Peace In The Congo? Why The World Should Care

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One of the biggest questions of the 21st century is whether the demand for ethnic, cultural and/or religious homogeneity will continue to convulse world politics, drive new generations of conflict, and create millions more victims.

Walter Russell Mead

12/15/13

 

Yet another peace agreement has been announced in the long running war in the eastern Congo. The Congo War has been responsible for more than five million deaths, created untold numbers of refugees, been responsible for countless atrocities and at various times has sucked in other neighboring countries. This war has many causes. Perhaps its root cause is the chaos that the execrable Belgians (whose colonization of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi was perhaps the ugliest episode in the history of European colonization) left behind. Ethnic hatred between Tutsis and Hutus, enormous mineral resources and a feeble Congolese state which has never been able to manage its huge territory effectively all played their part.

 

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The eastern Congo and the African Great Lakes are remote places, and many people might wonder why Americans or the world at large should care much about what goes on there. The short answer is that the people who live there are made in Gods image as much as anybody else and they are infinitely dear to him, and to remain indifferent to the suffering of people there is to fail in our clear duty to our Creator and to some degree to betray our own humanity.

 

But beyond that basic moral point, there are a couple of political lessons that should be of practical interest to the rest of the world.

 

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One of the biggest questions of the 21st century is whether this destructive dynamic can be contained, or whether the demand for ethnic, cultural and/or religious homogeneity will continue to convulse world politics, drive new generations of conflict, and create millions more victims. The Congo conflict is a disturbing piece of evidence suggesting that, in Africa at least, there is potential for this kind of conflict. The Congo war (and the long Hutu-Tutsi conflict in neighboring countries) is not, unfortunately alone. The secession of South Sudan from Sudan proper, the wars in what remains of that unhappy country, the secession of Eritrea from Ethiopia and the rise of Christian-Muslim tension right across Africa (where religious conflict often is fed by and intensifies tribalin Europe we would say ethnic or nationalconflicts) are strong indications that the potential for huge and destructive conflict across Africa is very real.