The book is about a journalist who desires to follow in the famous footsteps of Henry Morton Stanley who traversed the Congo river with a little help from hundreds of Congolese people. I say that with a touch of sarcasm of course. It doesn't translate to the computer screen as well as I would like. Tim Butcher sets out from Kalemie on the shores of Lake Tanganika where he first discovers an interesting fact about the Congo. It seems like everywhere he steps throughout his journey has traveled back in time. The cities that used to boom with traffic, visitors, and daily commerce are now broken and falling apart. It's people are swollen with poverty, its politicians cheat, lie, and steal their power, and its electrical outlets haven't had solid power for years. The carcass of an old train has grass growing through its cars. Time is moving backwards, and it is a theme that follows him throughout his journey.
Butcher starts his journey shortly after a massive attack in Bukavu, a town/city on the edge of Lake Kivu that cuts the border of Rwanda and the Congo. There is a lot of unease from people he meets along the way because of Rwanda's splintered people that has spilled into the Congo. For Rwanda's small size it is surprisingly involved in the politics of the Congo. They hold a bigger influence in the nation that their small size would suggest. The Hutus of Rwanda that fled the country after the genocide against the Tutsis hid in the rain forests and jungles of the Congo. The air was thick with the threat of violence. Still. Again.
Butcher pressed on. He wanted to follow the Congo - on land - and end at the Atlantic Ocean where Stanley ended his journey in the late 1800's. It seems like he was profoundly affected by Stanley's journey, even though Stanley's treatment of the Congolese people was questionable at best. Stanley was one of the main factors in the beginning of the colonization of the Congo. Perhaps it would have happened anyway, maybe by another country, maybe a bit later, but as it stands he charted the river and told the powers that be that it was a land full of treasure. And it was. Finally he found an interested audience in the Belgian king, and the rest is history.
I had a bit of trouble understanding why more people did not hate Stanley. None of the Congolese people he met seemed to have a problem with the fact that Butcher was following in Stanley's footsteps, albeit for different reasons, but still following. Perhaps they realized that Butcher was doing it for the adventure, story, and history. Perhaps it was because Butcher did not travel with hundreds of Congolese to help carry his burdens. Perhaps it was because they had not seen outsiders for so long that they yearned for contact.
The thing i found most shocking about this book was the movement of time in the Congo. It would be one thing if the villages along the river had never had outside influence. But most of them knew what electricity and cars were, and then they abruptly had none. The parents and grandparents in the villages had seen the modern technology and would describe it to awestruck children. When Butcher entered some of the villages at the beginning of his journey on a motorbike most of the children had heard stories about such an item but never even seen a picture of one.
The thing that depressed me the most was how the small window of so-called advancement seemed to injure the villages and their ways of life. They had their own local "government" and their own faith and beliefs. Each village was part of a village system, and they made decisions within that village. Each decision was based on everyone agreeing that the decision was the best thing for the entire people. Then all the power was taken away from them at a village level. It was handed to the colonists, and when the colonists left it was handed to the crooked politicians that the West believed would honor the wishes of the West. And that is a book in itself.
Basically the Congo would have been much better off without the "advice" of the outside. Without the missionaries and white government.
Would they be living primitively? Perhaps. But probably richly. (And I don't mean cobalt and diamonds.) And the thing is, they are living primitively right now, but there are feelings that this is not good enough any more. They are wearing hand me down American clothing.
Along Butcher's journey he met a father who asked him with pain and desperation in his eyes if Butcher would take his son with him out of the Congo. And with a pain in his heart Butcher said no. Maybe not because he did not want to, but most likely because no matter the desire, the government would never allow him to transport the boy out. (Unless they were bribed heavily and he had the correct paperwork filled out.)
One of the comments in the book that haunted me was the following (butchering paraphrase to follow) - "Why can't the Africans run Africa?" And it makes me wonder what went wrong? Would things have been different if they had been allowed to run their own countries without the outside influence? There have been many other countries that were colonized over time, but after defeating or somehow breaking away from the colonization they have pulled it together to even thrive. Why has this not happened in Africa? Is it too big? Are there just too many outside influences? Is there too much raw material and hope for riches?
I don't know. It is certainly a big question. What to do about Africa. What does Africa think? There is one underlying constant in the story. Violence. Attacks. Unrest. Murder. I just think there are so many people there who deserve to live their lives without fearing attacks. If nothing else they deserve to live and breath without that. If they could have that, the rest would come slowly. How do we do that? We can't drop food and medicine without fixing that one problem. What good does food do if your entire village is burned down because of hate and retaliation that has nothing to do with you? Where does the peace come from?
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