20231211 关于刚果的读物 关于非洲巨人的六本最佳书籍

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经济学人》阅读
关于刚果的读物
关于非洲巨人的六本最佳书籍
民主与社会进步联盟党的支持者等待刚果民主共和国总统费利克斯-齐塞克的到来
照片：路透社
2023年12月11日


约瑟夫-康拉德（Joseph Conrad）的幽灵一直萦绕在任何一本关于刚果民主共和国的书的作者心头。"1902年出版的《黑暗之心》归根结底是一个关于人类与狂躁的故事。但康拉德认为，“史前 ”刚果本身就有某种东西能将人性的阴暗面展现出来，这一观点影响了许多外国作家写的烂书，他们热衷于在报道该国时展现自己表面上的勇气。与此相反，这里推荐的书籍要么是经过精心研究的创伤性历史，要么是展示了这个令人敬畏（从任何意义上来说）的国家除了暴力、贪污和贫穷之外还有更多的东西。在刚果人准备参加 12 月 20 日大选投票之际，阅读这些书籍再合适不过了。

刚果： 一个民族的史诗般的历史。作者：戴维-范-雷布罗克（David Van Reybrouck）。哈珀柯林斯出版社；656 页；19.99 美元和 12.99 英镑

这是一部杰作。David Van Reybrouck 是一位比利时历史学家，他将档案研究、家族史（1960 年刚果独立后，他的父亲成为了一名铁路工程师）和大量报道融为一体。书中记录了：19 世纪末 20 世纪初比利时国王利奥波德二世的贪婪和残暴，他将刚果视为自己的领地；刚果后来正式成为比利时殖民地后的剥削；独立后的混乱；蒙博托-塞塞-塞科的贪污腐败；1997 年独裁者去世后的战争。但本书与众不同之处在于，书中还充满了刚果人自己的声音。

利奥波德国王的幽灵 亚当-霍奇希尔德著。霍顿-米夫林出版社；366 页；26 美元。 麦克米伦出版社；22.50 英镑

各国很少正视其过去的残酷历史。只有在埃马纽埃尔-马克龙的领导下，法国才开始承认 1954-62 年在阿尔及利亚战争期间犯下的暴行。英国对其在肯尼亚独立前造成的死亡轻描淡写。美国人仍然被灌输着征服美洲原住民的浪漫故事。但也许没有哪个国家像比利时这样故意失忆。利奥波德国王的刚果自由邦（这个私有化的国家被称为刚果自由邦）以史诗般的规模进行屠杀、残害和折磨--汽车的出现导致对橡胶的需求急剧上升，为了满足这种需求，人们疯狂地进行屠杀、残害和折磨。没有完成配额的工人被砍掉双手，或者砍掉他们孩子的双手。比利时政府知道这些暴行，却置之不理。亚当-霍斯希尔德（Adam Hoschild）的畅销书《卢蒙巴阴谋》（The Lumumba Plot.

卢蒙巴阴谋 斯图尔特-里德著。诺夫出版社；624 页；35 美元和 30 英镑

这本令人捧腹的读物讲述了帕特里斯-卢蒙巴遇刺的故事，他在独立后的刚果担任总理不到三个月就被谋杀，年仅 35 岁。斯图尔特-里德是《外交事务》杂志的编辑，他解释了比利时和美国是如何合谋害死卢蒙巴的，前者希望保持对这个资源丰富国家的影响力，后者则错误地将卢蒙巴视为共产主义者。这是一段可耻的往事，但里德先生在讲述这段往事时充满了激情和深思熟虑。非洲大陆内外的许多左翼人士将卢蒙巴奉为反殖民主义英雄。里德先生却没有这样做。但他在书中提出了一个问题：如果没有背信弃义的外来者干涉，刚果是否会有不同的结局。

库尔茨先生的足迹：刚果灾难边缘的生活》。作者：Michela Wrong。哈珀常年出版社；368 页；14.99 美元。哈珀柯林斯出版社；10.99 英镑

在这本书中，勇敢的驻外记者 Michela Wrong 将她在刚果的采访报道与蒙博托的统治历史相结合。她解释了蒙博托是如何通过魅力、贿赂和折磨在位三十多年的。但是，与里德先生的书一样，她的书也表明，往往是外国人助长了刚果最恶劣的暴行。蒙博托得到了西方的支持，西方急于相信他是抵御苏联入侵非洲的堡垒。虽然《库尔茨先生的足迹》充满了凄凉，但它也展现了蒙博托统治时期的黑暗喜剧情节：他主持了穆罕默德-阿里的 “丛林咆哮”，还在他的偏远藏身处啜饮粉红香槟，那里的跑道之长足以迎接协和飞机。

