Today we’re featuring a fascinating conversation with the Congolese analyst Christian-Geraud Neema Byamungu about recent developments in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In case you haven’t been following this story, the last few weeks saw a flurry of social media videos showing Congolese workers being whipped and otherwise mistreated on Chinese work sites. This may or may not have anything to do with the fact that the DRC government is reexamining earlier resource for infrastructure loan contracts with Chinese companies. And it may or may not be linked with geopolitical pressure growing around the issue of foreign access to Congolese mineral resources, especially cobalt and other minerals linked to batteries for electric vehicles.
The DRC acts like a kind of Freudian return of the repressed – as proof that it’s impossible to wish away history, no matter how much everyone would like to talk about rules-based orders instead. It’s somehow not surprising to realize that during the Cold War the United States tried to use the legendary jazz musician Louis Armstrong to undermine the DRC’s democratically elected government, or that Antwerp chocolatiers still today sell confectionary in the shape of severed hands – an eerie echo of Belgium’s legacy in the DRC. It fits in perfectly with the rumours of ‘great power competition’ there today.
There are other such haunted countries – Haiti is one. As symbolism goes, the allegations this week that Haitian migrants on the U.S. border were being chased down on horseback is right on cue. It hits the general 19th century vibe we’re also seeing in the UK’s new travel regulations: it turns out that travelers with two Pfizer shots are OK if they come from Australia, Canada, Japan and so forth, but not from – say – South Africa, which also happens to use Pfizer.
It’s the same kind of global racism dressed up as pragmatic logistics that the analyst Gyude Moore called out in an essay this week, in which he made a point that has haunted me as well: that the global response to COVID shows exactly how we’ll fail on climate change. Moore argues persuasively that the emerging reality of a new global vaccine apartheid should destroy any illusions among African decision-makers that real cooperation on climate change with the Global North is even possible.
Which brings us to all that shiny, shiny cobalt – so blue, so valuable, so crucial to all our climate mitigation dreams. It’s fascinating to see how easy it is for the global media to fall into a 19th century plunder logic when it comes to cobalt. In reading these accounts one forgets that cobalt is dug out of the ground in a specific place with actual people. Instead it’s all about the supply chains and competing national auto industries, and ooh will the US and Europe be ‘left behind’ in this new race? We’re seeing similar debates around tying up nickel supplies in Indonesia (right up there with the DRC and Haiti in the return-of-the-repressed stakes.)
This Freudian theme opens the door to fantasy, so indulge me in one of my own: imagine a different DRC, one that isn’t stuck in a perpetual 19th century. One that’s powering Africa through Grand Inga III. One that uses access to all that copper and cobalt and tantalum to force real concessions from the Chinese, U.S. and European companies and governments. One that bands together with Haiti, Indonesia and other history-haunted ex-colonies to force the Global North to pay to maintain the forest cover we need to survive the 21st century.
Imagine that. Then listen to our podcast with Christian-Geraud Neema Byamungu to learn why it won’t happen, not least because the DRC’s government and its myriad ‘international partners’ work so hard to ensure that what was broken remains broken.
Have a great week, and a happy Mid-Autumn Festival to our Chinese readers.
Cobus
cobus@chinaafricaproject.com
