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.
Posted by alokem at August 30, 2004 12:00 PM