DRC IGNORED: AFRICANS ‘JUST HERE TO SUFFER‘

Activists, online and off, have been working tirelessly to bring global attention to the catastrophe in the Democratic Republic of Congo - yet the world’s governments and publics remain mostly unmoved by the genocidal violence, mass internal displacement and the millions of Congolese facing food insecurity (not to mention child labour and exploitation). Why is that?

@marylaurakato is one of those campaigning, and admits it can be emotionally difficult. In this clip, she connects the lack of reaction to White supremacy. Blacks and other non-Whites are seen as ‘expendable’ and their suffering isn’t taken as seriously - they are deemed, she says, bottom of the hierarchy when it comes to moral considerations. (Compare reactions to the attacks on Israel and Ukraine.)

And, of course, there’s the fact that the rest of the world actually depends on Congo’s resources. Keeping Congo down keeps prices down - helping Congo would incur Western economic pain.

The exploitation of Congo goes back to - and hasn’t stopped since - the days of King Leopold II. Millions were killed under the Belgian monarch’s reign of terror, as the population was turned into his private army of slave labourers, whose bodies could be mutilated and dispensed with at will.

Later, Pan-African icon Patrice Lumumba was killed by the Belgians in cahoots with the CIA and Britain. In his place, the West installed puppet Mobutu Sese Seko, who pilfered the country’s resources for decades. Other Western allies - Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni - then helped overthrow him once he was no longer useful. In the process and aftermath, millions of Congolese were killed, with millions more turned into refugees.

As this is ongoing, DRC’s minerals leave the country and find themselves in the custody of multinational giants like Apple, Google and Tesla.

As this sister says, the reason the suffering of the Congolese people doesn’t get any traction globally is that a racial hierarchy exists - and Africans are at the bottom.

Do you agree with her?