Portrait of a tyrant

 

There is nothing remotely ordinary about the Congo.  To read about it is akin to poring over an anthology of superlatives.  Its reserves of natural resources combined with its vast population give it colossal economic potential.  Its river, that coiled snake extending to the forested depths of the continent, is the second largest in the world by the volume of water it discharges into the Atlantic.  From a literary view, it is often depicted as a realm transcendent of usual human experience.  

Conrad wrote of it in Heart of Darkness: ‘The great wall of vegetation, an exuberant and entangled mass of trunks, branches, leaves, boughs, festoons, motionless in the moonlight, was like a rioting invasion of soundless life, a rolling wave of plants, piled up, crested, ready to topple over the creek, to sweep every little man of us out of his little existence’

In A Bend in the River, more on that here, V.S. Naipaul describes the ‘land taking you back to something that was familiar, something you had known at some time but had forgotten or ignored, but which was always there.  You felt the land taking you back to what was there a hundred years ago, to what had been there always’ 

These writers recognised something in the naval of Africa, an elemental force so powerful it might warp the senses and disturb the psyche.  No wonder it is perennially the setting for writers exploring the human condition.  

To speak of its politics is to invoke the horror, the horror, that Conrad’s Kurtz feverishly uttered.  Like Kurtz, Mobutu’s reign was conceived in blood, and he plumbed the depths of depravity.  The miasma of the murder of his erstwhile mentor Patrick Lumumba never dissipated, as he presided over a hellscape of greed and misery.

After coming to power after a series of coups backed by the USA for his anti-Communist credentials, Mobutu was initially hailed as the saviour of the Congo.  He was expected to provide stability and an end to the internecine conflicts that plagued post-independence Zaire, as it was then known.  Under his benevolent reign, the heart of Africa would fulfil its great potential.  How wrong were they, as Mobutu brutally suppressed opposition in order to concentrate power in his own hands.  His political longevity was owed to the edifice of avarice he imposed on the country.  He ruled through a system of patronage where everyone who was anyone depended on Mobutu for their wellbeing.  If they didn’t get their money from Mobutu directly, they depended on his system to fleece others.  Most of the billions Mobutu embezzled were used to pay off the army and militias to not oust him.  This clientelism was supplemented by a deliberate strategy of impoverishment.  No institution or province were allowed to grow strong enough to challenge Mobutu’s primacy.  The entire logic of the state was to ensure Mobutu’s political survival and the enrichment of the few.  The role of the Congolese people, those who suffered so grievously under the Belgians, was simply to be a passive mass of humanity, too dispirited to even contemplate political action.   

The proceeds of this system were exponential.  While exactly how much Mobutu stole is unknown, his personal fortune was no fewer than $5bn, a figure equivalent to the country’s national debt.  He adorned the country with palaces set against the depredation of his people.  He flew to Paris for shopping trips abroad a Concorde.  He stonily surveyed the misery of the state from his yacht.  

Despite his great wealth and his overbearing power, I contend that Mobutu was the weakest, and most unhappy man in the Congo.  While absolute ruler of Zaire, Mobutu was completely in thrall to his own desires.  No matter how many cult of personality initiatives, palaces or yachts, his desires would always multiply.  The yawning abyss could not be filled even with the treasure and hopes of his betrayed people.  He could never be content without self-discipline, something he was abjectly incapable of cultivating.  Satisfying his burning desires without risking his position was impossible.  His life was haunted because he was daily at war with his 45 million subjects.  One theft too far, and the surging mass of discontents would extinguish his tyranny.  He had not one real friend in the world.  All relationships he had were tainted by the fact that everyone owed their position to him.  The master-subject dichotomy meant that he never experienced true friendship and bottomless greed meant he had no true freedom.