Les blues de Bruxelles

The recent update included the possibility where I would blog on 'urgent matters' in spite of me lacking time. This post already exploits that built-in glitch in my otherwise quite firm schedule. The topic once again is the protest against Kabila's re-election as president of Congo. This connects to former posts in which I made a brief sketch of the candidates and commented on Europe's waning commitment to promote democratic values.

Congolese in Matonge with a sign praising the Belgian
anti-establishment party N-VA, of which Bart (de) Wever
is the chairman. They are blatantly missing the point...

This post is a result of my indignation toward anti-Kabila protests in Belgium. Ever since the results of the Congolese presidential elections have been announced, people have been protesting in the Congolese Matonge neighborhood of Brussels. People of Congolese origin are unhappy that Belgium tolerates Kabila's alleged election fraud. They wave Flemish nationalist flags (?!) and they accuse the Belgian establishment. They are totally missing the point! The Congolese in Belgium are fitting themselves an identity that does not exist. As they see it, the West supports Kabila's oppression out of economic self-interest. This view of course can not account for the lack of unity within Congo. I do not deny that economic patterns play a defining role. Complex reality can however not be reduced to a one-on-one relationship of Western exploitation and Congolese dictatorship.

Congolese waving a Flemish flag during the protests.
This can well be considered a strange sight in Brussels.

Colonial inheritance, Cold War dynamics and modern day globalization trough interplay shaped the Congolese economy to what it is today: an inconsistent amalgam of Western-dominated resource extraction, feudal farming methods and an informal petty market in urbanized regions. The Congolese economy is directed at meeting external demand and as such can not realize domestic development. The people of Congo are forced to fall back on the local community to satisfy their basic needs. This causes commitment to a regional identity created along ethnic and cultural divides. Since an economic base is lacking, no civil community or indeed 'nation' can develop.

Without nationhood the central government lacks the legitimacy it needs to be effective. In addition local patterns of clientelism and ethnic tensions are projected into the government institutions. Different groups became engage in a struggle for power over the state, an instrument of which each community wants to avoid that it gets used against its own security concerns. Where the state fails to provide public good, local communities struggle for power. This is the case in Congo - there is no Congolese nation, no Congolese citizenship, no Congolese identity.

The protesters in Brussels are trapped by the modernity paradigm. They blame Western egotism but remain trapped in a liberal discourse of progress and citizenship. I encourage them to tackle the real economic causes which lie underneath. Even if this means recognizing that part of the fault lies with local Congolese interests and the understandable but backward reliance on a closed identity.