Kambale Musavuli, Alain Seckler, Jason Stearns and I discussing the Democratic Republic of Congo's looming 2016 elections.
Showing posts with label Kinshasa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kinshasa. Show all posts
Monday, November 03, 2014
Congo in Harlem 6: Special Panel Discussion on DRC's 2016 Elections .
Kambale Musavuli, Alain Seckler, Jason Stearns and I discussing the Democratic Republic of Congo's looming 2016 elections.
Friday, March 14, 2008
A few thoughts from Kinshasa
Kinshasa is an ungentle place.
The other day, a young shegue I know, who always displays the most upbeat demenour despite what must be a life of grinding desperation on the streets of Congo’s capital city, came up to me as I walked along one of the main roads where the street children wash cars for a pittance. His left eye was bandaged and horribly swollen, and he said that he had been hit with a rock, by whom I was not able to understand. Buying him some bread, as I habitually do (250 Congolese francs) seemed to be the least that I could do.
Driving in a friend’s care yesterday, though, looking out the window, I saw a young boy who couldn’t have been much more than 10, struggling under the blazing sun, loaded down with suitcases that he and an older man who I assume was his father, were trying to sell. He was shoeless.
Walking down Boulevard du 30 Juin to buy some groceries, a young boy that I know, who is missing an arm and habitually begs from motorists at stoplights on the thoroughfare, was hard at work, as usual.
Despite the wonderful music and the looming, watchful presence of the Congo River only a few hundred yards from my door, Kinshasa, it must be said, has perhaps the most pervasively visible misery of any city that I have ever seen. There is a noticeable lack of the Caribbean joie de vivre that animates Port-au-Prince, or the jarring moments of deep spirituality and vibrant colour with which Bombay is suffused, or the sheen of urbane sophistication one still finds in Abidjan despite the civil war there.
As Congo struggles to leave behind the weight of its history and to find a way to use its vast resources to create a more equitable, stable country, conflict continues to flare not only in the east of the country, as I have written about in the past, but also in the west nearer to Kinshasa, where the politico-religious group Bundu dia Kongo (BDK) is currently slugging it out with security forces in Bas-Congo province.
Despite the failings of the Congolese state, stretching all the way back to Belgium's brutal seven decade occupation, the Congolese, in my view deserve better than what they are getting right now, both from their own leaders and from the international community. The lack of moral energy of many in the journalistic profession in the west, who would be covering front pages worldwide if a conflict in Europe or North America had claimed 5 million lives, is decidedly underwhelming, as is the decided lack of transparency of the United Nation mission here. The human rights chief of the mission (known by its French-language acronym of MONUC), Fernando Castañón, seems plainly terrified of reporters, local or foreign, poking around too closely around its activities in the country, a stance unique in my history of covering three previous UN deployments (Côte d'Ivoire, Haiti, Guatemala) and one which rather makes a mockery of MONUC’s stated mission regarding the “monitoring, and the reporting of any violations” of the ceasefire agreement that helped end one phase of Congo’s civil war. Perhaps the fact that MONUC troops have been caught in some violations of there own once or twice might have something to do with that reticence.
Not to end on too grim a note, the city does have its charming side. Having a beer by the rapids of the Congo River at Chez Tintin as the sun sets, as smooth soukous plays and Congolese families chow down on goat and fisherman cast their nets just offshore is one of them. The sublime barbecued chicken at Mama Colonel in the Bandalungwa district is another. A meal at the Taj restaurant, after an eight-story ride on a decrepit and foul-smelling elevator, only to find the entire city spread out in the view beneath you once you arrive makes a hectic and sweat-drenched day on the streets disappear like so much pollution-hued ether on a windy day.
Nevertheless, for all the good they are worth, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a country more desperately in need of good journalists than the one I find myself in today.
The other day, a young shegue I know, who always displays the most upbeat demenour despite what must be a life of grinding desperation on the streets of Congo’s capital city, came up to me as I walked along one of the main roads where the street children wash cars for a pittance. His left eye was bandaged and horribly swollen, and he said that he had been hit with a rock, by whom I was not able to understand. Buying him some bread, as I habitually do (250 Congolese francs) seemed to be the least that I could do.
Driving in a friend’s care yesterday, though, looking out the window, I saw a young boy who couldn’t have been much more than 10, struggling under the blazing sun, loaded down with suitcases that he and an older man who I assume was his father, were trying to sell. He was shoeless.
Walking down Boulevard du 30 Juin to buy some groceries, a young boy that I know, who is missing an arm and habitually begs from motorists at stoplights on the thoroughfare, was hard at work, as usual.
Despite the wonderful music and the looming, watchful presence of the Congo River only a few hundred yards from my door, Kinshasa, it must be said, has perhaps the most pervasively visible misery of any city that I have ever seen. There is a noticeable lack of the Caribbean joie de vivre that animates Port-au-Prince, or the jarring moments of deep spirituality and vibrant colour with which Bombay is suffused, or the sheen of urbane sophistication one still finds in Abidjan despite the civil war there.
