By Alex Mvuka
A few weeks before the capture of Goma by the M23, Congolese civil society and the general population supported barbaric acts of lynching perpetrated against people of Tutsi appearance. This same civil society was behind the idea of killing all Tutsi in North Kivu and attacking the “Rwandan” and Rwanda, also deemed “Tutsi.” Today, Goma’s civil society has forgotten its biased and xenophobic positions and seems ready to build peace but wonders, “why do the ‘Tutsi take up arms to defend themselves?” It has already forgotten the causes of the targeted attacks that mobilize around hate speech. This phenomenon sums up the key problem of Congolese civil society and the main point of the following analysis.
One only needs to observe the inability of various Congolese civil society leaders to tackle the real ills plaguing their country to realize that this civil society is the true culprit behind the increasingly poignant misery in which the majority of the Congolese population languishes. This stems from their inability to spark indignation among Congolese people over the systematic looting of the country’s vast resources, the embezzlement of public revenues, and the squandering of national wealth by Congolese sociopolitical and economic actors. The one and only cause for which they mobilize and manage, with great effort, to incite revolt among Congolese from all walks of life (opposition and majority combined, intellectuals and illiterates, churches and tribes, and even the public administration and security apparatus) is, strangely and unfortunately, a call to hatred against the Tutsi.
Tutsi, the scapegoat and strawman of modern Congolese politics
Today, within the dominant opinion in the DRC, the Tutsi are so dehumanized that they already embody an image of a fundamentally Machiavellian, evil, deceitful, and hypocritical type; determined to steal the rights and land of other Congolese; accountable for all failures. In short, this reflects the inability of Congolese civil society actors to confront the many ills eroding Congolese society. It must be noted that political actors who have committed economic crimes with negative and extremely serious consequences on the lives of Congolese, including crimes that led to massacres and massive population displacement, with their share of rapes and violence against civilians, roam freely without civil society mobilizing to demand their prosecution and finally discourage any inclination to repeat the same misdeeds, and thus the same consequences.
Everything is relegated to the dustbin of history. Yet, it only takes soulless and unscrupulous men like Mr. Bitakwira or Mr. Onana to spew their absurdities for the “Panurge’s sheep” phenomenon to be triggered across the entire national territory. In other words, credibility is always and already given to any propaganda speech inciting hatred against the Tutsis. How can we not denounce, in this case, an analogy with the methods used by the Nazi to characterize Jews as an evil race that had to be eradicated at all costs to save Germany from the “Jewish peril”? It is precisely through this approach that the Gestapo and the infamous SS ended up putting gas chambers into operation. How can we not equate this rhetoric with that spread by Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, which triggered the Rwandan Tutsi genocide in 1994?
Admittedly, today in the DRC, another debate is emerging, that of the “genocost” by the AFDL and RPF soldiery, as there is often a deliberate effort to create and maintain confusion between the AFDL and the RPF. But does denouncing the “alleged” Congolese genocide justify discouraging the ambitions of those who engage in making Congolese Tutsi disappear by pushing them into exile and exterminating those who refuse to be uprooted from their Congolese land and pastures? Does the extermination of their cattle herds, the main economic resource of the Tutsi, not fit into this same strategy of economically suffocating them to render them destitute, without resources, and thus force them to swell the ranks of refugees in neighboring countries?
Absence of a collective consciousness
Ultimately one of the major challenges facing the DRC, is the absence of a collective consciousness based on the fundamental values of respect for individual rights and public property, justice, honesty, and humanism. This is why the population is inherently involved in conflicts and social instability characterized by tribalism elevated to a mode of power management, or rather as basic societal values, thus perpetuating poor governance in the DRC.
At the Doha and Washington peace process
Lasting peace in the DRC, as well as regional security, will only be possible if there is a radical change in the governance system. The population and civil society are integral parts of this chronic problem. A policy to stabilize Congolese communities, all affiliations included, must be established to promote peaceful coexistence and inclusive national cohesion while respecting the cultural values of each, as long as they do not contradict the moral and ethical rules defined by the Universal Declaration of Human and Citizen Rights.