Op-ed (It may not be NYtimes quality but at least you don’t have to pay for it!)

In Kinshasa a Congolese journalist, Bapuwa Muamba, was recently shot to death in his home. He had previously written articles condemning the interim government. Street theft is high in Kinshasa; violent crime in one’s home is not. The possibility of Mr. Muamba being the victim of an isolated occurrence of military aggression given his professional and political position seems unlikely. Nonetheless, there has been hesitation to label Mr. Muamba’s murder as political. With the first election in over 45 years in Congo less than three weeks away this fact warrants further consideration.

The international community is widely criticized by the political opposition for favoring the current president, Joseph Kabila, in the upcoming elections. Labeling Mr. Muamba’s death as political would put the current government as well as the international community that backs him (whether this support is real or perceived) in a precarious position.

If Kabila, or his political allies, sanctioned the killing of Mr. Muamba his candidacy for President should be immediately revoked. Such an event would, however, set the most expensive elections for foreign donors to date into a tailspin. Violence would most likely ensue in the grab for power and hundreds, potentially thousands, of civilians could be caught in the crossfire.

So the question: what to do? Should the international community (either jointly or individually) investigate Mr. Muamba’s death more carefully and if necessary denounce Kabila and his supporters? Or should the current status quo of condemning human rights abuses be maintained without more serious searches for actual perpetrators? Support for the latter option may result in as many civilian deaths as the first, albeit over a longer time period. This is because continued passivity toward events such as Mr. Muamba’s death directly undermines the legitimacy of the elections by shattering the already tenuous Congolese confidence in democracy.

International supporters and organizers of the elections have always faced a skeptical Congolese population, and understandably so. Mobuto was after all installed and backed by the West while he raped the country for over 40 years under the protection of the Cold War. Therefore, as a large player in the upcoming elections (both in terms of financial and military support), with a tarnished image of neutrality (again, real or perceived) the international community must not only claim its neutrality but also prove it. Pushing for a direct investigation into the death of Mr. Muamba would be a step in the right direction. Not demanding such an investigation from the government will only strengthen the growing Congolese perception that democracy is not a form of government but rather yet another Western export to be swallowed or else.

Bonjour les blancs

Before my departure friends and colleagues often requested that I keep a travel blog. After more than two weeks in Kinshasa, however, I am struck by how difficult it is to write something enlightening about my experiences thus far. This is perhaps because I still feel like an African neophyte, a situation compounded by inability to communicate clearly in French. These circumstances have left me feeling rather timid and unable to dive into Congolese culture in a way I had hoped or, at the very least, in a way that would be interesting to readers. Nonetheless, at the risk of writing trite and perhaps stereotypical observations I will attempt to record my experiences in the coming months and years.

Understanding the Congo and the Congolese will not magically happen after a certain number of years of living in Kinshasa or with fluency in French (or I imagine even with fluency in Lingala, the regional African language spoken here). It seems most of the expats and the international community knows and passively accepts that Kinshasa is a divided city. Not without a touch of irony, whites are unable to walk around town without security risk.

Anyone that has explored a new city knows walking/wandering around it is perhaps the best way to discover and find the city’s much sought after heart, culture, and various subcultures. In Kinshasa, however, wandering is, if not impossible, certainly dangerous. Therefore, being “stuck” in Kinshasa for the next three years actually brings me some comfort. It will take a long time to know this city of over 7.7 million people as I will have to learn about the best restaurants and jazz bars by word of mouth and insider tips. At least I have some time in which to do just that.