Congo, Sudan are icons of glorious and tragic history
Friday February 10 2023
Pope Francis with DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi at the Palais de la Nation in Kinshasa on January 31, 2023. The ring of the words “Congo” and “Sudan” brings memories of Africa’s glorious and tragic history. PHOTO | TIZIANA FABI | AFP
Pope Francis has ended his visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan. The ring of the words “Congo” and “Sudan” brings memories of Africa’s glorious and tragic history.
When we hear Congo, we remember King Leopold’s brutal colonialism, which featured chopping off children’s hands as punishment to their parents. We remember, too, the equally cruel reign of Mobutu Sese Seko, and the ostentatious palace he built in the jungle. The palace, nicknamed Versailles in the Jungle, replicated the fabled palace built by French King Louis XIV in the 17th century.
Versailles in France encompassed government ministries and became the seat of the absolute monarchy. Its magnificence and grandiosity was meant to demonstrate to the world French cultural and technological advancement. Mobutu’s Versailles was his personal retreat, built as a tribute to his power and invincibility. When he was overthrown in 1997 after decades of terrorising his people and plundering the nation, the palace was ransacked. Today, it’s just a ruin overgrown by shrubs. Congo itself continues to be a place of great tragedies.
Great civilisation
When we hear Sudan, we recall the past of a great civilisation thought to have built the first pyramids. In the name we see images of Nubian queens, statuesque, elegant, coveted by pharaohs and emperors. We recall the brave fight that led to the independence of South Sudan in 2011. And then we see the tragedy of a senseless ethnic war that has left close to half a million people dead and millions displaced.
The visit to the two countries by the Pope was not random. It was a continuation of his appeals to the leadership of both countries to do everything in their power to end the bloodletting and plunder. The high-level visit brings to the attention of the world these forgotten tragedies.
The African Union, which should be the lead agency in calling attention to these tragedies, is uncomprehendingly otherwise engaged. Other African countries, themselves recovering from or about to slide into similar tragedies, have zero moral authority to call attention to the bloodletting and plunder in Congo and Sudan.
End wanton plunder
As a case in point, when Pope Francis visited Kenya in 2015, he pleaded with the leadership to end wanton plunder of the country, whose result was ever-growing slums like Kibera.
Do we always have to wait for world figures like the Pope or former US president Barack Obama to shine the spotlight on our tragedies? Can we really address these crises if refuse to own them and bravely confront them, and instead keep giving excuses or deflecting blame?
Countries that move forward are those that own their weaknesses and confront them. While we appreciate international figures like the Pope and Obama highlighting our tragedies, we will only meaningfully address them when we finally own them and make deliberate, determined, uncompromising effort to address their underlying causes. The causes are not a mystery. They are misgovernance and plunder.
Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator