The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has a history plagued by the legacies of European colonization. DRC’s current instability results from several factors, most of which can be traced back to colonization, followed by a failed attempt at democratic independence. In addition, ethnic tensions were solidified and inflamed by colonialism. The scholarly literature on the DRC is massive and impossible for one historian to cover in a reasonable amount of time. However, several books, studies, and academic articles stand out in the literature and are used as the building blocks of this project. The literature on ethnicity, religion, and language is also copious, but these concepts and their current state(s) are the results of a colonial past.
Emizet Kisangani and F. Scott Bobb’s Historical Dictionary of the Democratic Republic of the Congo stands out among the comprehensive studies on the history of DRC. It is a source of information on people and society before European contact. This massive work references any historian who has researched different peoples, places, and events in the DRC. Another comprehensive history by David van Reybrouck. Congo: The Epic History of a People explores the history of the Congo from the beginnings of the slave trade through colonization, independence, Mobutu’s reign, and the civil wars that persist into the modern day. By interweaving Congolese voices into his history, van Reybrouck’s work is one of the few reliant on native sources.
Pre-colonial sources and literature are the scarcest when researching the DRC due to the lack of written records before European contact. Along with the Historical Dictionary and Congo: The Epic History of a People, Steven P. Johnson’s doctoral dissertation, “King Leopold II’s Exploitation of the Congo from 1885 to 1908 and Its Consequences,” is one of the few sources exploring the pre-colonial past. It documents four flourishing kingdoms in place before European contact. Johnson documents how European contact gradually transformed these kingdoms, eventually destroying or exploiting those communities by forced labor for resource extraction.
Possibly the most widely recognized work on the period following European contact, Leopold II’s land theft and eventual sale to the Belgian government, is Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Hochschild unveils how Leopold II turned the Congo into an operation of resource exploitation that directly benefitted the emperor. He explores the political situations that led to Leopold acquiring what he would call the Congo Free State and the first global human rights campaign spurred by the atrocities Leopold II directed in his new colony. Hochschild also goes beyond the time of the Congo Free State, exploring the institutions of what became the Belgian Congo and highlighting the racism and continued forced labor practices under Belgian rule.
Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja chronicles the independence movement and the subsequent failed efforts for democracy in Resistance and Repression in the Congo: Strengths and Weaknesses of the Democracy Movement. The native Congolese scholar examines the democratic movement throughout the country's history, from before independence to the reign of Laurent Kabila, and seeks to explain democracy’s shortcomings and failures over the past century and the factors that continue to contribute to instability in the country. Nzongola-Ntalaja’s Resistance and Repression expanded on Mobutu Sese Seeko’s reign of terror and the Congo Wars that followed his downfall.
Literature covering Mobutu and the Congo Wars is abundant. Jason K. Stearns’ Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa identifies the Congolese wars as some of the great cataclysms of our modern world. The impact of the Rwandan Genocide on the instability in Eastern DRC is explored along with an explanation of the psyche of combatants across the wars and conflicts that continue to plague the region. Stearns aims to identify actors and motives in a conflict where combatants are difficult to identify and fight for complex reasons to most outsiders.[1] Gerard Prunier uses the Rwandan Genocide as a starting point in his work Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe. Prunier hypothesizes that the majority of instability can be traced back to the Rwandan Genocide as a catalyst while indicting the international community for disregarding atrocities.[2]
One of the lasting legacies of colonization is resource exploitation. The Congo is rich in natural resources that actors outside and within the country continue exploiting. “Resources and Rent Seeking in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” by Stephanie Matti, draws attention to the ‘curse of resources and foreign aid’ that has plagued the DRC since the late nineteenth century.[3] Political traditions that remain unchanged since the corruption of Mobutu continue to undermine the success of the DRC’s economy and promote forced labor conditions. These traditions also prevent foreign aid from being properly disbursed, often ending up in the hands of a few Congolese elites. Mwesiga Baregu’s “The Clones of ‘Mr. Kurtz’: Violence, War, and Plunder in the DRC” highlights conceptual issues and dimensions of regional conflict in the DRC. Baregu also identifies structural corruption features in the DRC by placing those involved in resource extraction into specific categories, such as robber barons and private military and security companies.[4] Other significant academic articles on resource exploitation include Patience Kabamba’s “External Economic Exploitation in the DRC: 1990-2005,” Pelin Ekman’s “From Riches to Rags- the Paradox of Plenty and Its Linkage to Violent Conflict,” Ruben de Koning’s “Controlling Conflict resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” and James Tsabora’s “Fighting the ‘Resource Wars’ in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: An Exploratory Diagnosis of the Legal and Institutional Problems.”
