has been abused, pillaged and raped by foreigners more than the Congo. Nowhere else in Africa did European colonialism leave a more horrible scar than it did in the Congo.
Even today, foreign armies still occupy large swathes of this great country at the heart of our continent. In a manner of speaking, the Congo remains a colony of foreign powers today.
When the first Europeans arrived at the mouth of the River Congo towards the end of the 15th Century, they found a thriving, highly organised kingdom of the Bakongo people covering nearly six hundred square kilometres. With its capital at Mbanza Kongo or the Kongo Court, the kingdom was ruled by a monarch, the ManiKongo, who was chosen by an assembly of clan elders.
In his prize-winning historical account, King Leopold’s Ghost, Adam Hochschild describes the Kongo kingdom, which the Portuguese sailors stumbled upon more than 500 years ago, as follows: "The Portuguese grudgingly recognised in the kingdom a sophisticated and well-developed state, the leading one on the west coast of central Africa.
The ManiKongo appointed governors for each of some half-dozen provinces, and his rule was carried out by an elaborate civil service that included such specialised positions as mani vangu vangu, or first judge in cases of adultery. The inhabitants forged copper into jewellery and iron into weapons, and wove clothing out of fibres stripped from the leaves of the raffia palm tree.
"People cultivated yams, bananas and other fruits and vegetables and raised pigs, cattle and goats. The king collected taxes from his subjects and, like many a ruler, controlled the currency supply: cowry shells found on a coastal island under royal authority. In the capital, the king dispensed justice, received homage and reviewed his troops under a fig tree in a large public square.
"Whoever approached him had to do so on all fours. On pain of death, no one was allowed to watch him eat or drink. Before he did either, an attendant struck two iron poles together, and everyone in sight had to lie face down on the ground."
Here then was a complete, functioning State. Here was the state the Europeans came and destroyed and then began to label Africans as lawless, stateless, savage and devoid of any sense of morals. That part about no commoner seeing the king eating or drinking had been standard practice in the rest of the world where established states existed for a thousand years.
After Augustus Caesar pronounced himself both emperor and god, Roman emperors could not be approached lightly. At one stage, no one could sit in the same room as the emperor.
After King Leopold II of Belgium expropriated the entire Congo as his private estate in the mid-1880s, all hell broke loose among the local population. Local kingdoms were destroyed as tribe was set upon tribe.
Whole villages were levied rubber taxes, which had to be paid on pain of death. If the rubber quotas were not met, women and the elderly were taken hostage until the prescribed rubber was produced. If the rubber was not produced, the hostages were murdered and their hands chopped off as statistical evidence of the killings. It is estimated that about 10 million Congolese were murdered by the Belgians or killed as a direct consequence of their policies between 1890 and 1908, the year Leopold sold the vast territory to his native Belgium.
The kings of the various Congolese kingdoms were forced to sign treaties written in a foreign language which they did not understand. Through these false treaties, they relinquished all their lands to King Leopold. When it was all over, the despicable king had amassed territory 76 times the size of his native country.
It is difficult for many people to appreciate the real size and riches of the Congo. It is bigger than Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania combined. If it were superimposed on the map of Europe, it would stretch from Zurich to Moscow to central Turkey. And it is roughly as large as the entire United States east of the Mississippi.
Almost all of the world’s minerals are found somewhere in the Congo. A very rare mineral used in the manufacture of mobile phones is only found in the Congo. The River Congo alone has the capacity to produce enough hydroelectric power to feed the whole of Black Africa.
The Congo is in many ways a microcosm of the entire African continent. As it was raped and pillaged and abused by foreigners, so was the rest of the continent. As it continues to be raped and pillaged and abused by foreigners, so is the rest of the continent. Its vast resources, both existing and potential, also mirror those of the continent as a whole.
In this sense, when we read about the Congo, we are reading about ourselves. When the Congolese are ridiculed and abused, all of us on this continent are ridiculed and abused. That is why what is written about the Congo is of vital importance to all Africans, wherever they may live.
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