August 30, 2004
Conflict in DRCongo
Known as Zaire under the dictatorship of "The Leopard" Mobutu Sese Seko, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRCongo) is so-named to distinguish it from its neighbor to the west, Congo-Brazzaville (or Republic of Congo). The difference being that DRCongo was a Belgian colony and Congo-Brazzaville, a French one. I had no idea of this until a few days ago when I started reading Michaela Wrong's "In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz", an account of Mobutu's years as Zaire's dictator.
Since Mobutu's deposition by a force of eastern rebels lead by Laurent Kabila, DRCongo's hair-raising history has continued apace with conflicts supported by its numerous neighbors (it is bordered by nine different countries). A presentation on the Washington Post site gives an overview of Congo's history, focusing on the events since 1994 when Hutu refugees, fearing reprisals in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, began to flood into the country. I discovered this link via Christopher Porter's The Suburbs are Killing Us, nominally an MP3 blog but with an occasional African focus (for example the early entries about his trip to South Africa).
Howard French's recent book "A Continent for the Taking" which I've mentioned before, also includes detailed accounts of the post-genocide period in DRCongo. I was recently flipping through this at the bookstore and was riveted by his account of a circuitous search for the Congolese author Sony Labou Tansi.
An article from the BBC published in the aftermath of Laurent Kabila's 2001 assassination (another fact I learned today, Kabila's son Joseph is now DRC's president) discusses other literary chronicles of the Congo from early Tintin books to Barbara Kingsolver's "The Poisonwood Bible" and Adam Hochshild's "King Leopold's Ghost". Michaela Wrong's book is also mentioned - it takes its name and theme from Joseph Conrad's famous story of a journey on the Congo river, "Heart of Darkness" which I serendipitously found this weekend in a box of books abandoned on the curb.
August 16, 2004
South Africa Photos
I've posted some of the photos we took in South Africa using flickr. Click on the photo below to browse them.
August 12, 2004
Dark Star Safari Redux
The genesis of this blog and of my interest in Africa was in the reading of two books, perhaps not the most ideal books, on travels within Africa: Ryszard Kapucinski's "Shadow of the Sun" and Paul Theroux's "Dark Star Safari". As a logical extension of this interest I've just returned from two weeks spent on vacation in South Africa (no small credit for this goes to my wife Tanya for having the genius to realize that this was actually the most obvious destination for our summer vacation). I'll try to write more about the trip later but suffice it to say that we both had a wonderful time, learned a lot and miss it already.
On my return, I've been catching up on my blogs (reading the SA blogs was fun because they mention stuff that happened while we were there) and found it funny that Greenspun has just read "Dark Star Safari" (in preparation for travelling to Africa) and seems to have missed the point or at least part of it. Still, his "summary" is worth a read and the comments include some interesting links.
And while we're talking about Africa books, I'll recommend the following books we brought or bought on vacation:
Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton
Don't Lets Go To The Dogs Tonight by Alexandra "Bobo" Fuller
Clicking With Xhosa by B. Kirsch, et al.
Presenting South Africa by Peter Joyce