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livingdebI was browsing the collection of new books at UT and saw one with CONGO in large letters on the spine: David van Reybrouck's Congo: The Epic History of a People (2010) (tr. from Dutch by Sam Garrett). Since I’ve decided to enjoy media from every country, I decided to pick it up, even though I’m afraid to read about this country. As the first sentence on the inside flap explains: “The Democratic Republic of Congo currently ranks among the world’s most failed nation-states, second only to war-torn Somalia.” But then the flap also explains that the author interviewed hundreds of people and shared some of those interviews with us. So I read it.
What I already knew about this country:
* Where it is on a map - It’s the huge country in the middle of southern Africa.
* Two of my friends lived there on and off until they were twelve (during the period when it was called Zaire); their parents were missionaries.
* It was a colony of Belgium, and like all African colonies, the borders were decided by Europeans looking at maps, not based on natural cultural divisions.
A few interesting things I learned:
* The author was worried he wouldn’t find people to interview about the distant past since “the average life expectancy over the last decade has never risen above forty-five.” But he was able to find plenty of old people, even people over 100. (Infant mortality brings the averages down.)
* The Congo River is very long and almost circular.
* Henry Morton Stanley was the first European to explore that river and one of the author’s contacts heard rumors about that guy when he was six.
* Slave traders came through this area before it was colonized, causing trouble.
* What Africans most admired about the Belgians were not their wealth, but their intelligence; many wanted to learn how to make and do the cool things that Europeans could do but that they couldn’t.
* The Belgians back home tried not to be complete jerks, at least on paper, but many of those actually in the Congo did not.
* The Belgians wrote a report on Congolese native culture. I was worried they would lump all the cultures together, but they did not. The author says they made the opposite mistake--drawing lines between cultures that were not strong in real life; these lines later made it harder for the people to feel like they were one people and made it easier to pit them against each other.
* The Congolese who took over after independence had grand ideas but got distracted by the difficulties in maintaining power.
* Even though I knew this book would not have a happy ending, I kept seeing signs that one might happen.
I also learned about various forms of violence and other horribleness to which I will not subject you. Let me just say two things. First, the people out in the field may not be doing what they were told to do--it may be too hard, it may not be as rewarding as other actions, or those jobs might attract people who use any excuse to get to the field for their own purposes. Certainly, if you cannot find the right people, you need to re-think your mission. (I also saw this at the Texas Ranger museum--whenever the Rangers got desperate and quickly hired a bunch of local thugs, suddenly the Texas Rangers were not nearly so honorable.)
Second, revenge sucks. If you want revenge, it seems highly unlikely that trying to get it will help anyone. It absolutely doesn’t help if you go overboard and do worse than was done to you. Even if it's just tit for tat, the people you avenge yourself on are still likely to want revenge on you afterwards. It gets very difficult to escape the cycle. It’s not right to just take bad treatment, but look for ways to stop it or fix it other than revenge.
I never hire people for missions, but I am tempted into revenge. Normally I satisfy myself with revenge fantasies--I get most of the glee but without actually turning into a jerk. The revenge fantasies are still fun to re-tell decades later, too. Nevertheless, I have actually taken revenge twice that I can remember. Once, the person didn’t know what she had lost, so at least there was no feedback loop. The other time the person did notice, but though my revenge was fairly mild, I do feel bad about it. I have always thought twice about revenge; now I will think three times.
And now I'm remembering that actually I do hire people for missions--it's called voting. Unfortunately I cannot figure out how to take my own advice to refuse to hire people who are not right for the job. I just do the best I can and then sign a lot of petitions.
Although this is a nonfiction book, there is a plot twist! The last chapter takes place primarily in Guanzhou, China, where many people, mostly women, go to import cheap things to sell back home.
Overall, a very interesting book. There was a lot of politics (which I won't remember) and not enough of the conversations promised on the front flap (though there were many). But now I am intrigued and want to read some stories about some Congalese. Stories that aren't war stories. I bet there are some. In fact, I looked up recommended books about Congo and checked a bunch of them out of the library.
What I already knew about this country:
* Where it is on a map - It’s the huge country in the middle of southern Africa.
* Two of my friends lived there on and off until they were twelve (during the period when it was called Zaire); their parents were missionaries.
* It was a colony of Belgium, and like all African colonies, the borders were decided by Europeans looking at maps, not based on natural cultural divisions.
A few interesting things I learned:
* The author was worried he wouldn’t find people to interview about the distant past since “the average life expectancy over the last decade has never risen above forty-five.” But he was able to find plenty of old people, even people over 100. (Infant mortality brings the averages down.)
* The Congo River is very long and almost circular.
* Henry Morton Stanley was the first European to explore that river and one of the author’s contacts heard rumors about that guy when he was six.
* Slave traders came through this area before it was colonized, causing trouble.
* What Africans most admired about the Belgians were not their wealth, but their intelligence; many wanted to learn how to make and do the cool things that Europeans could do but that they couldn’t.
* The Belgians back home tried not to be complete jerks, at least on paper, but many of those actually in the Congo did not.
* The Belgians wrote a report on Congolese native culture. I was worried they would lump all the cultures together, but they did not. The author says they made the opposite mistake--drawing lines between cultures that were not strong in real life; these lines later made it harder for the people to feel like they were one people and made it easier to pit them against each other.
* The Congolese who took over after independence had grand ideas but got distracted by the difficulties in maintaining power.
* Even though I knew this book would not have a happy ending, I kept seeing signs that one might happen.
I also learned about various forms of violence and other horribleness to which I will not subject you. Let me just say two things. First, the people out in the field may not be doing what they were told to do--it may be too hard, it may not be as rewarding as other actions, or those jobs might attract people who use any excuse to get to the field for their own purposes. Certainly, if you cannot find the right people, you need to re-think your mission. (I also saw this at the Texas Ranger museum--whenever the Rangers got desperate and quickly hired a bunch of local thugs, suddenly the Texas Rangers were not nearly so honorable.)
Second, revenge sucks. If you want revenge, it seems highly unlikely that trying to get it will help anyone. It absolutely doesn’t help if you go overboard and do worse than was done to you. Even if it's just tit for tat, the people you avenge yourself on are still likely to want revenge on you afterwards. It gets very difficult to escape the cycle. It’s not right to just take bad treatment, but look for ways to stop it or fix it other than revenge.
I never hire people for missions, but I am tempted into revenge. Normally I satisfy myself with revenge fantasies--I get most of the glee but without actually turning into a jerk. The revenge fantasies are still fun to re-tell decades later, too. Nevertheless, I have actually taken revenge twice that I can remember. Once, the person didn’t know what she had lost, so at least there was no feedback loop. The other time the person did notice, but though my revenge was fairly mild, I do feel bad about it. I have always thought twice about revenge; now I will think three times.
And now I'm remembering that actually I do hire people for missions--it's called voting. Unfortunately I cannot figure out how to take my own advice to refuse to hire people who are not right for the job. I just do the best I can and then sign a lot of petitions.
Although this is a nonfiction book, there is a plot twist! The last chapter takes place primarily in Guanzhou, China, where many people, mostly women, go to import cheap things to sell back home.
Overall, a very interesting book. There was a lot of politics (which I won't remember) and not enough of the conversations promised on the front flap (though there were many). But now I am intrigued and want to read some stories about some Congalese. Stories that aren't war stories. I bet there are some. In fact, I looked up recommended books about Congo and checked a bunch of them out of the library.