The Republic of the Congo may not be the source of many stories. The Democratic Republic of the Congo more than makes up for that. Once known as Zaire, with the word “democratic” used ironically at best, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has an ugly history. Congo: The epic history of a people, by David Van Reybrook, proved to be the most depressing of those I’ve read so far about Africa, and that’s saying something.
This is beyond basket-case Africa. Congo is a green plastic strawberry pint with most of the slats broken and some lingering mold from that one berry that went bad.
Congo started the road to modern statehood as a Belgian colony of sorts – first as a separate country that was also ruled by King Leopold, then fully part of the Belgian colonial fold. It is a nation rich in resources as well as the best example of the so-called resource curse: the money from a nation’s commodities too often goes everywhere but to the nation’s citizens, leaving the country worse off after the discovery of the commodities.
In the case of the Congo, the money from rubber, copper, and palm oil soap (e.g., Palmolive) at first went to Belgium. The Belgians controlled the colony and limited the ability of the Congolese to take roles in local institutions. In 1960, following some unrest among the citizenry and with encouragement from the United Nations, Belgium joined the trend toward decolonialization and gave Congo its independence.
Independence has been a disaster. There was no transition phase, no building of institutions before independence. There were very few college graduates or trained military officers. The school teachers were mostly Catholic priests from Belgium. The Belgians didn’t promote the Congolese into management or let them participate in local government, so the new citizens had no basic training. Businesses and expatriates pulled out of Congo because of concerns over the new country’s stability, leaving a massive void. The country was a political and economic catastrophe. In little more than six months after independence, the first Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, was turned to be executed. After one province tried to succeed, three other Prime Ministers took office, and both Belgian and United Nations forces had to be called in, Joseph Mobutu took over the country in a 1965 coup.
Mobuto was opposed to Communism but hardly opposed to authoritarianism. He was also supplying the U.S. with copper needed for ammunition needed in the Vietnam War. Between money from copper and money form American aid, the country did quite well, for a while. People were rich enough that they tolerated some of Mobutu’s odder demands, such as that people abandon European first names.
David Van Reybrouk knew a lot about the Congo because his father had been an expat worker for a while in the 1960s. He grew up hearing his father’s stories, and he decided to learn more. He had written plays and poetry, but nothing on this scale. The book was written in Dutch and translated by Sam Garrett, who did a great job.
The research is absolutely impressive. Van Reybrouk spent a lot of time in Congo, talking to everyone. In 2008, he meets a man named Nkasi who claims to have been born in 1882. Was he? Who knows? Van Reybrouck is able to corroborate a lot of his story, so maybe. All of the interviews – with politicians, prisoners, SIM-card sellers, soccer players, priests, musicians, and just about anyone who crossed his path – are presented along with meticulous background from primary and secondary sources.
It’s also well-written and well-translated. Congo is thick but readable. I liked much of it, like the story of how a railway employee named Jamais Kolonga became the subject of one of the most popular songs in the country. Unfortunately, much of the book is depressing. The people of the Congo have been ill-served but their colonists, native leaders, and the international community.
One thing that really came out was the importance of institutions. Van Reybrouk ends the book with a chapter on the trade between Congo and China, even paying a visit to a sizable Congolese community in Guangzhou. Although Mao tried to destroy China’s institutions in the Cultural Revolution, enough were in place and survived the mayhem that the nation is now a well-functioning economy, with an educated population, functioning health care system, and professional police force. In the Congo, there was nothing – no scout troops or youth cadres where kids could learn the basics of setting an agenda and establishing group norms; no locally run schools; no locals who understood how to run a business, command an army, or build a road. In the U.S., we like to talk a lot about how soldiers protect our freedom, and they absolutely do. But freedom needs more than a military; it needs good teachers and good police officers. It needs block clubs and scout troops. It needs journalists and activists. It needs people who will take the time to learn the issues and make their voices heard. It also needs people who know how to set an agenda, work with a budget, and earn the respect of others without force and without establishing odd personality cults. The Belgians did not develop any institutions, and the six-month transition to independence didn’t give anyone the time to realize how much they were needed.
Right now, the primary investor in Congo is China, which has a totalitarian government is able to negotiate quickly and without asking a lot of pesky questions about human rights. The government of Congo has traded its copper for $1 billion in infrastructure spending by the Chinese. If China keeps up its end of the deal, the curse may be broken. I’m not betting on it.
