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Congo
David van Reybrouck
FINALIST FOR THE CUNDILL PRIZE FOR HISTORY‘Not only deserves the description “epic”, in its true sense, but the term “masterpiece” as well’ IndependentThis gripping epic tells the story of one of the world’s most critical failed nation-states: the Democratic Republic of Congo. Interweaving his own family’s history with the voices of a diverse range of individuals – charismatic dictators, feuding warlords, child soldiers, and many in the African diaspora of Europe and China – Van Reybrouck offers a deeply humane approach to political history, focusing squarely on the Congolese perspective and returning a nation’s history to its people.
Copyright (#u4f0c6662-e657-5e1c-b314-9f694a6a7e09)
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
4thestate.co.uk (http://www.4thestate.co.uk)
This Fourth Estate paperback edition published in 2015
First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2014
First published as Congo: Een Geschiedenis by De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam, in 2010
Copyright © David Van Reybrouck 2014
Translation copyright © Sam Garrett 2014
Page design by Suet Yee Chong
Maps by Jan de Jong
The translation of this book is funded by the Flemish Literature Fund
(Vlaams Fonds voor de Letteren, www.flemishliterature.be (http://www.flemishliterature.be)).
The right of David Van Reybrouck to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007562930
Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007562923
Version: 2015-02-16
From the reviews of Congo: (#u4f0c6662-e657-5e1c-b314-9f694a6a7e09)
‘[Congo] possesses the economy and deftness of the best short stories and avoids the bloat of your average history book … The research, the devotion, the inventiveness in Van Reybrouck’s writing are a gift to everyone, not just fans of African history. This book not only deserves the description “epic”, in its true sense, but the term “masterpiece” as well.’
Independent
‘The general critical consensus on the book is that it “reads like a novel” while being “as rigorous as an academic history” … Van Reybrouck brings this excessive history vividly to life … a book as rich and resourceful as Congo itself.’
Guardian
‘What I hadn’t realised was that David Van Reybrouck, who spent a decade on this extraordinary work, is not primarily a historian. He is a playwright, poet and novelist and, if this translation by Sam Garrett is anything to go by, has a beautiful feel for the language … His eye for the arresting human detail, combined with a wry appreciation for a peculiarly Congolese form of gumption, keeps you powering through this panoramic survey of 150 turbulent years.’
Spectator
‘[Van Reybrouck] draws vividly on interviews with musicians, former child soldiers, political activists and people old enough to remember the days of the Belgian Congo … a wrenching account.’
London Review of Books
‘This is a magnificent account, intimately researched, and relevant for anyone interested in how the recent past may inform our near future … Van Reybrouck offers one of the most extraordinary African stories I have come across in recent years.’
New York Times Book Review
‘A vivid panorama of one of the most tormented lands in the world … His book is a valuable addition to the rich literature that Congo has inspired.’
Washington Post
‘Congo is the best book I have read on its subject. It is not history in the conventional sense, but it is a beautifully written and scholarly account that explains why so many outsiders have found the country both horrifying and irresistible.’
Literary Review
‘[A] detailed and well-researched biography, thoroughly rooted in the lived experience of the Congolese … It is clear that the author is not your typical historian dryly publishing his findings, but a literary artist with a pen almost as sharp as Lumumba’s tongue.’
ThinkAfricaPress.com (http://www.ThinkAfricaPress.com)
‘A well-documented and passionate narrative which reads like a novel … As an eye, a judge, and a witness, a talented writer testifies.’
V.Y.M. MUDIMBE, author of The Invention of Africa
‘The English-speaking world has been impatiently awaiting this translation. Congo is a remarkable piece of work. Van Reybrouck pulls off the tricky feat of keeping a panoramic history of a vast and complex nation accessible, intimate and particular.’
MICHELA WRONG, author of In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz
‘A monumental history … more exciting than any novel.’
NRC Handelsblad
Dedication (#u4f0c6662-e657-5e1c-b314-9f694a6a7e09)
À la mémoire d’Étienne Nkasi (1882?–2010), en reconnaissance profonde de son témoignage exceptionnel et de la poignée de bananes, qu’il m’a offerte lors de notre première rencontre.
