African Arguments

Top Menu

  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

logo

African Arguments

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
Congo-KinshasaPolitics
Home›African Arguments›Country›Central›Congo-Kinshasa›“Just let us fight, and the war will end” – a review of Justine Brabant’s new book on the eastern Congo

“Just let us fight, and the war will end” – a review of Justine Brabant’s new book on the eastern Congo

By Christoph Vogel
March 3, 2016
2330
0

Over plates of bugali and cups of hot tea, Brabant met with countless militants across the Kivu regions and asked them questions as straightforward as: Why do you fight?

Children with disabilities play football in Goma, eastern DR Congo. Credit: MONUSCO/Sylvain Liechti.

Children with disabilities play football in Goma, eastern DR Congo. Credit: MONUSCO/Sylvain Liechti.

Writing about the eastern DR Congo is no easy feat, and many of those who have tried in the past have struggled to do justice to a post-conflict region that is not really post-conflict, a war zone that is not really at war.

Take Nicholas Kristof’s unfortunate attempt to dubiously extrapolate the number of victims in the eastern Congo from another dubious extrapolation, for instance, or the assertion by Jeffrey Herbst (an otherwise diligent scholar) that “There is no Congo”. It is testament to Justine Brabant then that she takes on this tricky challenge but with very different results.

In Qu’on nous laisse combattre, et la guerre finira (“Just let us fight, and the war will end”), the French researcher and journalist meets with those who “have too long lived with war”, the protagonists of a politico-military landscape in the regions of North and South Kivu, and listens to their spectacular stories. Seasoned militia leaders such as the late Zabuloni Rubaruba, Janvier Karairi, Albert Kahasha, Donat Kengwa, and Amuri Yakutumba are just a few of the eastern Congo’s historic figures she encounters on her journeys between the mountainous hauts plateaux of Uvira, the impenetrable forests of Shabunda, and the lush green hills of Masisi.

In line with the books subtitle – Avec les combattants du Kivu (“With the combatants of the Kivus”) – Brabant tries to make sense of the multiple contradictions which frame today’s armed conflicts. Squeezed into over-freighted first-generation land rovers with villagers and traders, escorted through rainy season swamps by Sherpa-like combatants, or sharing a narrow seat on the region’s countless moto-taxis, Brabant’s journey takes her across myriad regular and irregular checkpoints to some of the eastern Congo’s most remote towns and villages.

Once the people she meets with come to terms with the surprise of “that young white female visitor” turning up on their doorstep, discussions emerge around shared plates of bugali (the Kivutien staple dish), Primus beers, and plastic cups of hot tea.

How did your movement come about? Why do you fight, and whom? What is the reason for your combat? How is life as a rebel? Much of the book is about questions as intimate and obvious as these, but most of the time it is precisely these basic questions visitors to the Congo fail to answer.

Not so Brabant. Her discussions lead her to understand both the very technical aspects of life in the maquis – such as how to maintain discipline in a rebel movement or how to obtain communication and other equipment – as well as the ideological and historical underpinnings of the region’s armed mobilisations.

On the latter in particular, Brabant offers a set of insights that are as fascinating as they are sometimes confounding. We hear why someone like Fujo Zabuloni, a militia leader who has been blowing hot and cold over whether or not to integrate into the regular army, is yet to definitively leave the bush. With the Raia Mutomboki, a scattered bouquet of nationalist local militias that emerged in the fight against remnants of invading Rwandan rebels, Brabant ends up musing over the (in-)competence of NGOs and UN agencies. And while talking to other cadres, Brabant hears confessions of militants’ aspirations to get a job with those same international organisations. Eastern Congo, as I have had the chance to experience myself, is crammed with countless seemingly contradictory stories such as these.

Written in beautiful though simple language, the book bridges the gap researchers often feel when researching and living in the Kivus. How can outsiders – especially those from Europe – describe the reality of such a place without succumbing to clichés or being condescending, glorifying, or judgmental? Brabant succeeds by giving a voice both to those we tend to see as villains and those we consider victims. She thoughtfully deconstructs some of the “dominant tales”, as Séverine Autesserre put it, about the Congo, be they myths around the “world capital of rape” or that of “conflict minerals”.

In the shadow of big headlines, Qu’on nous laisse combattre, et la guerre finira has the depth of an excellent ethnography, the engaging writing style of reportage, and the rigour of academic fieldwork. It joins a range of rare great works on the Congo such as Jason Stearns’ Dancing in the Glory of Monsters and David van Reybrouck’s Congo. Une histoire.

[Qu’on nous laisse combattre, et la guerre finira is available in French and is out on the 10 March 2016.]

Christoph Vogel is a Researcher at the University of Zurich and a Senior Fellow at the Congo Research Group, New York University. Follow him on twitter at @ethuin.

For more on the subject, see:

  • AAP#1: Electoral Politics in the DR Congo with Jason Stearns
  • Les Sapeurs of the Eastern Congo: sharp, stylish, subversive?
  • DRC: The final countdown to the 2016 elections or just another transition?
  • Congo’s Katanga Governor Moïse Katumbi leaves ruling party, breaks silence
Previous Article

Niger’s presidential run-off: same cast, different script?

Next Article

Elections: Benin gears up for wide open ...

Christoph Vogel

Leave a reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • PoliticsThink African Podcast

    Think African Podcast ep 11: Naked protest

  • South Africa results: ANC supporters dance on Election Day in Khayelitsha. Credit: Martin Plaut.
    PoliticsSouth Africa

    South Africa election shakes major parties but little more

  • Politics

    African Political Thought, Part 10: intellectual currents and philosophy today

Subscribe to our newsletter

Click here to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter and never miss a thing!

  • 81.7K+
    Followers

Find us on Facebook

Interactive Elections Map

Keep up to date with all the African elections.

Recent Posts

  • Oligarchs, Oil and Obi-dients: The battle for the soul of Nigeria
  • Of cobblers, colonialism, and choices
  • Blackness, Pan-African Consciousness and Women’s Political Organising through the Magazine AWA
  • “People want to be rich overnight”: Nigeria logging abounds despite ban
  • The unaccountability of Liberia’s polluting miners

Editor’s Picks

Editor's PicksNigerSociety

A forgotten community: The little town in Niger keeping the lights on in France

Welcome to Arlit, the impoverished uranium capital of Africa. From Niamey, the capital of the landlocked West African nation of Niger, we call ahead to a desert town in the ...
  • Africa COP27. UN Women/Joe Saade

    What African governments must fight for at COP27

    By Africa Climate Justice Collective
    October 11, 2022
  • On the campaign trail with President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto. Credit: Uhuru Kenyatta.

    Siasa na Kusengenyana (aka When Kenyan politicians switch from English)

    By Nanjala Nyabola
    October 3, 2017
  • People gather for an open air film screening in Khartoum, Sudan.

    Charlie Chaplin and the reclaiming of Sudan

    By Samira Sawlani
    November 5, 2019
  • Africa covid vaccine rollout map

    Covid-19 vaccine rollout in Africa tracker: An interactive map

    By Catherine Kyobutungi
    September 29, 2021

Brought to you by


Creative Commons

Creative Commons Licence
Articles on African Arguments are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  • Cookies
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • en English
    am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu
© Copyright African Arguments 2020
By continuing to browse this site, you agree to our use of cookies.
en English
am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu