Perspective
The Richest Poverty on Earth: If there is one thing that defines the Democratic Republic of Congo, it is not conflict, nor instability, nor even history in isolation. It is something far more difficult to reconcile. It is the ability for immense wealth and enduring poverty to exist in the same place- without ever colliding in a way that forces resolution.
MARKETING AFRICA
Perspective
Soyinka Witness
We Took Congo’ s Music, We Took It’ s Minerals
Preamble
Democratic Republic Of Congo( DRC) is probably one of the richest countries in the world. And yet, paradoxically, one of the poorest countries by design.
The Things We Learn Without Knowing
I suppose the last piece did not ruffle enough feathers, as I have been invited to write again. That is always a slightly dangerous thing, because it creates the illusion that perhaps one should soften the edges this time around. I am not entirely convinced that I will.
Some memories do not present themselves as important when they occur. They pass quietly, almost unnoticed, and only years later do they return with a kind of insistence, asking to be understood differently. For me, one of those memories sits on a Sunday afternoon.
We would return from church, still carrying the structure of the morning— the discipline of it, the order, the quiet expectation that everything had its place. And then we would walk into something else entirely.
My father would be seated, unmoved by the rituals we had just participated in, listening to a programme called A Bridge Over Congo. There was no explanation offered, no attempt to reconcile the two worlds. The music simply existed— Congolese Rhumba, flowing through the house as though it had been there long before we arrived and would continue long after we left.
Every so often, a familiar refrain would come through the speakers- Candidat na biso Mobutu …- the kind that lingers even when you do not yet understand what it means. It would take me years to realise that this was Franco Luambo, or more fully, François Luambo Luanzo Makiadi, one of the architects of that sound, whose music travelled far beyond Congo and settled comfortably into homes like ours.
At the time, it felt incidental. Looking back, it feels like an early lesson in contradiction. Because while we were participating in one system of meaning, he was anchored in another. And neither felt the need to explain itself.
There is another kind of memory that sits alongside that one. Less refined, less romantic, but perhaps more instructive. Anyone who has grown up around a kerosene stove will recognise it immediately.
Switching it off was never a mechanical act.
It was a technique- something you were taught carefully, because getting it wrong came with consequences. You would take a small pool of water into your palm, judge the amount instinctively, and then, in one swift motion, turn your hand over and bring it down onto the flame. It required confidence. Too little water and the flame resisted. Too much and the effort was wasted. But done properly, the fire disappeared instantly, as though it had always intended to.
It is only much later that you begin to understand what was actually being learned in that moment. Not just the act itself, but the instinct behind it- the ability to measure, to balance, to engage with something potentially destructive without being consumed by it. That kind of learning does not leave you.
Sound and Silence
As you grow older, these fragments begin to connect. Music, for instance, stops being just sound and starts becoming context.
The Richest Poverty on Earth: If there is one thing that defines the Democratic Republic of Congo, it is not conflict, nor instability, nor even history in isolation. It is something far more difficult to reconcile. It is the ability for immense wealth and enduring poverty to exist in the same place- without ever colliding in a way that forces resolution.
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