The Democratic Republic of Congo is an African country located in central Africa. In that region, the country is one of the most populous nation-states. Its people are amongst one of the poorest populations on earth, with an unemployment rate of about 26.60% in the year 2010. According to the latest statistics in the Human Development Index website, the DRC had a population of 67.76 million in the year 2011. However, most of these people cannot afford a living. The colonial regime of King Leopold II of Belgium has had a role to play in this Congolese reality. The HDI website shows that the average years of schooling for an adult Congolese were only three years. This can be seen as a direct result of the socio-political conditions which characterized the Belgian Congo, since the political system therein did not allow space for education. Instead, King Leopold’s Belgian Congo sustained itself through labour systems which used force — all for the purposes of advancing Belgium’s economic interests.

Currently in the Democratic Republic of Congo there is a challenge of re-organizing society both in the social- and economic spheres. This is as a result of numerous factors including the on-going conflicts in and around the DRC. According to an article in the World Bank website, “Violence continued in eastern Congo well into the 21st Century, despite peace agreements that demarcated foreign troops to be withdrawn from DRC by 2004 under the monitoring of South Africa and the United Nations Organization Mission in the DRC (MONUC).” Therefore peace and stability have seldom been characteristic of the Congolese status quo. Instead, violence from within the region that the DRC is based in, has been continuous.

A depiction of the realities faced by the Congolese population and most African countries rich in resources but which experience slow or no economic development at all.

This blog seeks to explore the underlying realities behind socio-economic and political conditions of the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the twenty-first century, the DRC is considered to be one of the poorest countries in Africa and yet it is one of the richest in resources. Clearly there is a paradox in the way in which the Congolese population is suffering, and the cause of their suffering can be found in the story of how their land was conquered by the Belgians in the nineteenth century.

The European quest for economic gain through invasion and subjugation of foreign nations in the eighteenth to nine-teenth century became problematic in many ways. In as much as these European colonial powers were competing for territories in the ‘Dark continent’, the people working — and who had been for many years working — the land there were confronted by a challenge of dealing with the foreigners who came to impose authority over their land. However, from the historians’ point of view even these Europeans were somewhat risking a number of things by coming down to Africa. First, they knew not how the weather conditions were on the African continent, and a lot of Europeans died because of this. Second, Europeans’ assumption of a Africa that was empty and dark were met with surprises for they encountered the so-called ‘natives’.

The nature of these ‘adventures’ by Europeans was exploitative, and historians have varying accounts as to why Europe — at this time — needed the resources and raw materials the continent of Africa had to offer. Part of the reason why European kings and queens — and sometimes subjects themselves — sought to discover new lands was because the economic system which was developing around this time in Europe was one which had to be sustained through the “free” flow of capital.

Most of the population in the Democratic Republic of Congo has either fled the country or remains surviving in spaces insufficient for humans to live. There seems to be this growing culture among nations in the global arena to agree upon setting up temporary places in which the victims of the socioeconomic conditions in developing countries can live.

Capitalism and industrialization are amongst the two explanations of the current situation in the D.R. Congo. As Europe had just adopted a number of values which came to underlie their policies, each European country had made their intentions clear as to why they sought to come into Africa. The so-called ‘Scramble for Africa‘ was the name given to this project European countries had assigned for themselves; namely: partitioning the African continent. Taking place around the years 1870-1914, the process was resisted by natives all over the continent of Africa. In this way, each country on the African continent fought against the imperialism of the West. In the case of central Africa, a Belgian king — King Leopold II of Belgium — was to become the new sovereign ruler of the region we now know as the Democratic Republic of Congo. There, King Leopold sent an explorer by the name of Henry Morton Stanley, the man who later became famous all around the world for his travels (on behalf of King Leopold) around the Congo. The aim of all these visits was to survey the land and see how they could make money off it.

Congolese descendants in Belgium fight for Human rights in Congo in a protest in 2011.

What the Belgians found in the Congo was what would become the source of King Leopold’s wealth. This is when trouble started. When the Belgians knew that the Congo forests had trees that produced rubber, they thereafter established an informal way of getting as much rubber as they could. The native Congolese people were to become their source of labour. However, the nature of the labour these natives engaged in was one which entirely exploitative. As a result, many movements from and outside of the Congo were formed to oppose the brutality which characterized the working conditions therein. Moreover, those who are descendants of Congo men and women took to the streets in 2011 to oppose the horrific conditions under which their distant relatives live. Particularly, these protesters were concerned about the results of the November 2011 elections in the D.R.C. From a historical point of view, this poses a lot of questions about the future of the D.R. Congo. One such question concerns the identity. Does this mean that the Congolese populace now living in Belgium still recognizes their African roots? Will Belgian-Congolese people put more pressure on the United Nations to recognize the real situation those people in Congo are faced with?