Christaaay 's Reviews > Congo: een geschiedenis

Rating: 100/100%

Congo. A mystery for so long, Congo caught the world’s attention in the late 19th century as an incredible source of natural resources. Unfortunately, by the time imperialists realized their sins and abruptly left the county, the native inhabitants were left with a shattered state. On the first day of Congo's independence in 1960, they inherited an impressive infrastructure but had no native professionals qualified to run it: no officers, physicians, engineers, lawyers, agronomists, or economists. This is where Congo natives suffered under colonization: they had been hindered from graduating college and rising into these positions. As a result, chaos descended. Since then, it has suffered through dictators, war with neighboring nations, and chaos. The last update in David Van Reybrouck’s Congo is heartbreaking: “On an average, one pays taxes thirty times a year. The tax on profits equals almost 60 percent—money that never ends up with the common Congolese citizen.22 What that common Congolese citizen does end up with is disease. The infant mortality rate is one of the world’s highest: 161 out of every 1,000 children do not live to the age of five. One out of every three children under the age of five is underweight. Life expectancy at birth is forty-six years. Almost 30 percent of the population is illiterate, 50 percent of the children do not attend elementary school, 54 percent of the population has no access to clean drinking water."

That’s what I learned from this book. I’m still new to nonfiction and before reading this book, I knew nothing about Congolese history; but I found this extremely impressive: it’s very readable and it includes an incredible amount of direct testimony from Congolese citizens who lived the history of the nation. His examples, often drawn from that direct testimony, show the complexity of the problems facing Congo, its inhabitants, and even its invaders. The history is checkered, and there is no easy way forward. I’m grateful for books like these that are readable and authoritative, although I’m sure it would help me to read a second book with other perspectives. Maybe I will at some point.