Et pour le petit David, né en 2008, fils de Ruffin Luliba, enfantsoldat démobilisé, et de son épouse Laura, qui ont bien voulu donner mon nom à leur premier enfant.
(To the memory of Étienne Nkasi [1882?–2010], deeply grateful for his exceptional testimony and for the handful of bananas that he offered me when we first met.
And for little David, who was born in 2008, the son of the demobilized child-soldier Ruffin Luliba and his former wife, Laura, who were so kind as to give my name to their first child.)
Le Rêve et l’Ombre étaient de très grands camarades.
(The dream and the shadow were the best of comrades)
—Badibanga, L’élephant qui marche sur des œufs (Brussels, 1931)
CONTENTS
Cover (#u9fb8a2ad-34a3-5727-8e35-7194a9311278)
Title Page (#ubf129293-fc12-5cfa-83e5-bb97f561516c)
Copyright
Praise
Dedication
Epigraph (#uaa4b889e-8d89-5b96-92d3-9564f850116d)
List of Illustrations
Introduction
1. NEW SPIRITS: Central Africa Draws the Attention of East and West | 1870–1885
2. “DIABOLICAL FILTH”: Congo Under Leopold II | 1885–1908
3. THE BELGIANS SET US FREE: The Early Years of the Colonial Regime | 1908–1921
4. IN THE STRANGLEHOLD OF FEAR : Growing Unrest and Mutual Suspicion in Peacetime | 1921–1940
5. THE RED HOUR OF THE KICKOFF: The War and the Deceptive Calm That Followed | 1940–1955
6. SOON TO BE OURS: A Belated Decolonization, a Sudden Independence | 1955–1960
7. A THURSDAY IN JUNE
8. THE STRUGGLE FOR THE THRONE: The Turbulent Years of the First Republic | 1960–1965
9. THE ELECTRIC YEARS: Mobutu Gets Down to Business | 1965–1975
10. TOUJOURS SERVIR: A Marshal’s Madness | 1975–1990
11. THE DEATH THROES: Democratic Opposition and Military Confrontation | 1990–1997
12. COMPASSION, WHAT IS THAT?: The Great War of Africa | 1997–2002
13. LA BIÈRE ET LA PRIÈRE (SUDS AND SANCTITY): New Players in a Wasted Land | 2002–2006
14. THE RECESS: Hope and Despair in a Newborn Democracy | 2006–2010
15. WWW.COM
Sources
Notes
References
Index
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by David Van Reybrouck
About the Publisher
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS (#u4f0c6662-e657-5e1c-b314-9f694a6a7e09)
Map 1 (#ulink_27d129ee-e586-56b1-9647-17d8867569c2): Geography
Map 2 (#ulink_762d47d9-cb2a-5ee2-b397-54d63a5401ad): Population, Administration, and Raw Materials
Map 3 (#ulink_f2012005-81ef-5fce-9492-2b35ee071f89): Central Africa in the Mid-nineteenth Century
Map 4 (#ulink_477dcbd5-3381-5894-8b68-2d6991b6a0a7): Congo Free State, 1885–1908
Map 5: Belgian Congo During World War I
Map 6: Belgian Congo During World War II
Map 7: The First Republic: Secessions and Uprisings
Map 8: The First Congo War: Kabila’s Advance (October 1996–May 1997)
Map 9: The Second Congo War
INTRODUCTION (#u4f0c6662-e657-5e1c-b314-9f694a6a7e09)
IT IS STILL THE SEA, OBVIOUSLY, BUT YOU CAN SEE THAT SOMETHING has changed, something about the color. The low, broad rollers rock the ship as benevolently as ever; there is still nothing but ocean, yet the blue is gradually becoming tainted with yellow. And that produces not green, the way you might remember from your lessons in color theory, but murkiness. The glimmering azure has vanished. There is no more turquoise billow beneath the noonday sun. The boundless cobalt from which the sun arose, the ultramarine of twilight, the leaden grayness of the night: gone.
From here on, all is broth.
Yellowish, ochre, rusty broth. You are still hundreds of nautical miles from the coast, but you know: this is where the land starts. The force with which the Congo River empties into the Atlantic is so great that it changes the color of the seawater for hundreds of kilometers around.
