The modern Democratic Republic of Congo remains poor because itscitizens still lack the economic institutions that create the basic incentives that make a society prosperous. It is notgeography,culture, or the ignorance of its citizens orpoliticians that keep the Congo poor, but its extractive economic institutions. These are still in place after all these centuries because political power continues to be narrowly concentrated in the hands of an elite who have little incentive to enforce secureproperty rights for the people, to provide the basicpublic services that would improve the quality of life, or to encourage economic progress. Rather, their interests are to extract income and sustain their power. They have not used this power to build acentralizedstate, for to do so would create the same problems of opposition and political challenges that promotingeconomic growth would. Moreover, as in much of the rest ofsub-Saharan Africa, infighting triggered by rival groups attempting to take control of extractive institutions destroyed any tendency for state centralization that might have existed.
Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson,Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (2012)
It is difficult to stop aid forhuman rights violations without the population suffering. That is why we continued to offer help through reliableNGOs. Preference was given to Belgian NGOs, because the domestic NGOs were often under the influence of the Congolese government. The importance of human rights has only increased, partly due to the introduction of theInternational Criminal Court, which tackles violations of human rights.
China is operating in Congo in a brutal way that smacks of slavery. Congolese work in mines for very low wages. China is not concerned withsustainability and often commits a predatory economy. The country also does not respect human rights. Still, thedeveloping country'sgovernment is letting itself be wrapped up, because the Chinese don't make moral demands like the West does. China works with a closed stock exchange in Congo. For example, they build 20schools in exchange for being able to operate 10coppermines for 1 year. But that is oftenpeasant deception: the value of the school buildings is sometimes only 10% of the value of the extracted raw materials.
Our country, our nation is built by two institutions, the state and thelanguage. A language whose epicenter today is no longer on these banks of the Seine, but probably much more towards the Congo River basin.
One of the biggest threats tobiodiversity is the continued loss of virgin forests. Every year, an area offorest corresponding to the size ofHungary disappears. However, the rate of deforestation has fallen by 40 per cent since the 1990s, according to the FAO. Deforestation has ceased in rich countries. In theUnited States andEurope forested areas are increasing. InChina andIndia, too, forests are now growing, suggesting thatrising populations and economies do not have to cause overexploitation. Were it not for deforestation in seven countries –Brazil,Paraguay,Angola, Congo,Tanzania,Indonesia andMyanmar – the world’s forests would have grown in the 2010s. That is not much of a comfort, given the unique natural values lost with those forests. But it shows that the notion that we are experiencing a relentless global deforestation does not hold.
Johan Norberg,The Capitalist Manifesto: Why the Global Free Market Will Save the World (2023)
What we’ve been hearing from the panelists is how the global food system works right now... It’s based on largemultinational companies, private profits, and very low international transfers to helppoor people (sometimes no transfers at all). It’s based on the extreme irresponsibility of powerful countries with regard to the environment. And it’s based on a radical denial of the economic rights of poor people... We’ve just heard from the Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Many point a finger of blame at the DRC and other poor countries for their poverty. Yet we don’t seem to remember, or want to remember, that starting around 1870,King Leopold of Belgium createda slave colony in the Congo that lasted for around 40 years; and then the government ofBelgiumran the colony for another 50 years. In 1961, after independence of the DRC, theCIA thenassassinated the DRC’s first popular leader,Patrice Lumumba, and installed aUS-backeddictator,Mobutu Sese Seko, for roughly the next 30 years. And in recent years,Glencore and other multinational companies suck out the DRC’s cobalt without paying a level of royalties andtaxes. We simply don’t reflect on the real history of the DRC and other poor countries struggling to escape frompoverty. Instead, we point fingers at these countries and say, “What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you govern yourselves properly?”
Of course colonial governance can only return with the consent of the country in question. The nationalist leaders in developing countries are probably not eager to see this happen. But the people- given those decades of ‘anti-colonial disaster’- possibly are.
The Good Side of Colonialism: An Interview with Bruce Gilley. With approval Gilley cites a young inhabitant of Kinshasa in the book Congo by David Van Reybrouck, which Gilley admires. ‘How much longer is this independence of ours going to continue? When are the Belgians coming back?’
