Back in Kin

My best intentions were to keep the blog going during my visit to the US, but unfortunately I only posted once. The visit was good. After my mom’s wedding, I spent time with my fiancée in Connecticut where she teaches. While there, I attended a lively panel discussion at Yale Law School on Human Rights in the Congo. It was encouraging to see folks in the US interested in one way or another in what is happening here. I also visited a class on the “Two Congos,” which was exciting for me. Discussions about the DRC are unfortunately uncommon in the US, so an opportunity to meet with a group of informed and aware young people was a pleasure. I talked a bit about my experiences in Kinshasa and my work as a Fulbright Scholar here. Then, I responded to some very good questions. I was asked about the functioning of the state (as primarily a military apparatus), the upcoming elections and President Kabila (he will probably win), the role of religion (Catholicism remains a dominant force), and history education (which at the secondary level remains heavily Eurocentric though people are generally well-informed, especially at the university level, about Congolese histories of colonialism and anticolonialism). As I told this class of students, I am eager to let audiences in the Kinshasa know about this class, which, though exceptional, represents the possibility of a knowledgeable US public engaged with Central Africa.

I returned to Kinshasa with my fiancée, who will be spending a few weeks with me in Congo. She is a film scholar and we have arranged a few screenings which she will introduce while here. She will show When We Were Kings, the documentary about the 1974 Mohammed Ali-George Foreman fight in Kinshasa, a Josephine Baker film, Spike Lee’s Malcolm X (without commentary since it is well over three hours), and Shola Lynch’s excellent documentary on the 1972 Presidential campaign of the late Shirley Chisholm, Chisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed. Perhaps I will be able to solicit her as a guest columnist for the blog.