没有说出名字的战争》。作者：杰森-斯特恩斯。普林斯顿大学出版社；328 页；22.95 美元和 28 英镑

美国作家杰森-斯特恩斯（Jason Stearns）记录了自蒙博托下台以来席卷刚果的战争。他的第一本书《在怪物的荣耀中起舞》是对 20 世纪 90 年代第一次和第二次刚果战争的最好描述。在第一次战争中，邻国，尤其是卢旺达和乌干达入侵刚果，推翻蒙博托，并由洛朗-德西雷-卡比拉取而代之。第二次战争在卡比拉与其支持者闹翻后爆发，无数反叛组织和其他非洲国家卷入战争。数百万人因此丧生。斯特恩斯先生的第二本书《没有说出名字的战争》没有那么史诗般壮观，但通过考察那场战争的结束如何没有给刚果东部带来和平，将故事带到了今天。斯特恩斯先生没有沉浸在恐怖之中，而是解释了冲突持续不断的原因。在此过程中，他摒弃了康拉德的观点，即刚果本质上是野蛮的。相反，他写道，许多暴力事件是由理性的自身利益以及天真或恶意的外来者所驱动的。

83 号电车 作者：菲斯顿-姆旺扎-穆吉拉。Deep Vellum 出版社；224 页；13.95 美元和 13 英镑

采矿业是刚果过去和现在的核心部分。1945 年广岛原子弹中的铀就来自刚果。如今，在加丹加地区，西方和中国的矿业公司争相控制铜和钴的储量，钴是一种用于电动汽车和其他电池的金属。在东部地区，钶钽铁矿石和其他矿产吸引着民兵及其地区支持者。然而，很少有报道讲述矿工们自己的故事。"刚果作家菲斯顿-姆旺扎-穆吉拉（Fiston Mwanza Mujila）的处女作《83号电车》（Tram 83）比任何非政府组织或外国记者的报道都能更好地还原刚果矿业小镇的真实情况。

也可以试试：

经济学人》在刚果各地的报道。我们继续记录东部的冲突。可以说，我们深入调查了铜矿带小型矿场的真实情况。在即将到来的大选之前，我们询问了刚果总统费利克斯-齐塞凯迪是否会继续掌权。本报还试图揭示刚果生活的其他方面，例如刚果河上的啤酒商、奶酪制造商和艺术家。■


The Economist reads
What to read about Congo
Six of the best books about an African giant
UDPS party supporters wait for the arrival of Democratic Republic of the Congo's President Felix Tshiseke
photograph: reuters
Dec 11th 2023

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The ghost of Joseph Conrad haunts the writer of any book about the Democratic Republic of Congo. “Heart of Darkness”, published in 1902, is ultimately a tale of man and mania. But Conrad’s suggestion that there is something about “prehistoric” Congo itself that brings out the darker side of humanity has influenced many bad books by foreign writers keen to show their ostensible courage in reporting from the country. The books recommended here, by contrast, either provide meticulously researched accounts of a traumatic history or show that there is more to this awesome (in every sense) country than violence, graft and poverty. As Congolese prepare to go to the polls in a general election due on December 20th, there is no better time to read them.

Congo: The Epic History of a People. By David Van Reybrouck. HarperCollins; 656 pages; $19.99 and £12.99

This is a masterpiece. David Van Reybrouck, a Belgian historian, mixes archival research, family history (his father was a railway engineer after Congo’s independence in 1960) and extensive reportage. It is all there: the avarice and brutality of Leopold II, the Belgian king who in the late 19th and early 20th centuries ran Congo as his fief; the exploitation of Congo when it later formally became Belgian colony; the chaos that followed independence; the kleptocracy of Mobutu Sese Seko; the wars after the dictator’s death in 1997. But what sets the book apart is that it is also replete with the voices of the Congolese themselves.

