War that we do not know where it comes from...

Perhaps more than anywhere I've been, war and its influence in the eastern DRC is hard to comprehend fully. Part of this is that the region has been hammered by several major armed conflicts since the 1990s. 

Students at Université Chrétienne Bilingue du Congo

The Congolese Wars (or as some in Congo say, the First African World War) ripped apart the Eastern Congo in the late 1990s-early 2000s, leaving more than 5 million people dead. These conflicts were tied in various ways to the Rwandan genocide and Burundian ethnic conflicts, as well as many internal Congolese conflicts following the downfall of Mobutu in 1997. Little was left unchanged by the war. Landing on the tiny grass airstrip in Nyankunde earlier this week, my seat-mate, who had been born in Congo and served as a missionary there for many years, pointed to the various ruined buildings in the landscape that were destroyed when rebels swept into the town in 2002. Among the destroyed places was the Nyankunde Hospital, one of the finest medical centers in the region. Only today is it beginning to return to normal. I did not take photos during my brief time in Nyankunde, for I was too busy trying to take it all in. iPhone photos would hardly convey the beauty, tragedy, or endurance of the place. Googling images of Nyankunde brings up a number of great photos, and commentary from various perspectives. 

Besides the obvious loss of life and infrastructure, the war has left incalculable emotional scars on the population. Widespread conscription of child soldiers (often drugged), mass rapes, and brutal violence leave scars just below the surface (and sometimes on the surface). But beyond this, it had a deep effect on community. As one of my hosts said contrasting life in Congo before and after the war, "community was clobbered by the war." Not only were communities uprooted and displaced, but the bonds of trust that bound these communities together were severed to a great degree. Various works of reconciliation -- from the grass-roots to the governmental -- are taking place in the region. But community will never again be what it once was.

Concurrent with these changes is the inflow of modern and post-modern culture through television and the internet. Young people, I was told by several, are less content to sit with granny and aunties shelling beans and are more likely to spend time watching television or on social networking sites (I was told that Facebook is popular, although I didn't understand how that squared with little to no internet access). All of these changes create deep tensions in society. 

Perhaps the most frustrating fact about the Congolese conflicts is that no one can really say what all the conflict is really about. As one person put it today, it is the stress "of a war that we do not know where it comes from." Although there are some obvious roots of violence in some real ethnic tensions in eastern DRC and there are some well known connections between rebel groups and other nations in East Africa, the pieces do not all add up. It's unquestionable that Congo's rich bounty of gold, diamonds, rare metals used in electronics, and timber create interest in keeping Congo "weak for the harvest." It is all quite utterly depressing. 

Yet hope remains, especially in the Christian university communities I have visited on this trip in the cities of Bunia and Beni. They do not allow room for despair and rather seek to inculcate a sense of what is possible. A sense that Congo can be different and that individuals-in-communities are able to contribute to that process of transformation. I have immense respect for friends here who are up to their elbows in this work of transformation in many different spheres, fighting all the time against corruption, lawlessness, unjust exploitation of natural resources, and perhaps the most powerful enemy of all, complacency. 

Planting at tree of hope at the UCBC in Beni, DRC