Outcasts United: Chapters 4-7

In these chapters, author Warren St. John writes how events over one hundred years in the past affect the lives of people today. Tribal rivalries are one of the biggest obstacles in the development of African countries. Just like on the American continent before the arrival of Europeans, Africa was comprised of hundreds of tribes. Each tribe had an area that they controlled and neighboring tribes, with whom, they competed with for land and resources. Over the course of time and space, these tribes evolved into separate and distinct ethnicities. An ethnicity is more than race. Race is a person's genetic/biological make up. It is an important part of identity but unlike places like North America and Europe where there is great racial diversity, Africa has very subtle racial differences. Ethnicity is a what divides people there. Language and religion are the two main elements of ethnicity. Scholars disagree over exactly how many languages there are in Africa. It is safe to say that there are over 1,000 separate languages and 7,000 dialects. Later this year you will learn more about how languages change, but suffice it to say that if culture is a body, language is the blood. People can't form a sense of national identity (American, Mexican, French)  unless they understand each other. It is hard to understand a person if you don't speak the same language.
Europeans came to Africa for the same reasons they went to the Americas: god, glory and gold (but mostly gold or resources). Since natural resources was their main goal, European countries rushed to carve out boundaries that would secure these resources for themselves and water transportation routes to get those resources to the ocean where they could be transported back to Europe. Tribal boundaries were not taken into consideration. If they were tribes like the Tutsi and Hutu would not have ended up fighting for control over Rwanda (have you seen the movie Hotel Rwanda?), Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. Chapter 7 tells the story of Generose Ntwari (mother of Bienvenue), a Tutsi like Paula Balegamite who was forced to flee when, in 1993, a democratically elected leader was assisinated, inciting genocide by Hutus against Tutsis. In the course of one year 100,000 people died. In all 300,000 lost their lives with causing millions like Generose to flee to Tanzania and Mozambique.

The books Things Fall Apart and Heart of Darkness were written to detail the problems that resulted from European rule of Africa. Why is Europe, which also had a history of conflict is now peaceful because the boundaries of almost all European countries are now based on language and Ethnicity rather than on artificial boundaries. The exception is the Balkan Peninsula in southern Europe where fighting also occurred over control over areas by competing ethnic groups.

Outcasts United talks about how over one hundred years after Belgium's colonization of the Congo Basin, Paula Belagamite had to leave the country with her children while her husband was in prison for being a member of the  minority Tutsi tribe.  In 1884, King Leopold created the Congo Free State as a corporation in order to exploit the Congo Basin for its rubber, ivory and other resources. After enslaving the people and killing between 5 and 10 million people for refusing to work, attempting to escape or simply working them to death he was forced to yield the colony to the state of Belgium. While I said earlier that, in Africa, race was not as important as ethnicity, Europeans who didn't understand the ethnic differences between tribes, used race to bestow favor upon the Tutsi tribe whose skin was lighter and features more narrow than the more numerous Hutu tribe. The Tutsi, were given positions of power and authority to help the Belgians rule.

In the blog post for chapter 3, I talked about how supranationalism is an important movement among countries to cooperate with each other in solving problems. I cited the United Nations as an example. An opposite force is also occurring around the world. It is called devolution. Devolution is the break up of large regions into smaller ones. There are many reasons why a country will break up into smaller political bodies. For Belgium in Africa, it was part of a larger movement of European countries to give colonies their independence. 1960 was actually quite late for Belgium to give up rule. In countries where there is a lot of ethnic diversity, fighting usually occurs when different ethnic groups compete for control of land. I explained above how this happened in southern Europe. It also happened in India after the British left and it continues in Iraq after the U.S. removed Saddam Hussein from power.
So now you understand that the Tutsi who were favored by the Belgians now found themselves persecuted by rulers like Joseph Mobutu and Laurent Kabila.

As stated in the book, dictators often incite ethnic conflict to distract people from the corruption that is rampant within their governments. Mobutu owned yachts, jets and mansions. He diverted millions of dollars into Swiss banks. He used the military to scare civilians into submission. He was able to use these tactics to keep control. It was this country the he renamed Zaire, where the famous fight between Muhammed Ali and George Foreman known as "The Rumble in the Jungle" took place. Ultimately, enough people were unhappy with his rule and in 1996 he was overthrown by Laurent Kabila and the country was renamed The Democratic Republic of the Congo. This change did not however, lead to peace. It was the turmoil following Kabila's assasination and the retribution sought by his son that got Paula Balegamite's husband thrown into prison and cause her to flee the country for safety. The war known as the second Congo war is also refered to as the African World War because it involved nine African nations, resulting in more deaths (6 million) since World War II. Millions of refugees also fled the countries where conflict erupted.