King Leopold’s Ghost. By Adam Hochschild. Houghton Mifflin; 366 pages; $26. Macmillan; £22.50

Countries rarely confront the brutal parts of their past. Only under Emmanuel Macron has France begun to acknowledge the atrocities it committed during its war in Algeria in 1954-62. Britain glosses over the deaths it caused in pre-independence Kenya. Americans are still fed romantic accounts of the conquests of native Americans. But perhaps no country has had such willful amnesia as Belgium. King Leopold’s Congo Free State, as the privatised country was called, killed, maimed and tortured on an epic scale—such was the frenzy to supply the rocketing demand for rubber, caused by the advent of the automobile. Workers who did not meet their quotas had their hands—or their children’s—chopped off. Belgian governments, which knew about the atrocities, ignored them. One of the consequences of Adam Hoschild’s bestselling account of this gruesome history has been to encourage a belated—and partial—reckoning.

The Lumumba Plot. By Stuart Reid. Knopf; 624 pages; $35 and £30

This rollicking read tells the story of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, who was prime minister of post-independence Congo for less than three months before he was murdered at the age of 35. Stuart Reid, an editor at Foreign Affairs, explains how both Belgium, which wanted to maintain influence over the resource-rich country, and the United States, which wrongly saw Lumumba as a Communist, conspired with his Congolese opponents to bring about his death. It is a shameful episode but one Mr Reid tells with verve and thoughtfulness. Many left-wingers on the continent and beyond lionise Lumumba as an anti-colonialist hero. Mr Reid does not. But his book raises the question of whether Congo might have turned out differently had perfidious outsiders not interfered.

In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in the Congo. By Michela Wrong. Harper Perennial; 368 pages; $14.99. HarperCollins; £10.99

In this book Michela Wrong, a doughty foreign correspondent, blends reportage from her time covering Congo with a history of Mobutu’s reign. She explains how he charmed, bribed and tortured his way through more than three decades in power. But, like Mr Reid’s book, hers shows that it is often foreigners who enable the worst Congolese abuses. Mobutu was propped up by a West that was eager to believe that he was a bulwark against Soviet incursions into Africa. Though full of bleakness, “In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz” also brings out the darkly comic episodes of Mobutu’s reign: he hosted Muhammed Ali’s “rumble in the jungle” and sipped pink champagne in his remote hideout with a runway long enough to welcome Concorde.

The War That Doesn’t Say Its Name. By Jason Stearns. Princeton University Press; 328 pages; $22.95 and £28

Jason Stearns, an American writer, has documented the wars that have engulfed Congo since the fall of Mobutu. His first book, “Dancing in the Glory of Monsters”, is the best account of the first and second Congo wars in the 1990s. In the first war, neighbouring states, especially Rwanda and Uganda, invaded Congo to topple Mobutu and replace him with Laurent-Désiré Kabila. The second war, which broke out when Kabila fell out with his backers, pulled in myriad rebel groups and other African states. Millions died as a result. Mr Stearns’s second book, “The War That Doesn’t Say Its Name”, is less epic but brings the story up to date by looking at how the end of that war did not bring peace to eastern Congo. Rather than dwell on the horror, Mr Stearns explains the reasons why the conflicts endure. In doing this he dispels the Conradian idea that there is something inherently barbaric about Congo. Instead, he writes, much of the violence is driven by rational self-interest, as well as by naive or malevolent outsiders.

Tram 83. By Fiston Mwanza Mujila. Deep Vellum Publishing; 224 pages; $13.95 and £13

Mining is a central part of Congo’s past and present. Uranium from Congo went into the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Today, in the Katanga region, Western and Chinese mining firms compete for control over reserves of copper and cobalt, a metal used in electric-vehicle and other batteries. In the east coltan and other minerals attract militia and their regional backers. Yet few accounts tell the story of the miners themselves. “Tram 83”, the debut novel by Fiston Mwanza Mujila, a Congolese author, does a better job of bringing to life the realities in a Congolese mining town than any report by an NGO or foreign journalist.

Also try:

The Economist reports from all across Congo. We have continued to document the conflicts in the east. We have dug, so to speak, into what really happens at small-scale mines in the copper belt. And ahead of the upcoming elections we have asked whether Félix Tshisekedi, the country’s president, will hold on to power. The newspaper has also tried to reveal other aspects of Congolese life, such as the beer-merchants on its eponymous river, its cheesemakers and its artists. ■