The DRC always seems to have an abundance of whatever resource the world needs in bulk at a given time. Valuable minerals, ivory, uranium, and rubber have all led to exploitation and atrocities by foreign and domestic actors. Coltan, used for chips in most electronic devices, is currently in high demand and abundance in the Congo.[5] Daniel Moran and his colleagues attempt to track this valuable resource in their article “Global Supply Chains of Coltan.” The article's findings include a clear association between mining and conflict in the DRC, including the mining of coltan, but mining is not the sole driver of conflict.[6]
At the center of conflict and resource exploitation is the abuse of human rights, which has now been perpetuated for centuries, beginning with the slave trade and continuing today through forced labor and never-ending conflict. One human rights issue that plagues the DRC is the use of war rape by many actors on several sides of multiple conflicts. Several pieces of literature explore the use, reasons, and aftermath of sexual violence concerning conflict. Anna Maedl’s “Rape as a Weapon of War in the Eastern DRC? The Victims’ Perspective” and Demi Simi and Jonathan Matusitz’s “War Rape Survivors of the Second Congo War: A Perspective from Symbolic Convergence Theory” both explore how victims of war rape struggle to cope with the atrocities experienced, along with methods used to manage, like the use of fantasy themes, symbolic cues, and sagas.[7] The use of war rape, its effectiveness in achieving military goals, and its motivation to terrify the enemy are explored in literature such as Joanne Cseste’s and Juliane Kippenberg’s “The War within the War: Sexual Violence against Women and Girls in Eastern Congo,” Marie Godin’s “Breaking the Silences, Breaking the Frames: A Gendered Diasporic Analysis of Sexual Violence in the DRC,” and Jocelyn Kelly’s “Rape in War: Motives of Militia in DRC.” The sex work industry in and around mining towns and the lack of opportunities for women in those regions that leads them to sex for money is detailed in both Brendan Kiernan’s “There is Fear but There Is No Other Work: A Preliminary Qualitative Exploration of the Experience of Sex Workers in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo,” and Rachel Perks’, “Resources and Resourcefulness: Gender, Human Rights and Resilience in Artisinal Mining Towns of Easter Congo.”
Genocide is a part of DRC's history and colonialism's legacy. The ongoing conflict in the Eastern DRC can be traced back to the Rwandan Genocide, which can further be traced back to the pseudo-science that Europeans applied to ethnicity during colonialism. Hochschild, Stearns, Nzongola-Ntalaja, Prunier, and van Reybrouck all illustrate the genocide committed under Leopold II and how colonial ethnic designations led to the Rwandan genocide. This literature is further supplemented by Donatien Nikuze’s “The Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda: Origins, Causes, Implementation, Consequences, and the Post-Genocide Era,” which focuses on the underlying causes of the Rwandan genocide, and Mahmood Mamdani’s, “A Brief History of Genocide,” which tries to find similarities of past genocides and apply it to the present while highlighting colonialism’s role in African genocides like the Hetero.[8] Elizabeth Baisley’s “Genocide and Constructions of Hutu and Tutsi in Radio Propaganda” links past roles enforced by colonizers to the propaganda that was spread over the radio waves leading to the Rwandan genocide.
As evidenced by genocide and ongoing conflicts, especially in the eastern DRC, ethnicity and language play a pivotal role in life in the DRC. Ethnicity in the Congo has been studied and contemplated since H.H. Johnston wrote “On the Races of the Congo and the Portuguese Colonies in Western Africa” in 1884. More recently, David Maxwell dissected the issues with colonial attempts to classify ethnicity in “The Soul of the Luba: W.F.P. Burton, Missionary Ethnography and Belgian Colonial Science” in 2008.
Severene Autesserre details tensions at local levels in “The Trouble With Congo: How Local Disputes Fuel Regional Conflicts,” including individual, family, clan, and village levels. The dynamics of land control and securing resources for survival have spread from local issues to regional conflicts.[9] It also touches on colonialism's contributions to inflaming these tensions. Colonialism’s effect on perceived ethnicities is also evidenced by Catherine Newbury’s “Ethnicity and the Politics of History in Rwanda.” The horrific results of division along ethnic lines are detailed in Anneke van Woudenberg’s “Ituri: Covered in Blood, Ethnically Targeted Violence in Northeastern DR Congo.”
Over two hundred languages are currently spoken in the DRC, but only four qualify as national languages.[10] In “A Metamorphosed Language: Tracing Language Attitudes towards Lubumbashi Swahili and French in the DRC,” Ben Carson details the prevalence of different branches of Swahili and where and when they are spoken in the DRC. This work also explores parents' preference for their children to speak French to succeed in the country.[11] The popularity of these languages is leading to a decline in other Indigenous tongues. Carla Vergaro and Helena Lopez Palma’s work, “Aspects of Multilingualism in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, " explores this dynamic. The work also lists all languages currently spoken in the DRC, where they are spoken, and by how many.[12]
The DRC is overwhelmingly Christian, with 95.8% of the population identifying as such.[13] Islam, Indigenous religions, and Kimbanguism are the other three dominant spiritual practices in the DRC. The Christian majority results from missionary work beginning with European contact in the late fifteenth century. David Maxwell explores the expansion of Christianity and how it shaped local African identity both purposefully and indirectly during Belgian occupation in “Remaking Boundaries of Belonging: Protestant Missionaries and African Christians in Katanga, Belgian Congo.” Maxwell further explores the spread of Christianity through freed slaves returning as missionaries in “Freed Slaves, Missionaries, and Respectability: The Expansion of the Christian Frontier from Angola to Belgian Congo.”
