Some thoughts from my current reading

I am at present reading - among others - the book "Congo - the Epic History of a People", by David Van Reybrouck (pub. Fourth Estate [HarperCollins], London, 2015, first pub. 2014, Amsterdam; ISBN 9780007562923; Amazon).

I am finding this a very well written book, and will be giving it a high rating when I finish it (I'm also finding that I don't use the speed reading I do on physical books with e-versions - curious, and maybe that'll come back with familiarity with the new modality). One matter which is striking me at the moment is that what is being described (I am about half way through, at the moment) is, in many ways, the national-scale equivalent of leaving a car accident without offering assistance: creating a problem (the accident  or, perhaps more accurately, the "accident"), and then abdicating all responsibility for it.

This is something I consider, as an example, the US-led coalition did immediately after the invasion of Iraq (and I see there is a book on this - which I haven't read, ), with its reliance on Iraqi exiles and the perspectives of out of touch elites (especially in the USA) and what can, in my opinion, be generally characterised as "winning the war and losing the peace" - again (the US military has shown that it is capable of - eventually - learning military lessons [the War on the Rocks blog is an active example]; the US political side has lacked the same alacrity . . . For other perspectives on this concept, see here [Sri Lanka], and a reverse perspective from India).

It is something I also thought with Australia giving Papua New Guinea (PNG) independence in a rush in the 70s. There had been some preparatory work, but too much of it, in my opinion, had been high level stuff, and not enough at the scale of everyday people (those trying to provide education and health care were doing exactly what should have been done for decades beforehand throughout that nation, including the highlands, in my opinion; as examples of the problems, see here, here and here [note the effect of lack of funds], here, and here).

Now I have found, through reading Mr Van Reybrouk's book (and doing some internet searching along the way), that there is an earlier example: the independence of Congo. Here are a few quotes from that book:

"The chronology of events brought to light a paradox that could be noted at best, but not resolved: the decolonization [sic] had begun much too late, independence came much too early."
"After one month this was the situation in Congo: the army had been tossed topsy-turvy, the administration decapitated, the economy was on the blink, Katanga had torn itself away, Belgium had swept down on the country, and world peace was being threatened. And all because, at the outset, a few soldiers in the capital had demanded better pay and a higher rank."

I'm very aware of the line in the movie "Gandhi" to the effect that there are no people in the world who wouldn't prefer their own bad governance to the good governance of foreigners, and I agree with that as a general principle. However, the foreigners who have been governing have an obligation to actually do their governance well - at least as well as they would have in their own nation, and that's what has been missing BECAUSE that governance has (a) generally been the means for an economic rip off , (b) not considered efficient use of resources by enabling the training and use of local people at all levels of government (a bit like enabling the participation of women to increase access to resources), and (c) not showing any forethought by not enabling the occupied (or colonised, if you prefer) nation to, if not independence, at least effective self governance aka autonomy - which frees up the occupier's (sorry - "coloniser's") resources to be used elsewhere.

On top of that, what happened in Congo, which suffered the resources curse in a big way, shows just how serious "bad governance" can be - in the Congo's case, that eventually led to a dictatorship, and a still struggling transition to democracy (see here, here, here, here, and here).

(For more on the history of the Congo, in addition to Mr Van Reybrouk's book and the preceding links, see also here, here, and here.)

To throw a nation, after decades or centuries of abuse, at independence without a realistic commitment to ongoing support (if nothing else, returning funds from the sale of resources from that new nation should be undertaken, in my opinion) is compounding abuse with contempt.

If not legally, it is a moral crime. 


Postscript
There are a few other aspects of concern from 1960 in the Congo:

• the historical creation of ethnicities that had not existed prior to the late 1800s by the Belgian occupiers - in particular, the effects of restrictions on travel that were introduced to deal with (potentially fatal) "sleeping sickness";
• the use of child soldiers to commit terrible crimes;
• the influence of Communist China, which is of longer standing than I realised); and 
• the murders aka assassinations - of Lumumba and Dag Hammarskjold, with Eisenhower apparently ordering that "preparations" be made for Lumumba's murder.