As Congo struggles to leave behind the weight of its history and to find a way to use its vast resources to create a more equitable, stable country, conflict continues to flare not only in the east of the country, as I have written about in the past, but also in the west nearer to Kinshasa, where the politico-religious group Bundu dia Kongo (BDK) is currently slugging it out with security forces in Bas-Congo province.
Despite the failings of the Congolese state, stretching all the way back to Belgium's brutal seven decade occupation, the Congolese, in my view deserve better than what they are getting right now, both from their own leaders and from the international community. The lack of moral energy of many in the journalistic profession in the west, who would be covering front pages worldwide if a conflict in Europe or North America had claimed 5 million lives, is decidedly underwhelming, as is the decided lack of transparency of the United Nation mission here. The human rights chief of the mission (known by its French-language acronym of MONUC), Fernando Castañón, seems plainly terrified of reporters, local or foreign, poking around too closely around its activities in the country, a stance unique in my history of covering three previous UN deployments (Côte d'Ivoire, Haiti, Guatemala) and one which rather makes a mockery of MONUC’s stated mission regarding the “monitoring, and the reporting of any violations” of the ceasefire agreement that helped end one phase of Congo’s civil war. Perhaps the fact that MONUC troops have been caught in some violations of there own once or twice might have something to do with that reticence.
Not to end on too grim a note, the city does have its charming side. Having a beer by the rapids of the Congo River at Chez Tintin as the sun sets, as smooth soukous plays and Congolese families chow down on goat and fisherman cast their nets just offshore is one of them. The sublime barbecued chicken at Mama Colonel in the Bandalungwa district is another. A meal at the Taj restaurant, after an eight-story ride on a decrepit and foul-smelling elevator, only to find the entire city spread out in the view beneath you once you arrive makes a hectic and sweat-drenched day on the streets disappear like so much pollution-hued ether on a windy day.
Nevertheless, for all the good they are worth, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a country more desperately in need of good journalists than the one I find myself in today.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
33 degrees at 21:00
Walking home through the poorly-lit, potholed streets of my neighborhood here in Kinshasa last night after picking up some Indian takeout for dinner, I looked up at the big clock across the Boulevard du 30 juin, which simultaneously displays both time and temperature.
Standing there, fairly pouring sweat after a brief but brisk stroll past dozing security men, cigarette vendors, shegue (as street children in the DRC capital are known) and women walking with baskets of produce on there heads (to where at that late hour I couldn’t say), I saw the temperature reading as 33 degrees Celsius, or 91.4 degrees Fahrenheit. This was at 9 pm at night. Yesterday did, indeed, as I strolled the streets of Kinshasa on various errands, feel like about the hottest day I have ever experienced and that reading on the display clock seemed to make it official. Today was no different. The torporous Congo River laps at the shore barely 100 yards from my door.
Last weekend was an interesting one, with an enjoyable Saturday night tour of the Matonge district and its attendant nightlife, and the coming weeks, which promise sojourns across the river to Brazzaville and south to Katanga province - promise to be equally so.
As your correspondent is feeling a bit under the weather today, this post will be an abbreviated one. More in a bit, hopefully.
Standing there, fairly pouring sweat after a brief but brisk stroll past dozing security men, cigarette vendors, shegue (as street children in the DRC capital are known) and women walking with baskets of produce on there heads (to where at that late hour I couldn’t say), I saw the temperature reading as 33 degrees Celsius, or 91.4 degrees Fahrenheit. This was at 9 pm at night. Yesterday did, indeed, as I strolled the streets of Kinshasa on various errands, feel like about the hottest day I have ever experienced and that reading on the display clock seemed to make it official. Today was no different. The torporous Congo River laps at the shore barely 100 yards from my door.
Last weekend was an interesting one, with an enjoyable Saturday night tour of the Matonge district and its attendant nightlife, and the coming weeks, which promise sojourns across the river to Brazzaville and south to Katanga province - promise to be equally so.
As your correspondent is feeling a bit under the weather today, this post will be an abbreviated one. More in a bit, hopefully.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Bienvenue à Kin La Belle
A few impressions from my first days in Kinshasa.
The glorious music - soukous, rumba congolese, ndombolo - that is pumping from everywhere, from buses, cars, and the little roadside bars that are always filled with a populace that most consume more litres of beer per capita during an average year that the Irish. Despite the terrible suffering they endured during the pillages of the 1990s and the brutal street fighting between the forces of President Joseph Kabila and former rebel leader turned senator Jean-Pierre Bemba, the indomitable spirit of the Kinois dances on.
The weather, sultry and steamy in this city of 8 million along the Congo River, it makes the palms droop lazily under alternately moody gray and blazing skies.
A young boy, no more than ten years old, waving an armless stump at me as my car was stuck in traffic. Not much shocks me anymore, but this shoeless child missing a limb at an intersection and begging for money did. There are several thousand abandonné like him in Kinshasa, and tens of thousands more making a living on the very margins of the economy here.
The boisterous, witty, warm spirit of the people. Reminiscent of the Haitians, the Kinois are a very friendly and welcoming lot, who enjoy the moment and the brief transitory pleasures that come from a life lived in a place where tomorrow is never assured and the winds of change blow with an unpredictable force.
Settling into a new apartment now for what promises to be a highly interesting couple of months, likombo esalité.
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