Kimbanguism’s rise, syncretism with Christianity, rejection of colonial borders, and Pan-African vision are laid out in Mika Vahakangas’s “Navigating Ethnicity, Nationalism and Pan-Africanism-Kimbanguists, Identity and Colonial Borders.” A full scope of Kimbanguism’s beliefs, practices, identity constructions, and history is provided by Aurelien Mokoko Gampiot’s Kimbanguism: An African Understanding of the Bible. The spread of Islam in the DRC is attributed to well-thought-out growth strategies, high birth rates, the encouragement of Muslims to try to convert others, and financial integration of faith leading to ample funding in Kaseraka Nehemie and Josephine Sesi’s “Factors Influencing the Spread of Islam in the Eastern Region of Democratic Republic of Congo.”[14] School building in a fragile state where religion and government work in tandem to provide essential goods and services has created an opportunity for Islamic organizations to play an increasing role in the DRC’s education system, according to Ashley Leinweber’s “Muslim Public Schools in Post-Conflict D.R. Congo: New Hybrid Institutions in a Weak State.”[15]
Government corruption has been the status quo since the failed democratic independence. At one point under Mobutu, inflation rose as much as 4,000 percent.[16] The extent and nature of corruption from Leopold to the present government, how corruption is now ingrained in the culture, and how corruption is deployed are discussed in Mathias Bak’s “Democratic Republic of the Congo: Overview of Corruption and Anti-Corruption.” Anneke van Woudenberg’s report on political violence and reduced political options in the DRC despite elections in 2006 is detailed in the report, “We Will Crush You: the Restriction of Political Space in the Democratic Republic of Congo.”
The DRC faces issues that stem from exploitation before, during, and after colonization. The history of the DRC has been extensively written, and most scholars agree that the ongoing conflicts and crises today stem from past atrocities. Ethnicity, language, and religion have all been studied and documented by myriad scholars. These aspects of life in the DRC were heavily shaped by European contact, colonization, and the continued extraction and exploitation of resources.
Notes
[1] Stearns, Jason K. Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: the Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa. New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2012.
[2] Prunier, Gérard. Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe. Digital print. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012, xxix-xxxvii.
[3] Matti, Stephanie. "Resources and Rent Seeking in the Democratic Republic of the Congo." Third World Quarterly 31, no. 3 (2010): 401-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2010.488471, 404-406.
[4] Baregu, Mwesiga. "The Clones of 'Mr. Kurtz': Violence, War, and Plunder in the DRC." African Journal of Political Science 7, no. 2 (2002): 11-38, 25-28.
[5] Moran, Daniel, Darian McBain, Keiichiro Kanemoto, Manfred Lenzen, and Arne Geschke. "Global Supply Chains of Coltan." Journal of Industrial Ecology 19, no. 3 (2014): 357-65. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12206, 357.
[6] Moran et al., “Global Supply Chains of Coltan,” 363.
[7] Simi, Demi, and Jonathan Matusitz. "War Rape Survivors of the Second Congo War: A Perspective from Symbolic Convergence Theory." Africa Review 6, no. 2: 81-93, 86-89.
[8] Mamdani, Mahmood. "A Brief History of Genocide." Transition 87 (2001): 26-47, 35-36.
[9] Autesserre, Severine. "The Trouble with Congo: How Local Disputes Fuel Regional Conflicts." Foreign Affairs 87, no. 3 (2008): 93-110, 95-98.
[10] Vergaro, Carla, and Helena Lopez Palma. "Aspects of Multilingualism in the Democratic Republic of the Congo." In Dynamics of Language Contact in the Twenty-First Century, 93-110. Perugia: Guerra : Centro linguistico d'ateneo, Università di Perugia, 2008, 1.
[11] Carson, Ben. "A Metamorphosed Language: Tracing Language Attitudes towards Lubumbashi Swahili and French in the DRC." SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics 21 (2023): 30-45, 31-32
[12] Vergaro and Palma, “Aspects of Multilingualism in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” 4-7.
[13] Democratic Republic of the Congo 2020 International Religious Freedom Report. United States Department of State, 2020.
[14] Nehemie, Reverend Kasereka Kavutwa, and Josephine K. Mutuku Sesi. "Factors Influencing the Spread of Islam in the Eastern Region of Democratic Republic of Congo." Developing Country Studies 8, no. 4 (2019), 85.
[15] Leinweber, Ashley E. "Muslim Public Schools in Post-Conflict D.R. Congo: New Hybrid Institutions in a Weak State." Africa Power and Politics, no. 22 (2012): 1-26, 1-3.
[16] Kisangani, Emizet F., and F. Scott Bobb. Historical Dictionary of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 3rd ed. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2010, xli.
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